The Helmet of Horror by Victor Pelevin
Apr. 11th, 2009 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koilungfishAuthor - Victor Pelevin
ISBN - 978-1-84195-705-0
NutscrackerThe Helmet of Horror is, at first, about eight people - alpha intellectual Monstradamus, beta intellectual Organizm(-:, computer expert Nutscracker, religious UGLI 666, dreamer Ariadne, drunken Sartrik and would-be-lovers-if-they-could-actually-meet Romeo-y-Cohiba and IsoldA - who wake up in identical rooms connected only by a faux internet connection. Each of the eight rooms is connected to another room, one different for each person, and each is a literal or metaphorical labyrinth. Almost immediately things become complicated; the book opens with a quote and a question that, in less than twenty pages, leads to the introduction of the Helmet of Horror. This titular headpiece is both a system for understanding how reality is perceived and the physically-impossible-to-wear helmet that the Minotaur is wearing.
Don't panic! Dead people don't hang around in chat rooms.
If that sounds complicated, don't read this book.
The Helmet of Horror is Literature, by which I mean it's more concerned with expressing an idea than telling a story. The idea itself is a complex one concerning the disassembly of the interlinked structures of perception, reality and memory, and it does dominate the story to the point that, if one does not accept that one is reading a story that doesn't have both feet on the ground, one will become frustrated with the way in which none of the characters seem too concerned about escaping.
That said, I've read this book four times and I'm only just starting to get my head around what happens at the end. Whilst, like much of the book, there is a simple, easily boiled-down essence that can be grasped on the first pass, fullness of understanding takes repeat readings [as said, I'm still getting there]. One thing is clear; each of the characters represents a part of the Helmet of Horror, although which is which is not wholly clear [mostly because the Helmet of Horror's operation is a bizarre thing, and that this book is translated from Russian may not be helping].
As one might have guessed this book is written in the format of an internet chat log, albeit one written by people who speak in complete sentences. There are few ways in which this format can be used well and Mr Pelevin gets away with it admirably. The chat log format is vital to the story itself and without it much of the climax would be impossible. It accomplishes the tightest of third-person subjective perspectives; nothing is written down but that it is already filtered through the perceptions of one of the characters, and since no other character can see what any other can, all is conveyed with the utmost level of filtration.
The chat format also makes for very fast reading. For example:
IsoldA
It's late already. Let's go to bed.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
OK. See you tomorrow, if it ever comes.
IsoldA
Let's hope it does. Ah yes, something else I forgot to tell you. I braid my hair at the back.
Ariadne
I think they're in love.
Monstradamus
According to their names they have to be. Imagine being called Romeo. What else could you do?
Organizm(-:
Take a pack of condoms and go looking for your Juliet.
Nutscracker
Or take a pump-action shotgun and go looking for your Shakespeare.
That is page 72 in its entirety.
The story of The Helmet of Horror goes fast as well. The swift format, unencumbered of a need to describe anything beyond that which the reader needs to see, allows the 300 pages to fly by as if the book were a third of its length. The plot, such as one can call it, moves rapidly, taking only five or six sections to reach the conclusion. Actually understanding what one has read takes a bit longer.
One must accept that one is reading Literature, that the idea comes before the story, or one will get nothing from the book. If one approaches the book from the literal, physical perspective one will find oneself frustrated by the pages devoted to Ariadne's dreams and Nutscracker's explanation of influencing choice in virtual reality environments, thereby losing out entirely.
As with any story that has a complicated reveal at the end, attempting to describe its merits and flaws without reference to the contents is difficult, and this is made doubly awkward by the shortness of the book. Although no story is flawless, this one has fewer than most - partly because of its shortness, partly because of the means of character construction [one may hate UGLI 666 for her preachiness, but there's no point to doing so in a story that ignores the normal front-to-back construction of storytelling], partly because of the magnolia sheen of "We have taken the complicated phrases out" that overlays any translated text, partly because the book is a good one - but mostly, in the end, because the idea stands at the front and the story wraps around it. One cannot criticize pacing in a story that is a meditation; one cannot criticize character development in a story formatted as a chat log [and with the ending being such as it is]; one cannot criticize a book for being unrealistic or unreal when the story is about the perception of reality.
What can one criticize it for? For being overly intellectual, certainly, but that's like criticizing Nelson for being a sailor. For being short? There is no excess verbiage, nor is there need for anything further. For being confusing? This book wouldn't be worth reading if it made things plain and simple.
All in all, The Helmet of Horror is one of my favourite books, taking a place between Angela Carter and Thomas Ligotti on the shelf nearest my bed. That I have read it four times in two years shows just how fond I am of this book. I rarely read even my most favourite books more than once every two or three years. That I'm still working to understand it is one of the things I love about it - I like the challenge of understanding it, I like being able to find more in it each time. Eventually I will get my head around the whole book - or possibly around the whole helmet - and then perhaps I will stop caring for it. Who knows? Until then, this remains a much-loved little book.
I still have no idea about the dwarves though.
This book is:
* - extremely fast reading
* - enjoyably complicated
* - one of my favourites
This book is not:
* - gimmicky, despite its format
* - simple on any level
* - in any way an action/adventure/psychological/thriller/horror story
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 11:12 am (UTC)How do you keep finding all these books?
no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 08:46 am (UTC)I just ... buy a lot of books, really. I've got three shelf-loads of unread books at the moment. That said, about half the books I've reviewed here are ones I borrowed from my housemate Rath.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 06:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 02:08 pm (UTC)"I still have no idea about the dwarves"
Date: 2009-09-22 08:41 am (UTC)Re: "I still have no idea about the dwarves"
Date: 2009-09-22 12:34 pm (UTC)[Hope I'm spelling Asterius right. My copy of this is in a box somewhere, argh house-moving ... ]
no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 01:53 am (UTC)