What will happen to the paper book in a world of smart fleas and holograms, living-out fur and goldfish—after the New Middle Ages and the Second Islamic Revolution? In the novel “Manaraga,” Vladimir Sorokin sets an unexpected direction for reflections on humanity’s relationship with the printed word. The unusual profession of the main character—an underground operative, a romantic, a true master—forces us to look at the book in a new way. Sorokin’s novel can be read as an epitaph for paper literature—and as a hymn to its eternal life.