Alexander Ageev. Hunger 34

Hunger 34
Practical gastroenterology reading

Alexander Ageev

Publication date: May 29, 2001

When I worked at Znamya, people who wanted to please me said: “I always start reading your magazine from the end.” At the end of the magazine, apparently, was the “Observer” - a bibliographic review that I invented and maintained for the last six years. But generally speaking, this phrase (like this habit of leafing through a magazine from the end) is one of the “general” ones. At the end of any magazine, as a rule, all sorts of little things are loaded - not only a bibliography, but also letters from readers, and a chronicle, and obituaries, and congratulations, and all sorts of marginal, incomprehensible texts of a genre that the editors do not know where to insert.

And among readers, as well as among swimmers, there are those who immediately dive (into the depths of a long novel, for example), and there are also those who stretch for a long time on the shore, test the water with their heels and generally love beaches with a gently sloping bottom so that they can get into the water enter slowly and carefully. These are the ones who gnaw at the end of the coffee table book, where the water is relatively shallow.

And, of course, professional critics “enter” the magazine mainly from the back door - literary life is reflected there, at the very least, specific information is presented there, texts of friends and enemies in the workshop are published there. In a word, this is what makes a magazine a magazine - an independent unit of the literary process, and not an operational parallel to cheap book publishing.

I also have this workshop reflex, but it’s still stronger than the habit of a bibliographer - before I start reflexively flipping through the last pages, I still skim the contents. And there is only one exception to this rule - “New World”, where I first read Andrei Vasilevsky’s “Periodicals” column with a mixed feeling of envy and annoyance, and then look at the contents.

Now I will explain both envy and annoyance.

The first has, so to speak, a historical-biographical nature, although it does not fit entirely within this framework.

But in order: I conceived Znamensky’s “Observer” somewhere at the end of 1994, when review departments disappeared from almost all “thick magazines”, except, perhaps, the marginal “Continent” and the conservative “New World”. But then, for some reason, “New World” also destroyed the simple and logical two-part scheme of the bibliographic department inherited from Soviet times: “Book Review” (lengthy reviews with titles) and “Briefly about books” (reviews without titles). And somehow sluggishly I tried to experiment in the suddenly empty space: then suddenly “mirror” headings “Foreign books about Russia” and “Russian books abroad” were launched (with the rest of the bibliography completely shallow), then they disappeared without a trace and an incomprehensible “Bookshelf” appeared " (an arbitrary list of recent books, of which perhaps every fifth is impersonally annotated), then several pages of the section "Briefly about books" are given over to one reviewer, and other antics and jumps, which at the same time testified to the desire to come up with something like that, and about the vagueness and unfocused nature of this desire.

When I started “The Observer” and wrote long, detailed reports to my superiors with “pictures” (specific outlines of the content, even with arithmetic calculations and delimitation of the “spheres of influence” of the criticism department and my future department), I immediately decided: this would be a classic rigid scheme ( which the growing book publishing boom itself had to fill with not entirely classical content) plus a few non-standard headings as a spicy seasoning for the obligatory, traditional dish. Among these headings there should have been some completely informal, freely cheeky, subjective authorial one (of course, I wouldn’t trust anyone - I would write it myself).

"Kneading" and a comprehensive, very viscous discussion of the "Observer" project went on in "Znamya" for almost six months (to say "yes" or "no", for some reason the decision of the editorial board was not enough - a general meeting of the journalistic team was held), and during this discussion, not the very last person in the editorial office categorically said: “There have not been and will not be any author’s columns in Znamya! We are making the magazine collectively!”

Well, in a word, when I finally sent the first issue of “The Observer” to the set, the 5th issue of “New World” for 1995 came out , in which Andrei Vasilevsky’s “Periodicals” first appeared. I opened this section and almost screamed like Ostap Bender: “They took the girl away! They took her right out of the stall!”

It’s not that this is exactly what I was dreaming of while I was poring over my project, but I was looking somewhere nearby. Hence envy and jealousy, but also recognition of superiority and merit.

I will say without a hint of irony: Andrei Vitalievich then made an extremely rare discovery in journalistic practice (generally very conservative, despite the external vanity) of a new genre; I’m not even afraid to say that this is the only real “know-how” in large-format literary journalism of the 90s .

I don’t know (I didn’t ask) whether Vasilevsky immediately understood what kind of universal machine he had come up with, or whether he gradually became imbued (judging by the dynamics of the column’s development - more likely the latter) with the significance of his discovery, but that doesn’t matter now.

How is this section organized? Like everything ingenious, it is very simple: the “reader’s notebook” (“reader’s diary”) is made available to the public. Moreover, it does not matter whether this “diary” is genuine or staged: the title of the text (novel, story, article, memoir publication, review, collection of poems, etc.) plus a few words about it; sometimes - a quote; sometimes (even before the Internet it was a thing) - a link to other texts by the same author or on the same topic. Sometimes - without words (the author, the title of the text and the place of publication themselves form a kind of expressive “statement”).

I repeat once again: brilliant! The capacity of such a column is practically unlimited, the geography of coverage is unlimited (periodicals in Russian are published on all continents), freedom of expression is complete, and there are no obligations to the reader. If the author wants, he writes a serious analytical paragraph about a small article in a marginal newspaper, but if he wants, he writes two seemingly neutral phrases about a long novel by a famous writer:

" Oleg Smirnov. Month of ears of corn. Novel. - "Our Contemporary", 1995, # 1 - 2.

Military prose. To the 50th anniversary of the Victory."

Some will read these few words literally, while others will see the author’s attitude: here is a novel about which there is nothing more to say. This relationship is not imposed (sometimes in such cases it is, and sometimes it is not, that is, you cannot build a pattern), it is impossible to make any claims, but some kind of flickering meaning is still generated. Some people “receive” this wave like a radio receiver, others do not. Clean work!

But no one forbids the same author to give a direct assessment, use all gradations of irony, enter into polemics, destroy an ideological or aesthetic opponent with his own words, and simply give a classic, dispassionate summary. The genre allows everything!

I can't even tell you what a godsend this column was for the magazine. After all, “Periodicals” is the simplest and most effective instrument of influence. Sooner or later (this quickly turns into a habit) all the authors of newspapers and magazines (and this is the most powerful reference and, most importantly, broadcasting group) look there (in addition to “just readers”) in the hope of finding their name. While searching for themselves, they willy-nilly become acquainted with Vasilevsky’s opinion on everything in the world. And all this in homeopathic, instant and easily digestible doses, without effort or tediousness! No, it's a fairy tale, not a genre!

And the irreverent Slava Kuritsyn, who recently staged a “Vasilevsky construction” , was in vain so frivolously joking about the “notes”, building a mockingly idyllic biography of the hero:

“Gradually I began to write notes for the magazine (for some reason it seems to me that I saw his review in the legendary youth issue of Novy Mir for April 1974, but the biography says that Andrei has been publishing since ’76), then articles, but he quickly lost interest in the latter, having found true recognition in the volatile genre of bibliographic short notes: to this day his “Periodicals” column in “New Me” is one of the examples of the genre; I am sure that thanks to Andrey, all sorts of cute nonsense has appeared on the pages of the magazine in recent years like "our publications 10 years ago", which gives the magazine a cozy homely aura ... "

Slavik is generally an easy person, for him two years there, two years there - it doesn’t matter. It was in that “legendary youth issue for April” that Vasilevsky was published, only the issue was for 1976, not ’74.

Wow, by the way, there was a number:

And Evgeny Popov, and Vik. Erofeev, and Mikhail Epstein, and in “Young Voices” - the current deputy Bunimovich, and Olesya Nikolaeva on the same page with Sergei Bobkov (Philip’s son), and Alexey Didurov, and Evg. Blazheevsky, and Victor Korkiya and Grigory Kruzhkov. And a bunch more that remain unknown.

And Vasilevsky’s review (Slavik probably remembers the prose writer Boris Vasilevsky) of Sergei Mnatsakanyan’s book - it’s on the second page of the contents, I won’t scan it.

Yes, and the April issue for 74 was also not bad at all, even though it was typed exactly at the time of Solzhenitsyn’s expulsion:

But Vasilevsky really wasn’t here.

Well, okay, that’s just me - I arranged an interlude with pictures, because I don’t like the current approximation and sloppiness. We were "stood" there.

And now we can talk about the annoyance that, along with envy, I feel when reading the Novomir “Periodicals”.

Unfortunately, inventing a perfect tool is one thing, but using it at the level of its perfection is something else. This must be why airplanes are designed by some people, and aerobatic maneuvers are performed on them by completely different people.

Over the years, the freshness of the perception of “Periodicals” has passed, the novelty and universality of the genre itself has ceased to overshadow the actual content. And little by little this began to catch your eye: there are fewer and fewer short phrases with shimmering meaning, more and more quotes, and some (this is in 9-point type!) already take up half a page. More and more “conservative” didactics on the most unexpected topics.

And the most annoying thing is the blatant pulling of the blanket over oneself, that is, over the New World magazine. It is clear, of course, that the editor-in-chief should promote his magazine, but he would regret the invented genre! You can’t turn the needle in the direction of the “New World” at every convenient and inconvenient occasion. Here's how it is in the latest "Periodical":

Victor Astafiev. Two stories. - “Banner”, 2001, # 1 “Trophy Cannon” and “Cruel Romances” - new stories by the famous prose writer. See also his stories “The Flying Goose” (“New World”, 2001, # 1), “The Pioneer is an Example to Everyone” and “Venka is Judged” (“Moscow”, 2001, # 1).

This “see also” is the leitmotif of “Periodicals” in recent years. And when it is not possible to make such a link (the author of the publication is not published in Novy Mir), Vasilevsky is jealous and unfair:

Andrey Dmitriev. The way back. Tale. - “Banner”, 2001, # 1. The story of a nanny with a camp tattoo on her forearm.

Do I need to prove it?