Between Homo and Ludens: The Dichotomy of Subjectivity in The Snail on the Slope

The Strugatsky brothers' novel Snail on the Slope (Ulitka na sklone, 1966-68) marks a turning point in the imagining of utopian subjectivity in the Soviet context. This paper argues that the ubiquitous instability in previously coherent subject-positions emphasizes the ludic aspects of realism which become a central feature of the Strugatskys’ later work, most strikingly illustrated through their exploration of the concept of homo ludens. Late-Soviet science fiction’s incorporation of ludic elements point to the problematics of novelistic subjectivity in an era when the utopian ambition of creating a New Soviet Man came under increasing scrutiny. The crisis of the liberal subject-position in the post-Thaw Soviet Union is dramatized within the dichotomous, complementary relationship between institutional enmeshment and absolute alienation, first articulated in Snail but carried forward into their later work. Through its extensive meditations on the possibility of the utopian, its treatment of split characterization, and the halting, recursive trajectories of its parallel plots, Snail engages with the tension underlying the ludic underpinnings of narrative subjectivity in the Soviet context. This paper, alongside other papers in this cluster, demonstrates the way literature and games have both been called upon to address the problem and possibility of agency for the subjects they create.