Bardo or Not Bardo

One of Volodine’s funniest books, Bardo or Not Bardotakes place in his universe of failed revolutions, radical shamanism, and off-kilter nomenclature.

In each of these seven vignettes, someone dies and has to make his way through the Tibetan afterlife, also known as the Bardo, where souls wander for forty-nine days before being reborn with the help of the Book of the Dead.

Unfortunately, Volodine’s characters bungle their chances at enlightenment: the newly dead end up choosing to waste away their afterlife sleeping or to be reborn as an insignificant spider. The living aren’t much better off and make a mess of things in their own way, to the point of mistaking a Tibetan cookbook for the holy book.

Once again, Volodine has demonstrated his range and ambition, crafting a moving, hysterical work about transformations and the power of the book.