Babylen Tatarsky, graduate student and poet, has been tossed onto the streets after the fall of the Soviet Union where he soon learns his true calling: developing Russian versions of western advertisements. But the more he succeeds as a copywriter, the more he searches for meaning in a culture now d

Babylen Tatarsky, graduate student and poet, has been tossed onto the streets after the fall of the Soviet Union where he soon learns his true calling: developing Russian versions of western advertisements. But the more he succeeds as a copywriter, the more he searches for meaning in a culture now defined by material possessions and self-indulgence. In his quest, Tatarsky sees coincidences that suggest a pattern and a hidden meaning behind the chaos of life. Eventually, Tatarsky begins to realize that all of politics and "real" events broadcasted on television are digital creations. But he can never quite discover the ultimate force behind these fabrications. When at last he reaches the top of the corporate pyramid, Tatarsky learns that the members of his firm are servants of the goddess Ishtar, whose corporeal form consists of the totality of advertising images.