Generation Ha

The witness: young student dressed to kill, beautiful as a picture and cheating as a photoshop. Sonya Kuper is telling about the party, where her friend was injected with a mortal dose of heroin. Says that doesn’t use substances, saw the murderer quite well and remembers him, and is outraged by his misdeed and urges to punish guilty.

The judges: nervous old men, who are horrified and satisfied with their significant mission. It’s not just 20-year old student who was murdered. Last April Natalya Shtos dared to die from the overdose. She was the daughter of a very powerful man in the Ha city. He’s Maecenas, deputy, owner of several hotels, banks, the chain of supermarkets and simply a very rich person. This case is obviously resonant although it will disappear from the tabloids before the end of the process: breaking news cool down even with the rude money, that stands behind them.

The defendant: Ruslan Zakharchenko, a gopnik-junkie who is lack of money for heroin. He dropped by accidentally but perfectly fits the role of a scapegoat. Even has a proved alibi: on the moment of preparing the drug, Ruslan had a call from his girlfriend and he came out of the room. Even the presence of a harsh and principle attorney. Even the presence of other witnesses: one of them is wanted, his grave will be found in the forest sector in the end, the second turns out only on the trial. None of these factors can influence Zakharchenko’s fate: resemble a criminal – will be a criminal, “a criminal must be in jail, I say!”.

And finally in the court: Danylo Kyslenko, thirty-year-old news ticker journalist, glimmers with hangover sweat among the invited media. Danya is a heavy drinker, piles up problems at work and in the near future expects painful divorce with a wife, who suffers from his alcohol and drug augmented realities for ten years. And at this very moment, he found another pain in the neck: he falls for that cheating witness with a small little ass. The girl as a White Rabbit will let Danya into the world of local drug dealers, nobs and professional revolutionaries. The journalist chances to make friends with so-called Sasha – drug dealer, who controls several Kharkiv regions. Characters from the top “inner powers” care about him. Danylo insistently shoulders his way into the hell of an extended criminal story and Universe generously satisfies his adrenaline desires.

No, it isn’t a courtroom drama. No, it isn’t even a detective story. No, it isn’t Kharkiv “bonfire of ambitions”. Although the trial is the most interesting pages of the novel. Although it’s not clear who injected the dead nob with China White till the end (the intrigue is properly held). Although the situation in which Danylo appears will be the test of his professional skills. On the streets – 2008 year (17th anniversary of independence will be mentioned), relatively stable economic times and absolute ideological and political exhaustion. 20-year-old Voynitskyi’s characters scatter in mum and dad’s flats with fresh “European” repair and hastily drown themselves in the Gravity bongs. The descriptions of these parties, deprived of sense, but not the content, portray the most convincing fragments of “News”. In the whirl of tomorrow’s hangover, these hurridly aborted children of the USSR tell each other something extremely important. Not to hear each other.

In the pile – high-quality social prose. Panas Myrnyi “under acid”, so to say. Although the role model for “News” is American prose: a bit of Steinbeck, a pinch of Capote, too much of Bellow, a trace of Thomson. Of course, they honestly warn you “I didn’t get the joke. I don’t think I’m Hunter Thompson” and ask you several times not to look at the world through the smoked glasses of Thompson but they will lie anyway.

Danya isn’t Hunter S. Thompson, at least we can trust Voynitskyi’s character. The systemic alludes to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” single out three key topics in “News” (the nightclub, where the bastards hang around, is called “Vegas”).

Firstly, remember that trip to desert had the purpose: journey to the heart of the American dream? The same in “News”: existence deprived of purpose invents the justification and streams to it. The sense of social life accounts for biological life, – is (not) a simple message of “News”, destructive passions of which end up with the birth of a child. Undesired and unplanned, though.

Secondly, remember that moment when Thompson’s Shark loaded with firearms and drugs consoles his paranoia with the reading of news tickers while driving across Nevada. Those crimes that humanity commits seem to him a vice squad to excuse one’s own misdeeds. He’s a petty criminal on the well-focused informational background. Expanding of crimes is another amusement for the characters of “News”. To murder one girl? – Crime. To poison half of the city? – Business.

And finally: willing or not, “Fear and Loathing” is a story of one generation, a bunch of people who didn’t fit the generation of love chronologically. The energy of generation explodes in glowing fireworks from time to time, but the reasons for this explosion aren’t clear to the contemporaries. This thought of the father-gonzo-founder also relates to “New”. The book depicted the last Soviet generation, it’s 35+ nowadays, whose indifference and inaction at the “start” led to the war. It’s worth mentioning that Danya takes on the role of that one who reflects on the reasons and outcomes for the realized and unrealized “generation of explosions”. After all, he’s about ten years older than the other key characters (or ten-fifteen years younger than the other character group) he’s a loner but incorporates the whole layer of the “lost” between the generation of “explosion”.

To cut it short: sex, drugs, rock’n’roll in residential dwellings of Ha city.

But I say you on the spot: something is wrong with the sex here. The trigger of the plot is sex: if the murder didn’t happen, if one of the suspected didn’t fall in love with Natalia Shtos, Danya wouldn’t notice this hot babe Sonya. But there’s only one intercourse, absolutely legislative: between the married couple Kyslenko (even though she’s drunk at that moment and he’s high). Sex is a trigger for all Voynitskyi’s characters but it never takes place in practice. Not even on the rights of postponed orgasm, but premature youthful ejaculation (of course, metaphorically). This generation of not able to realize even basic instincts of young people – an artificial creation that doesn’t want to survive. Here you’ll hear a bunch of complaints on hydroponic weed (the effect not so good). These complaints are produced by the same hydroponic boys and girls, literally impotent.

But the absence of sex in the novel, where all storylines are launched by sex, crosses with one more interesting element. There’s no generation of parents in the book. In Danya’s case it’s the matter-of-fact: he was raised by his grandma, who is gone now. That is, there are two senior people in the book, who could be considered as a “father’s figure”. The first one – Zakharchenko’s attorney, who always warns Danya about the dangers of the situation in which he appeared. The second – Bis, corrupted policeman, who provides Danya with problems. (The youth isn’t lucky with “parents” here). There’s one more secondary character – Sonya’s mum, a surprisingly childish fool. But it’s not about the characters themselves. When there’s no hint at the sex of parents in the novels, it definitely hints at something different: children are “found in the cabbage”. We deal with the young people, who are cut off from the natural steps of the generation process – the link of times is torn and everyone creates own past and future. And we talk about the generation of 80th, actually “the last generation“.

You know, each of the characters (except Sasha) is given a full name at the first appearance, sometimes the status of their parents is mentioned. After a while surnames (the link with father) disappears, only the name remains, wich on the spot becomes caressingly childish. Sasha, Danya, Sonya. We find out the surname of Sahsa only on the trial and that he’s the son of a very powerful father. Interesting! “Nobs” are those who directly depend on the fortune and status of parents – main characters of “News” and they don’t have parents in reality. Kids without a ground, generation of rewind-fields.

“My cynical generation – I mean those who were born in 80th, – and didn’t have time to understand USSR. We accepted neither ideals, which were imposed on us more weakly nor those who vilified these ideals more severely. We didn’t care about the praising of the regime and its criticism, basically, we cared about nothing”. I have a question only to the word “cynical”. When did it become the synonym to “lost”?

“Nobs”, “gopota”, “raguli”: Sasha, Sonya, Natalya – Ruslan – Danya’s wife. Voynitskyi examines all these social figures and their rituals thoroughly and surprisingly mercilessly: Ukrainian caste society is obvious to him. By the way, he says castes, not classes. The first party, where Danya chances to be, ends up with mocking and murder attempt of the weakest – outsider, greedy for free drugs. Remind you that the murder brings him to this party, except that Natalya – alpha female, who generously provides others with the drugs.

“The young girl was dying in the bathroom within ten meters from her fake friends, who didn’t give a damn thing about her. The girl could be rescued but nobody, absolutely nobody, none of the hundred of the guest did it”. If you close the eyes at the embarrassing pathetic of this message it will be clear: everyone in this reality isn’t an immediate participant, only a passive witness. The thing is that nobody knows and hears. To survive under the condition of the “wild” social stratification would be difficult even for those who are familiar with the rules of the game. Meanwhile, those rules don’t mean any active interactions with the game. Danylo is experienced in it: he’s the only one in the novel whom you cannot call as a “nob” or “gopnik” or “ragulya”. He’s nothing (OK, there’s no pleasant, comfortable characters in “News”, the book isn’t like that).

Ambiguously mocking moments in the novel – the clash of Danya with the cell of left-wing revolutionaries, the group “Duty”. They are maniacs, supporters of Stalinism and resurrection of the Soviets. Grotesque figures, who constantly called eternal virgins (the reference to unkissed passed young boys from the novels about Paris community, perhaps). Try to laugh, but obsessed boys are really dangerous. The most ambiguous moment is one of Danya’s drugs dreams where he sees the future, ten years passed and these young junkies stand on the backcloth of the burning Grushevskogo Street (in the episode his prediction will be proven).

“Duty” is ready to die at any moment – Danya lacks this. Sasha is ready to kill at any moment – Danya lacks this. To be precise: we lack this, so we search for it in another one. Danya isn’t from Eloi race, Danya isn’t from Morlock race. He’s the one who isn’t taken to the “bright future”. Even on the rights of sponger at this cannibal feast (the reference to Morlocks works in “News”): “- We don’t eat anyone! – Sonya interrupted. – You’re not invited to these dinners, – the comrade smiled”.

So what? Is it a timely death of the sense of life? Nothing to add, persuasively. “We grew up with the indistinct feeling of the lost chance”. I fear that we’ll die with that indistinct feeling. At the party, where Natalya was murdered, they played “Monopoly” (Sonya witnessed). The purpose of this game is not to make fortune, but to see your friends broken.

News are forgotten fast, they say. “News” is out of the threat. 2008th came into history. Stories told about Voynitskyi are still popular. And this is good news, only for amateurs of the high-quality social novel.

Hanna Uliura