Staff Pick
As a neophyte in post-exotic Volodinia, I'm still finding my bearings (much as those newly arrived in the bardo might do). For the fellow uninitiated, Volodine's two-part essay in The New Inquiry is essential reading. The pseudonymous/heteronymous French writer has set out for himself the ambitious task of creating an entire literary universe (a la Pessoa via Oulipo), and the story of said ambition is as compelling as his fiction is intriguing.
Bardo or Not Bardo is a tragicomic take on fate, confusion, and the confusing fate that is the intermediate state between life and reincarnation. In seven shortish vignettes, the French writer mingles humor with equal parts loneliness and bewilderment. His characters, condemned though they are to absurd (and sometimes willful) miscommunication, each inhabit the borderlands preceding their next life (likely doomed to do so ad infinitum). Volodine is an enigmatic writer and, as his post-exotic manifesto makes clear, a singular star burning far brighter than the dull, lifeless also-rans which proliferate throughout our contemporary literary universe. His gravity is quite nearly ineluctable, but who needs escape velocity when the environs are so alluring? Recommended By Jeremy G., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
One of Volodine’s funniest books, Bardo or Not Bardo takes place in his universe of failed revolutions, radical shamanism, and off-kilter nomenclature.
In each of these seven vignettes, someone dies and has to make his way through the Tibetan afterlife, also known as the Bardo, where souls wander for forty-nine days before being reborn with the help of the Book of the Dead.
Unfortunately, Volodine’s characters bungle their chances at enlightenment: the newly dead end up choosing to waste away their afterlife sleeping or to be reborn as an insignificant spider. The living aren’t much better off and make a mess of things in their own way, to the point of mistaking a Tibetan cookbook for the holy book.
Once again, Volodine has demonstrated his range and ambition, crafting a moving, hysterical work about transformations and the power of the book.
Review
"Irreducible to any single literary genre, the Volodinian cosmos is skillfully crafted, fusing elements of science fiction with magical realism and political commentary." Nicholas Hauck, Music & Literature
Review
"Ever goofy, ever surreal French novelist Volodine (Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven, 2015, etc.) rewrites the rules of Tibetan Buddhism, using characters that might have been drafted from the second string of Waiting for Godot....Funny, humane, and sympathetic to the silly creatures we humans are. The Dalai Lama himself would probably approve." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"His quirky and eccentric narrative achieves quite staggering and electric effects....Dazzling in its epic proportions and imaginative scope." The Nation
Synopsis
"Irreducible to any single literary genre, the Volodinian cosmos is skillfully crafted, fusing elements of science fiction with magical realism and political commentary."--Nicholas Hauck, Music & Literature
One of Volodine's funniest books, Bardo or Not Bardo takes place in his universe of failed revolutions, radical shamanism, and off-kilter nomenclature.
In each of these seven vignettes, someone dies and has to make his way through the Tibetan afterlife, also known as the Bardo. In the Bardo, souls wander for forty-nine days before being reborn, helped along on their journey by the teachings of the Book of the Dead.
Unfortunately, Volodine's characters bungle their chances at enlightenment, with the recently dead choosing to waste away their afterlife sleeping, or choosing to be reborn as an insignificant spider. The still-living aren't much better off, making a mess of things in their own ways, such as erroneously reciting a Tibetan cookbook to a lost comrade instead of the holy book.
Once again, Volodine has demonstrated his range and ambition, crafting a moving, hysterical work about transformations and the power of the book.
Antoine Volodine is the primary pseudonym of a French writer who has published twenty books under this name, several of which are available in English translation, such as Minor Angels, and Writers. He also publishes under the names Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger.
J. T. Mahany is a graduate of the Master of Arts in Literary Translation Studies program at the University of Rochester and is currently studying for his MFA at the University of Arkansas.
About the Author
Antoine Volodine is the primary pseudonym of a French writer who has published twenty books under this name, several of which are available in English translation. He also publishes under the names Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger. Most of his works take place in a post-apocalyptic world where members of the “post-exoticism” writing movement have all been arrested as subversive elements. Together, these works constitute one of the most inventive, ambitious projects of contemporary writing.