Blue Lard

[Charles Albert]

45 years of the professional consequences of choosing 19th Cent. Russian
Studies as an undergraduate concentration.

Sweet revenge!


love,

cfa

On Tue, Dec 5, 2023, 9:27 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Howdy
>
> finally some fiction to look forward to (albeit an early novel now
> translated). sounds a bit like Coover/Pynchon hybrid
>
> i am a bit biased, very much liking Sorokin's other works
>
> https://www.nyrb.com/products/blue-lard
>
> The book begins in a futuristic laboratory where genetic scientists speak
> in a Joycean dialect of Russian mixed with Chinese—peppered with ample
> neologisms—and work to clone famous Russian writers, who are then made to
> produce texts in the style of their forebears. The goal of this
> “script-process” is not the texts themselves, but the blue lard that
> collects in the small of their backs as they write.
>
> This substance is to be used to power reactors on the moon—that is, until a
> sect of devout nationalists breaks in to steal the blue lard, planning to
> send it back in time to an alternate version of the Soviet Union, one that
> exists on the margins of a Europe conquered by a long-haired Hitler with
> the ability to shoot electricity from his hands. What will come of this
> blue lard? Who will finally make use of its mysterious powers?
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>