Denis Bychikhin. In the semantic delta

In the semantic delta
Denis Bychikhin

Publication date: April 17, 2000

Our review today is brief. What is encouraging: there is an approach to the once declared format, the triumph of minimalism and its total dictatorship.

At least I'd like to think so.

I would really like to.

Net

1. In "Vesti" Danila Davydov's review of the "Book" of the Kiev poet-metaphorist Sergei Solovyov. The text is extremely clear and at the same time does not impoverish the content of Solovyov’s project.

The fact is that the “Book” is really only part of the global and obviously utopian (the author himself considers it symbolic) project “Figure of Time”, the meaning of which, as far as one can understand, is to create a space that in itself turns out to be would be time. Or do the same transformation in reverse, now taking time as the initial substrate.

In any case, the idea has a thousand possible interpretations. Well aware of this, the reviewer is not particularly keen on any of them. On the contrary, it pours out a handful at once. Thus, we find ourselves not only in the mainstream, but also in the meaningful delta of this polysemantic treatise:

The monstrous grandeur of "Figure of Time" overshadows any synthetic projects of the past. The labyrinth is not so much an aesthetic as a mystical object; if there is a “Book” and there will be (let’s imagine) a labyrinth - why not imagine the heavenly archetype and, accordingly, the infernal reflection of the “Figure of Time” - like Daniil Andreev’s with the heavenly and infernal analogues of the Bronze Horseman?

Off-line

2. The author of Izvestia, Nikolai Rudensky, reviews the already mentioned publication - “Chechnya. The White Book”. The tonality of the scores is approximately the same as in "Ex Libris". Close to pogrom. True, this time the claims relate to more substantive issues than the dubious novelty of the information and the compilative nature of the presentation.

The title alone is worth a lot - “Through the Eyes of Dzhugashvili.” Actually, the positive attitude of the authors towards Stalin’s policies in Chechnya is seen by Rudensky as the main, disastrous shortcoming of the book.

It is recognized that the victims were mostly innocent. But this confession is blurred by compliments to the initiator of the crime, Stalin - he supposedly “had an excellent understanding of the history of the region and the psychology of the Chechens.”

The particular horror of this approach, according to the journalist, is again that the West will not understand and will not forgive us:

This misunderstanding can only worsen when the politically correct Western public sees in the government White Paper scientific discussions about the “ethnopsychological” tendency of the Chechens to plunder and robbery. Such constructions are now perceived by European and American intellectuals as racist.

Etc.

3. In “Today” there is a review of new book releases from Olga Kostyukova. The new releases include: Summers Anthony's book "Goddess. The Secrets of the Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe" and three science fiction novels: "One Dead Curtorian" by Alexander Dikhnov, "Menace from Mars" by Sterling Lanier and "The Squad" by Alexei Yevtushenko.

Announcements - twin brothers of adrenaline- & tear-jerking paragraphs from boxes of pirated video cassettes.

The most armor-piercing one is attached to the novel "Detachment":

Two warring interplanetary factions finally gathered to solve the problem by staging something like gladiatorial fights. They are looking for fighters on Earth, where the Second World War is taking place... A platoon of Red Army soldiers and Wehrmacht soldiers transferred to the planet Peyan will have to fight for the glory of the imperial ambitions of an alien civilization. However, mortal enemies unexpectedly become comrades in arms.

At this point - Stop the machine.

Till tomorrow.