Metro 2033 thoughts

I don’t know about you guys but I cruised by the Metro 2033 craze in school. It just didn’t grab my interest. The game was a whole phenomenon, anyone who had a good pc or a console ended up getting it and playing it. One kid (I even remember who, Pierre) ended up passing through the class his copy of the book and I heard nothing but good things. Everyone got into Metro 2033, even the athletic guys and the emo shut-ins, its success was transversal sort of like Mass Effect.

Now, I’m 30. I bought the book on a whim because I always wanted to read one of those adventure books with a map in it. That was it really, it had a map and I don’t usually like fantasy or sci-fi so I thought sovietpunk was a good angle of approach.

Well, good news for Glukhovsky fans, I immensely enjoyed it… by the end. I gotta say, the beginning itself is *rough*, guys. The author stumbles through a metric ton of exposition in the first 50 pages that could just as easily have been drip fed throughout the story. I found Artyom’s backstory and the general setting lumped in together too fast, though I understand, a book like this is such a heavy undertaking.

However, the vignettes and small scenes that compose the story largely won me over. By the middle of the novel, I was constantly eager to see what else awaited, what insane societal scheme existed in the next station, at times I was ready to rank it next to Candide as far as odysseys go (but I get a bit enthusiastic). It was also interesting seeing the prose sharpen throughout the novel, I felt like the author got better and better as I read the book. By the end, Glukhovsky’s writing is precise, efficient and he even got better at the more sentimental passages. The rythm, shit, improved A LOT. I don’t know anything about his writing method, those are just vague impressions.

It’s a book made of highlight passages for me. Khan’s adventure with Artyom was the first moment that really grabbed my attention. And more and more good moments kept coming. I want to especially point out a few :

* The Kremlin star : what a solid moment of horror that carries so many various connotations. I found it beautifully thought out. We knew some of the horror in the book was mysterious and intangible but the Kremlin star took the cake. Something about it had an interesting contradiction in how it acted like a physical constant phenomenon yet carried an evil volition with it. Of all the supernatural horror elements, I’m impressed the most with the suspense of stalkers walking through downtown Moscow having to keep in mind to NEVER. LOOK. AT. THE STAR.
* The woman and her kid : god damn, I think I physically recoiled when she said the phrase. >!In one station, Artyom sees a small child craving rat meat. Out of pity, he turns to his mother with some money. “For the child”, he says. The mother grabs her child and yells “what kind of mother do you think I am, selling my own son?” Artyom doesn’t realize the confusion and is about to say something else, but not before she relents, smiling uncomfortably : “alright, fine ! But it has to be 20 bullets. For 30 minutes.”!<That sequence gutted me, this is some Cormac McCarthy shit. It provokes within the reader the same dilemma Artyom experiences at the time : at what point can we even argue surviving is worth it ? what a dose of Glukhose.
* The woman’s writings in the ruins on the surface.
* The Worm cult and the optimism of the hierophant. I thought it was a really well done, suspenseful sequence and the old man ended up… making a very good case for orchestrating religion !
* Underneath the Kremlin. The child.

Look, all in all, I think the author’s really strength by the end of the book is having a very, very good sense of mise en scène. It was a real page turner. But what I hoped to be a page turner also turned out to have considerable literary value that I think will influence my taste in horror and post-apocalyptic stories in the future.

I’ll likely get a hankering for more Metro down the line and check out the sequels. I have no hope for a good cinematic adaptation : it would only work in Russia and Glukhovsky’s stance on the Ukraine war made that impossible. I hear the americans pushed for an adaptation that would move the entire story to Washington and, dudes no, don’t do that.

Anyway it’s a 900 page book and I thought I needed to vent my opinion, apologies for the long post. I’m gonna listen to some Katya Lel. What are your thoughts on it ?

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by Dontevenwannacomment