Center of Gravity
17 hrs. 2 min.
Language
Russian
Author
Alexey Polyarinov
Author
Alexey Polyarinov
Narrator
David Lomov
Narrator
David Lomov
Description
"The Center of Gravity" is the debut novel by Alexey Polyarinov, a writer and translator of D. F. Wallace, specializing in American postmodernism.
It is a novel about the present—about the development of IT technologies and the unpredictable consequences of this, about contemporary art, and the confrontation between a person and a system. Its heroes grew up in the 1990s.
The book begins with a novella written from the perspective of a boy, Petro: first friendship and a crush, problems at school, a detective story involving the search for a mysterious lake—these become an organic part of the narration through the magical fairy tales of his mother.
But then new narrators step in—his brother Egor, their half-sister Marina, and their friend Grek—each with their own distinct viewpoint on the events.
Fragments of manuscripts and interviews invade the text. The story rapidly turns from a family saga into an anti-utopia with elements of cyberpunk. Experimenting with form and structure—creating a novel within a novel—in the finale the author brings all the lines together, and the mosaic canvas becomes a unified picture.
This edition is supplemented with the author’s preface.
It is a novel about the present—about the development of IT technologies and the unpredictable consequences of this, about contemporary art, and the confrontation between a person and a system. Its heroes grew up in the 1990s.
The book begins with a novella written from the perspective of a boy, Petro: first friendship and a crush, problems at school, a detective story involving the search for a mysterious lake—these become an organic part of the narration through the magical fairy tales of his mother.
But then new narrators step in—his brother Egor, their half-sister Marina, and their friend Grek—each with their own distinct viewpoint on the events.
Fragments of manuscripts and interviews invade the text. The story rapidly turns from a family saga into an anti-utopia with elements of cyberpunk. Experimenting with form and structure—creating a novel within a novel—in the finale the author brings all the lines together, and the mosaic canvas becomes a unified picture.
This edition is supplemented with the author’s preface.
