The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

Graduate-level philosophy and supernatural bestiality aren’t traditionally bedfellows. Tradition, though, is something Victor Pelevin—the cerebral Russian author of Buddha’s Little Finger and Omon Ra—has never seemed to care much about. His latest novel, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, follows the unconventional trick-turning of a seeming teenage prostitute named A. Hu-li. In reality, the young streetwalker is actually a “werefox,” a supernatural beauty who has wandered the earth for more than a millennium. Needing to absorb humans’ energy to survive, she uses her tail to magically hypnotize johns into thinking they’ve just had the best sex of their lives. Meanwhile, the ancient Nabokov-quoting courtesan gets to keep her chastity, siphon life force and get paid. Until, that is, she meets Alexander, a handsome werewolf posing as a Russian officer; suddenly A. Hu-li is as smitten as the schoolgirl she pretends to be.

In the past, Pelevin’s absurdist plot maneuvers have been a blast, particularly in The Helmet of Horror, his cyber-age retelling of the Minotaur myth. In The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, however, his penchant for philosophical quandaries tends to drag. As their relationship intensifies, A. Hu-li and Alexander spend evenings arguing about the Manichaean nature of a “super-werewolf” (Alexander thinks it’s marked by physical power; Hu-li skews toward the spiritual). Some prospectively intriguing tangents, like Hu-li’s cousin’s hobby of hunting English noblemen, aren’t fleshed out enough to break up the pedantry. By the end of the book, even the sex bits get tedious: Does discussing “gynaecological stomatology”—i.e., a toothy vagina representing “the formless, all-consuming chaos that opposes the Apollonian male principle”—really count as pillow talk?

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