This book has many layers. And what I find particularly nice about it is that it's fully enjoyable regardless if you stay on the top layer, enjoying a smooth and quite humourus ride, or if you choose to go deeper to engulf yourself in the more multifaceted symbolisms.

When being close to finish the book I was firmly settled for a 4/5 rating, but after reading the very interesting afterword, which provides additional context and tells the story of the early work and revisions that lead up to the finished book, I decided that it was worth of a 5/5.

I have to say that there were parts of the intended symbolism that I really did not fully understand, or interpreted differently, on my readthrough. But that indeed seems to be part of the book's identity, as Boris Strugatsky also appears to imply in the afterword:

"And the question is this: Should we, the authors, consider it a failure that an idea that helped us make the novel multifaceted and deep was never really understood by the reader? I don't know. I only know that there exist many interpretations of The Snail on the Slope, many of which are totally internally consistent and in no way contradict the text. So maybe it's actually a good thing that this work generates very different responses from a wide variety of people? And maybe the more interpretations there are, the more reason there is to consider the work successful?"

Nuts.

3.5. Very bizarre, surreal, dreamlike. Deserves a re-read in the future.

I really wanted to like this one - but I've seen it done so much better. Still, some stars for the fact that it is a book written in 1965 - really early for such an experimental sf work, especially with such a focus (which unfortunately does not work ...) on gender dynamics.

Odličan SF kao i uvek kod braće Strugacki. Dva potpuno različita sveta koji se prepliću, birokratski Kafkaesque grad i šuma u kojoj svi konstantno pričaju gluposti. Nije uopšte na temu priroda protiv industrije ili tako nešto, iako izgleda tako. Momenat koji mi je ostao u glavi, s obzirom na to da review pišem nekoliko nedelja kasnije, je glavni lik koji se nalazi u šumi i koji se svakoga dana seti da je trebao nešto da uradi i krene da se napreže i kritički razmišlja i seti se da mora da ode do Grada i onda zove ljude da idu sa njim i oni mu kažu da da krećemo za dva dana i onda usput od tih silnih razgovora on to zaboravi i tako svaki dan, genijalno, preporučujem.

E da, bude baš nerazumnih stvari, ne znam da li su simbolika ili nešto, samo sam ih uzeo zdravo za gotovo.

Was hoping for more mystery/grotesque forest happenings, but they didn't happen :( never really got into it, and the metaphysics dialogs were never really my thing