Alexander Ageev. Hunger 72

Hunger 72
Practical gastroenterology reading

Alexander Ageev

Publication date: April 17, 2002

Yes , as Roman Leibov said in the forum, “ it’s interesting here .” We started with Prokhanov and Olshansky (reasons, to be honest, were so-so, of limited usefulness), and then we started cutting for life - “ liberalism ”, “ conservatism ”, “ patriotism ”, “ shameful 90s ” and other fresh stuff repertoire of Dmitry Lvovich B. Since Dmitry Lvovich is impatient, and he violated our convention not to remember each other in vain, I will have to say something about him.

About Prokhanov, however, he judged correctly - in a literary sense, the editor-in-chief of "Zavtra" is no one's name. Why everyone got so excited precisely because of his last novel is a great mystery. Thank God, every year a solid opus was regularly published, and the “metaphors” and “energy” in them were of exactly the same sort - clinical-military. Moreover, in secret and by the right of a person who has been living and reading books in this world for quite a long time, I will say: twenty years ago, when Dima Olshansky still did not know how to read and write and, therefore, did not have time to be overloaded with the wisdom of Konstantin Leontyev, when Lev Pirogov he dealt with defecation in private, and not in public, and when Dmitry Lvovich B. was an exemplary pioneer and zealous reader of the magazine "Yunost", Alexander Prokhanov, in the same way, published novels from year to year.

How did Olshansky put it? " True literature discusses only two topics - Death and Power "? That's it: on instructions from the authorities (and at the behest of the heart, which happily coincided - can you imagine what harmony was then destroyed!) Alexander Andreevich went to where it smells of death - to Afghanistan, to Nicaragua, and where, in a word, is his native Lubyanka she let in blood, weapons, tough guys, and passionately praised all this exoticism, spicy for the Soviet stagnant years. This, you see, was the home-grown Kipling, only he did not paint the “burden of the white man,” but the “burden of the Soviet man,” who comes in a “peaceful armored personnel carrier” to plant “a tree in the center of Kabul.” That was the name of his novel, published by Roman-Gazeta with a million copies. The bosses of this enthusiastic vulture loved passion.

If anything has changed in twenty years in Prokhanov’s, so to speak, creativity, it is geography: you no longer have to travel far to find death, and the authorities abandoned their concern for their troubadour, weakened and allowed themselves to be “discussed.” Here the hysterics increased: they say, who did you leave me for? And since the institute of literary editing fell into decay after perestroika, it became completely impossible to read Prokhanov.

By the way, who told Olshansky that Death and Power are some different topics? Power is a special case of death, and most often shameful and, in any case, graceless.

In a word, it’s funny to talk about Prokhanov seriously - Vladimir Tuchkov is absolutely right when he succinctly described the “plot” and the reasons for his unexpected appearance in the field of discussion. This is not about ideals - this is about interests, and small, seasonal ones at that.

The position of "Ex Libris" is somewhat more amusing: back at the end of February, Zotov used Prokhanov's novel as a killer argument against anemic "liberal" literature (and posed as an "aesthete", and the schadenfreude was heard as purely "ideological"), and next to him sat Pirogov and groaned, giving birth to his “post-intellectualism” . The “theoretical” gilding on this gnarled club quickly peeled off, and what a simple plagiarism it was: “How to shoot well.” So, Lev, do you like to “watch children die”? How do you artistically twist this in “Ex Libris”: “ A society in which there is no cult of death, which is ruled only by the voluptuous Eros, is not capable of reproduction: either you want to save money, or “live for yourself.” And vice versa, the more men there are are ready to die in war, the more women are ready to give birth... The value of an individual life is meaningless - only the idea to which this life is subordinated matters ."

The man suffered and suffered, he polluted all the editorial offices where he was not tolerated for long with his “discourse” - they thought the creative process proceeded so paradoxically for him - and all this in order to repeat such greasy vulgarity. Who are these abstract “men” of yours? Maybe it's you and Olshansky? So go ahead! There are still places to fight in Russia, and maybe they will allow you to shoot. But for starters, we should at least take up physical education, or something. What Yukio Mishima did during it. But he was a real man, no one will deny.

Since I still have Goldstein’s book “Aspects of Spiritual Marriage” in my head, by the way, I’ll quote something from there about Mishima: “ But out of a December morning, it’s not a self-made philosopher who runs out onto the path of a stadium in Tokyo, but a novice who has not been killed to this day, to this day, resurrected and life-giving hope - the hope to arrange the hated icons on paper so that they are stained with blood, and, on the contrary, to stretch the body along the lines so that it becomes new, physically filled with the Word, a person who has devoted himself to the pure word can only imagine. tragedy, he is not worthy of participation in it. Literary people will never ascend to the heights of the Tragic, for this requires - the author is insightful to the point of cynicism - special physical courage, pain, intoxication, an excess of not at all tragic vitality, ignorance and inability to live ."

But in the end - don’t forget - you still have to open your stomach. But first, at least - “to the stadium track.” Because not every body can be “ stretched along the lines .” Mishima, roughly speaking, “responsible for the market,” and it’s funny to read how “literary people” do nothing other than spank the keyboard, incapable, serviceable “table climbers” on all freebies (this, one must assume, is something like “ not at all tragic vitality ”), they begin to indulge in words. These words do not smell of blood, but of ketchup and onions.

And yet, with what comic importance it was said: “ Dry your gunpowder, gentlemen. See you in Russian Literature .” Who would let such nonsense into Russian literature? Perhaps to the magazine "Liza" - with a three-month probationary period. Pirogov does a great job with girls - maybe when he wants: “ Where are all the flowers?” The girls took them to cemeteries, yes ." And then the rewriters will add optimism.

In a word, I feel sorry for the newspaper. Pirogov very cheerfully rattles the keys to the editor’s office in his LiveJournal :

" I have a grant! My BAB is throwing fucking BABKs at me.

I’m already sitting at the table of Zotov, who has been leaked to Russia’s friends.

I already have the key to his office. In this connection, next Thursday in the enemy (Russia) leaflet read:

- “How to shoot well” - about the primacy of the national idea over fucking universal human values

- “How I became a Black Hundred” - transfer of ex-traitor Mitya Olshansky to the camp of Russian People

If the Russian People don't get Berezovsky before next Thursday. But we are working on it.

And then we’ll go with Lemon to Kazakhstan.

And all the fucking intellectual rot will draw a wall newspaper and suck our dicks ."

Then, however, the poor man was tormented by bad premonitions, which, of course, would come true. In general, a wonderful lyricist has disappeared from Pirogov:

“ I began my acquaintance with French cuisine about thirty kilometers after the border, at a gas station - I really wanted to eat, as always.

From behind the glass of the refrigerated display cases, identical salads with even seemingly sour mayonnaise, wrapped in “food grade” polyethylene, stared at me blankly. Under one of the wrappers a fly suffered martyrdom. I decided to postpone my acquaintance with cooking until Paris.

But in Paris, it turned out, it was August, and oysters can only be eaten in months that have the letter “er,” and in August there was none, and in general I was too hungry and poor for cooking. As a result, the feeding took place, of course, in Clichy, among the Pakistanis (or Meskhitians, or, in short, Turks). They brought me such a fucking plate of MEAT that if heaven exists anywhere, this is what it must look like. I wish I could go to these Turks now...

And quite unexpectedly, powerful borscht was served in one thousand and ninety-one in Kiev on Andreevsky Spusk ."

This is exactly what “Lisa” needs, and there is no point in fooling people with Eros and Thanatos.

Humorous figures - Prokhanov, Olshansky, Pirogov - can indeed be dismissed with light humor .

But the great and mighty Dmitry Bykov, who never takes off his white tailcoat (that’s his overalls), rushed to the defense of stupid Olshansky, who is wasting his own biography in vain. And our puny “Black Hundred” immediately snuck behind his wide back: I don’t like, they say, your liberal free verse, but I love D. Bykov’s poems! Which, as you know (that is, as he says to himself, borrowing from Blok) “the artist, therefore, is not a liberal.”

And Bykov, in order to smear his dear friend at least a little, creates a funky ideological broth, where he himself dictates the content and meaning of each generally accepted concept. What, for example, is liberalism? “ Liberalism,” Bykov categorically brings pure blizzard , “by definition, should make a person happier, and his existence more comfortable, because it is based on traditional, old European humanism, which places man at the center of the universe. Liberalism is a comfortable existence under the canopy of the law .” By whose “definition” is this concept not even marginally including the key word “freedom”? It is precisely well-fed slavery that makes a person “happier,” while the area of ​​freedom is an anxious, conflicting place that does not promise any comfort. That is why the 90s, despite their severity, were still mostly happy for normal liberals (and not “artists” like Bykov), despite the poverty and disgusting moral atmosphere. And what should the atmosphere be like if Bykov’s dearly beloved (read his novel) Soviet of Deputies had just died and the corpse of its “greatness” (this is what, according to Bykov, the country should strive for) stank unbearably?

Bykov writes: “ We agree that there was no smell of liberalism in the era of price liberalization, if only because none of us at that time felt freer. There was, of course, a layer 0.05 percent thick, which during the day worked as PR people and marketing managers, and spent the nights hanging out in clubs ." No, we won't agree. Although Bykov, of course, knows better about “PR people” - after all, he worked for the owners all his life, including in elections. But, for example, I spent the entire 90s in the editorial office of a poor “thick magazine” - and I definitely felt freer, and I simply wanted to sneeze at the “having fun in clubs” - they weren’t in my mind and I didn’t have them the desire to count money in their pockets, that is, to envy. And even more so to do what Bykov was doing then: using the owner’s money to strip the owners down to their underwear in front of the public. Our hero had such a specific “anti-bourgeoisism”.

After all, it is only Bykov, in the careless awareness of his magnificence, who can so luxuriously expose himself, linking “freedom” with “happiness” in the sense of “wealth” and “prosperity”: “ But the majority of the Russian population, including those who by their very social status seems to be the very electoral base of liberals, liberalism did not bring the slightest happiness: firstly, one had to earn one’s bread by the sweat of one’s brow, with results disproportionately modest, and secondly, talent and humanity not only did not serve a guarantee of prosperity, but this prosperity was directly excluded ." How else should you earn your bread? When and where were “talent and humanity” a “guarantee” of anything other than a person’s personal dignity?

Who, in a word, explained liberalism to Bykov so strangely?

However, I hope that now Dmitry Lvovich has enough money. “ As a person ” he is not an “ artist ”, but a “ liberal ” - in the sense described above.

Bykov fed well on the enmity of the “left” and “right” all decade, and now he struck a pose and flirted: “ Really, sometimes you feel like the current regime - because both the left and the right can’t stand me in the same way, and if they knew how mutual it was! "Ah-ah! After this, it is reasonable to conclude that now there are no “left” and “right”, but who is there? Dmitry Bykov and the “current regime” - and the extremely complex relationship between them.

Dmitry Lvovich in general is greatly let down by his growing complacency by leaps and bounds. So brilliant and magnificent, he is probably very lonely, and therefore he listens to every word to himself that even remotely resembles praise absolutely blindly, without feeling the author’s intonations and context. For probably a year now, he has been wearing my review of his masterful work in the novel genre (actually mocking, and I did not at all hide my dislike for the author and the structure of his thoughts) like a medal on his chest, commemorating it at every opportunity. I won’t delve into old forums now, but it sounded something like this: I don’t care what brainless fools say about my novel, it’s enough for me that Nemzer and Ageev appreciated it! Well, let’s say Nemzer had some kind of ambivalence, but I never dreamed of becoming one of the comforters of Bykov’s vanity. However, man has a great thirst for self-delusion!

As for the “National Bestseller,” I never tire of praising myself for my foresight, for immediately refusing to participate in this farce. I don’t even mind that Prokhanov receives this prize - and from the hands of Khakamada. At least they won’t stick this party lady under my nose as the plenipotentiary representative of liberalism. A certain number of fools and scoundrels are still not able to spoil the idea, which, thank God, has not suffered so much.