Victor Pelevin - The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

Have you seen the hit of the last Venice Biennale - the haystack in which the first Belarussian postmodernist, Mikolai Klimaksovich, hid from his local police inspector for four years? Alexander called this work plagiaristic and told Brian about the similar haystack famously used before the revolution by Vladimir Lenin. Brian observed that repetition is not necessarily plagiarism, it is the very essence of the postmodern, or - to put it in broader terms - the foundation of the modern cultural gestalt, which is manifested in everything, from the cloning of sheep to remakes of old movies, for what else can you do after the end of history? Brian said it was precisely Klimaksovich’s use of quotation that made him a postmodernist, not a plagiarizer. But Alexander objected that no quotations would ever have saved this Klimaksovich from the Russian police, and history might have come to an end in Belarus, but there was no sign of it breaking down yet in Russia.

Then Brian showed Alexander a work by Asuro Keshami, one which he regards with especial affection, not least owing to the serious investment required for its production and installation. Keshami’s work, inspired by the oeuvre of Camille Paglia, of whom you must have heard, consists of an immense tube of red plastic with projections on the inside in the form of white fangs. It is proposed to install it in the open air in one of London’s sports stadiums.

And now I’m getting to the point. One of the most serious problems in the world of modern art is the invention of original and fresh verbal interpretations of a work. Literally just a few phrases are required, which can then be reprinted in the catalogues and reviews. This apparently trivial detail can often decide the fate of a piece of art. It is very important here to be able to perceive things from an unexpected, shocking angle, and your friend, with his barbarically fresh view of the world, does this quite remarkably well. Therefore, Brian would like permission to use the ideas expressed by Alexander yesterday for the conceptual support of the installation. The accompanying text which I include below is by way of being a fusion of Brian’s and Alexander’s ideas:

Asuro Keshami’s work ’VD- 42CC’ combines the languages of different areas - engineering, technology and science. At the base level the subject-matter is the overcoming of space: physical space, the space of taboo and the space of our subconscious fears. The languages of engineering and technology deal with the material from which the object is constructed, but the artist addresses the viewer in the language of emotions. When the viewer learns that certain people have given this little queer fifteen million pounds to stretch out a huge imitation-leather cunt above an abandoned soccer pitch, he remembers what he does in his own life and how much he is paid for it, then he looks at the photo of this little queer in his horn-rimmed spectacles and funny jacket, and experiences confusion and bewilderment bordering on the feeling that the German philosopher Martin Heidegger called ‘abandonment’ (Geworfenheit). The viewer is invited to concentrate on these feelings, which constitute the precise aesthetic effect that the installation attempts to achieve.

Brian would like to offer Alexander a fee of one thousand pounds. Of course, this is not a large sum, but this version of the accompanying text is not final, and it is not absolutely certain that it will be used. Have a word with Alexander, okay? You can reply directly to Brian at this address. I am a little miffed with him just at the moment. He is in a bad mood - last night he was refused entrance to the establishment known as ‘Night Flight’. First he was stopped by the face control (they didn’t like his sports shoes), and then some Dutch pimp emerged from the depths of this den of iniquity and told Brian to dress ‘more stylish’. Brian has been repeating the same thing all day long today: ‘Stylish? Like the one who went in just ahead of me? In a green jacket and blue shirt?’ And he is taking out his bad mood on me. Ah well, never mind:-=)))

The most important thing is, don’t forget about the pass for the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour!

Heads and tails,

Your E

Alexander read the print-out carefully. After that he folded the sheet of paper in two, then folded it in two again, and then tore it in half.

‘A thousand pounds,’ he said. ‘Ha! He obviously doesn’t understand who he’s dealing with here. You know what, you write to him. Your English is better, anyway.’

‘Thanks,’ I said modestly. ‘What shall I say? He didn’t offer enough?’

He looked me up and down.

‘Fuck him out of it from every possible angle. Only make it sound aristocratic and elegant.’

‘That’s not possible,’ I said. ‘No matter how much I’d like to.’

‘Why?’

‘In aristocratic circles they don’t fuck each other out of it. It’s just not done.’

‘Then fuck him whatever way it is done,’ he said. ‘But hard enough to crack his arse open. Go on, put in that sarcasm of yours that has corroded my soul so thoroughly. Let it do some good for once.’

Something in his tone of voice prevented me from asking exactly what good he had in mind. He was touching in his childish resentment, and part of it was transmitted to me. And if we’re being entirely honest - does a fox really need to be asked twice to fuck an English aristocrat out of it?

I sat down at the computer and started thinking. My internationalist feminist component required my reply to be structured round the phrase ‘suck my dick’, in the style of the most advanced US feminists. But the rational part of my ego told me that would not be enough in a letter signed by Alexander. I wrote the following:

Dear Lord Cricket,

Being extremely busy, I’m not sure that you can currently suck my dick. However, please feel encouraged to fantasize about such a development while sucking on a cucumber, a carrot, an eggplant or any other elongated roundish object you might find appropriate for that matter.

With kind regards,

Alexandre Fenrir-Gray

I deliberately put ‘Alexandre’, in the French manner, instead of ‘Alexander’. I came up with the surname ‘Fenrir-Gray’ at the last moment, in a fit of inspiration. It definitely had an aristocratic ring to it. Of course, it immediately brought to mind ‘Earl Grey’ tea, and that gave the signature a faint aroma of bergamot oil, but the name was only a one-off anyway.

‘Well?’ he asked.

I read the text in Russian.

‘Can we do without the “kind regards”?’

‘Then it won’t be aristocratic.’

‘Oh, all right,’ he sighed. ‘Send it off . . . and then come over here, the Grey Wolf has a proposal for Little Red Riding Hood.’

‘What would that be?’

‘We’re going to have, you know . . . A colloquium on the psychoanalysis of Russian folktales. We’re going to throw pies into Little Red Riding Hood’s basket. Unfortunately, we only have one pie today. So we’ll have to throw it into the basket over and over again.’

‘Phoo, how vulgar . . .’

‘Are you going to come here or do I have to come and get you?’

‘I’ll come. Only let’s do it real fast. It’s already time we were going. And don’t you bite through any of my clothes today, I went to a lot of trouble to buy new knickers, all right? Not all of them suit me.’

‘Uhu.’

‘And one more thing, while you can still talk . . .’

‘What?’

‘Tell me why every time you have to introduce that apologia for fatuous militant ignorance into the conversation?’

‘How do you mean?’