Even in a flawed or degenerate form, a proletarian universe could only be better.

This proved a bizarre treatment of revolutionary History, how each iteration can be sabotaged or loses its footing. It is enough to make one question the very notion of Progress. I wasn't annoyed with this exercise, even as the narrative began to hastily devour itself. Perhaps it is my liberal circumstances which inhibit or blind? I personally like the idea of exorcism achieved through the use of grenades. I should qualify that, I like the idea in theory. Then again, the need for exorcism remains superfluous to my droning and plodding.

I do savor the idea of the post-exotic, though I find its apogee a fleeting endeavor. All too often we instead find taxonomies and digressions in the wake of further exploration. I still recommend [b:Radiant Terminus|29633875|Radiant Terminus|Antoine Volodine|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1460506113l/29633875._SY75_.jpg|42568732] to everyone.

Powerful, puzzling, magnificent. Also intermittently terrifying and haunting. Lutz Bassmann is another one of [a:Antoine Volodine|261375|Antoine Volodine|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]'s pseudonyms, and might by my favorite of his personae yet. While retaining the dark, mournful stance toward our declining reality, the stories here have a strange immediacy that some of the other Volodine/Post-Exoticist works choose to eschew. I might be saying this is a good place to start, though I might also be saying it is somehow not representative. But that isn't right. We have all the critique of the Way Things Are, all the strange twists and turns, the sad regret that we have in the end condemned ourselves to this selfish and petty end, and yet the whole time there are too the hints and whispers and ghostly hopes (or terrors) that there must too be something beyond this failed reality of ours.

I plan to re-read Volodine's Minor Angels later, once I've finished his other works in translation ([b:Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven|23282077|Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven|Antoine Volodine|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1419320760s/23282077.jpg|42819936], [b:Writers|21563518|Writers|Antoine Volodine|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1398351695s/21563518.jpg|14193601], [b:Naming the Jungle: A Novel|665676|Naming the Jungle A Novel|Antoine Volodine|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328752380s/665676.jpg|651732]) because in retrospect it might be the other most powerful work amongst these masterpieces. It's hard to know now whether this one landed with such wondrous gravity thanks to the greater understanding of Post-Exoticism I have now. But I think anyone with a taste for adventurous fiction that engages these dark times will find much to like here. And a reread of other Volodine works is certainly something to savor rather than dread. (Or perhaps better to say one savors the coming dread.)

Really wonderful work.