The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin; Andrew Bromfield

Author:Victor Pelevin; Andrew Bromfield
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Literary, Prostitutes, Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, Werewolves, Fantasy, Russia (Federation), General, Paranormal
ISBN: 9780143116035
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2009-09-29T05:59:18+00:00

Lord Cricket was a man of indeterminate age. And sex, I feel like adding to make the description more precise. My sister E said that he came from a family with a military tradition, but his appearance gave no indication at all of that. My first look at him even put me in mind of that politically correct expression ‘war hero or shero’ - despite his shaved head and goatee beard. His facial expression was interesting - as if in his youth his soul had aspired towards freedom and light, but failed to break through his armour of self-control and duty and ended up frozen in an interrogatory bubble, puffing out his face into a grimace of disaffected surprise.

He was dressed in a dark suit and white shirt with a wide tie in an extremely delicate shade of green. There was a small enamel badge glinting on the lapel of his jacket. It looked like the enamel images of Mao Tse-tung that people used to wear in China, only it wasn’t Mao’s face smiling out of it, but Aleister Crowley’s (I wouldn’t really have recognized the British Satanist myself - E Hu-Li told me).

Alexander and Lord Cricket reacted to each other cautiously. When he saw the military uniform, Lord Cricket smiled. It was an amazing smile, with just the faintest hint of irony that, nevertheless, you couldn’t possibly fail to notice, no matter how hard you tried. How many centuries of effort must have gone into trimming that lawn! At the sight of Lord Cricket, Alexander nervously drew in the air through his nose and closed his eyes; his face darkened, as if he’d just remembered something upsetting.

I was frightened that they would argue. But they quickly got into small talk about the Middle East, Shiite terrorism and the oil business. I must have been looking dour, because Lord Cricket asked me the classic question:

‘Why do you Russians smile so little?’

‘We don’t need to be so competitive,’ I said morosely. ‘We’re a nation of losers in any case.’

Lord Cricket raised one eyebrow.

‘Come now, you exaggerate,’ he said.

But he seemed to be satisfied by my answer and he went back to his conversation with Alexander.

Having made sure they were talking about subjects that were safe, I started getting to grips with the video projector hired from a local business centre. Of course, there was something absurd about an occult Power Point presentation. But then, the whole field of human occultism was such a profanation that not even Microsoft could do anything to debase it.

While we were fiddling with the equipment, I succumbed yet again to the temptation to inoculate my sister E with the germs of moral principle.

‘You can’t possibly imagine,’ I said quickly in a low voice, trying to squeeze as much useful information as possible into the seconds allotted to me, ‘how liberating Kant’s categorical imperative is for the soul. I felt as if I’d grown wings when I realized - yes, yes, don’t laugh now - that for us foxes man can be not just a means to achieve the aim, but the aim itself!’

E Hu-Li frowned.

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