Deleted Scenes from the Bestselling Utopian Novel

In a stream of consciousness, debut novelist Bagaev catalogs the dreams, attitudes, and absurdities of citizens living in a totalitarian dystopia. The vignettes are presented as samizdat errata, material that an “Editorial Committee” has deleted from a government-sanctioned utopian best-seller to preserve the book’s “narrative integrity” and avoid a “descent” into “literary anarchy.” In these excerpts, readers discover the frozen island nation of Novo Tsarstvo, where the ruthless Tsar rules with violence and doublespeak. The collective inhabitants attempt to make sense of their dehumanizing existence by imagining fanciful scenarios of how this fascist world came to be and how they can change it. Bagaev’s metaphysical observations strike with chilling accuracy, while the prose, despite the heady invention, is brisk and pointed, the storytelling as fleet as it is wild. A welcome fabulistic playfulness leavens the dehumanizing themes. Readers who love outraged play and literary daring will appreciate Bagaev’s pained, vivid vision.

To be deeply moved by a work of art is a gift, and to experience this as the real circumstances reflected by the work persist is somewhat rare. I have been forever changed by reading Deleted Scenes from the Bestselling Utopian Novel. Deleted Scenes is no House of Leaves and though unconventional, Bagaev offers much more to readers in terms of coherence and structure. Even though the narrative is disjointed, the author creates cohesion with strong themes, repetition, and a sense of tension that builds throughout and culminates in a tragic, yet satisfying climax.

If the novels 1984 and House of Leaves had a baby and that baby was raised by Steve Erickson and Cormac McCarthy and then grew up to write a book of interconnected dystopian stories, that book might greatly resemble Deleted Scenes from the Bestselling Utopian Novel. Like the best experimental fiction, it’s not just the words but the composition of the world being built and how efficiently the author can drop us into the surreal without losing us. These intertwined pieces set on the remote island of Novo Tsartsvo are simultaneously claustrophobic and mind-expanding, brutal and intimate, terrifying and resilient.

A totalitarian regime in an imaginary country. Or is it the looming reality in our own neighborhood that we’ve been cloaking our minds against? Is there hope the permafrost of authoritarianism will melt? An allegory of stand-alone stories, creatively interwoven. Some even reminiscent of Russian fairy tales I read as a child, but with a lurid twist. Surreal, dreamlike, dark, sometimes light, sometimes humorous, softly written, evocatively revealed. I felt like I was there.

The prose is dream- or rather nightmare-like at times, very visceral, and contains best dualities I always look for, in a very good book — it’s dark, but there’s light, and humor; it can be hard to read because everything that happens to heroes starts happening to you; but it’s written with incredible softness; it’s tragically real, as I, because of my history, know all too well — and at the same time, magical. The language is mesmerizing.

The dilemmas facing Bagaev’s characters are familiar to any reader of dystopian fiction, but his darkly comic manner heightens the grotesque absurdity of life under the authoritarian wheel. While the inspiration and target is Vladimir Putin’s Russia, its exploration of the violence to self and others that permeates and constitutes the authoritarian state has broader relevance.

Bagaev writes with such detail and specificity that the reader is grounded in both the physical and emotional aspects of the story — to the point of almost, very effectively, feeling trapped in it. The author remains vigilantly curious, performing a sort of emotional autopsy on totalitarianism by giving voice to the internal psychosis of living under a dictator, creatively investigated from a variety of vantage points, genders, and ages.

Vanya Bagaev has reached a new level with this one, truly. The humour hits every time.

To appreciate a dystopian novel, we need to understand some parts of the psychology of mind and manipulation, and this book has put it into words. The vivid descriptions and diverse character perspectives explore the psychological impacts of totalitarianism. While the first half felt slower, the second half made it absolutely worthwhile.

It is a series of tales set in an imaginary totalitarian country and while each one would stand alone, they are perfectly interwoven. The prose has a certain poetic quality at times. I LOVE this book!

Bagaev’s “Deleted Scenes from the Bestselling Utopian Novel” is a haunting and thought-provoking collection of interconnected stories that explore the dark underbelly of a supposedly perfect society. With vivid prose and surreal imagery, the author crafts a chilling portrayal of life under an oppressive regime. Each vignette offers a unique perspective on themes of freedom, identity, and the human spirit’s resilience in the face of tyranny. This book will linger in your mind long after you’ve turned the final page, challenging your perceptions of utopia and the cost of societal perfection.

The story seems to float about, embodying whoever or whatever it needs to in order to tell itself. We totally got Pynchon vibes there. The bit about the black cats toward the end of the book was funny. But then the section with the sniper bodyguard and the dream of being a bullet and all that — that was pretty punchy and heavy.

The world Vanya’s characters inhabit is grim, grotesque but incredibly believable.

This was rough, emotionally charged and crazy all in one. These little scenes are glimpses, of us spying on the true horror of everyday people, trying to survive in a world that’s broken. But not just broken by man, but broken by demons, the true evil inside and the things humans will do when they think they can get away with it, in a broken world, where most are just trying to survive. For this to have been fiction, I related to it very hard, this is going to linger with me for awhile.

Finished Vanya Bagaev’s book. It’s a series of nightmarish, surrealistic images and episodes, much of it set in freezing and desolate cityscapes and countrysides, apparently modeled on Post Soviet Russia. I think it would actually work better as a movie!