Andrei Ivanov

Parody Out of Step with the Times
Review of the English language translation published by Vagabond Voices (2018) of the Russian language original "Путешествие Ханумана на Лолланд" (Hanuman's Journey to Lolland) (2009) published by Avenarius

Perhaps there was some time in the past, or there will be in some distant future, when a dark-comedy picaresque tale of refugees scamming the system, and each other, will have a transgressive humour to it. But reading this in the late 2010's era of both the North American and Middle Eastern refugee immigration crises and accompanying political firestorms, this is not that time.

This 400-pager became a slog as it proceeded from one scam to the next in its tale of the titular Hanuman and his Russo-Estonian friend Yevgeny who conspire with various associates to raise money for gambling, booze, drugs and/or prostitutes. There is one over-reaching goal of Hanuman's which is to travel to Lolland, an area of Denmark likened to the party island of Ibiza. Most of the proceeds are frittered away or the schemes fall through before (mild*) the goal is finally reached at the end of the book. An example of the type of schemes were efforts where past-best-before-date foods were rescued from dumpsters and then repackaged for sale to fellow refugees as if they were current fresh products.

It just became distasteful and trying to read this at length and I actually dropped it for a few weeks before deciding to push through to the end instead of leaving it as a DNF. My main reason for reading this was because of the author's Estonian connection. The original book was published in Russian in 2009 and in Estonian as "Hanumani teekond Lollandile" only in 2012. I can't imagine this being funny at the time, but it seems even less so now.

*I'm calling that a mild spoiler, as the title of the book in most editions: "Hanuman's Journey to Lolland," already implies that he will eventually get there.… (more)