Nuts and Bolts, Golden Orbs, and Concrete Walls: Things in Roadside Picnic

This paper seeks to discuss the representational objects of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic through Bill Brown’s idea of thing theory, which creates a distinction between an object and a thing based on the functionalities and relationships between individuals and their possessions, both through their semiotic nature and the ritualistic practices which encompass the creation and possession of a ‘thing’. Doing so allows Roadside Picnic’s first contact narrative to be read through an understanding of the reflective and introspective qualities of things, and the ways in which things reflect cultural values and realities of twentieth century life in the Soviet Union. Within the discussion of the objects of the text, the landscapes which define the text will be observed as equally important representations of humanity’s struggle with knowledge and control. The things of Roadside Picnic will also be discussed under the context of their representations of human intelligence, and the difficulties that surface in the attempt to recognize intelligence in a first contact situation.