Margarita Perveņecka - "a story that is inextricably intertwined with a number of scientific disciplines such as molecular biology, chaos theory, organic chemistry, crystallography, genetic engineering, and string theory. Besides that, it is also one of the weirdest novels I have ever read."

 

Margarita Perveņecka, Aspirantūra [Graduate

School], 2023

A long-awaited new work by Margarita Pervenetska is difficult to read or use for some other, as yet unaddressed need, but for the comfort of the reader, we can say that writing it was obviously no less agonizing and humanly impossible process. Stylizing a scientific method of clarifying the world and oneself, the author has created a comprehensive cosmo-psychological puzzle that can be scrolled from practically any place, looking at a random place or reading in the opposite direction, thus avoiding the paralyzing feeling that "you don't understand anything" and attempts to "separate back" and " read it again' only makes it more complicated. You can start small, you can pay attention to the texture, read with a sense of touch, tasting the rough sophistication of the text and the roughness of the easily flowing sentences. Observing what kind of books people are reading in public transport recently – a manual of life strategy models, a collection of formulas for the cosmic structure of the soul and similar tools for applied brain vivisection – I would like to recommend that you also try to put this novel in the outer pocket of your everyday backpack. For relaxation. [by Google translate]

Ever since I first learnt about C. P. Snow’s lecture The Two Cultures and the heated debate around it, I have been fascinated by the possibilities offered by any text or work of art that could bridge the notorious gap between the sciences and humanities. I truly believe that the great literary masterpiece of the twenty-first century, as paradigm-shifting as Joyce’s Ulysses, will be written by someone who would combine a profound knowledge of maths and science with virtuosic stylistic capabilities. So far, out of all the authors who have tried to bridge the gap, Thomas Pynchon has proved to be the most accomplished and persuasive. The blending of scientific discourse with the literary, historical, and social contexts both in Gravity’s Rainbow and Against the Day is nothing short of a triumph in taming the two cultures. We shouldn’t forget, of course, that Pynchon is in the rare position of having a background in both: before joining the Navy, where he was trained as an electrician, he had two years of studying engineering physics at Cornell under his belt, whereas, upon returning to the university, he switched to English and graduated with a humanities degree. We can also find the creative recourse to scientific ideas in the works of Tom Stoppard, Don DeLillo, Richard Powers, David Foster Wallace, and probably a dozen more other authors for whom science plays more than just a decorative role. A combination of stylistic mastery and a deep understanding of scientific concepts which we find, for example, in Gravity’s Rainbow, is an especially rare thing. It is quite often the case that the sense of style and the knack for sophisticated writing are outweighed by the inability to understand scientific concepts or, inversely, scientific expertise stumbles upon utter helplessness when it comes to style and diction (think of all the terrible sentences produced by scientists who became Sci-Fi authors). Perhaps the most telling recent example of a famous writer of fiction deliberately seeking to immerse himself into science for the benefit of his work was Cormac McCarthy, who was associated with the Santa Fe Institute for more than thirty years and had an opportunity to learn about cutting-edge scientific research directly from the likes of Murray Gell-Mann. McCarthy’s last two novels The Passenger and Stela Maris, which were conceived and written in the environment of intellectual cross-pollination fostered by the interdisciplinary think tank in New Mexico, are yet another addition to the growing body of literary works attempting to bridge the gap between the two cultures. Compared to the majority of fiction published every year, there are very few novels that seriously engage with scientific ideas and go beyond the simplistic metaphors of pop-sci bestsellers by incorporating the respective technical vocabulary that is likely to scare off nine out of ten readers. I am always on the lookout for a such novel because it promises to teach me something new and, possibly, lead me somewhere beyond the ordinary, the historical, and the political—to some compelling realm created at the crossing points of scientific and humanist pursuits. The Latvian author Margarita Perveņecka’s massive philosophical science fiction novel Graduate School fits the bill perfectly for me. This book, which required many years of labour and was finally published in 2023, seems to be equally inspired by Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Behind the black cover modestly adorned with a cross-section of the Calabi–Yau manifold, one will find a story that is inextricably intertwined with a number of scientific disciplines such as molecular biology, chaos theory, organic chemistry, crystallography, genetic engineering, and string theory. Besides that, it is also one of the weirdest novels I have ever read. It has passages so densely packed with specialised jargon as to become borderline glossolalia for a layperson, and, on the other end of the spectrum, there are moments of mind-numbing domestic mundanity which work like nails on a chalkboard. But, in addition to those, there are poetic passages of filigreed wordsmithery and depictions of transcendental visions that take one’s breath away. At its darkest moments, the narrative delves into episodes of eye-searing cruelty and depravity, along with shocking surreal vignettes that the reader is unlikely to forget. The novel as a whole is a huge puzzle that does not give away its secrets readily and requires multiple readings. During my first reading, it was barely comprehensible, and only when I finished a re-read, I picked enough connections to make sense of what actually goes on although I cannot claim a complete understanding, and many things that I have to say about Graduate School are the product of my interpretation.
The main setting of the novel is an alternative version of Earth that saw major technological advances much earlier than we did. In that fictional world, space travel and genetic engineering were made possible already in the 19th century. The novel begins in the future, probably some 300 years from now, but, as things develop, we get more glimpses of the events which took place in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The society of the future is highly stratified, with the technocratic elite whose name I would translate as “alphanumerics” (ciburi) at the top. The highest echelon of the alphanumerics resides above Earth and holds the political and economic power over its inhabitants. It is not entirely clear where exactly these rulers live, so my best guess would be some kind of advanced space stations orbiting the planet. The alphanumerics regard consciousness as a biochemical product that can be modified in different ways and transferred from one body to another. A total opposite of the materialist ruling class is a small apolitical group of menticulturists (prātkopji). As the name suggests, these individuals are dedicated to the nurturing of their intellectual and cognitive abilities; in fact, they do little else as the mind is both the tool and the object of their contemplation and exploration. The most accomplished menticulturists also live above the planet guiding their earth-bound disciples called aspirants, those who aspire by the rigorous and continuous mental practices to rise to the level of their mentors with the ultimate goal of leaving the material world altogether and blending in with the universe of pure Platonic forms. Immediately below the alphanumerics is the large community of the holists. We do not learn that much about them except that they have been responsible for integrating the scientific achievements of both the alphanumerics and the menticulturists in a new education system. Then follow the lowest: those who never progressed beyond undergraduate studies and therefore are limited to a rather dull existence of satisfying their basic needs. Having a Bachelor’s diploma or its analogue is not enough to make it in this learning-obsessed meritocracy. However, the lowest are not at the very bottom of society as their name may suggest. The truly lowest place is reserved for the dregs (padibenes), people with either rudimentary education or no education at all who live in densely populated communities; their concerns never rise above the first step of the Maslow pyramid.
The main characters of the first part titled The First Transcendental Equation: Vector Solution are vaguely humanoid individuals each of whom is designated by the letter V with a number next to it, like a vector component. In most cases, they are alone in a classroom attacking some problem on the blackboard covered with a thin film of some enigmatic substance. These problem-solvers are aspirants engaged in their daily pursuit of menticulture. They are often referred to as “personalisations” of certain vector components, which makes us think that their consciousness gets transplanted from one synthetic body to another. With time, it becomes apparent that the main actors of the unfolding drama are V24 and V2, both of whom, at different time periods, acquire the mysterious apartment No. 7 in the building of the former post and telegraph station that also used to house the SCCC (Space Communications Coordination and Computation) office. It takes V24 almost 11 years of hard work at an electronic data archive to earn enough money for the down payment. By the way, in this future world, all currencies are tied to the oscillations of energy generation and consumption and are measured against the universal monetary unit called ergob, which corresponds to one bit of energy. Ironically enough, at some point in the future, all V2 has to do to buy the same apartment is to breathe for thirty minutes into the tube of an energy conversion device at a bank terminal. V24 is the only employee at the archive, and his main task is to retrieve and restore as much information as possible from the heap of centuries-old hard disk drives using mathematical modelling on his hybrid computer. The archivist’s findings are of utter importance because they help us to fill in some gaps regarding the past of that civilisation, especially the crucial events that took place at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. It is thanks to the newly restored electronic files that we get our first view of the Auror Empire, which reached the heyday of its scientific development under the rule of Auror III before being dismantled by the regime of the obscurants, ardent opponents of menticulture, whose rule consigned to oblivion many technological achievements of the empire. The opening of the Space Communications office was one of the many technological breakthroughs during the reign of Auror III, who also converted the military port Aura into a “science town” with the biggest space observatory in the world. At the same period, the preparations for the first interplanetary expedition began. The post and telegraph building that has aroused the interest of the two aspirants turns out to be an important node.

- read more here:

https://theuntranslated.wordpress.com/2023/12/21/graduate-school-aspirantura-by-margarita-pervenecka/

Margarita Perveņecka (1976) is a Latvian playwright and writer. In 2001, Perveņecka graduated from the Latvian Academy of Culture with a BA in film and theater, and since then has been publishing her writing, working for various creative platforms, and writing screenplays. Her first collection, All the Trees Have Gone, was published in 2006. Perveņecka has written several plays for theaters 
in Latvia: Ludwig’s Project was directed by Dž. Dž. Džilindžers in 2004 for Daile Theatre; orget-Me-Not Sausage Paper was performed at the TT Theatre (titled Ņezabudka Vulgaris, directed by Lauris Gundars, 2002); Civil Chain was produced at ACUD Kunst Haus in Berlin (directed by Inga Rozentāle in 2002). Her writing stands out with her unusual ways of perceiving the world,
her use of scientific terms, internationalisms, neologisms, and other peculiar and poetic mean