Omon Ra

Omon Ra and its young author burst onto the Russian literary scene as Communism fell, and became objects of cult veneration in the chaotic years that followed. And rightly so: this slim book, little more than a novella, mournfully consigns the Soviet Union to history's dustbin in a riot of paranoid psychedelia, wild satire and mordant wit. Our hero, Omon (named by his alcoholic policeman father after an elite unit of Russian riot cops), dreams of escaping his drab earthbound reality as a cosmonaut in the Soviet space program. When, against all the odds, he gets his wish, he discovers that what distinguishes the Soviet space program from its American counterpart is that the Americans can afford to bring their astronauts back. Pelevin leads his helpless protagonist to the launch-pad and beyond, in a book that's both a savage indictment of a society that devoured its own children and a lament for its