In a short story by this author, a character yells whimsical expletives like “Shitomometer!” and “Foolodancius!” before meeting a man with a “large, mealy-white, pear-shaped face.” For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this author of the story “Red Pyramid.” Near the end of a novel by this author, men have sex in a “caterpillar” formation while shouting “Hail!”
ANSWER: Vladimir Sorokin [or Vladimir Georgiyevich Sorokin] (The novel is The Day of the Oprichnik.)
[10m] In “Red Pyramid,” Yura misses one of these events by taking a train to Fryazino instead of Fryazevo. In a Dostoevsky novella, Yakov Golyadkin meets his double after being kicked out of one of these events.
ANSWER: birthday parties [or a birthday party; prompt on dinner party by asking “for what sort of occasion?”; reject answers mentioning a “name day”]
[10e] In another Sorokin story, Burmistrov claims to have subsisted on only horse soup for seven years while in one of these places. In a novel, Kilgas the Latvian and the Baptist Alyoshka live in one of these places.
ANSWER: gulag [accept correctional labor camps or clear equivalents, such as forced labor camps, work camps, or prison camps] (The novel is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.)
<Arya Karthik, European Literature>