Salon

Late last month, Moscow's OM publishers released a new book by Viktor Pelevin titled "The Helmet of Horror" (Shlem Uzhasa). This book -- perhaps more a play than a novel -- is part of "The Myths," a huge project launched five years ago by Britain's Canongate Books.

The project, whose goal is to retell ancient myths for the modern reader, has enlisted some of the best pens from around the world. One of its first books was "A Short History of Myth" by Karen Armstrong, a well-known writer on religion; so far, critics have cautiously praised her knowledge but complained that her treatise is too scholarly and opinionated for a popular culture project. Another was "Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles," Jeanette Winterson's take on the myth of the sky-bearing giant. Russian readers might be interested in Atlas' friendship with Laika, the Soviet space dog. The renowned Canadian author Margaret Atwood offered a feminist version of Homer's epic in "Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus." And coming next summer is "Lion's Honey," by Israeli author David Grossman. The book is bound to stir controversy with its retelling of Samson's suicide bombing -- well, almost -- which killed 3,000 Philistines.

Pelevin fits nicely into this context. His text is structured as an Internet chat room, where several people discuss the strange experiment in which they have landed. Each of them has been presented with a labyrinth, but the details of these mazes vary widely, from a Gothic cathedral to a table with a loaded gun on it. It gradually becomes clear that the whole thing may be happening in the Minotaur's mind. The ending turns everything upside down in trademark Pelevin style.

The author, usually very keen at capturing everyday details of Russian life, adapted his story for international audiences -- his characters are neutral, and there are few traces of Russian exotica. Even the chat room is designed to resemble the web site of the British newspaper The Guardian.

For two reasons, it is disturbing to think that Western readers may regard Pelevin as Russia's most representative writer. First, Pelevin does not readily distinguish between things as they are and his arcane elaborations. A naive reader may confuse his phantasmagoric ravings for true descriptions of Russian reality; this reader will never talk to any Russian again without a burning desire to run for his life. Second, Pelevin might actually be Russia's most representative writer.