Tried, as a matter of duty, to slog through Sorokin's Blue Lard, and had some worthwhile musings on the first bits, but by the time of the infamous Stalin/Khrushchev scene (though K seems to stand for a more ominous international cosmopolitanism, not the fellow himself) I had to put it aside. He's doing interesting things, but it's a bit like the last play I saw at the war theatre in the country to the west -- the way of doing things might be shocking to the locals, but it's simply alienating and confusing to the more objective observers, who are simply trying to follow the message of the artist. Became impossible to understand what he was trying to do, specifically, with these seriously disgusting somatic devices. And reading obscenity qua obscenity is not my cup of tea.
