This is criticism

This is criticism
Issue 6


Publication date: June 5, 2003

We continue to publish conversations with literary critics. Today the “guest” of the column is Nikolai Alexandrov .

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Russian Journal: Nikolai Dmitrievich, the other day in RJ Sergei Kostyrko, disputing the legitimacy of talking about online criticism as a special phenomenon, said: “We don’t talk while listening to Nikolai Alexandrov’s book reviews on Ekho Moskvy or listening to Alexander Shatalov showing from the TV screen new books about the phenomenon of radio and television criticism." Tell me, in your opinion, from the inside, does radio or television criticism exist as a separate phenomenon? Does anything change in the mind of a critic when he works in electronic media?

Nikolai Alexandrov: It seems to me that television and radio criticism is still inferior criticism. This is rather information, very compressed most often. Both radio and television broadcasts - if we keep in mind the formats in which I work - simply do not provide the opportunity for a lengthy statement. In this respect, by the way, online criticism is the exact opposite of “electronic” criticism. Online writing itself is different in nature, a person is not limited in his speech, the Internet can “eat” a critical text of any size.

But even if you compare radio or television criticism with paper criticism, differences still exist. Since I also act as a newspaper critic, this difference is quite obvious to me. It is more natural to discuss some serious problem or analyze some work that is important to you in writing than orally, unless several interlocutors have gathered in the studio and are participating in a lengthy discussion. But even in this case, the oral genre is significantly different; writing is more disciplined.

Another thing is that online criticism sometimes seeks to adapt the freedom of oral speech to writing and, thus, make writing somewhat different, more attractive and less academic. But even in this case, written and oral statements, of course, still remain completely different phenomena.

RJ: In your critical magazine articles, the influence of the “teleradio” annotative style is practically not felt. Despite more than ten years of experience as a journalist, in your long articles you are much more of a philologist than a journalist. Is this the result of some kind of conscious self-restraint, a conscious attitude?

N.A.: When I wrote articles, say, about Ivan Zhdanov or about the lyrics of Timur Kibirov , then, of course, I was faced with completely different tasks than when speaking on Echo. In addition, they are simply larger in volume, they require more time and more effort. Yes, it just requires a different breath. It is clear that a paper cannot be written in a day, even if it is pre-thought out. And if a phenomenon, from my point of view, deserves a serious conversation, then, of course, the philological temperament wins.

But a journalistic, reviewing statement is essentially different. A newspaper reader or radio listener does not need a detailed analysis. It is enough for him that I briefly formulate my vision of this or that work and intonationally express my attitude towards it, despite the fact that I usually try to avoid direct assessments of “good” - “bad”.

Therefore, these are completely different genres and, accordingly, a completely different approach. A large critical article can hardly be adapted for a newspaper at all. If I had to redo the same text about Zhdanov or Kibirov for the newspaper, then I would involuntarily begin to rebuild almost everything.

RJ: And for you, as a philologist, “thrown” into the journalistic environment, dealing with a mass audience, is it not humiliating to have to look for information in literature and generally adapt literature to the level of the “average” viewer or listener?

N.A.: Of course, there is nothing humiliating here. I’m not really looking for informational reasons. Rather, I summarize my reading of this or that book, trying to do it clearly and intelligibly and, at the same time, briefly enough, and, by the way, without particularly thinking about who is my listener, to whom I am communicating this information. So in “radio criticism,” from my point of view, there is no problem of adaptation, there is no attempt at reconciliation with a different intellectual or educational level.

This is a kind of aphoristic letter. Sometimes, of course, there are repetitions, the same techniques are transferred from one text to another. But at the heart of such a letter is an attempt to clearly formulate at least one thought about a given work of art. And this requires the ability to clearly say what this text is about, what its attractiveness and advantages are. Critical works often lack all this; often in articles that are much more extensive in scope than the texts heard on the air, there is not a single thought.

RJ: Okay, but if you look at this problem differently: isn’t it humiliating for literature to present itself as an informational occasion? Isn’t it humiliating for a writer to have to “promote” his work, and for literature in general to build a literary process as a chain of reasons to which the media can pay attention?

N.A.: In general, it seems to me that literature can always stand up for itself. It is clear that there are artificial values ​​or inflated values ​​that are deliberately trying to be promoted. Some people try to earn status by simply buying it: buying space in the newspaper, buying positive reviews of their works. But these are extremes, and everything more or less worthwhile already declares itself.

The fact is that in addition to the large writing community, there is a fairly attentive critical community that closely monitors what is happening in literature. Any more or less intelligible text, even of an average level, immediately attracts attention and immediately becomes an information source. Simply because the shortage of high-quality literature - we have to say using these very terms - intended for a normal, more or less educated reader, is still constantly felt.

And attempts at artificial promotion, as a rule, lead to nothing. Well, at least the story of last year with Prokhanov’s “ Mr. Hexogen ”. An absolutely incredible campaign to establish this novel in the public consciousness: the noise around the award , interviews with publishers, talk of a new aesthetics , a new imperial ideology that found its adequate embodiment here - everything that happened. But the text is actually boring, and it is written in a dull, not to say shabby way - a kind of feuilleton palimpsest of the shabby Soviet level, arranged into a novel. Therefore, when all this polemical fervor disappeared, everything was blown away. Now there is still some inertia, but in a year few readers will remember what “Mr. Hexogene” is and who wrote it.

RZh: On the other hand, Prokhanov’s novel is being bought, it was seen as that very news occasion by all channels, and the real events of the last literary year, for example, “ NRZB ” by Sergei Gandlevsky, attracted much less attention outside the literary environment itself. In the end, how many people know what "Mr. Hexogen" is, and how many people know what "NRZB" is?

N.A.: I think that if we conduct a survey, then any authors who are not targeting the mass reader will be inferior to fashionable or popular names. But, as a rule, time puts everything in its place here. How Artsybashev was read at the beginning of the century! Now it has been re-released, so what? Who reads it?

Of course, the artistic quality of "NRZB" is not comparable to the artistic quality of "Mr. Hexogene", these are simply two different levels of writing. Another thing is that among my colleagues, unfortunately, the applied reading often triumphs, rather than the view of a work of art as a work of art. Social, ideological attitudes, and even just ordinary human jealousy, sometimes prevent many critics from objectively assessing this most artistic quality. If we take the same "NRZB", then it was contextual assessments, dictated by a variety of circumstances, but not directly related to the quality of the text, that, if we talk about the Apollo Grigoriev Prize , influenced the reluctance to take a more objective and impartial position, and the final decision of the jury.

RJ: Of which you were a member.

N.A.: Of which I was a member.

RJ: At the same “Grigoriev” ceremony, in particular, in connection with Andrei Gelasimov , a lot was said about the need for high literature to adapt mass genres, about the desirability of instilling fiction into literature. Does literature need to follow this path, try, while remaining literature, to “sell” itself as entertaining reading, thus providing itself with additional promotion?

N.A.: Yes, the problem is actually different: there would be something to promote. There are very few texts that we would not only like to promote, but simply would not be ashamed to offer, where there is some level for promotion.
When Irina Denezhkina arrived in Moscow with her first book, “Give Me,” and everyone immediately paid attention to her, the person with whom she came asked me: “Kolya, what do you think, is it possible to promote Irina?” And I answered him: “Yes, of course, it’s possible, the main thing is that the person continues to write. If there are texts, there will be promotion.” So the promotion this year was extraordinary, a person who had just appeared in literature, who had essentially written one and a half texts, attracted enormous attention. Irina is brought to the Non-Fiction fair, included in the jury of the National Bestseller, and translated into other languages. All this is simply incredible - but there are no texts themselves, nothing new appears.

Denezhkina’s case is indicative in that here the PR campaign begins to play against the author; the author stops writing and exists on the wave of previous success. It is clear that if it does not actively function in literature, nothing will come of it. And if we take a closer look, we will see that very few are able to stay in the literary space for a long time at any PR costs. So there is nothing bad and nothing humiliating in PR as such - if only there were at least some grounds.

RJ: And for a great writer there is nothing shameful?

N.A.: From my point of view, and for a great writer, no. This is a “mutual” technology, so to speak. It is clear that the media creates a name, but the reverse process also occurs when already promoted names are supported by the media. And in journalism there is a constant search for such names; they are in short supply. If a name has become a brand, then it no longer needs further PR; on the contrary, it itself influences the authority and sales of the publication. And writers are no exception.

Another thing is that, unfortunately, we have few such writers, so we have to resort to banal examples, like Akunin . Until a certain time, this is the promotion and self-promotion of the writer, but now a completely opposite situation has arisen, when Akunin himself can dictate the rules to whom he will give interviews, to whom he will not, and how he will publish his next work. He may demand that sales of the edition begin on the same day in all stores in Moscow, and so on. And there is nothing humiliating about this; this is not a question of reading the text, but of its functioning.
The problem, again, is that there are not enough strong works. We are now in the middle of another literary year. The premium peak will be in its second half, but today we understand that very few things have a public rating, and the literary community in any case is doomed to chew on, say, Dmitry Bykov’s “ Spelling ” by the end of the year.

RJ: But Akunin is a detective, albeit a good one. Is it really (and is it necessary) to make a brand from, say, Makanin or Shishkin ?

N.A.: Makanin is not deprived of either fame or attention. Another thing is that this is still an old letter, which is not very close to me. The most interesting thing that exists in Makanin, from my point of view, is a metaphor. All his works are based on one metaphor, and then a certain set of ideologies is built around this metaphor...

RJ: Quite cumbersome┘

N.A.: Quite cumbersome, very banal and uninteresting. Often it is simply clear that the impulse, and indeed the entire novel, rests on this image. Well, for example, a man in a crowd, or an almost dreamlike image of a man crawling in the ground from “Laz”. And all the social, utopian content is absolutely banal and completely uninteresting. The novel is remembered by two images, everything else is words, it is journalism, it is “quasi”, to use Makanin’s own expression.

RJ: But Makanin is a conditional name┘

N.A.: Yes, of course... What is a brand? This is a phenomenon that can become fashionable, this is a brand that is prestigious to wear. But the language of the market is not always suitable for fiction. It is probably better to think in other, more precise terms. There are mass products, even expensive ones, and there is haute couture. Real literature is haute couture, the value of which is not obvious now, but may become obvious a little later. This is the problem with a real literary text, which is revealed only over time. And when its significance is realized, it is often perceived on a par with the classics, that is, while gaining in respect, it loses in relevance.

RJ: What could be the cultural consequences of the shortage of interesting or socially significant texts that you talked about?

N.A.: In fact, this is a very big and very complex problem. Imagine: there is a huge space, not only cultural, but even simply geographical, one sixth...

RJ: Probably less now...

N.A.: Yes, now it’s probably less, but it still repeatedly covers Europe like a bull covers a sheep, if you remember Zhvanetsky . So, this space was perceived by everyone as a powerful energy field that exists under cover, but which, as soon as this burden disappears, should give rise to something that will surprise everyone. And suddenly it turned out that essentially nothing was born from this space. It turned out that it was not that they were preventing me from speaking, but that there was simply nothing to say. And this is the real tragedy. And the modern literary situation may well ultimately come down to the fact that those niches that now exist in the cultural consciousness will be filled with translated literature .

After all, the situation now is qualitatively different than a few years ago. The distance between the appearance of the work in the original language and the release of its Russian translation has decreased significantly; Baricco’s new story is published in Russian simultaneously with the publication of its French translation. We have returned to the European context; the Russian reader, even if he does not read in the original language, can follow the European literary process and get acquainted with the texts that make up the literary world today. As a result, today it is not Russian authors, but, say, Begbeder or Heg , who fill the mainstream niche in Russia. These are books in which, even in translation, there is a noticeably different quality of writing, but which, at the same time, are quickly and easily read, which are intelligent, often aphoristic and, most importantly, talk about problems that really concern the most active and reading age group.

This situation, in fact, has not yet been truly realized, and even part of the critical community continues, by inertia, to rely exclusively on Russian literature. But this is impossible, because, for example, Murakami has already become a domestic phenomenon, a Russian writer in essence, he influences modern Russian literature, which the same critics review and analyze. Not paying attention to the Western context is a dead end.

That is, the Russian writer finds himself in a situation where he is forced to compete with Western colleagues simply in his ability to write and structure a text.

RJ: Does he withstand this competition?

N.A.: From my point of view, no, or at least not always. One of the most important problems that exists here is, if you like, the problem of prosody, that is, the problem of intonation of an artistic statement. After all, very few writers can simply tell a story clearly, without plot errors, without compositional overlaps, without artificially tying up loose ends. A huge number of literary texts are simply poorly done. The boom in non-fiction that we experienced was due, in no small part, to the inability to think plot-wise. Why doesn’t anyone exist next to Akunin?

RJ: Yuzefovich .

N.A.: Yes, probably Yuzefovich, although he is a little different, there is a different type of writing. But okay, Akunin, Yuzefovich - that’s all. And already at Dontsova’s level, no concern for the artistic whole is visible - talk while you’re talking, and somehow in the end everything will be sorted out. The type of narration as a problem, plot construction as a problem - all this simply does not exist absolutely.

The problem of competition with Western prose is also a problem of tradition. When we today try to adapt some trends and techniques of the modern European novel, we forget that this very novel is the result of consistent development and the result of the coexistence of several traditions. In France, the fairy tales of Saint-Exupery and the intellectual writing of Paul Valéry existed side by side. And we artificially destroyed the Belo-Pilnyak-Platonov line and the writer of the Pseudo-Opolian type was socially in demand. And it’s not only about literature. We cannot imagine the Staromoskovskoy pronunciation, the features of Moscow thinking, the usual table conversation of the old Muscovites. And this gap with a living tradition, not only literary, is felt simply in the loss of the skill, in the loss of the prosodium that we talked about.

Once I tried to interview the same Irina Menskna, then I realized that I would simply not publish him for a number of reasons. And when you ask her who you read in childhood, who existed from the writers for you, she replies: " Krapivin ." Kapivin is wonderful, but this is said by a person who is spinning as a writer, almost as the hope of Russian literature. And immediately many features of her letter become clear, it is clear where her stories grow from. And when I open the book of the seventeen-year-old Frenchwoman Ann-Maras , who writes in many ways about the same problems of teenage consciousness, then in addition to Begbeder there are tangible both Sartre and Camus . This is a completely different level of rooting in culture. But they are peers!

The modern Russian writer is in a situation of stressful searching for the language. In the end, what is the whole of Sorokin , if not painful attempts to find his letter? Is this stylization? Yes. But how to get out of this circle of stylization? The novel always used the “Alien Word”, but the modern writer does not have enough strength to synthesize, there is not enough strength to glue these fragments of other people's texts into a single whole, to create a new narration from them, in other words, to turn someone else's into their own.

From here, the same Sorokin has the problem of plot. If you look from this point of view on the " ice ", then it is absolutely banal and failed precisely at the plot level. And the plot is the meaning of an artistic statement. The weakness of the plot indicates that the writer tried to convey some thought, but did not form it to the end. And often, after reading the text, the impression remains that the meaning of this statement remained unclear, first of all, for the author himself.

And this complex of problems is now much more relevant for literature than the problems of the social or ideological order. Because literature lives the tradition of writing. And if this school is lost, then a crisis is born from here.

RG: several relatively short questions at the end. You say that literature is interesting to you, first of all, as a “ type of artistic statement ”, and the “attitude of art towards reality”, the social “messiage” works of the works excite you much less. Do you feel with this approach of your loneliness in modern criticism? Do you see a position similar to you, one of your colleagues?

NA: It seems to me that a number of critics are about the same positions. The most striking example here, of course, is Andrei Nemzer , who stated a very close approach to literature, postulated that he was interested in the text, the design of the text, how the text was made is organized. Another thing is that he does not always succeed in virtue of his much greater journalistic and social temperament, but he says about the same.

RG: What tasks do you set as a critic in front of you?

NA: It seems to me that it is extremely important to realize criticism today and convey to the reader or the listener the need for cultural diversity as something in terms of injective. It is clear that the critic can engage in self -expression mainly, and then criticism becomes one row with literature. There are a number of examples of such an expression - successful, less successful, but exists. But to me the stylistic skill of criticism, his ability to create a text that will not be bored to read, are still seen by the moment to some extent applied, secondary. If we talk about intentions, then more important is another: to comprehend the diversity of the literary landscape, to help understand a particular literary work. Moreover, to understand exactly, not to evaluate. In my opinion, it is much more necessary to explain to the reader what kind of work this is, what is its essence than to report whether I like it or do not like it. A critic working with a more or less extensive audience is, first of all, a pilot that helps the reader navigate the literary and book space.

RG: And about the academic philology from which you left, do you regret?

N.A.: Probably not about philology as such. At one point, I realized that I have no powerful impulse of a philological statement, and ordinary philologists and without me are enough. If I regret something, then not about academic, but about teaching, about that living contact with the audience that she gave.

RJ: But after all, you have as a radio and television journalist just a relatively direct contact with the audience, more direct than the critic of the writer.

N.A.: This is the problem of intonation. Even if I record a radio reference, and on the contrary a sound engineer sits on me, my text will sound differently than when I record myself, and there is no one else in the studio. A direct appeal to a specific listener is always felt. Therefore, of course, I have no such returns from the radio pointing that the lecturer receives from students now, of course, and cannot be.

RG: You taught the history of Russian criticism at Moscow State University . What line in this story do you feel as close to yourself?

NA: For me, criticism was always important as the manifestation of certain general aesthetic principles. Therefore, let's say, the “experience of the science of the elegant” Galich was no less important to me than some statement by Belinsky or even Apollo Grigoriev . I am close to the criticism that rests on a serious philosophical and aesthetic basis, and already from this founding there is a reading of a particular literary text.

Of course, from the point of view of the style, Pisarev is absolutely an aesthetically alien to me is unusually attractive - simply because this is an example of an unusually living letter. But the philosophical conceptuality of criticism of the late XIX - early XX centuries is closer to me, that era when Vyacheslav Ivanov’s work amazing in their richness “Two elements in Russian symbolism” appeared in the journal and was considered as a critical article. To some extent, this is the ideal that you can approach and strive. This is the criticism in which the author allows himself almost fiction freedom in the manner of saying, but this freedom rests on a powerful basis; This is the criticism that cannot be divided into philosophy, philology, aesthetics, literature, journalism.

If we go deep into the Silver Age , then we need to mention the Moscow Any Murders, Valerian Maikov , can be Nikolai Otrav , the other ideologically, but in fact close. These are all critics that do not formally belong to one tradition, one school, but capable of conceptually comprehending the analyzed text; Critics, for which a philosophical dimension is more important than social.

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PS (Mikhail Edelshtein)

I don’t know how with literature, but with criticism we are all right. To make sure of this, it is enough to read the interview of Alexander Ageev and Nikolai Alexandrov. And read in a row, one after another. This is called the wealth of the landscape ...

If you try in one word to characterize N. Aleksandrov’s critical position, then for me this word will be “proportionality”. All the necessary components are mixed in his articles “In a proper proportion”, as Rozanov once responded about the work of one of his colleagues-colleagues. By his very presence in today's criticism, N. Aleksandrov removes the common opposition "Professional Critic" - "Literary journalist". What in his scripts, reviews, notes are greater: philological conceptuality, journalistic accuracy, a critical understanding of the literary situation? The fact of the matter is that just as much as necessary. And is it not indicative that it was a person who has been working as a journalist for more than ten years (and who has been involved in at the same time not only by literature), who gave almost the most striking examples of philological criticism in recent years?

The universal critic, systematically working in several "Wednesdays", N. Aleksandrov is endowed with the exact sense of the genre. Hence the ability to speak with almost any audience without a play for a decrease. Hence the breadth of the stylistic range. “Philological temperament”, so obvious in his “thick -journal” articles on poetry, never disappears to the end - it becomes a background, almost invisible, but for an attentive listener (reader, viewer) is always tangible. I always had a feeling of systematic radio and television centers N. Aleksandrov - a feeling that, in the course of an interview, fully confirmed. For almost every characteristic of it, for each assessment (despite the desire of criticism to external unnecessary, its “pros” and “minuses” are quite obvious) is not pronounced, but from that no less significant sense of context, and the context of not only literary, but also Wider - general cultural.

By the way, about unjustness. N. Aleksandrov says that his goal is not influence, but informing. Because of this, he seeks to avoid the straight lines “good” in his reviews - “bad”. This is probably what it is. He really does not press, does not push, even, as a rule, does not recommend. Perhaps that is why influential (I mean the influence not on the literary process, but on the potential reader-buyer) of the book observer, in fact, only two: Lev Danilkin and Nikolai Alexandrov.

And one more point that I would like to pay attention to. N. Aleksandrov is a representative of criticism of aesthetic, but not aesthetic. He knows how to appreciate the text as a text, but loves literature as a game, and not as a toy. He does not despise the mainstream, but does not call for replacing them with the literature of Haute Couture (the last word of literary aesthetics) ...

After printing and re-reading an interview with N. Aleksandrov, I realized that it, with all the subtlety and accuracy of most comments (and rather, even because they are so thin and accurate), leads to sad thoughts. Finally, I see a picture in which I recognize the similarity with the real literary process. Almost everything that the critic says is associated with me with the concept of "norm". Why, against the backdrop of dominant critical ideas, all these completely natural things look so radically?