Omonra Essay

Omon Ra Essay

"Omon Ra", a novel written by the Russian author, Victor Pelevin, is definitely an interesting and enjoyable story. The story deals with the central character, Omon Krizomazov, who lives up to his dream in becoming an astronaut and flying into space. Omon's family is broken and absent which leads him in becoming a child of the state, and is adopted later by "father figures" in the Soviet bureaucracy. Such things like films about flying and a wooden airplane deeply influenced his dream. Along the way of capturing his dreams, he meets a young boy named Mitiok, who shares many of the same interests as him. The two young boys' then stick together to make their dreams come true and are eventually accepted in both flight school and the Soviet Space program. Omon is obliged to kill himself after fulfilling his duty on the moon only to find out that the entire "flight" was staged somewhere in the underground corridors of the Moscow metro system. However, he is not disappointed; he feels that he has found the truth he was searching for his entire life, a truth he has paid for with a lot of pain and suffering and the death of his friends. He believes his suffering, his belief, his devotion made a difference. The primary idea of the story is Pelevin's point of view that what may look like reality in the Soviet Union can in fact be the basis of fictitious events. Through manipulation and deceit, our protagonist was forced into an imaginary situation. We see that in life there are always things that are much deeper then what they might seem to be on the outside. A person may always believe they recognize what is going on, however there is always a deeper truth which that particular person doesn't see.

Pelevin uses the technique of foreshadowing numerous times in the novel in order to give us, and Omon as well, unconscious warnings about the true nature of reality related to the fictitious events taking place. "In the twenties they had one kind of spaceship (...) In the thirties they were different, in the fifties they were different again, and so on..." (12). We clearly see that Omon and Mitiok are discussing about the various kinds of spaceships that were created in some of the past years. Although there were many spaceships created in the passed years, they have never actually flown into space, which is the initial job of the spaceship. These spaceships were real in size but were non-functioning models, similar to the spaceship Omon had been working with. '"Neither do these," he answered, pointing to the model we were discussing as it swayed gently in the draught"' (12). There are several cardboard model spaceships that are placed around the space camp. These models obviously are fake and do not move by themselves, nor can they fly into space. Both the cardboard model spaceships and the real sized model spaceships foreshadow the true nature of reality which Omon faces towards the end of the novel. In a later part of the novel, when Omon begins to understand the mission of the space experiment, Flight Leader shows a demonstration of the mission using a toy:

A small red toy appeared in his hand. He wound it up and set it at the beginning of the red line on the map. The toy began to buzz and edged forward--its fuselage was like a tin can set on eight small black wheels, with the letters USSR on its side and two eye-like bulges at the front.

(42)

This small red toy represents the self-propelled vehicle, called the moonwalker that is going to be sent into space. When you think of a toy, you usually picture a plastic made object which can easily be broken into pieces if you were to throw it on the floor. This toy foreshadows the true nature of reality because in the end, Omon did not fly into space after all and the spaceship is similar to the toy since it wasn't really functional. The description of the toy as "a tin can set on eight small black wheels, with letters USSR on its side and two eye-like bulges at the front" (42) foreshadows a similar structure of the real spaceship that was used for the experiment. The whole space experiment was like a virtual game; in order to win, Omon had to complete the mission by placing the radio buoy that repeats "Lenin", "USSR", and "Peace" on the invisible surface of the "moon". This "game" had to end in Omon committing suicide. A little bit after the middle of the novel, we