Exmo Publishing has released a new novel by Viktor Pelevin called “The Return of Bluebeard”. This book is not part of the Transhumanism Inc. series. Which the writer has worked on in recent years. However, the novel dedicated to the “brutal moral decline of the world’s elites” is not qualitatively different from his previous works. At Meduza’s request, literary critic Alex Mesrobov read the book. It briefly tells you what awaits you if you decide to open it.
Note. This text describes the plot developments in The Return of Bluebeard.
Victor Pelevin wrote a 480-page novel on paper in just six months.
Its main character is the writer Konstantin Parakletovich Golgotha, – already appeared in. This time, after a series of mysterious incidents, the character learns that he is the reincarnation of Marshal Gilles de Rais, the prototype of Bluebeard, an ally of Joan of Arc. In the 15th century he was executed for the brutal murder of children and relations with the devil.
The CIA, British elites, and Soviet-Israeli physicist Xenia Epstein, who has learned to move consciousness in time, interfere with Golgotha’s fate. Under British influence, he took his project to “a small private island in the Virgin Islands,” where elite guests could now receive a private service—and travel through the body of pedophile Gilles de Rais. So Zhenya Epstein gradually turns into a “financial conspirator from the island of pedophiles” named Jeffrey.
Calvary will learn about all this. He even eventually ended up in Epstein’s body in his prison cell at the moment of his suicide. The main character becomes a bridge between Gilles de Rais and Jeffrey Epstein – between the ancient legend of Bluebeard and its modern incarnation.
Then Golgotha opens his eyes and knows that he has experienced a revelation. Which one exactly? As always with Pelevin: the world cannot be corrected, man can only hope for his mystical liberation.
This novel leaves a worse impression than the previous one. If you remove Pelevin’s name from the cover and substitute there the name of any unknown author of second-rate prose, many readers will not notice the substitution.
Degradation of style, pretentiousness, manipulation of outdated memes, self-repetition and venomous jabs at rival critics and writers – it’s all as usual in the late Pelevin. All that’s left of the original writer is an annoying brand, exploited by a company in crisis.
You don’t need to read The Return of Bluebeard.
Alex Mesrobov