One of the most successful Russian writers who emerged in the post-Soviet literary scene during the 1990s, Viktor Pelevin has managed to bridge that most unbridgeable of gaps in Russian culture--the one existing between so-called genuine literature and popular fiction for a mass readership. His novels and short stories are read and discussed by intellectuals and teenagers, journalists and academics alike. The broadness of the reception of his writings is matched by the range of his subject matter and the pretensions of his style. His works juxtapose rock culture, Soviet kitsch, and socialist-realist clichés with Continental philosophy and Eastern mysticism. All of these elements are tossed together with a distinctive style and tone that is pervaded by both a sense of gravity and an almost flippant ironic distance. His reputation for reclusiveness belies a keen sense of the authorial image, which he is careful to maintain...