Noon: 22nd Century, by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky
3/31/2024
Disclaimer: This book was read in Russian.
------------------
Disclaimer 2: I was born in the Soviet Union, so might suffer from incurable nostalgia and/or skewed perspective.
------------------
To be read on a bright, early summer day, when the past feels distant, the future is the best of all possible futures and the breeze is light and smells of the sea.
Noon: 22nd Century, takes place in the Noon utopia of the brothers Strugatsky and is a collection of vignettes that span two centuries. The common thread that unites them is a group of characters—through their lives we see different aspects of the world they live in.
And what a great world it is! Post-scarcity, post-borders. The people are all perfect, poster, soviet men and women: honest, patriotic, idealistic, protectors of the weak and the vulnerable, explorers that are ready to die for the advancement of the human spirit. The people are perfect, but they are also complex in their emotions and in their relationships. They are everyday heroes. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky also relate the story of the small mistakes people make in this otherwise perfect society: breaking the rules, testing the limits of everything, from an AI to human courage and their ability to survive. With a dash of Russian grit in the stories, they are somewhat grounded from the heavens of idealism to earthen reality.
What it might lack to some extent in cynic modern complexity, it more than substitutes with depth of human character and relationships. And did I mention the mysteries of the universe and a complex philosophy? The book is bubbling with the magic of unknown things. Deep, shiny and captivating mysteries that grab the imagination and won’t ever let go, because they become a way of being: the joy of discovery as a way of life, both for the characters inside the story as well as for the reader that is turning the pages. It is also full of ideas–some amazing, some atavistic, some vestiges of Soviet plans that are almost sad to read about. Because Noon: 22nd Century, shines with a bright Soviet future that is so bright, it is some times blinding.
The colour of this book is red: alive and pulsing with ideas and hope. The experience of reading Noon: 22nd Century is like taking an adventurous mountain hike through a perfectly green landscape—there will be adversities during your hike and questions to be answered. But with the help of your stamina and your brain, and most of all, with the help of other, like minded people, you will overcome anything and come back home–tired and sore, but alive and triumphant. Because you are a Human and that means you are here to learn—at least that’s what brothers Strugatsky seem to believe wholeheartedly. And there are certainly worse things to believe about the human kind.
Accompany it with a creamy, walnut cake—because life is good.
Further reading: all and any books by the brothers Strugatsky that you can find translated.
Further reading 2: A walk through the fictional worlds of the brothers https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/05/11/give-me-that-old-time-socialist-utopia/
Further reading 3: And some political context https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/en361fantastika/bibliography/2.4after_the_thaw_5.pdf