Aya Vandenbussche
I previously read Monday Starts on Saturday by the Strugatsky, which is quite different in tone. Picnic is a lot more serious, bleak, more obviously political.
The premise is so unique and sadly still so poignant this day. Aliens visited Earth and left it leaving their mess behind, a mess that we don't understand. Some try to understand if, to learn from it, some try to profit from it, whether they understand it or not, and others want to get rid of it. It's a book about the decay of capitalism, about our inability and often reluctance to understand, to accept that the aliens might not be interested in communicating with us. We try to create meaning, to exploit and milk every last drop of someone else's junk. I'm reminded of Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.
The structure of this book is unique and the language, though translated, is obviously precise and thought of. The story of how the brothers introduced and coined the word 'stalker' into the Russian language. A word that has made such an impression that Tarkovsky called his film based on the book, Stalker. This is the 'profession' of one of the main characters, to go into the zone where the aliens left their trash at a great risk to his life, and salvage alien artefacts. The Strugatskys have taken Stalker from a Rudyard Kipling character named Stalky. In Russian it's pronounced Stullky/Stullker, but according to the Kipling story, it's actually meant to be pronounced Stawky and therefore should really be 'stawker'. I absolutely love this kind of language development.
It is a beautiful book.
I previously read Monday Starts on Saturday by the Strugatsky, which is quite different in tone. Picnic is a lot more serious, bleak, more obviously political.
The premise is so unique and sadly still so poignant this day. Aliens visited Earth and left it leaving their mess behind, a mess that we don't understand. Some try to understand if, to learn from it, some try to profit from it, whether they understand it or not, and others want to get rid of it. It's a book about the decay of capitalism, about our inability and often reluctance to understand, to accept that the aliens might not be interested in communicating with us. We try to create meaning, to exploit and milk every last drop of someone else's junk. I'm reminded of Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.
The structure of this book is unique and the language, though translated, is obviously precise and thought of. The story of how the brothers introduced and coined the word 'stalker' into the Russian language. A word that has made such an impression that Tarkovsky called his film based on the book, Stalker. This is the 'profession' of one of the main characters, to go into the zone where the aliens left their trash at a great risk to his life, and salvage alien artefacts. The Strugatskys have taken Stalker from a Rudyard Kipling character named Stalky. In Russian it's pronounced Stullky/Stullker, but according to the Kipling story, it's actually meant to be pronounced Stawky and therefore should really be 'stawker'. I absolutely love this kind of language development.
It is a beautiful book.
Updated a reading goal:
Read 22 books by December 31, 2026
Progress so far: 10 / 22 45%