It was precisely the graphic coarseness, vulgarity, and immoral behavior in the novel that was the problem for the censors. And the fact that the world depicted in it was coarse, cruel, and hopeless, well, that was how it had to be-it was the world of “decaying capitalism and triumphant bourgeois ideology.” (207) The novel contained nothing criminal it was quite ideologically appropriate and certainly not dangerous in that sense. If I understand it correctly, the censors were not concerned with the ideology, since the novel’s ideology followed Soviet orthodoxy. In contrast, Boris Strugatsky’s piece is about the complicated publication history of Roadside Picnic as a book in the USSR and the long-running arguments with the Soviet censors. Boris Strugatsky’s afterword describes how uneasy the manuscript made myopic Soviet bureaucrats it has survived triumphantly as a classic because it expresses humanity’s inarticulate rage and wonder at life’s frustrations and promises.Le Guin revisits the context of the novel, telling what a refreshing text it was in the 1970s, written as if the authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were “indifferent to ideology” (vi). Over-lapping narratives show stalker Red Schuhart’s struggle to master the Zone’s inexplicable treasures and terrors. While cautious people keep their distance, furtive explorers called “stalkers” enter the Zones to retrieve objects that are wonderful but unpredictably deadly. The action takes place in and near a Visit Zone, one of six areas suddenly scattered with incomprehensible artifacts and disturbing phenomena one baffled scientist ruefully suggests that aliens visited Earth like careless tourists and dumped their trash here. As this vivid new translation demonstrates, it also remains a powerful study of human behavior in the presence of superhuman power.
Since its 1972 appearance in Russia, the Strugatsky brothers’ novel has been published worldwide, inspired Andrei Tarkovsky’s memorable film Stalker, and been the basis for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
0 kommentar(er)
