In society

Memory of Peter Vile

December 15, 2009 Viktor Shenderovich

Today they say goodbye to him in Prague.

For Vail himself, this death became a deliverance (since August last year he was lying in a hopeless coma) - his friends who have already managed to realize that he, in essence, is no longer in the world, is still very difficult in these days ...

He was an amazing person - powerful, deep, who knew the price of life. Brodsky’s line “understanding life, like a bee on a hot flower” - this is about it, although it is written about another. Preparation of fish, a story about Velazquez or a walk in Prague - everything was tasty and unique, everything reminded that life was a monthly happiness.

“So that you, the darkness of hopeless, knew: the backbone is translated by the trasteuver (Tiber - Tavere). Favorite places. There are two oh .. the Churches-Santa Maria and Santa Chetil, and a little further-Palazzo Farnzin. Well, zucchini - charm, as you saw ... "

Once my wife, traveling with friends, got lost in the evening Seville. She called Wyle, and on the phone he brought her to the light of God better than any GPS, at the same time telling which restaurant should have dinner in, and what to order there, and which house not to forget to consider ...

His erudition could paralyze almost anyone, but he knew how to make overwhelming superiority did not suppress ... He tactfully led him, generously sharing the huge world, which he traveled and found out decades before most of us; Sharing poetry, painting, geography, philosophy ...

After each of his books, we became smarter and kinder on the whole Weil, and this is a very serious unit of dimension. And he himself grew up, year after year, gradually growing up from the shadows of those whom he wrote: his own human scale became more and more obvious.

The last book - “Poems about me” - detonated in me admiration, mixed with envy. How brilliantly it is written! What a variety of intonation, how easy and deep ... His irony was brilliant. Walking in his subordinates on the Radio “Freedom” was pleasure.

From the service note:

“To hope that you suddenly realize that the last time was in the“ Observer column ”three months ago and you will be ashamed is the same as counting on the public repentance of GDP for Dzerzhinsky-Yagoda-Ezhov-Beria. All of you are one gang ... "

With all his almost demonstrative epicurestvo, Weil was a man of very strict rules; There was no moral sloppiness in him . His estimates were accurate and, if necessary, ruthless.

A week before trouble, August 20, 2008, he sent me a text dedicated to the fortieth anniversary of the “Tanks in Prague”.

They knew such Vail and know - very few.

“To regret them, that is, us - and those who did all this, and who approved, and who was silent, and who does not want and cannot repent, and who spoke and talks about expediency . There is no expediency in the world. There is good and evil. And if you do not know how to distinguish one from the other, then your existence is inappropriate ... "

Sorry for us left without Peter Vile.

Photos of RIA Novosti