Alexander Ageev. Hunger 94

Hunger 94
Practical gastroenterology reading

Alexander Ageev

Publication date: February 5, 2004

For the last two months I had to deal more with politics than with literature, and this politics was of such a ridiculous quality that it literally drove me into the blues, and the books simply fell out of my hands. That is, of course, I still went to bookstores, bought and read all sorts of different things, but somehow without any particular taste - simply because my reading habit is one of the basic ones. By the way, going into a bookstore more and more often gives me a feeling of horror: there are so many books in the world that I will never even look at! In some - because from afar it is visible: waste paper, in others - because I don’t have time. This feeling of horror is also mixed with the suspicion that the increase in the number of books (titles, of course, not circulation) is somehow mysteriously connected with the decrease in the number of readers (after all, I myself, completely littered with books and magazines, for some reason read less than , say, a couple of years ago).

However, last week I attended an event that partly dispelled my suspicions of this kind: the magazine “Znamya” organized a literary evening in the Great Hall of the Central House of Writers with the reading of poetry and the distribution of elephants (that is, its “Znamensky” prizes). The magazine presented these awards throughout the ten years of their existence in the Oval Hall of the Library of Foreign Literature, and the hall was always full, but this is a small hall. And here is the Central House of Writers, probably 400-500 seats. In short, when getting ready for this evening, I was very afraid to see many empty chairs and was even late. And when he entered, there was absolutely nowhere to sit - people were standing on side chairs against the walls, standing in the doorway, sitting on the steps.

Since I don’t perceive poetry well from the voice (and they were read, for example, by Sergei Gandlevsky , Evgeniy Rein , who was literally screaming as if in a stadium, Lev Rubinstein ), I mainly stared at the audience - with great amazement. Until recently, literary evenings of this intimate format were attended only by friends and relatives of the speakers and literary old ladies - God's dandelions. And here - in addition to an impressive number of fellow writers, mostly young people sat and seemed to listen to the poems with interest and watch the action.

In a word, miracles! Perhaps, in fact, literature is returning to its former interest, and the ranks of readers are filled with young people?

As for the evening's program, thank God it was not drawn out; the action developed dynamically, almost without boring. And it was really worth seeing (not necessarily even hearing) Evgeniy Rein, whose temperamental performance recalled the poetry boom of the 60s, the readings at the Polytechnic and at the Mayakovsky monument. True, “Theater of Sound” by Alexander Bakshi looked a little wild (artificial and inappropriate) against the literary background, but maybe someone likes such things.

There were also relatively few awards, and they were awarded somehow modestly, without pomp or long speeches. There were no particular surprises on the list, although, say, Voznesensky could have been bypassed. But it is very correct that they noted the work of the publishers - Galina Samoilova and Elena Chukovskaya. The work of the publisher and commentator is not very rewarding in itself, and their names are printed in small italics, but the result was excellent.

In general, of course, the premium dynamics are somewhat depressing. Based on the results of the default year 1998, Znamya presented awards in 11 categories , and following the results of the prosperous 2003 - only 6. That is, the finances of serious literature are still tight. Here the Apollo Grigoriev Prize and its financial collapse immediately come to mind.

I, like many, was somewhat surprised by her shortlist , but then I thought that lack of money meant, in a sense, freedom from the previously set standards of the main “expert” award, so it was possible to have a little fun. But there is also something sad in this list. When Pelevin was at the zenith of his fame, everyone wondered whether he would or would not receive at least some kind of award. So, I remember, I didn’t receive any. But the fame has faded somewhat, and now he will get the bonus (non-monetary!). Of course, both Pelevin and Strugatsky are worthy writers, but, in general, it’s a no brainer that both of them are now in a phase of some fatigue, or something. However, in the January issue of Znamya, I read, not without amazement, an article by Natalya Ivanova (who, by the way, was on the jury), where Pelevin is placed right at the center of the modern literary space. I don’t know, I don’t know... Still, this is a stretch, and it’s somehow late. Although Alla Latynina took Pelevin’s last book with the greatest seriousness - she argues with his critics, meticulously analyzes, popularly explains to readers what numerological mysticism is and what Pelevin’s satire is aimed at this time.

But while reading the funny text by Roman Arbitman and Mikhail Edelshtein, I got real pleasure, and thought in the spirit of the same logic: maybe it was Pelevin himself who conspired with Edelshtein so that he would launch such a wonderful legend into the world, which, of course, is capable of to raise the fading interest in his person?

But how Yuri Arabov got on this short list with the cute (one might even say cute), but, in general, not very outstanding “ Big Beat ” is something of a mystery.

Just as attractive, say, is Oleg Ermakov’s story “ Return to Kandahar ” in the same February “New World” as Alla Latynina’s article. In general, this writer has a strange fate: he made his debut in the late 80s simply brilliantly - first there were excellent stories, then the novel “The Mark of the Beast.” All this prose was held together by the “Afghan theme,” which, perhaps, only Ermakov in our prose developed truly deeply and subtly. And then, apparently, he wanted to get away from this topic (for some reason we believe that it is not good and incorrect to be a “writer of one topic”). And the topic, especially after the start of reforms and two Chechen wars, somewhat lost both its urgency and public interest. Well, during these years Ermakov wrote a sluggish, incomprehensible novel that touched few people, “The Pipe of the Universe.” There was no war there, but there was no energy either.

And now, in the new story, the theme returns, and it seems very similar to Ermakov’s first stories, but something is still not right. It reads well, professionalism has clearly increased over the years, there are simply excellent pieces and non-trivial thoughts in the story, but you still don’t feel the drive. But there is too much “fiction” and in some places you wince from the excess of multi-story beauty:

" They flew at night. The earth shone ominously with chains of lights, like giant phosphorescent skeletons. Muddy pools of light shone over large cities. The black earth seemed bottomless, immeasurable. Who owns the night? The plane hummed heavily, parting the darkness with wings with pulsating, beating scarlet light, inexhaustible with wounds, they sprinkled the arable land, the forest, the hill, the garden, as if the bodies cut with lead and fragments were still boiling with young blood ."

But, I repeat, it’s still cute. Although no more.

In the same second “New World” I enjoyed a new selection of stories by Evgeniy Shklovsky - thick, concentrated prose, which, however, I have already written about several times.

I was also pleased with Solzhenitsyn’s next article from his “Literary Collection” - this time about Georgy Vladimov , about the novel “The General and His Army”. For once, Alexander Isaevich does not scold, but approves - right “in the first lines”:

" A very significant book. From the very first pages there is satisfaction: real literature, the kind of (modern) literature I have not read for a long time. And - a courageous tone. The whole manner of narration is consistently traditional, no specially invented novelties. Raises complex problems, but everything is based on plot cases, images, and not in a general naked form ."

It was written, judging by the copyright, back in 2001, but it is unlikely that Vladimov, who died last year, read this text. It's a pity.

In parallel with “New World,” I recently finished reading Andrei Kolesnikov’s remarkable book “ The Unknown Chubais ” - I’ve read a lot of texts of this kind lately, but somehow this one didn’t immediately get out of my head. Of course, this was published for the elections , and therefore the pathos of Kolesnikov (actually a very good journalist) either descends to sentimentality, or soars to the heights of delight, but the scale of Chubais is still shown. However, while reading this book, I also experienced something like fear, turned back: from it it is clear (which, however, we vaguely guessed even then) that all Russian politics of the post-Soviet period was done literally “on the knee,” on a living thread , and mostly by random people. But the people somehow immediately disliked the few non-random ones.

But now the authorities are in complete harmony with the people, and for four years we will most likely not see any politics at all. Well, maybe we'll read more.