Alexander Ageev. Hunger 8

Hunger 8
Alexander Ageev

Publication date: January 12, 2001

1. ?!

What kind of “gastroenterology of reading” is there: complete spasm of all bile ducts, gastrocepin, no-spa and baralgin: Slava Kuritsyn himself ran into our humble person in his shining jeep! It's called deconstruction...

I didn’t expect that the charming conformist (or transformer?) Slava, who had never quarreled with anyone in particular in his life, always insulted only “phenomena” (“thick magazine”, “paper literature”, and not, for example, Sergei Ivanovich Chuprinin or Vladimir Semenovich Makanin), whom, as a result of everything described above, was also perceived as a “phenomenon”, they entered into his position as our only “harbinger” and scolded purely as a common name, but as a human being they loved, welcomed and called, suddenly burst out at me like this a long pedagogical text imbued with friendly concern for my “positioning”...

You begin to frantically go through all sorts of reasons. Are you really offended by this or are you remembering something from a long time ago ? But I have always been firmly convinced that for Slava’s chosen “positioning” strategy, any commemoration with any sign is for the good. Well, I'm sorry, dear, I won't do it again...

And here’s another thing that doesn’t look like Slava: he doesn’t reproach me with my texts, but with my entire unsuccessful life, unsuccessfully positioned and therefore suitable only for a bad interactive novel. It seems that this used to be Toporov’s specialty - playing dice, not ball. Anyway.

Since Slava has awakened my senile talkativeness, I’ll tell a story about myself and Toporov, since it was this man, and not Slava yesterday, who once truly, as they say, “got” me.

If you remember, the year before last a book of his memoirs, “Notes of a Brawler,” was published. And I wrote a review of it in Obshchaya Gazeta. Quite harsh. And about six months later, I was given an oral statement from Viktor Leonidovich regarding that review. It sounded something like this: “I knew that this limiter would be entrusted with attacking me. It is inconvenient for Chuprinin himself (in the book there was a pamphlet personally against Chuprinin. - A.A. ), Natalya (Ivanova. - A.A. ) to quarrel with he won’t want me, and Stepanyan doesn’t know how to write evil.”

Guess what got me hooked here? Not a “limit guy” - this attitude towards myself in Moscow fed me up to the point of complete insensitivity, and for a long time I have not explained to the “native” Muscovites that in the provinces they do not live in chicken huts. I was “entrusted” with the word “entrusted” ... Although, of course, the connection here is direct: who can be “entrusted” if not the powerless “limiter” serf. To guess that Toporov was not the only one who thought so (we never crossed paths with him, and if he knew anything about me, it was precisely from the popular general opinion), there was no need for much effort. There is no place, nothing, and no need to respond to this. So Toporov took revenge on the unreasonable limiter...

And Slava also tells an interesting legend about my appearance in Moscow. The end of the 80s, “thick magazines” are in full force and full splendor, here are salaries and fees, influence “on everything that moves,” a young provincial teacher appears in an office whose windows overlook the Kremlin and, it is understood, enjoys all these benefits . Moreover, this notorious article, “Synopsis on the Crisis” (because of which, by the way, they stopped publishing me in those publications where Slavik, who, in fact, had to write that article, was already beginning to shine). In short, a direct hit with the literary establishment. “Life is good,” Slava sneers.

No, Slava, I was late for that celebration of life, because I arrived in Moscow in the rather gloomy autumn of 1991 (and there is a devilish difference between the late 80s and 91!), amid talk of the coming famine and cold. There was some kind of salary, it’s true, but completely meaningless - there was nothing to buy with it, there were no fees, since I was shuttling between Moscow and Ivanovo for several months: four days in an office with a view of the Kremlin and a stinking dormitory at the Literary Institute, and three days in Ivanovo - eight lecture hours a day. After that, what kind of articles...

And a couple of months later it was January 1992, and since I was soon kicked out of the Literary Institute dormitory, for a year and a half I paid various landlords a little more than I earned at Znamya. That is, he paid extra for the pleasure of working there. And I don't regret it. Because I really love the magazine business.

Somehow the “establishment” into which Slava is forcibly pushing me cannot get out of all this...

Actually, this is the only thing I would like to clarify. The rest of Slava’s thoughts about my fate in the novel are very interesting. At least by his very appearance. I thought, I’m sitting here, fixing my primus, living a liberal “private life” to the fullest, sometimes writing some texts that good people publish in different places, I understand the word “positioning”, since at least I’m educated, but in It is not in my current dictionary. And then Slava comes and thinks a thought about me, which, obviously, “positions” me irreparably. Which is probably a good thing (as part of his strategy).

But the main thing (which, on the contrary, is bad) is that it provokes unplanned memoirs, which purely stylistically cannot help but look pitiful and snotty. Meanwhile, skepticism, Slava, which you rightly mentioned and which (in a world-friendly version) is synonymous with my “boring common sense”, is a tough and reliable thing. He will not be demolished.

Has it actually occurred to you, Slava, that texts are written for a variety of reasons, and whether their author is included or not included in the “Kuritsyn list” or “Kuzminsky list” is not the most imperative (especially considering skepticism) incentive?

In a word, I have had all kinds of life - both successful and unsuccessful. One thing I can say with confidence: it seems that I have never been a gentle calf who sucks all the queens, I have never kissed anyone’s hands, I have not forced myself to put on a smile even for the sake of business.

But you, Slava, know how much they love all this in Moscow. You, if my memory serves me correctly, were a graduate student at one time with Galina Andreevna Belaya. This worthy lady also tells a legend about me, as they told me: there was, they say, such a wonderful young man, Ageev, whom she noticed and dragged to Moscow, and then went to work at Znamya, became a drunkard there and hasn’t written anything for a long time. Galina Andreevna’s age is decent; she confuses Moscow with America, where she actually (thank you very much) once took me to. But in America I behaved wrongly: Yampolsky and Zorin came at her, but I, a fool, did not rush to defend her, because I thought that they were right, not she. Therefore, on the next trip (either to Washington, or to London, I don’t remember how long ago it was), you went instead of me, my dear. Quarreling is generally harmful, Slava, but I keep quarreling with everyone about something. Probably a fool...

2. Karaganda

Well, thank God, I worked the number and wrote a “lyrical answer” to my Zoil. This is what the elders taught: be sure to respond to any attack, you won’t prove anything to anyone, but you will lose steam. Although it is more decent, of course, not to answer.

So, “in Karaganda,” as Slava mentioned, there really are texts. Understanding “Karaganda” as a common noun for our province (and the province includes that part of literary Moscow that is not covered by Kuritsyn’s selective gaze).

This is why, by the way, I love my magazine business: suddenly a girl or a boy, or a tremulous lady, or a middle-aged professor, or from distant Karaganda (Ufa, Volgograd, Chelyabinsk) comes down to a magazine that “nobody needs ” letter. All of them - with texts, most of them sane, a third of them - ready-made, it is unclear where and by whom, learned professional critics with good language, a by no means simulated “world” and even an “active life position”.

I treat them harshly: “everything is fine,” I say, or “normal text,” or even “it will come out in the third issue,” but if there’s one thing that keeps me in the magazine, it’s the opportunity to give all these different people a chance to speak. Some of them quite successfully “position” themselves and find positions more prominent for Kuritsyn or Kuzmin (like, for example, Ilya Kukulin, who came to me five years ago), some disappear, doing something else. But they come every month, and this flow does not dry up, from which, in general, it follows that literary periodicals (whether paper or online) are still scarce. I won’t begin to say something blasphemous here: it follows that “thick magazines” are also needed by some people (even those not older than 70 years old).

And so, since Kuritsyn nevertheless led me into bewilderment and the plan of my current text is practically meaningless, I will substitute at least some of my authors in my place: I will arrange a small “exhibition of achievements” (not “Ageev’s list,” God forbid!). While reading Kuritsyn, I somehow became very acutely aware that some of the “online people” to whom Slava “introduced” me are ignorant people and, following his advice, do not look into the “ Magazine Room ”.

And they don’t know, for example, that the best review of Pelevin’s “Generation “P” was written by Maxim Pavlov, and this review was not included in Kuritsyn’s “ collection ”, with which he spent a whole year running around like a sack. They don’t know that last year it appeared (appeared) a simply brilliant critic - Anna Kuznetsova, that for three years now, from issue to issue, the wonderful poet from Volgograd Leonid Shevchenko has been publishing strange critical prose , which is much more interesting for me to read than the flat “information sheets” of Kuritsyn or Danilkin, made on my knee Yes. at least for this year: about Limonov , about Shatunovsky , about Yevtushenko (!), about Zemfira .

Readers of RJ already know Alexander Ulanov and Galina Ermoshina from Samara, but they are unlikely to know the name of Alexander Kasymov, who periodically publishes the magazine “Sutoloka” in Ufa, who recently built his own website and publishes luxurious reviews in “Znamya”, even this one, even that .

And just recently there was a wonderful moment: Katya Margolis, previously unknown to me, came out of nowhere and brought the best thing I’ve read so far about Mikhail Shishkin’s novel “The Taking of Ishmael.” Moreover, she wrote this text long before all the Booker lists. Take a look here .

Well, on Tuesday we’ll try to return to normal gastroenterological practice.