If you haven't played "Disco Elysium", stop reading this, go buy it and play it. You will thank me later. For those of you who, naturally, think DE is the best game ever made, this is the book where the Elysium world was first created by its author Robert Kurvitz. Kurvitz was recently unceremoniously kicked out of ZA/UM that he founded, by a bunch of Estonian crooks and criminals (called "businessmen" in Eastern Europe), so now he is busy suing instead of creating more of this wonderful world, to the chagrin of all of us.
Let me get this clear: Kurvitz was probably a horrible boss at ZA/UM. Hell, he spent most of his life in a drunken stupor and doing every single drug he could get his hands on, but that's nothing to do with his creative genius and his creation of the world of Elysium. It should not have been stolen from him, no matter anyone's opinion on his moral qualities.
This is one of of the two English translations done by 'fans', i.e. it is not official or copyrighted or making any money for Kurvitz, so it is freely available on Reddit. This is the IBEX Group translation, which people say it is more readable, although the "other" one has some original artwork from Elysium. Estonian is not an easy language to translate, and Kurvitz included generous doses of Russian, Polish, Swedish, Finnish, and other, so it makes the translator's job even more complicated.
The book is very difficult to read, despite the efforts of the translators. Legend says that Kurvitz worked on it for 5 years and was expecting it to make him world famous. When it sold less than 1,000 copies, he went on a drinking binge that lasted for a while. Although the topics and characters are amazing, one can plainly see why the book didn't sell. About half of it is a torture to read. It is more like a poetic philosophical nihilistic treatise written in Iambic pentameter, rather than a novel. He expected too much from the reader. The modern reader wants the New York Times bestsellers with short sentences, cartoonish characters and a plot that a 4-year-old can understand.
The main plot is about the disappearance of the Lund sisters (4 of them), all in early teenage years or less, who might or might not have been abducted, raped, surgically operated on, surgically attached to each other (why does this remind me of the "Human Centipede"?) and might or might not existed at all. Yes, it is that kind of a novel. The three friends who 'dated' the girls in their early teens, are now in their mid 30s and trying to solve the greatest mystery from their childhoods. Except that they are not.
The world of the isolas and the Pale, with its all-consuming qualities is so well described you almost feel you are there. Even if there is no "there". The magnetic hanging trains, the ZA/UM ampules for reading minds, the post-communism of Kras Mazov, the Innocences, the nations, Katla, Graad, Mesque, Samara, Seoul, Revachol, kojkos and kipts and all other elements of Elysium live and breathe as a complete, believable world. There is no connection to the characters and events of Disco Elysium, but most of the background characters are there. It happens two decades after the time of DE (Elysium 1950s), and just before the nuclear holocaust on Revachol by Mesque.
A must read for every fan of Disco Elysium, even if it is painful at times (plenty of times). After all, Harrier du Bois would want you to read it, and you can't let Harry down, can you?
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