Read Online The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Victor Pelevin
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Romance, Fantasy, Contemporary, Paranormal, Werewolves, Russia (Federation), Prostitutes
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talking about a blowjob so that I can understand? On the basis of my experience of life?’
‘Of course not, my dear,’ he said patronizingly. ‘I explain things in those terms because then I start to understand the point myself. And the point here is not your experience of life, but mine . . .’
The next time he started reading a magazine during his flogging. That was insulting enough. But when he started prodding the article with his finger and muttering, ‘Why don’t you just keep your mouth shut, you bastard,’ I began to get annoyed and interrupted the procedure, that is, I planted the suggestion of a pause in his mind.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked in surprise.
‘Tell me, are we doing a flagellation here, or is this a library day?’
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said, ‘this interview’s outrageous. It’s absolutely incredible!’
He slapped his fingers down on the magazine.
‘I’ve got nothing against detective novels, but I can’t stand it when the people who write them start explaining how we ought to arrange things in Russia.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s just like some underage prostitute who’s been given a lift by a long-distance truck driver so she can give him a blowjob suddenly stops work, looks up and starts giving him instructions about how to flush the carburettor in a frost.’
Pavel Ivanovich clearly didn’t understand just how insulting that sounds in a conversation with a sex worker. But I became aware of my upsurge of rage before it overwhelmed me, so that my soul was immediately flooded with a calm joy.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ I asked in a perfectly natural voice. ‘Maybe she’s serviced so many truckers that she’s picked up all the subtle points and now she really can teach him how to flush his carburettor.’
‘Darling, I pity the kind of truck drivers who need to take advice from an underage blowjob provider. They won’t get very far.’
‘An underage blowjob provider’ - that was what he said. Why, what a . . . I caught another outburst of fury in the very instant it began, and stopped the anger before it could manifest itself.
This was great. It was like jumping on to a surfboard during a storm and coasting along over the waves of destructive emotions that can’t even touch you. If only it had always been like this, I thought, so many people would have lived longer lives . . . I did-n’t argue with Pavel Ivanovich about the substance of what he said. It’s best if we foxes who follow the Supreme Tao don’t have any opinions of our own on such matters. But one thing was clear: Pavel Ivanovich was an invaluable exercise machine for training the spirit.
Unfortunately, I realized too late that the load was too heavy for me. The first time I lost control it didn’t lead to any injuries. I was driven wild by a phrase about Nabokov (not to mention the fact that he had a photocopy of an article entitled ‘The appearance of the hairdresser to the waiters: the phenomenon of Nabokov in American culture’ lying on his desk).
I had loved Nabokov since the 1930s, ever since I used to get hold of his Paris texts from highly placed clients in the NKVD. What a breath of fresh air those typed pages were in Stalin’s gloomy capital! I remember I was particularly struck by one place in the ‘Paris Poem’, which I didn’t come across until after the war:
Life is irreversible -
It will be staged in a new theatre,
In a different way, with different actors.
But the ultimate happiness
Is to fold its magic carpet
And make the ornament of the present
Match the pattern of the past . . .
Vladimir Vladimirovich wrote that about us foxes. That’s exactly what we do, constantly folding the carpet. We watch the endless performance played out by bustling human actors who behave as if they were the first people ever to perform on the stage. They all die off with incredible speed, and their place is taken by the new intake, who begin playing out the
‘Of course not, my dear,’ he said patronizingly. ‘I explain things in those terms because then I start to understand the point myself. And the point here is not your experience of life, but mine . . .’
The next time he started reading a magazine during his flogging. That was insulting enough. But when he started prodding the article with his finger and muttering, ‘Why don’t you just keep your mouth shut, you bastard,’ I began to get annoyed and interrupted the procedure, that is, I planted the suggestion of a pause in his mind.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked in surprise.
‘Tell me, are we doing a flagellation here, or is this a library day?’
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said, ‘this interview’s outrageous. It’s absolutely incredible!’
He slapped his fingers down on the magazine.
‘I’ve got nothing against detective novels, but I can’t stand it when the people who write them start explaining how we ought to arrange things in Russia.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s just like some underage prostitute who’s been given a lift by a long-distance truck driver so she can give him a blowjob suddenly stops work, looks up and starts giving him instructions about how to flush the carburettor in a frost.’
Pavel Ivanovich clearly didn’t understand just how insulting that sounds in a conversation with a sex worker. But I became aware of my upsurge of rage before it overwhelmed me, so that my soul was immediately flooded with a calm joy.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ I asked in a perfectly natural voice. ‘Maybe she’s serviced so many truckers that she’s picked up all the subtle points and now she really can teach him how to flush his carburettor.’
‘Darling, I pity the kind of truck drivers who need to take advice from an underage blowjob provider. They won’t get very far.’
‘An underage blowjob provider’ - that was what he said. Why, what a . . . I caught another outburst of fury in the very instant it began, and stopped the anger before it could manifest itself.
This was great. It was like jumping on to a surfboard during a storm and coasting along over the waves of destructive emotions that can’t even touch you. If only it had always been like this, I thought, so many people would have lived longer lives . . . I did-n’t argue with Pavel Ivanovich about the substance of what he said. It’s best if we foxes who follow the Supreme Tao don’t have any opinions of our own on such matters. But one thing was clear: Pavel Ivanovich was an invaluable exercise machine for training the spirit.
Unfortunately, I realized too late that the load was too heavy for me. The first time I lost control it didn’t lead to any injuries. I was driven wild by a phrase about Nabokov (not to mention the fact that he had a photocopy of an article entitled ‘The appearance of the hairdresser to the waiters: the phenomenon of Nabokov in American culture’ lying on his desk).
I had loved Nabokov since the 1930s, ever since I used to get hold of his Paris texts from highly placed clients in the NKVD. What a breath of fresh air those typed pages were in Stalin’s gloomy capital! I remember I was particularly struck by one place in the ‘Paris Poem’, which I didn’t come across until after the war:
Life is irreversible -
It will be staged in a new theatre,
In a different way, with different actors.
But the ultimate happiness
Is to fold its magic carpet
And make the ornament of the present
Match the pattern of the past . . .
Vladimir Vladimirovich wrote that about us foxes. That’s exactly what we do, constantly folding the carpet. We watch the endless performance played out by bustling human actors who behave as if they were the first people ever to perform on the stage. They all die off with incredible speed, and their place is taken by the new intake, who begin playing out the
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