Following the demise of the USSR at the start of the 1990s, the Latvian capital Riga has become a playground for go-getting Capitalist playboys and girls who have embraced designer clothes, exclusive bars and trendy restaurants with complete alacrity. Vadim Vadaev is an employee in the press office of preminent bank REX, an institution which, in a tidy piece of symbolism, has as its emblem a gigantic bronze Tyrannosaurus Rex, known as "Murzilla", wearing a crown. Dissatisfied with his meaningless job writing publicity for this monstrously successful organisation, he expresses his ire in a series of vituperative rants hidden deep in the files of his work P.C, as well as in his obessesion with the eponymous ultra-violent video game 'Headcrusher' (described as some kind of time-hopping cross between 'Tomb Raider' and 'Grand Theft Auto'). Ultimately, his disgust at the designer clad Capitalist drones, his ludicrously power-mad bosses and the stupidity of working class Latvians he is forced to mix with on his daily bus to work lead him to a turning point which leads to him completely transgressing the boundaries of society. Upon discovering his boss Andreii "Four Eyes" Voronin reading the incriminating files on his P.C, Vadim instinctively caves his superior's head in with the bronze statue of Murzilla, an ironic death for a representative of greed through the agency of its physical manifestation. From this point, the more outrageous Vadim's crimes become, the more successful he becomes. Free from the restrictions of conventional morality, he acts instinctively at all times, secure in the knowledge that the authorities are too inept to stop him. He can take what he likes.
This is an irresistible, barnstorming narrative, cunningly quirky and always engaging. Vadim is entirely recognisable in the role of rebellious drone, and the authors cleverly draw a link between the world of the video game and Vadim's surreal journey into mass murder and epic theft. Here, Garros and Evdokimov effectively satirise the complaints of the many parents' organisations from the 1990s who claimed that in-game violence would lead inevitably to a generation of disturbed, barbaric, murderous teeenagers. The authors are also merciless in their depiction of post-Capitalism Eastern Europe as an absurd, warped version of the West, a copy-cat society thoughtlessly in love with the power of the possession. We get glimpses of the old Riga in the figure of Gimniuk, a booming boor of a security guard, in the old men on the bus swigging from gigantic bottles of pilsner and in the incessant sleet that assails all. The narrative voice is never anything but cynical, laughing behind one hand at the absurdity of it all. Nothing is immune from their comical eye.
Unlike 'Fight Club', where the narrator questions, even abdicates from, his own sanity and unlike 'American Psycho' where it is questionable whether Bateman commits his atrocities at all, 'Headcrusher' has Vadim grow more lucid as the fog of Capitalist ideological rules lifts. He is not guilty, not desiring of a reckoning that will end in his punishment. He plays the game to win, and does, which makes this book considerably more light hearted than the two English language novels it has been compared to. In a way, this book is actually more reminiscent of a good Guy Richie or Quentin Tarantino film, where violence is blackly humorous and often just plain humorous (think of the moment in 'Pulp Fiction' where Vincent accidentally blows Marvin's brains out as the car goes over a speed bump). I don't think I have ever found violence as funny as this, aside from in the very best Jacobean Tragedy. In our mordantly satirical twenty-first century world, violence is as hilariously meaningless as everything else.
The regular reader of this blog may well have noticed that many of my choices so far surround novels with a hefty quotient of violence, madness, reckless consumption and anti-capitalist sentiment. It's certainly true that these are some of the main things that pique my interest when it comes to choosing reading material. If you have similar tastes, 'Headcrusher' is a fantastic read, especially during its middle third, which rockets along in rollercoaster fashion. If nothing else, this book will certainly give you a few ideas about how to cope with irritations in the work place...
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