The novel “Chapaev and Void” is described by the author himself as: “The first work in world literature, whose action takes place in absolute emptiness.” In reality, it takes place in 1919 in Chapaev’s division, where the main character, the decadent poet Pyotr Void, serves as a commissar—also, as in the present day, and as always with Pelevin, in virtual space, where the protagonist meets Kawabata, Schwarzenegger, “Just Maria”…
According to critics, “Chapaev and Void” is “the first serious Zen-Buddhist novel in Russian literature.”