The_Final_Circle_of_Paradise
The Final Circle of Paradise
1965 novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The Final Circle of Paradise (Russian: Хищные вещи века, romanized: Khishnye veshi veka, lit. 'Predatory Things of the Century') is a science fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It was first published in the USSR in 1965 and the first English edition, translated by Leonid Renen, was published by DAW books in 1976. The literal English translation of the original Russian title is "Predatory Things of Our Times". This is a line from Andrei Voznesensky's poem "Beatnik's Monologue. Machine Riot" (1961).[1]
The novel, which depicts the Society of Entertainment, belongs to the early period of Strugatsky's activities when they were faithful followers of the Soviet Communist ideology.
The main ideas of the novel are:
- the Society of Entertainment causes human degradation and degeneration
- the "advanced" entertainments, the "circles of paradise" - are actually the steps down the ladder of personal (and social) degeneration
- and the "final circle of paradise" is the potent hallucinogen, which converts people to hallucinating idle bodies in the bath tubes, and then causes death due to heart failure
Another major idea of the novel is the idea of "makeshift evil stuff", something alike to cooking potent drugs (or chemical weapon poisons, or explosives) from the components freely purchased in the "home chemistry" part of the supermarket store. These items are the "predatory things", thus the original Russian title.
In early 2000s, Boris Strugatsky, being still alive that time, commented this old book of his (and his brother) to his Internet fans.
In those comments, he said, that, even though the sci-fi writers always try to predict some features of the future, most of such attempts fail. But as about the Predatory Things of the Century, most of the predictions in this particular book were just plain "direct hits", since most of them came to reality in 40-50 years, especially in rich Western countries, and, to some degree, in Russia too.
For instance, the book predicted raves under the name of "shakery" (RU: "drozhka"). The book predicted life-threatening extreme entertainment under the name of "fisherists" (RU: "rybar'", an intentionally spoiled version of "rybak" which is "fisherman"). The book predicted philosophers like Karl Popper and Jean Baudrillard under the name of "Dr. Opir", and so on.
So, Predatory Things of the Century is probably the most actual book by Strugatsky modern times.
This novel is a sequel of sorts to an earlier Strugatsky novels Space Apprentice (1962) and The Way to Amalthea. At the end of Space Apprentice, flight engineer Ivan Zhilin gives up space travel for Earth – where "the most important things are" – to make the solar system a better place for the young people of the world. The Final Circle of Paradise takes place a little less than ten years after Space Apprentice, in a large (there was an abandoned subway there) seaside resort city somewhere in Europe. In the intervening time, he has been working for the security service of the World Council, an international governing body similar to but far more powerful than the United Nations. A few years before, Zhilin fought as part of an international brigade to put down a fascist uprising in the same city where this story is set, reminiscent of the Spanish Civil War of 1930s, with the difference that the communists won - in Spain, it was vice versa. This was supposedly one of the "final" wars before universal disarmament, where the last of the fascists were finally defeated. Like other Strugatsky novels, the setting is an internationalized future of advanced technology and world peace. There is no iron curtain, cold war, or arms race. Most of the world is permanently at peace, with the rest on the verge of being forcibly demilitarized.