Upon reflection, such a heartbreaking ending. ( )

It's okay. I think I was hyped a bit too much for this from reviews/Vandermeer's introduction. ( )

A police inspector, Peter Glebsky, specialty fraud and white collar crime, goes on a ski holiday for a needed rest in the mountains. Only. . . the Inn, recommended by a friend is haunted by practical jokers. Instead of finding rest he finds a peculiar assortment of guests, a financier with a beautiful wife, a magician with a gender opaque nephew/niece, a mountain climbing physicist, a giant Swede, etc. Someone is playing practical jokes, moving things around, making the floor damp here or there. Peter is enjoying observing them but then, inevitably, there is a dead body. He is not a murder detective, but he jumps into gear. There is also an avalanche that has made leaving impossible, phone lines down. Only . . . the clues just gets more and more impossible, more and more absurd. The Strugatskys pull apart the genre and put in all the classic elements and "roadblocks" (literally in this case) and then toss in the kitchen sink. Thi isn't your usual murder mystery and is more absurd than serious, more humorous than not but it pivots on an aspect of human nature that is neither absurd nor humorous: the human need to make a story that 'works' which, in this case, involves overriding the more improbable (but true) explanation. It's fun and I totally enjoyed it, but not for everyone. **** ( )

The movie was recommended by an Estonian. A perfectly OK Russian science fiction whodunit. I'm not sure you should get to switch genres to reveal the murderer. ( )

“Shut up,” I said wearily. “Stop jabbering and think for just a minute. Let’s put aside for a minute the fact that Moses is simply a criminal. You, I see, have no understanding whatsoever about the law. You, it seems, imagine that there is one law that exists for people, and another one that exists for ghouls. But let’s forget all that for a second. Let’s say they’re aliens. Let’s say they’re victims of blackmail. The great first contact . . .” I waved the Luger freely. “A friendship between worlds, and so on . . . Here’s a question: what are they doing here on Earth? Moses himself admitted that he was an observer. But what, actually, is he observing? What do they want here? . . . Don’t grin, don’t grin . . . We’re talking science fiction now, and in science fiction novels, so far as I remember it, aliens on Earth are usually spying in preparation for an invasion. In your opinion, how should I—a bureaucrat and stuffed shirt—behave in this situation? Should I do my duty, or not? And you, Simone, as an earthling, what do you think is your duty?”

What a beautiful spin into a deranged twist into the harsh snapping spine of a novel. These Soviet-era progenitors of science fiction turned their brains and pens toward the mystery novel and gifted humanity with: a detective who’s not really 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 kind of detective; a locked-room that doesn’t end up being the crux of the work; a cast of bizarre characters trapped by an avalanche and forced to show, or put up a strong counter in not showing, who they really were; aliens, maybe?; ghouls, possibly?; a fight that doesn’t turn out the way one would expect from a hard-boiled piece; and a denouement that isn’t a denouement after all. The mystery is the mystery, not the genre—the adjective to the genre being the only real focus to this masterwork. Oh, and it’s funny as hell.

“Well, then,” I said. “Before anything else I would like to know who you are and what your name is.”
“Luarvik,” he said quickly.
“Luarvik . . . And your first name?”
“First name? Luarvik.”
“Mr. Luarvik Luarvik?”
He was quiet again. I struggled with the feeling of discomfort that one always gets when dealing with the very cross-eyed people.
“More or less, yes,” he said finally.
“What do you mean ‘more or less’?”
“Luarvik Luarvik.”
“Very well. If you say so. Who are you?”
“Luarvik,” he said. “I am Luarvik.” He was quiet. “Luarvik Luarvik. Luarvik L. Luarvik.”
He looked healthy enough, and, what was more surprising, completely serious. But I’m not a doctor.
“I would like to know your occupation.”
“I’m mechanic,” he said. “Mechanic and driver.”
“A driver of what?” I asked.
Here he stared at me with both his eyes. He clearly did not understand the question.

This wondrous chapter runs on for eleven pages, mostly taken up with this clipped, nonsensical, and (for me) feverishly funny dialogue. I hear mocking echoes of the batty passages involving Major Major Major Major in 𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩-22. Or the best absurdity of Gogol and Kharms. And, quite honestly, I can’t help but feel glee that there were likeminded compatriots (brothers, nonetheless) back in the Soviet 70s who wrote silliness that resonated with my own forays into absurdism in the common era of the shared political farce from our singular times. Maybe it takes these bureaucratic impingements to create worthwhile absurdity.

I loved 𝘙𝘰𝘢𝘥𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘗𝘪𝘤𝘯𝘪𝘤 by these authors. I loved Tarkovsky’s film adaption: 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳. But this book, this crazy apparent mess that isn’t a mess at all, that is every bit as sublime as it is bubbly, I’ll probably pore over for years to come (at least Chapter 12—with the glorious, confounding, and hilarious Luarvik). ( )