This is criticism

We continue to publish conversations with literary critics. Today the guest of the column is Pavel Basinsky .

Russian Magazine: Pavel Valerievich, let's start with a question about the mysterious Yasnaya Polyana award, of which you are a member of the jury...

Pavel Basinsky: In fact, I was a consultant on that part of the award that is awarded for the best debut, although all the newspapers actually called me a member of the jury...

As for the award itself, it appeared only this year, and it happened somewhat spontaneously. It was founded by the Samsung Electronics company and the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate of Leo Tolstoy. The jury members are museum director Vladimir Tolstoy, critics Lev Anninsky and Igor Zolotussky , and the chairman is prose writer Anatoly Kim . The prize is divided into a large one ($20 thousand), which was received by Viktor Likhonosov , and a small one, for the best debut, which went to Vladislav Otroshenko . It is expected that the award will become annual.

The procedure for awarding Yasnaya Polyana caused a lot of controversy. The fact is that both parts of the prize are awarded for a specific work, regardless of the time of its writing. The only condition is that the author be alive. And when this thing was printed does not matter. Yes, the idea of ​​presenting a prize for a debut that took place ten years ago is probably not controversial. But that’s how the prize is designed.

Another question is that this year there were some private shortcomings, for example, there were no nominators. Next year, I think, an institute of nominators will appear.

RJ : Will the situation itself, in which things written thirty years ago are awarded, continue?

P.B.: I think so. Although, in my opinion, a small prize should be given not for a debut, but, say, for the best short work.

RJ : Thank you, everything is more or less clear with the new award. Let us now move on to your critical works. Tell me, in your articles do you start from the emotional perception of the text or are you guided by a certain strategy?

P.B.: Whatever book I read, I am initially favorably disposed towards it, I expect something new and good from it. Now, let's say, I'm reading Pelevin's new novel - and I start by saying to myself: “This is interesting.” This is the first one. Second, the critic must never forget that he is simply a reader. He faces the same questions as the average reader. Is he interested in the book or not? When he goes to bed, will he read until two or three in the morning or will he put the book aside and fall asleep? Will he remember this book tomorrow, will he want to finish reading it, or will he have to force himself? These two moments are very important: a known goodwill towards the book and a moment of direct reader interest in it.

As for strategy, it does not concern a specific text or even a specific author. Of course, in modern literature, as indeed in any era, there is a certain amount of politics, personal and group. And, naturally, I cannot ignore them, they are present in my head. But here it is appropriate to recall the words of Nietzsche, which I love very much and often repeat: you need to fight with ideas, not with people. If a wonderful person expresses an idea that seems harmful to life, it means I have to fight it...

RJ: For life or for literature?

P.B.: And I believe that literature is a part of life, including social life. I don't share them. Moreover, for me the separation of life and literature is the death of both. Life becomes vulgar, stupid, vulgar, and literature turns into a meaningless and useless activity.

I am a categorical opponent of the idea of ​​literature for literature's sake. When I hear that literature has gotten rid of its unusual role, I want to ask: who knows what the role of literature is, who determined this? From all sides it is heard: “Finally, literature will take care of itself.” But imagine a woman who says: “Oh, how good! My husband left, my children died, now I’ll take care of myself.” So what will she do? Sit in front of the mirror and put on makeup?

And if literature is a part of life, then, therefore, it can bring benefit or harm to life. And, let’s say, Vladimir Sorokin really harms life. Therefore, you need to fight him, despite the fact that he is a talented person with a masterly command of style...

RJ: In the article “ Augean Stables ,” published a couple of years before the start of the “ Walking Together ” campaign against Sorokin, you demanded that he be tried “on at least three counts: pornography with elements of perversion, inciting ethnic hatred, as well as outrage against specific historical figures , whose children and grandchildren, by the way, are still alive." Those details that go further in your text are surprisingly reminiscent of the future actions of the “Coming...” that did not yet exist at that moment. We know how their action ended: the writer’s popularity grew, he turned into a fashionable public figure, the circulation of his books increased many times, etc. But let’s imagine that Sorokin was actually imprisoned, his novels were confiscated from stores, and the hawkers selling his books face criminal prosecution... Wouldn’t you be sick of existing in a literary space from which your enemy was similarly excluded?

P.B.: I did not propose to pursue Sorokin specifically. I wrote that if a writer deserves arrest under the Criminal Code , then he should be imprisoned. Why can a locksmith who breaks the law be imprisoned, but not a writer? A writer is the same member of society as a mechanic, he has even more responsibility, because he deals with the word, and it will act even after his death. If we return to Sorokin, I don’t think that he should be imprisoned; rather, the publishing houses that publish his books should be fined. I am not very well versed in criminal law, but I think that in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation one can find grounds for such actions.

As for Walking Together, I don’t know what kind of organization it is, who created it or who is funding it. I am not a member of it and have nothing to do with it. But when the languid Sorokin, lounging, says that censorship has returned, the new year of 1937 has arrived - this is nonsense! What year is '37? Yes, in 1937 he would not have reached the desk!

Let's figure it out. What actually happened? The public organization filed a lawsuit against the writer. Does she have the right to do this?

RJ: Absolutely.

P.B.: That's all. A normal democratic procedure is taking place, it couldn’t be more democratic. This happens all the time in the West, writers are sued, feminists are suing everyone - and nothing. Nobody cares about this, no one shouts about the year 1937.

RJ: And yet: I suggested imagining a hypothetical situation when everything that you described in “Augean Mables” comes true, as is typical of dystopias...

P.B.: I probably would feel sorry for Sorokin, I feel sorry for everyone. I felt sorry for Limonov when he was in prison. I really regretted it. Because staying there for a month may not be scary, but when he spent a year there, it was clear how difficult it was for him. And even though the whole country recognized him, even though there were letters of protest and everyone supported him, it was simply physically difficult for the person.

On the other hand, the writer must know what he is getting into. He is responsible to eternity, but he is also responsible to society, to the law. And Rushdie should have known what he was getting into. And he knew, I assure you.

RJ: The analogy between Sorokin and Rushdie is probably more appropriate than between Sorokin and Limonov. Because Limonov was still imprisoned for possession of weapons. We can argue that the accusation was fabricated or that for Limonov, playing war is a variant of life creativity. But no one arrested Limonov for the printed word... And yet, I would like to understand - when you wrote: “For our part, we will definitely involve the Pen Center and other compassionate organizations so that a generally talented writer for his unconscious “I got into hooliganism not for, say, three years, but one,” what was the share of metaphor in these words? Let's formulate the question this way: would you agree to act as a public prosecutor at Sorokin's trial?

P.B.: No. You may consider my position to be disingenuous, but I am a man of literature, and a public accuser can be, say, a representative of a public organization fighting for morality in our fatherland...

Understand that literature cannot exist without borders. Moreover, from my point of view, boundaries are useful for literature and for culture as a whole; they, in fact, create it. There should be no lawlessness; some concepts are needed. Brothers exist according to concepts, and modern culture believes that it can live without any concepts, that it is possible to write books with continuous obscenities, it is possible to mock Akhmatova ... Yes, treat Akhmatova as you like, but she is not only a poet, she is also a real person .

RJ: Here a naive question arises: who defines these limits, these concepts?

P.B.: Let's first agree that the culture of prohibitions creates culture in general. How is the next question. For example, I say: censorship is necessary. They ask me: who will implement it? So let's think: who, how, within what limits?

RJ: Censorship as self-censorship or censorship as an external institution?

P.B.: As an external institution. And how it will work depends on the development of society. In the meantime, the state is simply lasciviously turning away from culture, thereby abandoning its society and its people.

We have already said that literature really influences life. Schoolchildren read it, their parents read it. The book becomes an integral part of the human soul. I'm not even talking about cinema, whose influence today, of course, is incomparably stronger. And if the state says: film what you want, print what you want, this means that temporary workers have come to power. The Bolsheviks, no matter how you treated them, believed that they would rule for a long time. And now the temporary workers have arrived.

RJ: Don’t you think there is some contradiction in your position? When we say that a culture develops mechanisms of prohibition, we are talking about its self-regulation, which does not require objectification. It is assumed that the writer does not write some things by default, and if he does write them, the reader does not read them or buy them. And the censorship committee is no longer culture, it is a form of state influence on culture...

P.B.: Here again: just as you want to separate literature from life, so you want to separate culture and the state. And there is no need to separate them, they are one. The state must be cultural, and culture must be built, among other things, on state interests, and must take care of them.

RJ: In the mid-second half of the 1990s, there was quite a heated debate in criticism about the “new realism”. Your opponents claimed that it was provoked by you; you denied this honor in every possible way. But nevertheless: has life somehow clarified this dispute?

P.B.: They talked about “new realism” at the beginning of the 20th century, and the very concept of “realism” has existed since time immemorial. So I really have nothing to do with it. As for the dispute that you mentioned, it began with my article “ Return ,” published ten years ago in Novy Mir. I just felt offended for that root, main line of Russian literature, which was simply trampled on then. We started with socialist realism, and by that time we had already reached realism as such. Vladimir Novikov , for whom I have great respect, wrote that all Russian literature of the 20th century is the literature of modernism, and openly said: “Realism is a coffin.” This is what I objected to in my articles of those years.

As for the “new realists,” this name was assigned to a group of authors about whom I actually wrote quite a lot then. These are Oleg Pavlov , Alexey Varlamov , Svetlana Vasilenko , Pyotr Aleshkovsky . Yes, there was, of course, a certain amount of strategic calculation in this. But in no case did I want to create some kind of party. Rather, I sought to show that in my generation there are people who hold a similar point of view to me.

And then all this fuss began. Vladimir Bondarenko wrote in “Literature Day” that I created a party - and did the right thing. Vyacheslav Kuritsyn said that Basinsky seized on realism because he calculated that the time would come when they would pay more for it than for modernism - and again it turned out that I was great. At this point I became uninterested and even, if you like, disgusted. Because realism is by no means a party or a school. This is a worldview that goes back to the Middle Ages. This is a way of relating to the world based on trust in it as the creation of God. The modernist does not trust the world; he is not against the current state of the world, but against the original plan for it.

As for postmodernism, it was clear to me from the very beginning that all this would disappear quite quickly. Yes, the past decade was the era of postmodernism, and this applies not only to literature, but also to politics, and life in general. But now it's passing. Roughly speaking, Yeltsin was a postmodernist, but Putin is no longer.

RJ: Is Putin a realist?

P.B.: I don’t know. Putin is generally a completely dark figure for me. At first I liked him, but now I just can’t understand what kind of person he is. But, nevertheless, it is clear that the time of postmodernism is over.

RJ: Then why did you spend ten years of your life fighting what, in your own words, turned out to be a fake and revealed its inconsistency?

P.B.: No, it was necessary to fight, because there was an expansion of modernism, in the broadest sense of the word. The writer who even just wrote in normal literary language was answered: “Go with your socialist realism! Different times have come. Write in a new way if you want to be noticed.” Kuritsyn told me directly: “You are marginal. What are you doing? Sorokin, Prigov , Pelevin - this is real literature. When you grow up, you will understand.”

But there are still debates about whether to include Sorokin’s works in the school curriculum or not. And if there had been no opposition to this, they would have included it long ago, I know these ministerial workers. And the teachers, blushing, would discuss with their students why a schoolboy eats his teacher’s excrement, and what it means.

The release of novels by Sorokin or Pelevin is reported on NTV news. Have you heard them talk about other writers?

RJ: But Pelevin is really popular, and therefore, the release of his new book after several years of break is an information occasion. Sorokin’s new novel after the “Walking Together” campaign is also an informational occasion...

P.B.: Under Soviet rule, they would have quickly dealt with the information issue. They would say: “Comrades, we need to say such and such about such and such a writer” - and now a reason has appeared. I repeat: the state must have a policy in the field of literature and art. When it appears, it will be possible to discuss whether it is good or bad. And when it doesn’t exist at all, it’s terrible.

RJ: Ten years have passed since the publication of “Return”; the history of literature has taken several steps. Was the forecast you made in the early 90s confirmed?

P.B.: Confirmed to the extent that modernism and postmodernism, as they should be, are now going to the sidelines. But things come to the fore about which it is generally impossible to say whether it is modernism, realism or something else. Well, for example, Marinina is realism? Yes, she writes in a fairly simple language, she doesn’t bring anything evil into the world, there’s no harm from her... Mass literature has won, it can still be called folk literature. And postmodernity goes to salons and Slavic conferences. So let the Slavists deal with all these Prigovs, Sorokins and others.

RJ: But Slavists are now studying Marina and others like her almost more than they are studying postmodernists...

P.B.: Of course, even Slavists are beginning to feel that this phenomenon is relatively living and more reflective of real life... In general, a process is currently underway in our country, which I, using the language of Konstantin Leontyev , would define as simplification. Following the superficial complication, so-called pluralism - in fact, life did not become more complicated, but rather blossomed with poisonous flowers - the vulgarization of everything and everyone begins.

The same thing happens with realism. I am fully aware that if a new Yuri Kazakov , a first-class, deep realist prose writer, appeared today, he would remain a marginal figure with his own rather narrow audience. Well, he would have received the Yuri Kazakov Prize, and that would have been the end of his fame. But in reality they would still read Marinina, Akunin , Pelevin. And there is no escape from this.

RJ: What place do “your” writers occupy in the literary process: Otroshenko, Varlamov, etc.?

P.B.: They belong to the very main tradition of Russian literature that we talked about, to real Russian realism, which existed in both the 19th and 20th centuries. Although, of course, even the best of today's writers are not comparable in scale to Platonov or Dostoevsky . This direction is currently up in the air and can only be supported by premiums. Alas, this is true.

RJ: Why aren’t there enough readers who could support these authors by buying up copies of their books?

P.B.: Where will such a reader come from? The people have become stupid, and they have become stupid quickly, in just ten years. A decade ago, people didn’t know how to make money, didn’t understand foreign cars, but they were deeper, that’s obvious. The Soviet man, who is now considered a freak, was smarter and more subtle than the man of today. Why should our contemporary be smart when he watches this TV and reads these newspapers?

As a result, we lost the reader, who was brought up from school, from the same Soviet routine school, where the poor touched teachers said: "Children, read Turgenev ; children, Pushkin - ours; children, Leo Tolstoy is a great writer." And one way or another, but the students read something. And today I turn on the TV and see a teacher who says: " Sholokhov is bored with our kids, they want to read Pelevin." Well, if the teachers have already spoke so, then these are just crains.

RG: In the already mentioned article “Return”, you wrote that “between modernism and ... realism lies a border, which ... cannot be crossed.” Do you still think that there was no polemic exaggeration in those words?

PB: At the level of technology, diffusion, of course, is possible. There are many examples of this, take at least Platonov. But at the same time, Platonov, at least the Platonov Late, the period of "return", is not a modernist.

RSH: Is the Chevengur a realistic thing?

PB: I once again say that realism is not a method and not a style, it is a writer's worldview. And while Platonov professed revolutionary ideas, he was a modernist. And when he understood what this was leading to, and began to regret a person, suffer about a man, he became a realist. What happened to his writing technique is complex and interesting, but in relation to what we are talking about, a secondary question. Of course, at this level, some diffuse processes went.

RG: are the highest achievements of Western literature of the 20th century also associated with realism?

PB: Well, let's look at at least American literature. Faulkner , in general,, according to his worldview, is the soil of the American South. Hemingway is a writer of the existentialist plan, but for him the American landscape is of tremendous significance. I just won’t decide about all world literature now, but I think that there were to some extent similar processes. How many people are reading Joyce now?

RG: Judging by the circulations, yes, but really, probably, many times less. Is Joyce on your classification a realist? The writer, embedding a small person into mythological space - why is this not realism in a worldview plan?

PB: Perhaps so.

RZh: But then who, besides Sorokin, remains in the ranks of modernists and postmodernists? A look without pain, a look without sympathy is hardly possible in great literature ...

PB: Yes, even in Sorokin there is realism, you can’t get anywhere. If all ritual nasty things from his last novel, then a completely traditional narrative is obtained. And in Pelevin there is a lot of realism, at least in his last novel, which, in fact, comes down to the thought expressed by the Church’s fathers: if a person refuses faith in the highest beginning, then he entaches the worst mysticism and his life becomes absurd, begins It is not to God to obey, but to number 29 or 34. Let from the opposite, but Pelevin comes to the same. Another thing is that he does not give a way out ...

RG: So who is the modernist then?

PB: Well, you can’t raise the question like this. There is no, especially in the 20th century, pure realists and pure modernists. We are not in the army and not in a pioneer camp: girls left, boys right. This is a very complex spiritual process that every writer experiences in his own way.

The standard of a realistic letter is Leo Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina , we will not find a gap between life and text at all. But in Tolstoy, with all this, modernism is more than enough, especially in late creativity, in the " cruiser sonata ". I’m not talking about his anti -church sermons where such pride sounds ... So the deep internal conflict of realism and modernism lives in almost any large writer. Another thing is that there cannot be a compromise between these principles. What can hell with God agree on?

RG: Let's try to somehow summarize everything said. By what criteria do you evaluate this or that text? And how important is its aesthetic quality important to you?

PB: What do we mean by beauty? Just proportionality of parts? When I hear the expression "aesthetically bold work", I want to ask: "So what?"

I consider myself a Leontyvets, and Leontyev said that everything could turn away with aesthetics. But what to understand by this? For the same Leontyev, the highest aesthetic measure was, say, the Byzantine service ...

I am, first of all, the degree of influence of literature on life. Literature, which does not affect the world, is empty. And you cannot influence the world if there is no wide, interested reader. Therefore, the loss of the reader we talked about is the main cultural disaster of our days. It is necessary to write like Marinina, and at the same time - like Leo Tolstoy, - accessible and deep. Don't you know how? What to do. So little writers.

RG: You have been published in thick magazines for many years, and now you are working in the Literary Newspaper. What is the difference between magazine and newspaper criticism for you?

PB: Newspaper criticism now is not so much criticism as journalism. Real, serious criticism can exist only in magazines. But magazines terribly lost their influence, and magazine criticism is practically not in demand today. Newspapers, of course, read more, they have elementary than higher circulations. But, I repeat: newspaper criticism is defective criticism, surrogate. There are exceptions, say, Andrei Nemzeru often succeeds in a serious critical statement in a newspaper format, take at least his relatively recent review of Dmitry Bykov’s novel “Spelling”. I rather disagree with the conclusions of this review, but, nevertheless, this is a brilliant example of how in the newspaper, with a minimum of the area, you can seriously, with philological thoroughness, to make out the novel.

Today, widespread magazine criticism is needed, perhaps, only writers who want large articles to write about them with a detailed analysis of their works. They do not want to understand that serious modern literature is mostly uninteresting in anyone other than the writer himself and his closest friends. And the critic is initially focused on a wider audience.

RG: What is the scandalous reputation of today's " literature " connected with?

P.B.: A new editor -in -chief of a new editorial policy came, the essence of which is to print representatives of all warring literary groups. I absolutely agree with this message, but as far as possible is a different question. Now the literary life is such that when you begin to print those and these, neither those nor the others are satisfied. The split in the literature was known, two camps formed, which are very convenient to exist separately from each other, and they do not need any rapprochement. This is especially true for the "Democrats" who are all sitting in their corner and repeating: "Where Vladimir Bondarenko is printed, my legs will not be." Although look at young journalists, Dmitry Olshansky or Lev Pirogov , they laugh at this mossess.

This hopeless mission of the association of the literary field "Literary" is trying to take on.

PS (Mikhail Edelshtein)

It is easy to criticize the Basinsky. Too easy. It is easy to do not interesting. Well, who else knows how to virtually substitute? Who can afford to exclaim “ Culture in danger! ” Or, teasing colleagues with a word that resembles a medical diagnosis rather than a critical instrument, from an article to the article to demand “ cordiality ” from the literature?

It is impossible to criticize the Basinsky. How can you criticize a person who does not hide anything from anyone? You catch the other on the sayings, you will call that he blurt out something sort of, trying to read between the lines ... And Basinsky says everything with a direct text: “Literature can bring life or harm,” “Censorship is necessary,” “Under the Soviet government, we quickly figured out would be with an informational occasion. "

Finally, criticizing Basinsky is dishonest. Basinsky is the subconscious of modern criticism. Much of what he says, his colleagues would be happy to say with pleasure, but the trouble - they cannot afford. Well, is it really Alexander Arkhangelsk or Andrei Nemzer, dealing with some incomprehensible Shishkin , Bykov or Pelevin, never wanted to exclaim: “Culture should be built on state interests”? Yes, of course, I wanted to. But it is impossible: the environment, reputation, innate intelligence interfere - but you never know what else. And Basinsky can afford - he has another party, and he himself is different.

This is probably why many colleagues do not like him. But even the most sworn ill -wishers do not dispute the main dignity of Basinsky - its sequence. It is Dmitry Olshansky that will run out of the Black Hundreds and vice versa to old age, endowing us with the next manifesto about each new cross -country house. Basinsky is not like that. Once saying "A", he will not turn off the chosen path until he speaks his entire alphabet to the end. And having finished, rather it will go to repeat the same prescriptions for the second and third time, which will change the letter in them.

Probably, this integrity of Basinsky was so seductive in it for hollow people of the latest formation. Take at least Leo Pirogov - he played for a couple of years in Kuritsyn, froze in his youth, and now that has been playing in Basinsky for a year now. Post -intellectualism invented to keep up with adults. And Basinsky welcomes his clone, prints and drives him to Yasnaya Polyana.

A similar incident, by the way, is described in memoirism. In 1913 , in the magazine Apollo published software articles of leaders of the nascent Akmeism , Nikolai Gumilyov and Sergey Gorodetsky . So, shortly before this, the editor -in -chief of Apollo , Sergei Makovsky, ran to Gumilev and almost on his knees begged him to remove the essay of the second syndic from the number: they say, the impression was created as if a person had come and made a speech, and after him it jumped out The monkey began to copy all his gestures, not understanding their essence. Gumilev, as you know, insisted on printing the manifesto Gorodetsky - and did the right thing. Who will abandon his monkey of his own free will!

By the way, why Pirogov so easily and painlessly from Kuritsyn children to the Basinsky turned - also understandable. Basinsky is an indispensable figure for domestic postmodern. Almost like Yakemenko . It is Basinsky, not Kuritsyn or, say, Bavil , - the perfect reader of Sorokin and the company. Imagine how rejoices the main coprofil of domestic literature is when he finds something like the following in a critical article: "In the story of Vladimir Sorokin, the boy eats feces of a school teacher, and the Komsomol leader gnaws the skull of his comrade. Shock, indignation." It is unnecessary to say that it is to such a reaction that all this is originally and calculated. ““ How do you laugh? ”The reader shouts.“ Well, “I dare,” I laugh in response to him . ” And do not scream the reader - there is nothing to laugh at the author.

But Sorokin Basinsky is necessary. Firstly, because they have similar tactics. Someone must anch indignantly when Basinsky shows the public with phrases like "morality is not at all a personal matter of everyone." What is this shocking if no one is outraged? What are you after that Anfan Terriebble? Here are grateful postmodernists with liberals who joined them and work out their role, pretending to be shocking Basinsky, just as he pretends to be shocking Sorokin.

Secondly, Basinsky, simply due to its critical temperament, the features of style and manner, you need a battlefield. At the desk, he feels like a soldier of the retreating but not surrendering army. That is why the articles are full of the language of orders for the art of the arts: border, victory, betrayal. He is ready to forgive even his enemies for the use of the same career hearing of terminology: “This is in a nashen!“ Struggle ”,“ line ”,“ efforts ”,“ searches ”,“ goal ” - what are all glorious, elastic, cultural words! ". As a result, an extremely uncertain and even, as Anna Kuznetsova assured me recently, the completely non -existent term “realism” turned in the hands of Basinsky into a club of folk war, and “nationality”, “spirituality” and other simulackers serve as criticism of a kind of caste.

Nevertheless, behind all the battle cliches of Basinsky, a genuine drama is felt. And the fault of everything is the wholeness and sequence of the critic, which was discussed at the beginning. About ten years ago, Basinsky decided to portray a sort of insurance , on the occasion of who wandered at the end of the 20th century and terrified that he sees himself. On behalf of this character, he wrote the first few of his Novomir articles. There is role lyrics, why not be role -haired criticism?

However, there is an inexorable logic of the development of the image. Very soon it turned out that today's fears could not do without per missed appeals to the district police officer. All these "censorship", "judge", "fine", "Criminal Code of the Russian Federation", "border on the castle" flashed into his speech. But what if no one believes without a district police officer that the largest event of Russian literature of the second half of the 20th century is a rustic prose, and the main reflection of the current Lit Process - Vladislav Otroshenko with Boris Evseev? He has no other realists for us today. And we have for him too.