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diff --git a/content-org/brain-rot.org b/content-org/brain-rot.org index 9b78dcb..d6de3e5 100644 --- a/content-org/brain-rot.org +++ b/content-org/brain-rot.org @@ -2200,6 +2200,79 @@ Movies based on /Hard to be a God/ are also amazing! [fn:teen] Teenage me hated that, but as I mentioned occasionally, he wasn't very bright. + +*** DONE Roadside Picnic (Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, 1972) +CLOSED: [2024-07-15 Mon 21:35] +:PROPERTIES: +:EXPORT_FILE_NAME: roadside-picnic-1972 +:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :abstract A short review of an absolute marvel of a book +:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :image brain-rot/covers/roadside-picnic.jpg +:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :rating 4.5 +:END: + +/Roadside Picnic/ has a very particular heritage. +There is a book. +It was then made into a movie, which took the last 30 pages and went its own way. It's great. +Then they made it into a game, which takes some ideas for the basic premise, and then the authors went their own way, creating an antithesis of the book. I've been told it's good. +But this time: the novel. + +In the near future, aliens have landed on Earth. +No one knows why, but they came and went without much ado. +Their landing site is now called /the zone/. +Before leaving, the aliens left some artifacts. +We don't know what they are, but there is the promise of giant leaps for mankind. +Therefore, a new occupation is born: - /stalkers/, who venture into the zone and try ans retrieve some alien leftovers. +The zone is dangerous, and stalkers often lose their lives upon making the smallest mistakes. + +But /Roadside Picnic/ is not a book about that. +It's depressing and full of commentary on humanity. +Very often, people call it the best book by the Strugatsky brothers, and who am I to disagree? + +But it is not a book about aliens, or the zone. +Those things exist, but first contact went and gone. +Stalkers are not the heroes of humanity, they are expendable criminals. +We think we may someday understand what happened, but we may as well not. +The aliens visited Earth, but most likely haven't found anything of interest. +What people are dying for, what may change the entire planet, may be nothing but some trash left on the side of the road. + +The cosmos is not something to explore or conquer. +It's vast, and our planet is insignificant. + +And this is what the book is about. +The Zone occupies very small portion of the novel, it's just means to an end. +Red, the main hero, is just trying to make a living. +He is not shy about drinking, visiting a bordello or cheating on his wife. +At the same time, he is not shown as an evil person, because his existence doesn't matter. +Even though he is one of the most experienced stalkers, his death would mean nothing. + +#+attr_shortcode: 4.5 "roadside-picnic.jpg" +#+begin_rating +Cover +#+end_rating +The novel is also much less adventurous than one could expect, knowing the movie or the games. +We spend just a handful of pages in the Zone, the rest happens in the nearby town. +/Roadside Picnic/ is beautiful as anti-SiFi story. +Everything we were taught to believe by western SciFi, the authors ignore. +There is nothing /there/ for us. +We are /nothing/. +Space exploration? +Meeting aliens? +We don't even have any hopes or dreams left. + +But this makes the novel timeless. +Our entertainment is no longer optimistic. +We are not going into /Star Trek/, we missed that ship. +Maybe hope in our insignificance is better than thinking we are our own worst enemy? + +/Roadside Picnic/ gets my high recommendation. +Similarly to /Hard to be God/, the reader may breeze through it. +It's short, and it's easy to read. +But then we reach the last pages, where the weight of the story is passed us. + +There was to be an American TV series based on /Roadside/. +All that we got was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dts0rjp5V8][trailer]] which clearly shows, that it is impossible to make an Americanized version. +In it, a shot of people saluting the stalker is shown, which is a complete antithesis of what the Stugatsky brothers are telling us. + ** European SciFi :PROPERTIES: :EXPORT_HUGO_SECTION: brain-rot/european-scifi |