The Sacred Book of the Werewolf Review

What is the path to enlightenment? Atonement? Prayer? Humility? What about spiritual solitude and mental fortitude? Let A Hu-Li, a redheaded two thousand year old werefox prostitute, guide you through these spiritual and moral dilemmas within The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, or as Amazon describes it, "the world's first zen buddhist paranormal romance". Written by the forefront runner in Russian postmodernist absurdism,Victor Pelevin skillfully peels back the grimy layers of Moscow's elite to reveal societal scars deep to the bone. 

Our werefox, A Hu-Li, can send humans into a tizzy of orgasmic pleasure balancing on near death by simply winding her fox tail. By spinning her tail, she can hypnotize her clients to believing anything. However, one of her clients, a militia man named Alexander, does not fall under her spell when A Hu-Li reveals herself. Instead, another secret is revealed: Alexander is a werewolf and is therefore impervious to her charm. And thus begins a bizarre tryst that will make you believe that you too have been spellbound.

This book raises interesting philosophical questions through utilizing Buddhist spirituality as a means to satire the so called "Russian soul". What are conceptions of righteousness for Russians? How can Russia's salvation be achieved? These questions are subtle but important concepts humming between the words of the book. In one scene A Hu-Li is returning back to their home with a bag full of goods. Perhaps for an Anglocentric reader the depth of critiquing Russian culture may fall on deaf ears but such is reading literature in translation.

However, even without translation, for many lengths of the book Pelevin gets caught in his own web of philosophizing, creating pages so dense in thought that it can be daunting to follow. Some working knowledge of philosophy would help but isn't mandatory. In addition, there are scenes that made me incredibly uncomfortable including what I interpreted as the rape of A Hu-Li. While the scene itself is still quite uncomfortable, it is when she develops a love interest out of her relationship stemming from forced sex that truly leads me to shake my head. On one hand, I recognize the bias that Pelevin writes from, his own male and Russian knowledge that shapes the way he understands the world. On the other hand, I do not think it's great for A Hu-Li to fall in love with the person that raped her. Maybe Pelevin meant all of this to be social commentary but I do not know where to stand.

All in all, Pelevin's work is unpolished but captivating. Sentences are crafted with obvious thought and intent but seem to be sacrificed to ramble further about philosophy. Despite this and the unnerving 'romance' scenes, the plot is so strange that I felt compelled to finish reading because I wanted to know what turn Pelevin would utter next. The Sacred Book of the Werewolf was like a Murakami-themed roller coaster: tight corners, blindsided falls, and of course a grand ending spiraling outside of our own perceptions of reality. I would definitely recommend reading this, even with the questionable content.