The story of the eternal moon

Author: (Russian) Pilnyak
Translator: Shi Zhichuan
Author Country: Russia
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-07-01
Features: Pilnyak's style seems difficult to assess. It is not a novel that plays with techniques, yet it employs a magical narrative technique. For example, it intertwines distant historical scenes with the current revolutionary agenda, gathers many heterogeneous elements through fiction and fantasy, and reveals a dual nature of solemnity and humor in an extremely complex context. And so on, it can easily confuse readers at first glance. Those kaleidoscopic and dazzling shifts in scenes, as well as the relentless flow of seemingly unrelated details and fragments, repeatedly distort the logic of the plot development, making it almost impossible to trace.
Beggar boys, prophets, beggars, wandering singers, Lazarus, itinerant sectarians, seers, pilgrim devotees, fools, mad monks—these nameless yet identical masses from the sacred life of Russia, those who beg and collect alms in the name of God, adorn the thousands of years of history since the founding of Russia and the Ivan dynasty. All Russian historians, ethnographers, and writers have immersed themselves in their pens, recalling these departed souls. These madmen or rascals, the earnest believers, are called the pride of the church, the apostles of God, and the petitioners of the afterlife. Russian orthodox history and classic literature also praise them in the same way.