Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin
From Worker and Parasite · 00:50:09
Show by Jerry Brito, Stan Tsirulnikov
In this episode Jerry and Stably discussed Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin. The hosts explored this postmodern Russian novel that weaves together multiple narrative threads across different time periods and realities. The protagonist Pyotr Void exists simultaneously as a patient in a 1990s Russian mental hospital and as a commissar to Bolshevik commander Chapayev in 1919. Through encounters with fellow patients whose delusions form separate vignettes—including a man believing he is a Mexican telenovela actress romantically involved with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a drunk Russian intellectual inducted into a Japanese samurai clan—Pelevin constructs sophisticated commentary on post-Soviet Russian identity. Jerry and Stably discussed the novel's Buddhist philosophy, particularly how it functions as a Zen teaching device through paradox and riddle-like dialogue, depicting Pyotr's journey toward enlightenment and the realization of non-self. The translation was praised for its quality, and the hosts noted how Pelevin uses the patient hallucinations as political metaphors representing Russia's conflicting fantasies of merger with the West and East.
More episodes of Worker and Parasite
More episodes
- Class by Paul Fussell
- More Everything Forever by Adam Becker
- The Jungle Grows Back by Robert Kagan
- History Has Begun by Bruno Maçães
- Enlightenment's Wake by John Gray
- Postjournalism by Andrey Mir
- Whiteshift by Eric Kaufmann
- True Names by Vernor Vinge
- The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch
- Self-Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams
PodSearch is a free, independent podcast search engine. Read about PodSearch, the privacy policy or contact us.