Empire V (2006)

by Viktor Pelevin

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Rama [Pelevin] (1)

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Roman thought he'd found the perfect opportunity to rebel. He may have been wrong. He awakens strapped to a set of parallel bars in a richly appointed sitting room, and begins a conversation with a masked man which will change his life. His world has been a facade - one which the mysterious Brahma is about to tear away. A stunning novel about the real world, and about the hidden channels of power behind the scenes, EMPIRE V is a post-modern satirical novel exploring the cults and corruption of politics, banking and power. And not only are these cults difficult to join - it turns out they may be impossible to leave . . .… (more)

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V is for vampire; according to Victor Pelevin, satirical chronicler of post-Soviet Russia, vampires run everything - pretty smoothly, really - and have done for all of history. We discover the vampire world through the eyes of a young, contemporary Russian man who gets envamped right at the start, and spends the rest of the book progressing through multiple levels of revelation about his new world, and what vampires actually feed on. Blood? No, use the euphemism "red liquid"; no, it's money actually; no...

Pelevin was much more fun in the 1990s than in this 2006 novel (translated and published in English in 2016). I get the impression that he had to be more careful about whom he mocks in Putin's Russia. Mikhail Khodorkovsky's downfall is referenced once or twice, but not the big man. Maybe that's why this book feels sadly claustrophobic to me, as it leads us to a vision of a sealed, airless universe of vampirism.

Worth reading for the Pelevin fan, lots of good bits here, but for the newcomer to this author I recommend [The Sacred Book of the Werewolf] for an earlier, lighter work. (

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dukedom_enough | Feb 26, 2023 |

A very unique interpretation of the vampire mythology from Pelevin. Imagine a world where vampires feed on not blood but the essence of money... A great satire of the modern russian (and generally human) society... (

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TheCrow2 | May 25, 2010 |

Купила Лена в Калининграде

kolbasa | Jan 11, 2008 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Viktor Pelevin	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Phillips, Anthony	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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Canonical title

Empire V

Original title

Empire V

Alternative titles

Original publication date

2006 (Russian)

2016 (English)

People/Characters

Important places

Important events

Related movies

Awards and honors

Information from the Russian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.

Большая книга - Short list (2007)

Национальный бестселлер - Long list (2007)

Студенческий Букер - Long list (2007)

Epigraph

Dedication

First words

When I came to, I found myself in a large room full of old furniture, antiques perhaps.

Quotations

'Surely normal people don't believe what editorials and op-ed pieces say?'

'When did you last meet a normal person? In our country there are not more than a hundred of them left, and they are all under close FSB surveillance.

'There is something called "the economy" which is supposed to grow constantly,' Enlil Maratovich broke in, 'although it is never completely clear what is growing and to what purpose. Because when you start to analyse it, you see that it largely consists of bankers, stockbrokers, lawyers and other speculators orally pleasuring each other all day.

Humans have been bred to live only as they do. There is no need to shed tears over their fate. In place of liberty they have freedom, and this is a wonderful thing. We tell them: go and graze wherever you like! The more freedom you have, the more money you will produce.

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Original language

Russian

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▾Book descriptions

Roman thought he'd found the perfect opportunity to rebel. He may have been wrong. He awakens strapped to a set of parallel bars in a richly appointed sitting room, and begins a conversation with a masked man which will change his life. His world has been a facade - one which the mysterious Brahma is about to tear away. A stunning novel about the real world, and about the hidden channels of power behind the scenes, EMPIRE V is a post-modern satirical novel exploring the cults and corruption of politics, banking and power. And not only are these cults difficult to join - it turns out they may be impossible to leave . . .

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