Playing the Victim by Presnyakov Brothers

Preaching avoidance as a properly asserted philosophy of leading an existence is the subject the play seems to circle around.

The practitioner is Valya, a University drop out who often soliloquizes about methods of shirking. The situations he evades this way vary in importance. Some are as trivial as washing the dishes which he avoids by doubling his dinner time using chopsticks he can’t manipulate, or inner threats like entering a pool, a situation he escapes by intentionally forgetting his swimsuit when mandatory, and bragging about how much he wishes to jump into the water. Are they really sure that there is no possibility for him to use the pool?

His parents would rather have him a drug addict. At least they could touch the ‘illness’ that is determining Valya to show so little interest in what they know as normal life. Instead, Valya chooses as a job to play the victim in murder reconstructions.

A point I’d like to touch. While I take notes during reading, and in the end I write my own opinion about the book, I do peek into the reviews others wrote on the same. Not overly surprised, rather slightly taken aback by, is trend in the reviews for Playing the Victim to account Valya’s choice as a job to his fear of death, of which apparently he attempts to vaccinate against by playing the role of the murdered, of the dead. This is a very facile explanation given by the authors themselves in a dialogue at the end of the play. Could be extreme, but it feels like the brothers poked some fun with those lines.

Next on my list, of the same authors, is ‘Let’s kill the referee’. Technically, this is the first on my list, I just didn’t yet manage to find it at the bookstores I buy from.

If I’d recommend the play? Of course. It made me laugh.

You can go through a preview of the play on Google Books.

Currently reading: Vilnius Poker and The Black Book of Communism (not a sustained reading; too dark to digest it in one go)

Give Me (Songs for Lovers) – Irina Denezhkina

Irina, a pretty girl in her early twenties, is already an international acclaimed writer. The short stories are located in nowadays urban Russia and the recipe used is not at all sophisticated. The main ingredients are teenagers, rock and roll, cheap alcohol, violence, swear words, sex and occasionally, love . Aside, one could detect traces of spices like trippy delusions, introspection or even science fiction. Therefore the result is a bit of a fast food cuisine.

The storytelling is more appropriate for sketches rather than stories, in which she fools around with her creative toolbox, it’s a little bit like taking a photo and playing with it in photoshop for a while, applying different filters and effects just to see what comes out.

One story called ‘Vasya and the Green Men’ stands out from the crowd, a very sweet cream of whimsical fantasy.

The English translation,  Give me: (Song For Lovers) doesn’t leave in your mouth any special aftertaste, however, reading the original Russian version might be a completely different cup of coffee.