Alexander Ageev. Hunger 4

Hunger 4
Practical gastroenterology reading

Alexander Ageev

Publication date: December 19, 2000

And so, if you remember, last Friday , quickly flipping through a randomly purchased FAS magazine, I somehow immediately felt out of place; that is, if the plate was already dragged here, I felt something not very edible in my plate ; that is, completely discarding politeness, rotten. Alas, it's too late! Well, you had to be so gaping, so trustingly fall for advertising promises about “the best feathers in Russia”! In a word, the heartburn was overwhelming, and I had to consume several Maalox tablets.

However, I am firmly convinced that one must derive benefit from any reading, even nauseating reading. Having coped with emotional spasms, it is worth considering even such an accidental experience, because a sober analysis of the source is one of the best ways to displace unpleasant sensations from the consciousness and subconscious.

I even once again followed the link I had hastily provided and discovered there, in fact, two or three months ago, an abandoned FAS archive, where numbers from 10 to 35 were posted (and I was already holding 46 in my hands). Well, naturally, I delved into this pile with curiosity worthy, perhaps, of better use.

Result: there were exactly two “best pens” - editor-in-chief Mikhail Leontiev, whom anyone can see four days a week after the “Time” program, and the universal writer Dmitry Bykov: poet, critic, publicist, regular character in various “talk shows” "Like "Press Club". There are rumors that his novel will also be revealed to us in the spring issues of Novy Mir. In short, this good man is a lot. But some people like...

In FAS he has his own cozy column called “New Russian Fairy Tales”. As a rule, Dima takes some fairy tale by Hauff (that is, German) or Andersen (that is, Danish), or even a story by E. Poe, implants into their approximate plot a character of the current political scene that is especially unpleasant to him, and for a long, long time, boring, boring he is tormented. In the last issue, for example, he torments the seaside governor Nazdratenko, casting him in the role of the boy Kai from The Snow Queen. By the end of the sluggish three-page text, you even begin to feel sorry for this swindler. Although Andersen still feels more sorry for himself...

True, there is one interesting and persistent leitmotif in these fairy tales: in them someone is certainly either strangled or threatened to be strangled with the help of foot wraps or socks . But I’m not a Freudian to savor this and delve deeper into Dima’s complexes.

Apart from Leontyev's editorials and boring Bykov's transcriptions, there is practically nothing to read in FAS: some kind of noodles and cut-outs, a classic “mixture” of the level of a poor tabloid. And you even begin to think - why am I so alarmed about a semi-professional, sloppy publication, of which there are many?

And I must say that at the same time I have been reading for many days now the last volume from the wonderful “UFO” series “Russia in Memoirs”: V.I. Gurko. Features and silhouettes of the past. Government and public during the reign of Nicholas II as depicted by a contemporary . In general, “UFO” has some kind of nose, because they release their memoir volumes, as if checking the political calendar. Either at the beginning of Putin’s rule they will publish a collection about Arakcheev , or on the cover of the memoirs of Gurko, a major official of the Nicholas era, they will put fragments of Repin’s “Meeting of the State Council”...

A delightfully thick (at 800 pages!), leisurely book, an intelligent and knowledgeable author, and what a blessing that I don’t have to review it by any deadline. In general, I am convinced that perestroika, glasnost and all other reforms were done, in essence, so that I could read any thick books with pleasure - not under my pillow, but not for tomorrow’s issue.

So: on page 507 of this plump volume, Gurko, describing the state of society during the era of the first Russian revolution and estimating the balance of power of the then “left” and “right”, recalls one curious “right” “project”, as they say now.

The pro-government newspapers that emerged at that time were not successful; they could not withstand competition with the liberal press. But: “Much more successful was the idea that arose in a private circle of right-wing youth to publish a cartoon magazine as opposed to similar magazines of an openly revolutionary nature (...) These magazines were distinguished by their extreme audacity and people in power were depicted in a grossly offensive manner, but with real wit The right-wing cartoonists also ridiculed the government in the two satirical sheets they started, called “Witt’s Dance” and “Pluvium,” but, of course, on the other hand, namely, ridiculing its flabbiness and shameful cowardice, these magazines were ideologically and witty. many times higher than revolutionary ones and sold out very quickly."

Here! - I thought. Here is the idea of ​​FAS: a pro-government satirical leaflet. Of course, there is no sin here: the guys want to support their power, they have every right to do so. I am even ready to recognize them as a “private circle of right-wing youth.”

The only question is: why are they doing it so poorly and incompetently? As far as I know, neither Leontyev nor Bykov belong to the breed of vulgar sycophants; they actually profess their “protest” (the protest is directed towards the intelligentsia, which traditionally shuns cooperation with the authorities) patriotism. They are not lacking in talent. They are trying.

But it was all simply done illiterately. Take the logo: against the background of large letters “FAS” (even without an exclamation mark it is perceived as a command) the silhouette of a purebred hunting dog in the process of executing this command. And the command, therefore, is carried out - you can’t imagine anything else - by the staff and authors of the magazine. Well, that is, dogs are them. Not cats that walk on their own, but hunting ( "magazine of political hunting" ) dogs, which are generally kept in a kennel and from time to time (when the owners need) are released to hunt. Well, for example:

"- Scold! Scold! It's pure march! - shouted at that time another new voice, and Scold, the uncle's red humpbacked dog ( and on the FAS logo the dog is also red. - A.A. ) , stretching out and arching his back, caught up with the first two dogs, moved out from behind them, kicked with terrible self-sacrifice right over the hare, knocked him off the line onto the greens, kicked him even harder another time across the dirty greens, drowning up to his knees, and you could only see how he was head over heels, dirtying back in the mud, rolled with the hare."

As they say, sorry for the associations, but where can you get away from them?

In a word, the circle of right-wing youth, which constitutes itself as a pack of hunting dogs, ready to “punch” at the command of an unknown owner, evokes ambivalent feelings. And, however, one feels sorry for them. Here Gurko, for example, further writes: “Quite patiently enduring the abuse of the revolutionary zoils against him, Witte positively could not digest the criticism coming from the right. He repeatedly turned to Durnovo with the demand to take severe measures against the satirists...” And then there are other associations appear: guardsmen with dead dog heads tied to the saddle and other feudal horrors.

But the point is not politics or worldview - it’s journalistic unprofessionalism, sloppiness, haste.

Every competent and experienced writer should either know or feel that metaphor is a dangerous thing, prone to uncontrolled self-development if, God forbid, the mechanism of its implementation is carelessly launched. This mechanism is already working furiously in the magazine’s sections: “Serve!”, “FAS-food”, “Where the dog is buried”; "Pitching", "Gerasim"; “Aviary” (where Dima Bykov frolics), “Dog Playground”, “Exterior”, “Chumka”, “On a Chain”, etc.

And somehow, you see, the authors and staff of the magazine persistently try to transfer all this dog meat to me, the reader: we are all, they say, a little bit of a dog.

But I feel uncomfortable with this metaphor. The collar is tight and the leash is short. I'll just take a walk on my own for now.