103. (September 2021) Vita Nostra, by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko — The Tabletop Roleplayers' Book Club

Vita Nostra Q10: Gaming

NeilNjae — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 08:59:33 +0000

I knew I'd forgotten something!

How could we use this in gaming?

Is this a setting for the "magical boarding school" setting, where the PCs are students learning about their powers (and having adventures along the way)?

Could this be used as a model for how magicians are different from normal, with different ways of viewing the world and thinking about it?

Could this be the basis of a magic system? All the students seem capable of a range of abilities, such as self-transformation, psychological control, flight, manipulation of coincidence, and so on. How would Vita Nostra's magic translate into game terms?

Vita Nostra Q8: The ending

NeilNjae — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:43:05 +0000

What happened at the end of the book? What's the tower, and the final test? What did Sasha do? Why do love and fear come into it?

And, prompted by (this comment)[https://www.goodreads.com/questions/405390-what-happened-at-the-end], the book seems to echo Gnostic thoughts. Is Farit the devil and Sasha the word of creation? Are the other students and staff Gnostic Aeons, emanations of the God-Monad?

Vita Nostra Q5: Words and hypertext

NeilNjae — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:39:17 +0000

Words are a vital part of the book, with the students realising they're not human but are embodied words, and therefore have magical powers. They start their journey to the Institute controlled by the words spoken by Farit. Later, Sahsa is controlled by the threat of words coming through her pink phone. Yet at the same time, there are offhand references to how words don't matter: Sasha dismisses what she says when her mother comes to visit.

Any thoughts on these different importances of words? Are words the key to magic (again, compare with how words embody magic for Harry Potter and Ged, versus mystic/shamanic magic by intuition).

Magic in Vita Nostra is word-based and referred to as hypertext. Other authors, notably Charlie Stross, have posited that we're returning to a demon-haunted world (voice controlled smart devices) controlled by wizards who have immense power from inscribing occult words (programmers). Is that an appropriate reading for the magic in the book? Is it an analogy for our increasingly digitised world?

Vita Nostra Q6: Structure and writing

NeilNjae — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:40:20 +0000

What did people think of the writing in the book? Was it vivid, engaging, atmospheric? Were you able to suspend your disbelief? (And bear in mind this is a work in translation.)

What about the structure? The book is divided into three parts, but there are no chapters within that. Did the lack of structure help you get drawn into the book or were you disoriented by the ceaseless barrage of events?

Vita Nostra Q2: Magic school

NeilNjae — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:35:39 +0000

Vita Nostra is about a child who goes to boarding school to learn magic and exceeds all expectation. The Harry Potter books are about a child who goes to boarding school to learn magic and exceeds all expectation. The Wizard of Earthsea is about a child who goes to boarding school to learn magic and exceeds all expectation.

I think these three books are rather different.

Are there any similarities to draw between these magical school stories? Is that a sensible thing to do? Why are magical schools a common theme? Are they just a nerd-troped school?

Vita Nostra Q9: What else

NeilNjae — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:44:39 +0000

There's more to the book than I've covered in the questions. What else should we be talking or thinking about?

Vita Nostra Q1: Coming of age

NeilNjae — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:34:57 +0000

I read this book as a story of Sasha transitioning from the predictable, controlled world of childhood to the complex and incomprehensible adult world. Is this a reading that others got? Is Sasha's transformation a believable one (in terms of how she changes, not necessarily the magic)? Do you think that the Institute's tasks (memorisation of pages of gibberish and visualising impossible geometry) are good analogies navigating adulthood? What about the idea that "adults" (the school academic staff) aren't human? Are children and adults really that different?

And why are coming-of-age stories so popular and common? Is this a feature of genre fiction, and something that keeps it from being better literature?

Vita Nostra Q4: Russia

NeilNjae — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:38:36 +0000

The book is written by Ukranians and set in Russia. How much of the setting came through in the book? What struck you as different from Western Europe or North America, and what was the same? How would the story have been different if it were set in say the US Midwest, or the Scottish Highlands?

Vita Nostra Q7: Farit and fear

NeilNjae — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:41:31 +0000

Farit is the face of fear in the book, and fear is a key emotion in it. Students are recruited through fear and being compelled to perform difficult, but "not impossible" tasks. Once at the Institute, they are kept ignorant of what awaits them, increasing their fear. Farit continues to stalk the institute, inducing fear in all the students.

Is fear the only, or correct, or normal, way to feel when confronted by the sublime? Was fear and coercion the correct way to help the students become words?

Vita Nostra Q3: Sasha and Kostya (etc)

NeilNjae — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:37:51 +0000

Sasha is the main figure in the story, but Kostya accompanies her on the journey. Did you think these characters were well-drawn and believable? Did they act in mostly appropriate ways?

Sasha changed in many ways. She started off homesick but eventually became desperate to return to the Institute. She became powerful. She learnt that her powers exceeded her control. She learnt to ask for and accept help. She learnt to help others (Kostya) and when she couldn't (Yegor). She learnt to accept instruction, and later to forge her own path. Kostya goes through his own journey, including love and marriage.

How do their two journeys relate? And why were they not allowed to consummate their romance?

What about the other characters in the book? Were they believable, acting in appropriate ways?

Gnosticism

NeilNjae — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 11:13:14 +0000

I stumbled across a comment about Vita Nostra that the book refers to Gnosticism, a common trope from Russian-language SF. I thought it might be something to bear in mind, especially if you're still reading the book.

The "Characteristics" and "Concepts" sections from the Wikipedia article seem to be a decent, quick orientation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism#Characteristics

We'll talk about it in the general discussion.

Book blurb from Amazon

RichardAbbott — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 11:26:12 +0000

_Our life is brief...
_
Sasha Samokhina has just met Farit Kozhenikov and her life will never be the same again.

Whilst on holiday, Sasha is asked by the mysterious Farit to undertake a strange task for him. Reluctantly, she obliges, and is rewarded with a shining golden coin. The more tasks she performs, the more coins Sasha receives until Farit instructs her – against the wishes of her family – to travel to a remote village and use her gold to gain entrance to the Institute of Special Technologies.

Sasha quickly discovers this is no ordinary school. The books are impossible to read, the lessons obscure to the point of maddening, and the knowledge itself refuses to be remembered. Despite this, Sasha undergoes changes that defy matter and time; with experiences that are nothing like what she could have dreamed of before… but which are suddenly all she could ever want.

But this learning comes at a cost. The school uses terror and coercion to keep students in line: should they transgress at all, their families pay a terrible price…

A complex blend of adventure, magic, science, and philosophy, expressed through a distinctly Russian voice, this astonishing story will transport the reader to a place far beyond imagining.