Let’s just cut to the chase, because you’re not going to believe me anyway: The narrator of Victor Pelevin’s parodic THE SACRED BOOK OF THE WEREWOLF is A Hu-Li, a female fox — literally, not figuratively — who’s 2,000 years old, yet looks 14ish. She works as a prostitute in Moscow, where her name translates to an obscenity (like “Whatze Phuck” would be to Americans, she says).
Despite her chosen trade, she’s never actually had sex. That’s because her tail harbors hypnotic powers. It makes her human johns think they’re having the wildest ride of their life, when really, they’re just jacking off, while A Hu-Li lounges about, re-reading Stephen Hawking’s A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME for a laugh. It’s a living.
Then one day, she picks up Alexander. As she attempts to pull the ol’ tail trick, he turns into a werewolf. A Hu-Li is so shocked, she freezes on all fours, and gets violated via a heated round of weresex, leaving her specialness torn and bruised. Yes, kids, it’s love — they are MFEO!
This is the best Russian love story between an immortal fox whore and a werewolf ever written. But with all those qualifiers removed, it’s merely an interesting but deeply flawed one. Sporting a terrific translation into English by Andrew Bromfield that doesn’t dull its strange leanings, the book features a saucy, singular voice, even if you’re not quite sure what to make of it.
Pevelin obviously has a twisted sense of humor (you think?), and a couple of scenes are really funny, including one in which A Hu-Li and Alexander argue over the literary merits of James Joyce’s ULYSSES, and an early client-pickup conversation that goes like this:
“You look like Captain Nemo.”
“From 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA?”
“No, from the American film THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN. There was one extraordinary gentlemen who looked just like you. An underwater karate specialist with a beard and a blue turban.”
THE SACRED BOOK is short on plot and long in the tooth, but utterly outrageous. But that only takes you so far, and sadly, that point wasn’t all the way to the end. That’s not quite a recommendation. —Rod Lott
“Leaning his huge, monstrous jaws down over me (his breath was hot, but fresh, like a baby’s), he bit through all three of my bras, pulling them off with his terrible hairy fingers. … After doing the same thing with my panties, he pulled away from me and began growling, as if he was about to tear me to shreds. … However, the ordeal proved not to be as painful as I’d been expecting. But I did things right anyway and groaned from time to time: ‘Oh, that hurts! Don’t pound so damn hard, you ugly monster. Gently, smoothly … That’s right.’”
Related posts:
- Sacred Cows & Dead Vegetarians
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- The 6 Sacred Stones
- BOOK WHORE >> 12.13.05
- Bestial: Werewolf Apocalypse
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
So in the last couple days, we’ve gotten vampire porn and werewolf porn. If only we’d gotten some robot porn the other day.
Hey, we aim to please. Someway, somehow, we’ll get you that robot porn.
I appreciate that.
The more oily, the better.