The Doomed City
The experiment (Russian Град обреченный, degree obretschennij ) is a science fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It was written 1969-1975, but was not published until 1989. The work can be considered as a reckoning with political ideologies and as a parable of the human quest for knowledge.
Content
Plot and style
In the novel it is about the inhabitants of a city that Handlungsort a strange experiment of unknown type. Andrej Voronin, a voluntary participant, lives there and seeks to spread its ideology imposed categories of thought - the examination is abstracted ultimately to the question of the meaning of life. That in this place is hard because " the experiment is the experiment " and is the reason for many obscure incidents. So the city is overrun without the clear-cut reason of baboons; the sun (or what serves as the sun) is turned off and turned back on in the morning to make an artificial Tag-/Nach-Zyklus evening - but it can also happen that the sun stays off 14 days; the Red building appeared every night out of nowhere and disappears early in the morning again - Once Upon a virtual game of chess. Cross runs through the country a seemingly endless high and therefore insurmountable yellow walls and the like.
Even more mysterious is the origin of the voluntary participants of the experiment. These come not only from different countries but also from different time periods. Nevertheless, it is a normal verbal communication possible: seemingly everyone speaks the native language of the other. The main character Andrej Voronin about is a Russian Stellarastronom from the 1950s, while his friend Fritz Geiger is a German Wehrmacht corporal, who joined the experiment shortly after the Second World War. More people are from the 60s and 70s. One of the rules of the experiment is the permanent, professional random rotation of all citizens across the social classes, from plumbers to the highest positions of power. One in speech and manners peculiar personal " mentor " (similar to the figure " Kamillo " in " The distant rainbow " by A. and B. Strugatsky ) Andrej surprised at turning points in the story, but makes involuntarily mostly just for more confusion.
At the beginning of the novel, the main character Andrej is still a simple sanitation workers, but after first detective and later editor of a newspaper. After a coup led by Fritz Geiger and his followers, issuing the Mayor and the old hierarchy, is named president, Andrej rises in the social hierarchy to continue and is one of the advisers of the President Geiger ( quasi Research Ministers ). Finally, a dangerous scientific expedition starts in the unknown north, which he cites as a conductor. Only he and a close friend remain and torment themselves through endless deserts, and the reader is confronted with an analysis of the universe, creation, or civilization; Symbol for this is a analogous to the large changes in the culture as well as the far-reaching individual contribution of people architecturally variable, never finished tower or temple. The people present themselves as architects or workers, priests or pilgrims dar. Although setbacks are to be deplored, this concept proves the result as indestructible. After a short stay in an oasis, or even the Garden of Eden - which is only in retrospect, almost hallucinatory, mentioned - that draw hikers on a voluntary basis. In the final pages, possibly in the afterlife or a death fantasy, the mentor has the last word, and Andrey has described the first ontological circle ...
" The Experiment" is an intellectual book, which deals almost exclusively with political, ideological or historical-philosophical reflections Andrey. Nonetheless, the plot is driven, and develop idyllic moments. When reading it soon becomes clear that this is only hypothetical questions, ideas or images that can not be decided.