Ekaterina Margolis. Regarding one review

Regarding one review
Ekaterina Margolis

Publication date: January 11, 2002

Dear editor,

Thank you very much for your attention to the book “Venetian notebooks. Joseph Brodsky and others” , for your analysis and comments. Unfortunately, however, not all review authors were attentive enough . In Elena Stafieva’s article “Bow to the Shadow” there was a funny and at the same time quite gross inaccuracy that offended Lev Losev , whom I respect very much . If it were not for this circumstance, then it would probably not be worth responding to the negative review at all. Especially the compiler or artist. The book should answer for itself. But to do this, you need to read it carefully, and even more so, review it.

There are many inaccuracies of various kinds in this review: from judgments about the layout of the book (it is two-color, not three-color, as Elena Stafieva claims ) to the problem of writing the Latin “post scriptum”, which Brodsky , although he wrote together in the poem, is unlikely to be taken as a new spelling norm - we don’t write “poem” instead of “poem” now. But all this is not so important. Taste is also a personal matter, but philology is a science increasingly striving for accuracy. And parsing the text requires at least conscientiousness. Thus, Elena Stafieva, in particular, writes:

But all this could have been forgiven by E. Margolis if she had flawlessly fulfilled the main role she had assumed - compiler, commentator and artist. <...> For a commented ("reputable") publication, the commentary is too inconsistent and lightweight. Optionalism reigns literally on every page - just open the book at random. It is completely unclear on what basis the realities for comment were selected. Why, for example, do the lines from “San Pietro” - “and for the third week the drying underwear / become so accustomed to daylight / and to their rope ... ” - need an introductory explanation: “An area where tourists do not often wander. clothes on the lines." (p.146).

Unfortunately, this example of “inconsistency and lightness” does not belong to me, but to Lev Losev , who commented on all of Brodsky’s poems in this edition and provided them with small prefaces, which, in my opinion, perfectly correspond to the spirit and intent of the book. He is also the author of the comments about Roberto Calasso: “a famous writer, author of unique narratives based on ancient myths; Brodsky spoke enthusiastically about his book “The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony” ; about Susan Sontag - “one of the “masters of thought” of her generation ( “cult figure” of the American intelligentsia), friend of Brodsky,” etc. So the whole irony of his remarks about the “Brodsky-centric” organization of comments and the fact that the “cult figure” is apparently a translation into “modern” language of the old-fashioned “ruler” "doom" and so on, Elena Stafieva, unfortunately, sends to the wrong address. The most absurd thing is that at the end of the review, after the defeat of these supposedly "mine" (as the author of the review believes) comments, Elena Stafieva makes an elegant curtsy to side of the same Lev Losev and ends his note with this curtsy :

“However, in these muddy waters, among lampreys, eels and other creatures, you come across small but real pearls. For example, Lev Losev’s commentary on Brodsky’s poems from the long-awaited volume in the “Poet's Library”. Well, you should be grateful for that too ".

Indeed, gratitude is exactly the feeling that I feel towards Lev Losev for the comments he created. It’s just very inconvenient for him for the illiterate review, in which these comments are first attributed to another author, as such they are torn to smithereens, and then presented as a gift to the reader.

Sincerely,
E. Margolis