36 pages • 1 hour read
The Tsar of Love and Techno
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Side B, Story 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Side B, Story 4 Summary: “The End”
This last story is mystical and supernatural. “The End” is a fantasy that takes place during the final moments of Kolya’s life, where he imagines himself as an astronaut in the outer limits of space, traveling in the shelter capsule his father had built in case of nuclear war. Still, he hesitates to listen to his brother Alexei’s mixtape, hoping to save it for a sweet moment where he can enjoy it at optimal capacity. The mixtape is perhaps the greatest symbol of hope for him, a gift that reminds him of what his life could have been. He has visions of Alexei as his co-pilot on the spaceship, before he becomes the last surviving member of the human race. Finally, he plays the tape, which contains a recording of Alexei and Galina trying to record music for themselves. Here at the end of all things are the two people Kolya loved the most.
Side B, Story 4 Analysis
In the grim world that serves as the backdrop for these stories, the only way any character can truly find respite is by having an experience outside of the physical world. Narrated by Kolya, this story is representative of so many of the other characters throughout the collection. Though he seems to be hallucinating, Kolya speaks with a sense of spiritualized clarity, as evidenced in this passage:
I float toward this forever night, this starlit amnesia. The nightmares ceased not long after the capsule passed the rings of Saturn. I no longer see visions. Perhaps I have become one. Through the observation portal, I watch the darkness that has dreamed me (322).
Drifting to the mystery of the afterlife, a place just as unpredictable and unexplainable as the physical world Kolya inhabited, he narrates his experience with an unabashed sense of wonder.
The realities of the characters throughout these stories is brutal, heavy with the inheritance of violence and the scars of ill-fated political regimes. For these characters, and Kolya in particular, there is no lasting joy in Russia, which means that the only option for redemption exists in a spiritual realm. These are Kolya’s final moments, and he experiences for the first and final time what it means to simply be loved.
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By Anthony Marra
