The fault is guilty

“Without a path” Denis Gutsko of all the finalists of “Boker” by Denis Gutsko, perhaps, is perhaps a remarkable literary fate. A thirty-year-old resident of Rostov-on-Don, who at that time, who worked at that time, during the forum of young writers handed the manuscript of Absna Abutkek (“Bouquet of Abkhazia”)-a documentary story about the Georgian-Abkhaz war described from the father’s memoirs, who had arrived in the city.

The Absna Abook was immediately printed in the "Banner" in the section of non -artistic prose and noted the work as quite worthy. In his second essay “There, under the rivers of Babylon,” Denis Gutsko described his own experience related to the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict from the collapse of the Union. And although the wide range of readers continued to remain in the ignorance of the emergence of a new name in the literature, the narrow audience appreciated the prose of Gutsko so that the story was included in the Long list of the National Bestseller Prize, and its author-in the Russian delegation, honorably living on behalf of our fatherland at the 2003 Frankfurt Fair.

With his new novel “Without a Path-Next,” Gutsko took another step towards the top of the literary Olympus. He was on the Boker list. And this despite the fact that now the author left aside such tickling nerves of matter as interethnic conflicts. However, it cannot be said that Gutsko finally refused to describe hot spots. In his world, the entire post -Soviet space in a sense turned into a struggle. For survival. The uncomfortable and inaccurate reality tends to survive those who are weak, naive, good -natured. A kind of symbol of this struggle is the story with a passport, which passes through the novel by a through line. Due to some law or resolution, the hero Mitya does not want to change the passport for a new one, the old document is recognized as invalid and in general they refuse Russian citizenship. It is impossible to understand the causes of what is happening. Change anything too. The authorities, silent ladies -passports, officials - and an absolute, hopeless impasse. Everything happens - I really want to say by Kafka, but it is more correct to turn to the original source - as in life.

During the action of the novel, the hero tries all possible ways to restore himself in the rights of a citizen. Having exhausted legal forms of searching justice, he tries to achieve the truth from the black move. However, the old friend Oleg, who promised help and has already taken money, first dynamite Mitya for a long time, and then completely throws it. Mitya brought to despair accepts the proposal of his other friend, insisting that Oleg should be teached for such matters. By the end of the novel, the situation with the passport does not clarify, but the main Message of the novel is clarified, which turns out to be much unexpected and very valuable, if not in the literary, so in the moral and moral sense. The story of a person who breaks the ugly world turns into a conversation about responsibility. The fact that if the world is not good and so bad with connivance, consent and as a result of the betrayal of each individual. The conclusion, I must say, is unexpected for Russian prose, which is traditionally more prone to grumbling than to a hypertrophied feeling of guilt.

11/29/2005 / Maria Tereshchenko, the material was published in the newspaper No. 227 dated November 30, 2005.