Another bearer of cynical knowledge about the all-too-human is Vladimir Sorokin. The previously published collection "Zaplyv" (titled after a short story of the same name) includes works from the 70s and 80s. These texts can already be considered classics for the author: they are recognizable as the signature deautomatization of late Soviet reality. Meaningless ritualistic actions, illustrating the Soviet rapture over the disintegration of individuality among the masses, the emptiness of life, and doublethink, turn into a slap in the face for Sorokin, forcing the reader to see the gaps in the absurdity of the reality that seems to still surround them. 

"A long column of muscular naked people, lined up on the City embankment, swayed and came to life with a barely noticeable movement: a thousand hands darted to a thousand shaved temples, snatched a thousand matches from behind their ears and struck them across a thousand bare thighs."