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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
Every man is a magician in his heart, but he only becomes a magician when he starts thinking less about himself and more about others, when his work becomes more interesting to him than simply amusing himself according to the old meaning of that word.
I thought at first that this was going to be a comedic farce, and in a lot of ways it is, but it very quickly reveals itself to be big-hearted and starry-eyed. it is the warmest of the Strugatsky books I’ve read and I think the most optimistic. I am used to their bleak (Roadside Picnic) and bitter (Hard to Be a God) stuff so this really surprised me. they are such good comedy writers! and props to Bromfield’s translation which captures an extremely precise and hilarious dry wit that must have been difficult to recreate in english.
I love stories about academia because I think it comes close to showing what a life free of capitalist motivation looks like: art and curiosity for the sake of pleasure, thinking as a distinctly social activity. obviously that's not really the case but in a novel like this it can be. I love the effortless blending of science and magic. the second and third parts are especially engaging.
the one inescapable drawback is that, like many classic sci-fi authors (the great Piers Anthony excluded), the Strugatskys clearly don't think of women as human beings. it weakens every part of this.
I thought at first that this was going to be a comedic farce, and in a lot of ways it is, but it very quickly reveals itself to be big-hearted and starry-eyed. it is the warmest of the Strugatsky books I’ve read and I think the most optimistic. I am used to their bleak (Roadside Picnic) and bitter (Hard to Be a God) stuff so this really surprised me. they are such good comedy writers! and props to Bromfield’s translation which captures an extremely precise and hilarious dry wit that must have been difficult to recreate in english.
I love stories about academia because I think it comes close to showing what a life free of capitalist motivation looks like: art and curiosity for the sake of pleasure, thinking as a distinctly social activity. obviously that's not really the case but in a novel like this it can be. I love the effortless blending of science and magic. the second and third parts are especially engaging.
the one inescapable drawback is that, like many classic sci-fi authors (the great Piers Anthony excluded), the Strugatskys clearly don't think of women as human beings. it weakens every part of this.
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
'In our time people who have no connection with science expect it to produce miracles and nothing but miracles, but are practically incapable of distinguishing a genuine scientific miracle from a conjuring trick...'
As someone who spent a brief time in scientific academia and still considers themselves somewhat of that persuasion this book seems as true today as when it was written back in the USSR. I love that the main character is willing to embrace the unfolding insanity around him and try and interrogate it scientifically. The blend of surrealistic magical occurrence with everyday life was seemless and kind of a step beyond anything I think I've ever read in that vein. The writing was fine but I'm sure some things were lost in translation although it still kept a fair bit of the humour. The other academics our main character works with walked the fine line of believably quirky without collapsing into cartoonish or characature and honestly I could believe they all exist somewhere in some science department. The theme that science has reached a state where to a lay person it may as well be magic was skillfully woven into the book without being heavy handed. Although I don't support the grind mindset of the characters, which is definitely held up as a positive, I can understand their devotion to their work. The ending really brought it all home and gained the book an extra .5 of a star because I had no idea how the authors were going to manage to wrap up this madness but they did and even managed to make it poignant.
As someone who spent a brief time in scientific academia and still considers themselves somewhat of that persuasion this book seems as true today as when it was written back in the USSR. I love that the main character is willing to embrace the unfolding insanity around him and try and interrogate it scientifically. The blend of surrealistic magical occurrence with everyday life was seemless and kind of a step beyond anything I think I've ever read in that vein. The writing was fine but I'm sure some things were lost in translation although it still kept a fair bit of the humour. The other academics our main character works with walked the fine line of believably quirky without collapsing into cartoonish or characature and honestly I could believe they all exist somewhere in some science department. The theme that science has reached a state where to a lay person it may as well be magic was skillfully woven into the book without being heavy handed. Although I don't support the grind mindset of the characters, which is definitely held up as a positive, I can understand their devotion to their work. The ending really brought it all home and gained the book an extra .5 of a star because I had no idea how the authors were going to manage to wrap up this madness but they did and even managed to make it poignant.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I picked this up on a whim as a 'wild card' book with no prior knowledge or expectations, and it has been one of the best decisions I've made all year. Reading Monday Starts on Saturday was a delight all the way through.
Set in a Soviet scientific institute where research on magical phenomena is a serious business, the book explores three episodes in the life of the programmer, Aleksandr Ivanovich Privalov (Sasha) who is introduced to, and has to swiftly learn to navigate, the surreal world of NITWIT (the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy).
The characters and creatures that make up NITWIT come from a variety of fantasy stories, folklore and genuine historic figures. When blended together they establish a world full of wonder, intrigue and humour. I laughed out loud so many times at the wit on display, and had a cheesy grin on my face all the way through.
Alongside the wacky stories from the institute are genuinely thoughtful commentaries about Soviet bureaucracy, fractious academic facilities, and showy demagogue pseudo-scientists. There's also a genuine passion for science and humanity on display, which is perfectly encapsulated by the following quote which I absolutely adore: 'Every man is a magician in his heart, but he only becomes a magician when he starts thinking less about himself and more about others...'
If, like me, you're into science-fiction, fantasy, and the wit of writers like Adams and Pratchett, then I wholeheartedly recommend this book!
Set in a Soviet scientific institute where research on magical phenomena is a serious business, the book explores three episodes in the life of the programmer, Aleksandr Ivanovich Privalov (Sasha) who is introduced to, and has to swiftly learn to navigate, the surreal world of NITWIT (the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy).
The characters and creatures that make up NITWIT come from a variety of fantasy stories, folklore and genuine historic figures. When blended together they establish a world full of wonder, intrigue and humour. I laughed out loud so many times at the wit on display, and had a cheesy grin on my face all the way through.
Alongside the wacky stories from the institute are genuinely thoughtful commentaries about Soviet bureaucracy, fractious academic facilities, and showy demagogue pseudo-scientists. There's also a genuine passion for science and humanity on display, which is perfectly encapsulated by the following quote which I absolutely adore: 'Every man is a magician in his heart, but he only becomes a magician when he starts thinking less about himself and more about others...'
If, like me, you're into science-fiction, fantasy, and the wit of writers like Adams and Pratchett, then I wholeheartedly recommend this book!
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Many people outside Russia are familiar with Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film loosely based on the novel Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. But, let me tell you comrades, the brothers Strugatsky's Monday Starts on Saturday is one of the most imaginative, off-the-wall hilarious SF novels ever written, a work that should be better known than it is.
Science fiction held a special place within the Soviet Union back in 1964 when this novel was first published, with issues revolving around censorship and maintaining the party line. If writers wanted to express their personal creativity or share independent ideas rather than serve the cause of communism and the state, they stood a better chance of having their books published if they wrote about future, distant worlds and impossible happenings and events - in other words, if they wrote science fiction.
And we find just such a distant, impossible world in Monday Starts on Saturday. It all begins when young computer programmer Alexander Ivanovich Privalov from Leningrad headed north to meet up with some friends, picks up two hitchhikers who convince him to drive to their destination to spend the night. As Alexander Ivanovich quickly discovers upon arrival where there's a sign reading: "N I T W I T - The Log Hut on Chicken Legs," he has crossed over into a universe where magic, myth and mayhem intersect with science and technology, a universe where, among many other extraordinary occurrences, a talking pike pops out of the water and the mirror in his room refuses to reflect his image. Alexander Ivanovich must admit, all of what he encounters "seemed to me even more interesting than modelling a reflex arc." Thus our computer programmer stays on for much longer than one night.
Working within such a preposterous literary canvas, the Strugatsky brothers throw every conceivable objects and animal and plant, not to mention gentlemanly ghost, mad researcher and buffoonish bureaucrat at programmer Alexander and, indirectly, at the reader. Powerful images and ideas are all tangled together - I can imagine Soviet men and women pouring over this novel in private gatherings, relishing every glorious sentence, coming up with associations galore taken from history and current events as well as their own knowledge of fairy tales, myths and legions.
To share a taste of the treats a reader is in store for, I've included my own comments linked to a mere handful of the hundreds of bizarre happenings generously served up in the novel's 240 pages:
Modern Soviet State's Fairy Tale Grandma: Alexander is greeted by old Nina Kievna, the prototypical ancient granny from fairy tales and folk legions; she's well over 100-years-old and wears not only the predictable black shawl knotted under her chin but "her head was covered by a cheerful nylon scarf with brightly colored pictures of the Atomium and an inscription in several languages: 'Brussels International Exhibition'."
What a scream, comrades! The traditional forms of magic usually associated with the fairy tale grandma, such things as magic pebbles or golden apples, are replaced by a symbol of the "rational" magic of physics and chemistry -as tall as a 33-story building, the Atomium (pictured below) is built of stainless steel in the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times - and not only does each sphere contain an exhibition hall connected by escalators but there's a restaurant on the top sphere. Whoa! An undeniable feat of engineering and scientific know-how amounting to nothing less than the magic of the modern world.
The crossover between sorcery, wizardry and magic on the one hand and modern science, technology and engineering on the other is a key theme running throughout the entire tale. In many important ways, particularly in the general public's eye, scientists and technicians have taken the place of wizards.
Computer Programmer's Dreamscape: Alexander's very first night at N I T W I T proves memorable: he moves his pillow and sheets from the floor to a couch (a magical couch, as it turns out) and is woken out of his sleep in the middle of the night by voices. He tries to go back to sleep but realizes he's hungry not sleepy. The programmer gets up and picks up a book from the windowsill - Alexei Tolstoy's Overcast Morning. He flips to a random page and reads of a character opening cans of pineapple. Then a pungent smell of food fills the room - granny Nina Kievna enters and serves him a plateful of delicious hot potatoes smeared with butter.
Thereafter Alexander lies down once again and this time hears a quiet voice speak of an elephant in scientific terms then references to Carl Jung and the Upanishads. This is followed by Vasily the cat under the oak tree outside walking like university professor Dubino-Knyazhitsky giving a lecture, referencing, among other topics, a vile monster and a snow-white swan. Meanwhile, the book by Alexei Tolstoy transforms into other works by other authors. When Alexander peers out the window again he observes a wet, silver-green shark's tail hanging from the lowest branch of the oak tree. Equally astonishing (perhaps the influence of the couch?), our computer programmer takes it all in stride.
Law and Order: The following day Alexander is in the town square and is surprised to find the five kopecks in his pocket mysteriously reappearing after he hands over his coins to a merchant. According to a young lieutenant on duty at the time such behavior is completely unacceptable. The programmer is interrogated and the lieutenant informs him that he will have to draw up a report.
Alexander reflects: "What is the essential point here? The essential thing is whether or not a person thinks of himself as guilty." Readers back when Russia was the Soviet Union must have hooted when reading this brothers Straugatsky scene. During those Soviet years, millions of honest men and women were sent off to forced labor camps for trifles. To judge oneself as guilty was nothing short of laughable.
Wizards Go Bonkers: Turns out, N I T W I T stands for National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy. Alexander enters the main building and is put to work in a laboratory where he comes in contact with a string of remarkable departments and offices - to list several: Department of Linear Happiness, Department of the Meaning of Life, Department of Predictions and Prophecies, Children's Laughter Distillation Unit, Department of Defensive Magic, Department of Absolute Knowledge.
As I'm sure any reader will appreciate, with such a list the tale's social and cultural satire kicks into even higher gear. What are the consequences when technicians attempt to calculate society's highest happiness using mathematical formulas? How effective and efficient can such departments become? Are research projects and experiments being conducted here at all practical or useful?
Such questions fan out to even larger questions: What value is there in academic and scientific institutes around the world when subjects addressed have nearly zero relevance to the general population? What if researchers become so specialized they lose sight of what is beyond their specialty? In this way, the novel speaks to our modern world well beyond 1960s Soviet Russia.
There is even consideration at the institute of the ways to use vampires and magic carpets in modern warfare. And how will future research be done when such important components are added to the equation? I've just touched the surface here. Many more astonishing discoveries and ideas and memorable scenes await a reader opening the pages of Monday Starts on Saturday.
One can only wonder if old Nina Kievna has to travel to Moscow and stand in line on a mile-long queue to receive her Atomium scarf made from that modern synthetic fabric - nylon. Incidentally, the Soviet Union participated in the Brussels International Exhibition with its major contribution: a replica of Sputnik.
Authors Boris and Arkady Strugatsky
"I was woken by the flapping of wings and an unpleasant screeching. The room was filled with a strange, bluish half-light. The vulture on the stove was rustling its feathers, screaming repulsively and ganging its wings against the ceiling. I sat up and looked around. Floating in the air at the centre of the room was a big tough-looking bozo in tracksuit trousers and a striped Hawaiian shirt." - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Monday Starts on Saturday
Was a slow read to begin with as witchcraft and the sorts doesn’t usually interest me but after the first 20 pages when the nonsense and make-belief became ordinary, it became a fun and wacky read which felt fresh in the sci-fi genre. Wasn’t my sort of book but soon turned into something I glad to have read
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoyed this quirky book. It was a lot of silly fun, in a way that didn't feel like it was trying too hard. I was lacking a lot of the background knowledge that allows you to appreciate a lot of the nuance of the satire and social commentary, which I think did detract somewhat from my enjoyment of the novel, and I also think that a decent amount is lost in translation in terms of the puns and the poetry. But alas, I don't read Russian and puns and poetry will remain exceedingly difficult to translate with all their nuance. Despite those difficulties, I found a lot to enjoy in this novel - the Stugatskys' blend of science fiction and fantasy is perfect, and it's all wrapped up in a hilarious critique of research institutions and bureaucracies.
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Читал много хороших книг от Стругацких. Но это какой то бред. Прочитал 2/3 и бросил. Не проникся. Бардак какой то.