Sergey Kostyrko. Review by S.K.

Review by S.K.
#87

Sergey Kostyrko

Publication date: January 8, 2002

I

And the togas of the literary year are a kind of festive New Year's fun for reviewers. But this year, to be honest, I started this work with some fear.

Firstly, for some reason there was a feeling that the year, to put it mildly, was not the most successful, and there was no time to check - look at the annual contents of magazines, collect lists of what was published in publishing houses for the year, or even look at one’s own records - everything was not there. The costs of the craft: a literary reviewer-chronicler is someone who, without looking up from the magazine-literary conveyor belt, reads almost exclusively “current” things. You have to read a lot. Too many and too different. And therefore the field of view is reduced to two to three months. Like a driver in the snow.

And secondly, at the end of this year, criticism suddenly sounded somehow triumphantly and harmoniously as a departure from current literature in general. One of our most authoritative critics, Alla Latynina, defined the state of current literature as “twilight.” Well, the young people rushed to fight this “twilight”: the still very young Shargunov (winner of the current “Debut” prize ), in a lushly executed manifesto , declared that yesterday’s and the day before yesterday’s literature had been exhausted, which for him had been reduced to postmodernism and “inarticulate everyday life,” the slushy prose of late-Soviet “muted”, “disadvantaged”, and even with “perestroika complexes” writers. And now all this, drowning in “twilight,” is being replaced by the literature of very young writers, those who will write “with Chekhov’s clarity,” like “Bunin-Gorky-Kuprin” - their “bud of realism” has already swelled; This realism is “a rose in the garden of art”; and so on...

Or maybe something has really collapsed in our literature lately?

And here it is - the last, and, in my opinion, a wonderful text, concluding the literary year. It consists of several lists compiled by nominators of various awards and editors of two magazines, “New World” and “October”.

1.

Prizes from the New World magazine for the best publications of 2001 were awarded to:

Andrey Volos - for the novel "Real Estate" (#1, 2);

Vladimir Gubailovsky - for the cycle of poems “Torture by Hope” (#8) and literary critical publications (##2, 5, 7, 10, 12);

Tatyana Cherednichenko - for the article on music “Tradition without words” (#7), “In the mode of musical time” (#8), “Form and structure in the art of sound and words” (#10);

Oleg Chukhontsev - for the cycle of poems "Fifia" (#11).

A special prize in connection with the 115th anniversary of the birth of the literary critic and journalist Vyacheslav Pavlovich Polonsky , who headed the "New World" in 1926 - 1931, was awarded

Olga Slavnikova - for literary critical and essayistic articles published in our magazine in 2000 - 2001.

Laureates of the October magazine award for 2001:

1. David Markish. "Becoming Lyutov. Free fantasies from the life of the writer Isaac Babel"

2. Oleg Pavlov. "Karaganda nineties, or the Tale of the last days"

3. Alexander Pyatigorsky "Ancient Man in the City". Novel.

4. Olga Slavnikova. "Immortal. The Tale of a Real Man" .

5. Sergey Yursky. "It all starts later." Book of prose.

6. Vladimir Salimon. "Texture of rough canvas" . Poetry.

7. Vladimir Kantor. "Antichrist, or Enmity towards Europe: the formation of totalitarianism" , "Russian philosopher in the era of madness of reason" , articles.

2.

Apollo Grigoriev Literary Prize

Literary critics - full members of the Academy of Russian Modern Literature (ARS'S) - nominated the following works of 2001 for the Apollo Grigoriev Literary Prize, established by Rosbank and the ARS'S Academy:

1. Boris Akunin . Pelagia and the black monk. M., "Astrel", 2001.

2. I. Borisova . Are there such pears? Stories. St. Petersburg, "Borey Art", 2001.

3. Grisha Bruskin . Imperfect past tense. M., "New Literary Review", 2001.

4. Dmitry Bykov . Justification. Novel. - "New World", 2001, #3, 4; M., "Vagrius", 2001.

5. Andrey Volos . Real estate. Novel. - "New World", 2001, #1, 2; M., "Vagrius", 2001.

6. Andrey Dmitriev . The way back. Tale. - "Banner", 2001, #1.

7. Leonid Zorin . Teetotaler. Novel. - “Banner”, 2001, #2.

8. Valery Iskhakov . Reader of Chekhov. Novel. - "Friendship of Peoples", 2001, #5.

9. Arkan Kariv . Translator. Novel - "Friendship of Peoples", 2001, #6.

10. Mikhail Kononov . Naked pioneer. Tale. - St. Petersburg, "Limbus-press", 2001.

11. Vladimir Makanin . One-day war. Story. - "New World", 2001, #10.

12. Irina Mashinskaya . Poems. M., Elena Pakhomova Publishing House, 2001.

13. Oleg Pavlov . Karaganda nineties, or the Tale of the last days. - "October", 2001, #8.

14. Oleg Postnov . Fear. - St. Petersburg, "Amfora", 2001.

15. Alexey Purin . New poems. Prague-St. Petersburg. Ed. URBI 2001

16. Vladimir Receptor . Nostalgia for Japan. Tour novel. - “Banner”, 2001, #3, 4.

17. Roman Senchin . Minus. Tale. - “Banner”, 2001, #8.

18. Olga Slavnikova . Immortal. A story about a real person. - "October", 2001, #6.

19. Oleg Chukhontsev . Fifia. Poems. - "New World", 2001, #11.

20. Elena Schwartz . Non dolet. Poems. - “Banner”, 2001, #8.

21. Bayan Shiryanov . Low aerobatics. M., "Ad Marginem", 2001.

22. Gleb Shulpyakov . Click. Book of poems. M., Publishing House "Nezavisimaya Gazeta", 2001.

3.

Literary Prize named after Yuri Kazakov

(for the best story of the year)

The 2001 jury selected six candidates for the prize from the works submitted to the competition:

1. Viktor Astafiev . Migrating goose. - "New World", 2001, #1;

2. Marina Vishnevetskaya . T.I.N. (Garden Experience). - "Banner", 2001, #12;

3. Nikolai Kononov . Mikesha. - “Banner”, 2001, #5;

4. Vladimir Makanin . One-day war. - "New World", 2001, #10;

5. Mikhail Tarkovsky . Frozen time. - “Our Contemporary”, 2001, #6;

6. Evgeny Shklovsky . Street. - "New World", 2001, #8.

Longlist of the Ivan Petrovich Belkin Literary Prize (story of the year).

1. Sergey Babayan . "No Return" - "Continent" #108

2. Irina Bezladnova . "Such a Woman" - "Star" #4

3. Pavel Bykov . "Boxing" - "Bulletin of the Literary Institute (special issue)

4. Mikhail Weller . "White Donkey" - "October" #4

5. Andrey Gelasimov . "Fox Mudler looks like a pig" - Project O.G.I.

6. Alexey Gelasimov . "The Beautiful Lady of the Lonely Major" - "Ring" A" #18

7. Alexander Goryanin . "Cargo" - "Star" #1

8. Faina Grimberg . "Mavka" - "Znamya" #10

9. Maxim Gureev . "Brother Cain-Abel" - "October #5

10. Andrey Dmitriev. "The Road Back" - "Banner"#1

11. Yuri Ekishev. "Angels Act" - "Continent #110"

12. Alexey Zikmund. "Herbert" - "New World" #7

13. Rustam Ibragimbekov. "Temple of Air" - "Friendship of Peoples" #8

14. Alexander Kabakov. "Late Guest" - "Banner" #3

15. Arkan Kariv. "Translator" - "Friendship of Peoples" #6

16. Victor Konetsky. "Collision in the Active Pass Strait" - "Neva" #1

17. Vladimir Kurnosenko. "Quiet Light" - "Friendship of Peoples" #4

18. Maria Rybakova. "Pannonia" - "Star" #11

19. Anna Matveeva. "Dyatlov Pass". - "Ural" #12-2000. #1-2001

20. Victor Melnikov. "The museum needs a guide" - "Kolomensky Almanac #5

21. Oleg Pavlov. "In Godless Lanes" - "October" #1

22. Oleg Pavlov. "Karaganda destinies, or the Tale of Recent Years" - "October" #8

23. Alexander Rogozhkin. "Home, or Memorial Day" - "The Art of Cinema" ##9,10

24. Margarita Safina. "Lord, don't throw me into the thorn bush" - "Idel #9

25. Felix Svetov. "Chizhik-fawn" - "Banner#11

26. Roman Senchin. "Minus" - "Banner" #8

27. Roman Senchin. "One and One" - "Friendship of Peoples" #10

28. Olga Slavnikova. "Immortal" - "October" #6

29. Mikhail Tarkovsky. "Hotel "Ocean" - "New World" #5

30. Alexander Titov. "The Life That Never Was" - "New World" #8

31. Elena Kholmogorova. "Orphan Winter" - "Continent" #108

32. Svetlana Shipunova. "Little Family Stories" - "Banner" #6

33. Victor Shirokov. "Babylon Pit" - "Our Street" #7

34. Vladimir Shpakov. "Listening to the Earth" - "Neva" #10

35. Galina Shchekina. "Graphomaniac" - "Mezon" #11-a

Well, what year was it? And it was a good year.

There was - and wonderful, in my opinion - prose. Finding the Year - a novel (called a story by the author) “Immortal” by Olga Slavnikova. This is about the relevance and irrelevance today of the language of modern Russian prose in comparison with the “understandable Chekhovian clarity”, “the style of Bunin-Gorky-Kuprin”. Slavnikova's prose is post-Trifon and post-Nabokov prose. Perhaps it is not the most “simple and understandable” for today’s young people, but it is precisely this kind of prose that produces the most significant phenomena in today’s literature.

An unexpected and quite formally complex work was performed in Anna Matveeva’s story “Dyatlov Pass” : the artist’s work with a document . I came across Matveeva’s name on the long list of the I.P. Belkin Prize; The list itself impresses primarily with the number of nominated tests - for example, I had no idea that this year there were so many stories that could qualify for the award. The work here is just beginning, but judging by the many names unfamiliar to the general reader, we can also hope for the discovery of new names.

Volos's novel "Real Estate" is very important - as a successful revival in modern prose (half-forgotten since the times of Trifonov, Shukshin, Abramov) of the skill of identifying the existential in today's everyday life.

It’s interesting ( I already wrote about this ) that two approaches to modern historical and philosophical narration intersected on the same material and on the same almost artistic device - the ideological (Bykov with his “Justification”) and the philosophical one (David Markish with the novel "Becoming Lyutov").

It is remarkable to see the combination in these lists of poets of three different generations, whose poetics exist on the principle of complementation, co-creation, and not opposition to each other (Oleg Chukhontsev - Elena Schwartz - Gleb Shulpyakov, Vladimir Gubailovsky).

I stop here, otherwise in my polemical rage I have almost moved to the tone of a Georgian table speech. Moreover, my task in this review is to present lists, accompanying them with several remarks, and not to try to review everything.

So just one more note. Unlike Alexander Ageev , in general, I calmly met Bayan Shiryanov’s “Low Aerobatics” on the lists - the appearance here of this, not the first or second freshness, literary news indicates to me the original escheat of the shocking-ideological, and by no means aesthetic stream in literature - during the three years of the sluggish scandal surrounding Shiryanov’s text, this plot of land, so carefully cultivated by some of my colleagues, has not produced anything new.

That is: while our literary critics indulge in grief and misanthropy, literature lives - and, judging by these lists, it lives well.

II

While preparing this review, I sent out a letter to readers using the RJ Reading Circle mailing list asking them to answer two questions: what seemed to them the most significant of new Russian prose and poetry this year and what they remembered from what they read in general. It seemed important to me to place a reader’s list next to the lists compiled by critics and writers. But here I, as they say, got a little carried away: having addressed the reader, I at least had to ask my future correspondents to accompany the names and titles with at least a designation of the genre and year of publication, and not rely on my own knowledge - as a result, the resulting list contains several unknown to me names and titles. On the other hand, I do not have the right to edit the list. Therefore, I apologize for the excessive homemade nature of the resulting product and thank everyone who answered me (I received 74 letters in four days).

Of course, this list does not pretend to be representative - but, on the other hand, nothing is ultimately random.

So, dear readers, this is what we got:

Contemporary Russian literature

1. Anatoly Azolsky . VMB. Tale. ("New World", #6).

2. Vasily Aksenov . Caesarean glow. Novel.

3. B. Akunin. "Pelagia and the Black Monk".

4. Maria Arbatova. " I am 40 years old".

5. Maria Arbatova. "Against the backdrop of Pushkin."

6. Maria Arbatova. "Last letter to A."

7. Elena Belkina. "Strange Women"

8. Shish Bryansky. Poetry.

9. Alexander Goldstein. "Aspects of Spiritual Marriage."

10. Robert van Gulik. "Murder Chinese Style: Labyrinth"

11. Igor Guberman. Gariki.

12. Alexey Zikmund. "Herbert". ("New World" #7).

13. Leonid Zorin. "Teetotaler". ("Banner" #2).

14. Pavel Krusanov. "Angel's Bite"

15. Vladimir Kurnosenko. “Quiet Light” in “Friendship of Peoples” (N 4).

16. Pressed Markish. "Becoming Lyutov" ("October", #2, 30).

17. Mytky. "About the hare".

18. Stella Morotskaya. "All thirty-three and others." Poetry.

19. Marina Moskvina. "Diamond Sutra Trash Can." ("Banner" #5).

20. Marina Moskvina. "The genius of unrequited love" ("Friendship of Peoples", #3).

21. Anatoly Naiman. "Love Interest"

22. Vl. Novikov. "Vysotsky". ("New World" ##11, 12).

23. Edward Radzinsky. "Writers' Games" ("October" #3, 4).

24. Boris Red. "In the cold wind." Poems.

25. Dina Rubina. "Sunday Mass in Toledo" ("Friendship of Peoples" #2).

26. Dina Rubina. "On Verkhnyaya Maslovka".

27. Olga Slavnikova. "Immortal" ("October" #6).

28. Tatiana Tolstaya. "Kys."

29. Tatiana Tolstaya. "Night".

30. Vyacheslav Sharaevsky. "Confession of a suicide bomber" ("Star" No. 3).

31. Galina Shcherbakova. "Boy and Girl" ("New World" #5).

32. Max Fry. "Encyclopedia of Myths".

33. Leonid Yuzefovich. "Harlequin Costume".

34. Andrey Yakhontov. "Former Heart"

This year's Just Reading

1. Anatoly Azolsky. "Monks. Sea of ​​Mantsevs." Novels.

2. B. Akunin. "Altyn Tolobas".

3. B. Akunin. Novels about Fandorin.

4. Julian Barnes "England, England".

5. John Barth . "Lost in the funhouse." Stories, novel.

6. T. Coragessan Boyle “East is East.”

7. Larisa Vasilyeva . "Wife and Muse"

8. Elie Wiesel . Next generation.

9. Solomon Volkov . "Dialogues with Joseph Brodsky."

10. Evelyn Waugh . "Black misfortune", "Sensation".

11. Dmitry Volchek "93!"

12. P.T.Wodehouse . Jeeves and Wooster.

13. Tom Wolfe "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", "Bonfire of Ambition".

14. Romain Gary "Roots of the Sky".

15. Romain Gary "Promise at Dawn".

16. Alex Garland "Beach" "Tesseract".

17. William Gibson . "Virtual light".

18. Evgeny Grishkovets . "Simultaneously". Dialogues to "Notes of a Russian Traveler".

19. Jeffrey Deaver . "Death dancer".

20. Sergey Dovlatov “Zone”, “Reserve”.

21. Daria Dontsova . Novels.

22. Edgar L. Doctorow "Ragtime".

23. Jean Genet "The Celebration of the Funeral".

24. Jean Genet "Strict Supervision".

25. Valery Zalotukha . "Makarov". Stories.

26. Isaac Bashevis Singer . "Passion and Other Stories".

27. Kazuo Ishiguro "The Remains of the Day."

28. Veniamin Kaverin “Two Captains”.

29. Bakhyt Kenzheev . "Goblin Gold"

30. Philip Kerr . "Esau".

31. Timur Kibirov . "Anniversary of the lyrical hero." Poetry.

32. Victor Konetsky . "Last flight"

33 Oleg Kuvaev . "Territory".

34. Robin Cook . "Contagion". Roman.

35. Milan Kundera "Slowness", "Authenticity".

36. Lev Losev Poems.

37. Erlend Lu "Naive. Super."

38. Osip Mandelstam . "Egyptian stamp".

39. Haruki Murakami "Sheep Hunt"

40. Haruki Murakami . "Dance, dance, dance..."

41. Ben Okri , "The Famished Road".

42. Milorad Pavic . "Starry Mantle. An Astrological Guide for the Uninitiated."

43. Milorad Pavic "Inverted Mitten".

44. Vera Pavlova "The Fourth Dream".

45. Marina Paley . "Long Distance, or Slavic accent."

46. ​​Marina Paley . "House. Cabiria from the Obvodny Canal."

47. Catherine Pancol "I was the first."

48. Arturo Perez-Reverte “The Dumas Club, or Richelieu’s Shadow” (“Foreign Literature” #10).

49. L. Petrushevskaya . Collected works.

50. Francoise Sagan "Detours".

51. William Sutcliffe "Try it."

52. Ephraim Sevela , 4 volumes.

53. Danielle Steele . "Secrets".

54. Victoria Tokareva . "Masha and Phoenix"

55. Yuri Trifonov . "House on the embankment." Novel, diaries.

56. Andy Warhol . "The philosophy of Andy Warhol. (From A to B and vice versa)."

57. Aldous Huxley “Crome Yellow”, “The Jester’s Round Dance”, “Brave New World”, “Hell and Heaven”, “The Gates of Perception”, “Counterpoint”.

58. Michel Houellebecq "Elementary particles".

59. Scott Fitzgerald "Tender is the Night."

60. Max Fry "The Ideal Novel".

61. Tom Sharp . Novels.

62. Umberto Eco "Island of the Eve".

And a small list of non-fiction:

1. Hannah Arendt. "Vita activa, or On the active life."

2. Alexander Arkhangelsky . "Alexander I".

3. Isaiah Berlin . "The History of Freedom. Russia".

4. P.P. Gaidenko “Vladimir Solovyov and the philosophy of the Silver Age.”

5. Roman Gul. "I carried away Russia. Apology for emigration."

6. Arthur Lovejoy. "The Great Chain of Being. The History of an Idea." "German Philosophical Literary Studies. Anthology."

7. Barry Parker. "Einstein's Dream. In search of a unified theory of the structure of the universe."

8. Geoffrey Barton Russell "The Devil. The Perception of Evil from Ancient Times to Early Christianity", "Satan. The Perception of Evil in the Early Christian Tradition."

9. Kurt Riess. "Goebbels. Devil's Advocate."

10. Alexander Skidan. "The Resistance of Poetry: Research and Essays."

11. Martin Heidegger/Karl Jaspers. Correspondence. 1920 - 1963.

12. Age Hansen-Løve "Russian Formalism".

13. G. Chkhartishvili “The Writer and Suicide.”

14. Mircea Eliade "Shamanism".

As a comment to the list, two thoughts .

The first thing that catches your eye in the second list is the ratio of Russian and translated modern literature. Here one could be offended for the State. But I am not offended: on the contrary, the situation seems fruitful to me. It means that modern Russian literature is perceived (and therefore created) not in some somewhat isolated space, as was the case in Soviet and early post-Soviet times, but in the context of today’s - if not world, then certainly - European literature. And this is a wonderful opportunity to get rid of some features of provincial literature, on the one hand, and, on the other, from inferiority complexes, which have always been expressed in increased attention to “how we are perceived in Europe.” Whether we like it or not, we are part of modern European literature. Judging by the list above, it is in this context that the domestic reader perceives us.

And the second circumstance that surprised me: in the lists sent (they were usually small: 2-3-4 names) names were very rarely repeated (rare exceptions - Akunin, Tolstaya, Houellebecq, Murakami, Perez-Reverte and absolutely unknown to me Philip Kerr). That is, it turns out that everyone reads his own and for himself. The era of mass, herd reading seems to be passing. Reading from a certain ritual, as if introducing one to the “progressively minded” (“intellectually and aesthetically advanced”), turns into “simply” reading. And literature, accordingly, from being part of a “general proletarian cause” becomes a deeply personal matter, a part of everyone’s mental and spiritual life. Just as for a real writer the process of writing is also a process of clarifying one’s relationship with time, with oneself, with being and non-existence and, if you like, with Existence, so for the reader the process of reading is an opportunity to remain face to face with the writer (by the interlocutor, not by the teacher) and by oneself; This is the moment of a complex process of self-building. And if literature unites individuals people in society, then does it from within. From the depths of everyone, and not the other way around. I understand how it can alarm - even frighten - people who are traditionally oriented in matters of the relationship between life and literature (“Literature is over,” said, for example, Gleb Pavlovsky in an interview with Oleg Proskurin , “I don’t see the need for it anymore, at least for myself"). But it seems to me that, on the contrary, literature is only beginning to acquire its status among us, to come into its own. Well, all the lamentations of criticism about its current “twilightness”, about the need for cardinal changes, and so on. and so on. - all this may have some meaning in the circumliterary space, but not at all in the space of literature itself.

I understand how comical all these sweeping and pretentious generalizations of mine can look, made on a more than homemade list that does not give the right to any generalizations (a relatively small part of a rather specific readership - RJ readers subscribed to the "Reading Circle" mailing list ). But even if we treat all of the above as the New Year’s dreams of a columnist, it’s unlikely that anyone would risk asserting that these dreams are groundless - re-read the lists given here carefully.