# Blue Lard

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{{Short description|Novel by Russian author Vladimir Sorokin}}
{{Infobox book
| name              = Blue Lard
| image             = File:Blue_Lard_book_cover.png
| alt               = 
| caption           = Cover of the 2024 English edition by NYRB
| author            = [Vladimir Sorokin](/source/Vladimir_Sorokin)
| title_orig        = {{noitalic|Голубое сало}}
| orig_lang_code    = ru
| translator        = [Max Lawton](/source/Max_Lawton)
| country           = Russia
| language          = Russian
| genre             = Novel, [Postmodern fiction](/source/Postmodern_fiction), [Dystopian fiction](/source/Dystopian_fiction)
| publisher         = Ad Marginem (Russian), [NYRB](/source/New_York_Review_Books) (English)
| pub_date          = 1999
| english_pub_date  = 2024
| pages             = 
| isbn              = 
| oclc              = 
| dewey             = 
| congress          = 
}}
'''''Blue Lard''''' ({{langx|ru|Голубое сало|Goluboye salo}}) is a [postmodern](/source/postmodern) novel by Russian writer [Vladimir Sorokin](/source/Vladimir_Sorokin). It was first published in 1999 by Ad Marginem.

==Plot==
The plot of the book revolves around a substance called "blue lard" that the clones of Russian writers produce when they write<ref name="NYT">{{cite web |last=Illingworth |first=Dustin |date=25 February 2024 |title=This Book Is Baffling, Debauched and Perfectly Human |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/books/review/vladimir-sorokin-blue-lard.html |access-date=8 March 2024 |website=[New York Times](/source/New_York_Times) |quote=It begins in Russia, in 2068, when scientists have set about cloning the country’s great past writers in a clandestine Siberian lab. The novels, stories and poems these clones produce are of little importance; the scientists’ true quarry is the blue lard that forms on the clones’ bodies as they perform the “script process.”}}</ref> which is then used to power a hidden reactor on the moon.<ref name="PW">{{cite web |author= |date=12 December 2023 |title=Blue Lard |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781681378183 |access-date=8 March 2024 |website=[Publishers Weekly](/source/Publishers_Weekly) |publisher= |quote=Their crazed output turns out to be a mere by-product of the scientists’ true purpose: to produce the “blue lard” used to power a hidden reactor on the moon.}}</ref> Some of the cloned Russian writers include [Tolstoy](/source/Leo_Tolstoy), [Dostoyevsky](/source/Fyodor_Dostoyevsky), [Akhmatova](/source/Anna_Akhmatova), [Chekhov](/source/Anton_Chekhov) and [Nabokov](/source/Vladimir_Nabokov).<ref name="PW" /> The novel takes place in two timelines: the second half of the 21st century (set in [Siberia](/source/Siberia) and Moscow in the future) and an alternative timeline of 1954 (in [Joseph Stalin](/source/Joseph_Stalin)'s Moscow and [Adolf Hitler](/source/Adolf_Hitler)'s [Third Reich](/source/Third_Reich)).

==Reception==
In June 2002, a Russian youth activist group, [Walking Together](/source/Walking_Together), threw portions of copies of the book into a toilet installed outside the [Bolshoi Theatre](/source/Bolshoi_Theatre), in protest of Sorokin's collaboration with the Theatre. The group accused Sorokin of writing pornography, due to the novel's inclusion of a gay sex scene between [Khrushchev](/source/Khrushchev) and [Stalin](/source/Stalin). The toilet was blown up in September 2002 by a group calling itself "The Red Partisans".<ref>{{cite news |title="Идущие вместе" подорвались на своем унитазе |url=https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/340650 |access-date=30 June 2024 |work=Kommersant |date=12 September 2002 |language=ru}}</ref>

The novel received positive reviews from the [New York Times](/source/New_York_Times) and [Publishers Weekly](/source/Publishers_Weekly).<ref name="NYT" /><ref name="PW"/> A review from the Financial Times stated that the book helped "cement Sorokin’s place among the greats."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Weaver |first1=Courtney |title=Vladimir Sorokin's Blue Lard and Red Pyramid — surreal Russian satire that still shocks |url=https://www.ft.com/content/065477c7-5e08-4457-92f0-b423dcd69c35 |access-date=30 June 2024 |work=Financial Times |date=15 March 2024}}</ref>

[Larissa Volokhonsky](/source/Larissa_Volokhonsky) stated that it was the only book she ever asked to have removed from her house.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Remnick |first1=David |title=The Translation Wars |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/11/07/the-translation-wars |access-date=30 June 2024 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=30 October 2005}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Lard}}
Category:1999 Russian novels
Category:Postmodern novels
Category:Dystopian novels
Category:NYRB Classics
Category:Novels set in the 2060s
Category:Novels by Vladimir Sorokin

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Blue Lard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Lard) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Lard?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.