Title rated 2.8 out of 5 stars, based on 6 ratings(6 ratings)
Book, 1998
Current format, Book, 1998, 1st American ed, Available .
Book, 1998
Current format, Book, 1998, 1st American ed, Available . Offered in 0 more formats
Set in a crumbling Black Sea resort, the novel follows the misadventures of two Russians, Arnold and Arthur, and the khakiclad Sam, a visiting American. These characters, it turns out, are depicted alternately as humans and as insects -- now they are humans with buggy qualities, now insects that walk and talk. As they forage, quarrel and joke in the squalid rooms of the resort -- and on the bodies of their hosts -- they encounter other members of Pelevin's satirical bestiary, and the resort itself comes to represent the decaying former Soviet Union.
Few writers could pull off such a conceit; in Pelevin's hands, it is a sustained piece of artistry. The Life of Insects is a bitter parable of contemporary Russia, full of the probing, disenchanted comedy that makes Pelevin a vital and altogether surprising new writer.
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