Iprit

In 1925, Vsevolod Ivanov and Viktor Shklovsky wrote a science fiction novel, "Iprit". This novel became the only joint work of two talented and famous authors, and was soon undeservedly forgotten. Undeservedly because it is a burlesque, a phantasmagoria, written stylishly, in a deliberately careless cursive language, and the text flies forward, not noticing the deliberately careless joints. And so the main character on board a sinking ship pulls a Mauser out of thin air, a German spy switches places with a Chinese communist pursuing him, a small clerk is first declared a god and then chained up, a bear is imprisoned and then turned into a millionaire, and a man suddenly turns out to be a woman... The novel contains many references to the works of the authors themselves ("Armored Train 14-69"), as well as to the works of contemporaries, starting with Platonov's "The Foundation Pit" and ending with Krasnov's "Thistle".