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“Absurdist, satirical, irredeemably hyperactive, Victor Pelevin is one of Russia’s cult authors…His prose fizzes with a mishmash of Classical philosophy, Buddhism and western metaphysics, myth, anecdote, self-referentiality—and wisecracks.”
— Times Literary Supplement
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“Full of tour de force passages…it has the ring of truth, the same truth as books before it by Gogol, Goncharov, Bulgakov, Zamyatin—men who looked with satiric sympathy into the Russian soul and wrote brilliant, heartbroken, funny fables about what they found there.”
— Guardian (London)
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“Strange, frenetic and beguiling…Pelevin [is] one of the most exciting writers to emerge from new Russia.”
— Observer (London)
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“Pelevin aficionados will glide joyously into the postmodernity of this supernatural love affair, which fuses philosophical discourse with lascivious and semantic game-playing. There’s plenty of intellectual fun here, from the sport of hunting English aristocrats to the idea of howling a demonic plea into the night to summon oil from a near-spent field.”
— Independent (London)
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“Equal parts biting satire on neo-Russian consumerism, drug-fueled muckabout, sci-fi adventure, love story, literary in-joke and mystico-shamanic treatise on the nature of enlightenment. Disruptive, transporting and very funny, it’s one of his best.”
— Telegraph (London)
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“An outrageously enjoyable, uniquely mind-blowing and transformational literary experience. A truly liberating read.”
— Publishers Weekly
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“[An] unusual and thoughtful contemporary fantasy…Cassandra Campbell deftly inhabits the character of the sensual, cynical, playful, and lonely A. Hu-Li as she seeks enlightenment and unexpectedly finds love with a werewolf. Campbell also makes a wonderfully subtle point; her narration and conversations with other werefoxes are spoken in an American accent, but her dialogue to other Russians is delivered in a Russian accent, indicating that A. Hu-Li’s true self remains hidden from the outside world.”
— AudioFile
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“Thought-provoking and philosophical…A commentary on modern Russian culture, spiced with Buddhist theology, wrapped in an urban fantasy.”
— Library Journal
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“The novel holds our interest with unpredictable twists and turns, leaving us stunned, puzzled, and asking for more.”
— Booklist
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“This complex, subtle allegorical tale demands a subtle, layered performance. Campbell delivers, freighting her reading with the hint of double (or even triple) meanings, smoothly transitioning between reality, fantasy and various in-between states. She reads with precise diction and moderate inflection—realizing, perhaps, that overdoing the verbal performance would undercut the subtleties of the prose…Campbell’s performance is definitely top drawer.”
— Booklist (audio review)