Tulubaikaporia

…Fittingly for a book subtitled ‘a ritual’, Tulubaikaporia works a curious magic on the readers’ mind from the very start, chrysopoeia-sing base memory into a slippery, angelic substance that makes time slide easily from past to present, through imperceptible boundaries. So perfect is Tulubaika a metaphor for nostalghia, it too threatens to intrude into the messy, phenomenal world of perceptible reality and occlude it with its dreams of mushrooms, birch, and pure gold. Tulubaika has disappeared because it is everywhere, dispersed like an aerosol into the hearts and minds of all humans who have, in some way or another, left home…

Where do I begin? Opening my review with this sentence should hint that the novel in question is either fantastic or terrible (it might be both, but such is not the case here, though if you read further, you will encounter an example).

“Time in Tulubaika always dabbled in certain dilations, like on that planet in “Interstellar.” You seem to have already graduated from university, gotten married, travelled the world, changed a dozen jobs, gained muscle and intellect — but in Tulubaika it’s as if nothing has changed, yet everything is completely different.”

A splendid encapsulation of the novel. The prose of a writer prideful of his metaphysics and unbeholden to the show-don’t-tell school reveals some part or layer of his mind, the shape of his thoughts as they form and unravel. It is then unsurprising that the second novel of this late-millennial British-Russian writer who grew up playing WoW, admired the high literature of his primal compatriots, and masterfully appropriated the native language of his adopted ones, should contain a prose so hybrid and reflective of the lands (virtual or real) and ages he’s lived in. While there are many American writers with more-or-less equal Internet presence, but less favored by the Divine – be they of the so-called ‘transgressive’ mode or otherwise – attempting to push literature forward into the present day, the age of social media, the results are often describable as (pardon me) cringeworthy. The combination of highbrow literary language with the lingo of Internet memes or the realities of the current day comes so naturally to the brilliant Vanechka, always flowing flawlessly and appearing effortless. Tulubaika is no longer merely the village where Vanya Bagaev, the translator of this novel and first-order diminutive of Ivan Bagaev – whose second-order diminutive is none other than Vanechka (a peculiar novelty in its own right) – was born and raised. It is the village as seen by him as a child, the village as it appears in the filtered memories of a programmer living in London; it is the Russia of the old and post-Soviet Russia; it is the village as painted by the nostalgia of a noted Substack memelord and writer of remarkable brilliance; it is where the old is revered and the new springs to life, and the dance between the two is without misstep.

Tulubaikaporia is an extraordinary masterpiece of contemporary anglophone Russian literature, and one that demands and merits re-reading. Like Solenoid, it is inventive in poetic language and tastefully floods the reader with aesthetic imagery (although, it must be said the setting of the former gives it a rather unfair advantage in this regard). But whereas Cartarescu attempts metaphysical inventiveness in Solenoid, it is remarkably unoriginal and shallow – and unfortunately repetitive, like the aesthetic imagery. I was delighted to finish reading Tulubaikaporia and feeling freshness even in the final page.

I always enjoy the journeys that Bagaev creates for us. He appears to be playing with the evolution of literary craftsmanship, and Tulubaikaporia is no exception. There is always the quality of well-handled inside joke within the prose. But, this is not your typical story that is going to do all the work for you. It’s necessarily ephemeral. A town is vanishing, after all.

Tulubaikaporia is one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while. The author did a lot of unique things with the page that I loved and added to the overall charm of the book. There is a nice sprinkling of humour over the unease that followed almost all the stories of characters haunted by the spectre of this village, real or imagined. Most of the stories are carried by characters that all posses unique voices, unique experiences, which the author somehow manages to capture over the course of 23 episodes and probably just as many characters. Expertly written. Absolutely gripping. Definitely humorous.

The author plays with many different writing styles, but all of them seem to make me nostalgic for a place I’ve never been to.

Author(s) Vanechka/Vanya Bagaev is asking what is possible (or probable or even impossible) with literature in his amazingly simple, utterly complex work, Tulubaikaporia. This book, this ritual, this Tulubaikaporia is EXTRAORDINARY. If you are curious, if you are a thinker, a philosopher, a dreamer, an explorer, an artist, a poet or a mathematician, or more broadly speaking if you are a human, there is a phrase, a passage, a paragraph or a chapter that will move you, perhaps like nothing you’ve experienced, perhaps it will be familiar to you. Perhaps it will be one of the books that makes it to your all-time favorite list. Tulubaikaporia is unquestionably on mine. I have read and will reread this book in whole or in parts many more times. There is always something new to discover.

An expertly crafted, wild adventure. I had trouble putting it down and when I finished, turned back to page one and began reading again.

I’m not sure where to start. Tulubaika is the golden thread in the fabric of this book’s reality. Each episode contains the ubiquitous woven pattern, and many other details reappear in iterations throughout its volume. The episodes, written from the perspectives of the characters, vary widely in style and mood, synthesizing all manner of qualities - entertaining, intelligent, poetic, funny, strange, anxious, witty and charming. The fictional historical narrative and rich cultural references immerse the reader in the experience of the Motherland from the viewpoints of (somewhat) ordinary people. Ok, they’re mostly a little kooky. I am reminded of a few different documentaries of disappearing places in the Eastern Bloc, where everyone has moved away, and no one remaining is having more children. I appreciated the way I was able to relate the story to some elements of the reality of places like Tulubaika. The metaphysical, philosophical, and even quantum are prominent in some passages, and especially as overarching themes of the book, but none of it would overwhelm the less informed. I was particularly amused with the ideas of the time spiral, and the metaphysics of the author being inside your head, and you in his, whenever you read a book. I’ve had recent conversations (and experiences) about these things, and the scattered mathematical notations were familiar from a Penrose book I finished minutes before diving into Tulubaikaporia. Synchronicities are fun. But yeah anyway, I would highly recommend this read. It’s a unique treasure, and I am so glad I bought it on a whim just because I liked the author’s memes on Substack.

I hesitate to use terms like “work of genius” because they are so often overused, but Tulubaikaporia is, in my opinion, actually something of a work of genius. I couldn’t put it down. Reading it is a bit like being in a long and complex dream where you don’t always know what’s going on but it still somehow makes sense. It’s an intricate weaving of language, identity, philosophy, mathematics, history, culture, wit, the ache for home (what in Gaelic we call “cianalas”) and so much more. If you enjoy Mikhail Bulgakov, James Joyce, Disco Elysium, Lewis Carroll, Andrey Tarkovsky or any of the above, don’t hesitate - read it. Tulubaika is waiting for you.

This is book is so strange and beautiful. Itd unlike anything I’ve ever read

that book, not that I didn’t expect that, had an effect of me utterly transformative, so when, upon finishing [redacted] it, I, a person humble, became humbled even more by nothing else than my own image that stared through my eyes right into my mind from each and every page of this book, especially when said pages were, as it happened quite a few times, empty