About writers

Incidentally, the great fighter with homelessness Anton Semenovich Makarenko shortly before his death made such an incendiary speech: it is necessary not only to place orphans in the orphanage, but also to enclose children with living parents there, since " the family is in a significant percentage that is not able to ensure the proper education of the child ." In this case, his pathos had his own reasons, since he spoke to Soviet writers. Living his last years in the House of Writers in Lavrushinsky Lane of Moscow, he looked at their drunkenness, marital treason, shameless intriguing and other ugly morals. The ZhEK, to which the house in Lavrushinsky, was adhering to the same opinion, adhered to the same opinion about the writers. When they put a license plate in the entrance, the access code was chosen by the most unpretentious: 123. This is so that the tipsy writer does not confuse anything and get to his home, and not sleep on the street. Given our climate, very humane.

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Oden once said: " Poetry Makes Nothing Happen ." In Russian it turns out something like: "Poetry does not affect anything." It was said with annoyance, but in fact - how good it is! Do not harm others - what could be better? Can I dream of more?

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Communication with the classical literature of the Far East made me more tolerant, more modest and more observant. The former Chinese with the Japanese were not afraid to look at the world easier and doomed more than us, their poets did not think that the goal of poetry was self -expression, they did not break into a cry, did not want to change the world and did not want to be an obstacle to him. They wanted the world to be themselves. Compared to Christian Europe, in their poetry there were fewer indefatigable enthusiasm and lamentation, more calm, inevitability, bitterness. These poets did not indulge in height jumps, they ate pasture, spat at the time in which they had to live, and soared over it. Their contemplation and detachment seeped into me. I hoped to remove myself from the world in order to stop being a stranger to him and connect with him.

Here's a sacrament:
Grass is growing,
Flowers bloom.
Life is good
So far, I have nothing to do with it.

* * *

The porch of my cottage flaunts the ancient Chinese maxim "Deep of your luster, mix with dust." My student, poet and Calligraph Alexander Belyaev, at my request, produced these hieroglyphs on the old board, which he got hold of the Danilov Orthodox Monastery. Along the way, he enlightened me that the tool for cutting both letters and hieroglyphs is called the same - Klyacarza. This is to the question of religious tolerance and mutual influence.

* * *

The laureate of all conceivable and inconceivable literary awards Kaga Otochiko really wanted his long novel “Capital in Fire” 1 would certainly transfer to Russian. “You understand,” he told me, “only Russian people can understand what I wanted to say.” - "Why?" “Because Russia gave the world Tolstoy and Dostoevsky to me.” “Russia is different now.” “It just seems.”

You can’t drive such a person. I respect such stubbornness. Since Kaga at one time rode on figure skates, I sent him a photograph of the bearded Tolstoy, where he stands on the Snow Maiden. Kaga was satisfied.

In a word, I had to translate the novel along with my faithful friends. And the Roman is wonderful - about the Japanese war, about the Japanese world, about the Japanese soul, about all of us. Now literature is often listed in part of Entertainment, but the kaga makes you remember life, and not forget about it. Such a gift is little given. And the Kaga man was rare. In the novel, he needed to describe what a person was feeling at baptism. Kaga did not know. What to do? He went to the temple, baptized, described. And he remained a good Catholic.

Kaga died in January of this year 2 . Eternal memory.

As for his words about Russia and the Russians, how I want the proverb to be justified: from the outside it is better!

* * *

Together with the Chinesist Ilya Smirnov, they called to speak at the Museum of Leo Tolstoy on the Prechistenka. June, in the yard - thick fresh herbs, cozy benches, quietly. I would like to live here and go to the city only in the equestrian carriage.

We were listened to by teacher of literature. The hall was hung with portraits of Tolstoy. Here he is standing, here he is sitting, here he plows, composes, threatens. Everywhere - a chick beard, everywhere - closed lips, a piercing and subject look. What did you come? Hands at least washed? Did the peasants be freed from the fortress? I don’t know, they say, about any Chinese and Japanese literature. What do you, "War and Peace"? Can't be silent, or what? He did not smile during his lifetime, and here even more so-you are afraid to blurt out something out of place, you are shining. “You will not be lusting,” Ilya summed up. Probably, Lev Nikolaevich wanted.

To be different every day is easier than to remain yourself every day. So there is no artist from Tolstoy.

* * *

The famous Japanese writer Tokutomi Soho in 1896 visited Yasnaya Polyana. I wanted to get from Leo Nikolaevich Russian wisdom. One of his brightest impressions, drawn along the road from the station to the estate: wise Russian peasants saw trees not under the root, but at a height comfortable. Tokutomi Soho no longer came to Russia. And Tolstoy died too.

* * *

The Soviet government was afraid of a stalk, and then it was necessary to joke. The current government is not afraid of the stake, it itself is staring, it is afraid of the words “honor” and “nobility”. Therefore, now you need to write moralizing novels.

* * *

For his first story, Japanese Tayama Katai at the end of the 19th century received seven and a half yen. He put one yen into the envelope and sent his older sister to the village. She answered with gratitude that she wanted to leave a long memory of her brother’s debut publication and therefore bought a useful thing for a long -term use - an iron basin. Until that time, she washed in a wooden one. The metal pelvis experienced both the writer and his sister. But during the war, in the framework of the campaign of helping the front, nimble boys handed over the pelvis on scrap metal, and they made a gun out of it. But a lot of people did not have time to kill from the gun - Burmese swamps sucked it. And who needs her there now?

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A photographer who expects to shoot street genre scenes in Japan will have to be tight. The purity, order and predictability of life, so kind to the layman, poorly affect the level of photographic art. Great Japanese literature in the eyes is becoming more and more insolvent. What to write about? The fact that in today's cafe the buns is tastier than yesterday? “Picture of the world” in such a person turned into a “picture”. How can feudal fidelity be required from him? His things are plastic and disposable: consumed and threw out. The durable thing, the thing that concerned others, is strange and unpleasant. That is why life itself has become one -time.

A medieval Japanese writer named Kamo-but Tsem once said: water does not bother the fish. But we are instantly tired of everything. I want a new one: new water, new air, a new planet, a new wife, a new insanity. The current world is arranged so that you have no habits.

The modern “middle” Japanese lives a city life, it is predictable and looks like a schedule of electric trains or a television program, there are few accidents and unforeseen, and therefore strong emotions. Of course, no one canceled natural disasters and death as such, but in the current Japanese life there is no place for real poverty, there is no hunger and fear that you will be arrested or taken away tomorrow. And this is a great conquest. Yes, such a society is safe, but for the writer (in any case, for the writer of the previous formation), it is boring. You have to pay for everything. By acquiring well -being, we lose literature. So if the writer wants to find extraordinary people and plunge into the world of strong feelings, he is forced to write about past times. Or compose science fiction, like a fairy tale about Harry Potter.

But by the number of long -livers, Japan firmly occupies first place in the world. The current Japanese preferred the life of different arts. Before the war, they painted colorful posters: “Your healthy body needs your country!” And they didn’t live so long. They didn’t eat too well, they were sick with tuberculosis, many were killed.

Alexander Meshcheryakov

1 Meshcheryakov A. War and peace in Japanese Lad // Gorky, 03/26/2020. Gorky.Media/reViews/vojna-i-mir-na-yaponskij-lad/

2 Meshcheryakov A. "Only Russians will be able to understand what I wanted to say." Memory of Kaga Otochiko // Gorky, 06.03.2023.
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