Mikhail Edelshtein. No options

No options
Mikhail Edelshtein

Publication date: February 6, 2003

On February 12 , the Ivan Petrovich Belkin Prize for the best story, awarded by the Znamya magazine and the EKSMO publishing house, will be awarded - the youngest of the main Russian literary awards. She is only one year old. Moreover, the birth of the baby was not without scandal. Last year's presentation of the prize to Sergei Babayan for the story " No Return " upset, it seems, everyone. Some called the jury's decision "strange" and "puzzling" , others downright "shameful" .

It just seemed absolutely normal to me. Well, they awarded an exemplary average (that is, exemplary no) story: an average plot, average language, average philosophizing of an average hero. A discounted version of the “urban prose” of the 70s based on perestroika material. So this is exactly the kind of prose that we were rewarding throughout the 90s. And nothing happened without incident. Magazines published it, critics praised it. And then suddenly everyone was outraged. Why be indignant? The entire “ wonderful decade ” continually passed off such calligraphy as literature... Moreover, Babayan’s neighbors on the short list were exactly the same - Dmitriev and Slavnikova . Well, the prize was intended for one average story, but they ended up awarding another - so it’s no wonder it got mixed up.

It seems that only Lev Pirogov praised the laureate then. It's funny. Who would have thought that post-intellectualism is a cross between Shukshin and Trifonov.

However, last year the jury still had a worthy choice - Andrei Gelasimov's excellent story " Fox Mulder is like a pig " was smuggled into the shortlist. Today Gelasimov is again among the contenders, but his new story “ Thirst ” cannot be compared with “Mulder”.

Since there is a reason, it’s worth dwelling on the Gelasimov phenomenon in more detail - after all, the man has become one of the most discussed modern Russian writers over the course of a year. But it's not only that. Gelasimov’s fate seems to me quite characteristic and reminiscent of the path of an independent American director, some Steven Soderbergh or Gus Van Sant. If such a director makes something that doesn’t fit into the mainstream, everyone around is happy about it, the film is taken to prestigious festivals and awarded with prizes. The director immediately becomes fashionable, he is invited to Hollywood, money is given for his projects, the most famous stars are eager to act in his films. As a result, “Erin Brockovich” is born, or “Good Will Hunting”, or something else like that.

It seems to me that approximately the same thing happened with Gelasimov. An unknown author wrote a wonderful story, first posted it on the Internet, then published it as a book in a fashionable publishing house. Thick magazines began to welcome him, critics started talking about him, and premium juries began to pay attention to him. As soon as one magazine published, as a matter of discussion, an article whose author doubted the merits of Gelasimov’s prose , the article was immediately called ordered, and the magazine itself was accused of an anti-Gelasimov conspiracy . The reading public, who also liked Gelasimov, began, as in that cartoon, to ask in a demanding voice: “And what else?” Needless to say, as a result, “Fox Mulder...” remains the best of Gelasimov’s multi-genre texts that have appeared to this day. In general, see D. Merezhkovsky’s article “In the Monkey’s Paws,” which is exactly about this.

In Gelasimov’s first story there was only one phrase that took the whole conversation to a qualitatively different level, invalidating all the scornful attacks of reviewers who got into the habit of comparing “Mulder” some with Victoria Tokareva, some with Anatoly Aleksin. Remember, there the hero remembers how he and his friend Marina came to visit the teacher, and suddenly says: “What was her name after all? Maybe not Marina. Marina, it seems, was later. In her second year.” That's all. And the most remarkable thing is that this phrase is given without any pressure, as if by the way, it is not highlighted in any way, which in itself is a great rarity for our modern literature, which has completely forgotten how to trust the reader and work on subtexts. And after this, the narrator, as if nothing had happened, continues his “Marina and I...”. Here, by the way, is the answer to the question “what is the meaning of the story described,” to which D. Bykov cannot find an answer. Here in this, in this phrase. This is what the story is about. If anyone doesn’t know, this is called melancholy and all the great world literature has been written about it. Well, or almost all of it. The best novel of all time, " The Great Gatsby ", is at least exactly about this.

This is not the case in “Thirst,” or in Gelasimov’s other works. There is no break in intonation, no reticence. There is an imitation of all this, as in the ending of "Thirst", but the real additional dimension never appears. Everything there is straight forward, everything is programmed, everything is clear from the very beginning. Businessmen who had quarreled will reconcile, the missing comrade will be found, the hero’s desire to draw will return, and people will be drawn to him. In general, “Everything will be fine.” Dmitry Astrakhan with claims.

In fact, I also straighten it a little, and it’s not quite the same. “Thirst” is a good story in its own way. Gelasimov's style, his manner, his intonation have not gone away. Only behind all this there is now much less value than before. Scheme instead of life. Significance instead of ambiguity. Plaster with the label "marble". And how all Gelasimov’s things became the same - as if the Raelites were doing mischief here too. “Thirst” is similar to “ Zhanna ”, “Zhanna” is like “ Someone else’s grandmother ”, well - and so on, along the chain. I'm not even talking about " The Year of Deception " - here, really, nothing comes to mind except New Russian cinema. It's cute though, cute. And Fox Mulder is different. Sorry for Fox. Even though he looks like a pig. And I feel sorry for Andrey Gelasimov. So everything started well. And ends up on the Belkin short list, in company with Asar Eppel and Marina Vishnevetskaya. Let's hope this is just an intermediate finish. Gelasimov is, after all, from another company.

I just wrote about Eppel, and I don’t want to repeat myself. Moreover, the story “Castrate Kastryulets”, which is now claimed by Belkin, is from the same Znamensky collection as the story “In the Locomotive Years”, which was awarded the Cossack Prize a month ago. Nobody knows why one is a story and the other is a story. Even Nemzer. We won't find out either. Moreover, two awards in a row in our literary life do not fall on one chest. And once again, especially since whether it’s a story or a story, Eppel is the same everywhere. There are writers who took Chekhov’s idea too literally that you can write about anything. And they write. They write well, I must admit. Very verbose, of course, redundant, with embellishment and all sorts of curlicues, but this is a matter of taste. There is false classicism, why not there should be false baroque? The only trouble is that the result is something so hollow that, it seems, if you tap on the lines of the text, you will hear a booming echo inside... “The canteen food was so bad that you couldn’t even get poisoned with it” - this is from a story (story? ) Eppel's "Frequent Idea", the third in that Znamensky selection.

Vishnevetskaya, unlike Eppel, has not received any awards in the foreseeable past. On the contrary, she was somewhat ostentatiously surrounded by the same “Cossack” three times in a row, which even caused something like a small scandal. So, most likely, she will get Belkin. For the story " A.K.S. (The Experience of Love) ". The story, in fact, is not bad, and, in my opinion, there is only one problem with it. The same as with the story “ The Experience of Belonging ,” which was on the last Cossack shortlist. It is too difficult to let go of the idea that when reading Vishnevetskaya’s prose, we empathize not with the “truth of the text”, but with the “truth of life”, that the main thing here is the material, and not the artistic vision of the author. I don't know how the nature of the experience of Belonging Experience differs from the experience of reading The Black Book . I understand that the hospice doctor’s notes would make no less an impression on the reader, and most importantly, similar in structure to the impression from “A.K.S.” And I also see how frankly unsuccessful are those works by Vishnevetskaya, where the material in itself is no longer so unbearable, but how the author repeatedly falls short precisely where subtlety of style and non-standard writing thinking are required. I see how “ R.I.B. (experience in demonstrating mourning) ” turns into a weak stylization, how straightforwardly the sentimental “T.I.N. (experience in the garden)” is built.

Ilya Kochergin's story " The Chinese's Assistant " also cannot do without this very "truth of life." However, the description of the hero’s family troubles, his financial difficulties, and his search for work is initially read not without some interest. The language is good, some of the dialogues, especially with American-Canadian friends, are very successful. Closer to the middle, however, you begin to understand for what sins this story was called an essay on one of the sites. A suspicion creeps in that the author, not content with a self-portrait, is claiming to create another “Hero of our time,” and nothing good comes of this, as usual.

After describing the narrator’s escape from Moscow to Siberia, the reader no longer doubts that they are trying to feed him another example of “Siberian prose” - a specific subtype of village prose, where instead of Vologda peasants, some taiga residents, hunters or foresters act as bearers of folk truth. And yet this is not entirely true. Despite all his self-persuasion, the narrator does not feel happy in Siberia. Against the backdrop of all the inevitable scenery in such a text, among centuries-old trees and snow-covered rivers, he plays Russian roulette in order to prove to himself that “with a probability of one in seven... he is necessary for later life.” Proves it. And he lives on.

To some extent, the author really manages to destroy the genre stereotype. However, the story is spoiled by the last paragraph, which reduces existential pathos to social ones. It turns out that the hero simply does not want to accept the rules of the game of the era, which requires him to remain “the Chinese’s assistant.” And that’s why he returns from Moscow to the taiga. He makes a choice, and most importantly, pretends that something depends on this choice and something changes. “Siberian Prose” is on the march again, seemingly completely destroyed cliches and schemes are again gaining strength and triumphing.

The shortlist for Yuri Goryukhin's story " Oncoming Traffic " can most easily be explained by the jury's desire to once again honor the memory of a native of the village of Goryukhin. The graphomaniac exercise of the Ufa prose writer, which is not devoid of entertainment, is surprisingly reminiscent of Vadim Mesyats’s novel “ Electric Treatment ,” which a few months earlier slipped into the top six contenders for the Booker. The same lack of a clear plot, the same endless multiplication of characters designed to mask the compositional impotence, the same final feeling of emptiness, complete “nothingness”. Both Mesyats and Goryukhin have good jokes, nice fragments that drown in the raw text mass.

It’s an interesting trend - no matter what kind of award we’re talking about, every time there’s something on the shortlist that doesn’t really fit into any category. In Belkin's past, for example, this role was played by Faina Grimberg's story " Mavka " - exalted and extremely bad taste memories of the first steps of bohemian lesbians in the era of stagnation. This year the clown is not so funny. Goryukhin is still not Grimberg, and upon closer examination one can notice a distant resemblance to literature in his work...

There is such a joke. Sad. I apologize to those who know, but for the rest I’m telling you. Ilya Muromets is driving along the road. He drives, drives, and finally arrives, as expected, at a fork in the road. There is a stone at the fork, and on the stone there is an inscription: “No options, Ilyusha.”

Our premium stories are becoming more and more reminiscent of this sad story from year to year. What kind of "Belkin's Tales" is this - some kind of "Fatalist" turns out to be. On this occasion, I propose to establish another prize. The most important one. The final one. Named after Vulich.

PS “And only one nonsense drove him crazy...” Last year, the Belkin authorities announced the establishment of a special “Undertaker” award for the critic who writes the worst about the laureate. I honestly swore at five of the six people on the shortlist, including the laureate, and sat down to wait. But I never received the prize. Moreover, I couldn’t even find out how much cu. due to the winner and did anyone even get the “Undertaker”. Apparently not - the jury really annoyed everyone with their decision, and the competition turned out to be too high. To increase my chances, this year I decided not to make exceptions for anyone, take no prisoners, and scold everyone. Please consider everything written above as a sincere application. I want to be an undertaker. I agree to take it in rubles. I'm not proud.