| Glossy literature is usually associated with female stupidity. A gentlemanly set of stereotypes associated with “female romance” has been legitimized. These novels have their own story, associated with the image of a housewife who mindlessly whiles away the time between cooking dinner and watching the TV series in the evening. Meanwhile, quietly, without declaring itself in any way, the so-called “men’s literature” joined the “ladies’ reading matter.” The cover is usually marked: “Bridget Jones in a man's suit.” These fashionable “outfits” are sewn by well-known and skilled authors, whom not every cheeky critic will allow themselves to classify as “glamorous”. For example, Dougie Brimson is a completely serious writer, an expert on the “fan” movement, a screenwriter and documentarian. And he wrote “Something About Billy” (Amphora Publishing House), a novel about overgrown people in expensive suits who indulge themselves in all sorts of bullshit. Or the highly respected Tim Lott, the creator of the subtle social novel “Storm Warning,” managed to descend to cheap “beer” tales “with chips” like “Blue from White City” (Inostranka Publishing House). Women's novels compared to these infantile litzabums are simply Anna Karenina. Retold for American schoolchildren.
A set of necessary patterns has already been created, according to which these men's suits “a la Bridget” can be easily and accurately cut. If the “female” set is no different in variety: love, diet, marriage, childbirth, career, then the “male” set is no richer: beer with friends, sex with a friend, war with superiors and invariable whining on all three points. The potential consumer of this kind of reading material is easy to identify: an urban neurotic middle manager who voluntarily sold himself into office “slavery”, but, of course, has “unspent potential,” creative and not only.
For example, let’s take the novel by the respected British writer Ben Elton “Anything is possible, baby” (Amphora publishing house, “Chips” series, translated from English by V. Pravosudov). Ben Elton was previously listed as the inventor of unusual literary structures. Whether he was dabbling in the field of “social satire” (“A Call from the Past”) or constructing an incredible detective story (“Death Behind Glass”), in any case, he skillfully played with angles and optics, confusing the reader in time and space. He polished even the most trivial subject to the shine of an unusual metal artifact. His prose lacked psychologism, but his heroes were supposed to look like comic book characters moving through cells and cells. In the new novel we meet a mid-level BBC employee and his exalted wife. The wife is concerned about the problem of childbirth, the husband is going through a protracted creative crisis. Both keep diaries, which Elton presents to the reader. The literary form is not particularly inventive, not to mention the obvious plot flaws associated with looking through other people's notes. The entire conflict of the novel comes down to the already listed above “travel” set for reading in traffic jams. At work, a hero named Sam “has” a careerist boss who has forgotten the rules of corporate ethics, and a spouse at home. The completely exhausted hero washes his dirty linen in public and writes a script for a television series based on his own bitter family experience. The script goes off without a hitch, but the problems in his personal life only get worse. The barren wife leaves for another, but soon returns. In order to experience world harmony, and at the same time solve childbearing problems, the spouses go to India. Elton’s brilliant humor and witticisms addressed to modern show business figures (“I’m sure that if The Wizard of Oz were filmed now, a hurricane would certainly catch poor little Judy in the shower or, at best, would tear her dress off”) save the situation. There is a feeling that you have swallowed some kind of ersatz psychotherapeutic rubbish, written with the aim of raising the morale of certain segments of the population.
In the same “Chips” series, another novel is published, not by Ben Elton, but by a certain Jay McInerney, “Model Behavior” (translated from English by P. Fomina). The main character of this creation lives not in London, but in New York. But his pressing problems are not much different. Connor works as an ordinary correspondent for a glossy magazine. He spends his life moving from one social event to another in the company of a beautiful model. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the options for developing this plot. With the onset of winter, the long-legged beauty naturally flies away to warmer climes. Fashionable work turns into monotonous chewing gum. The meaning of life is not found in any of the nearest supermarkets, but something similar is offered by a bosom friend - naturally, a writer, a vegetarian, a Buddhist and a pilgrim.
When, in the middle of winter, all the glossy publications in Moscow were talking about a new craze among moderately prosperous citizens - a trip, if not to Courchevel, then to Goa, it seemed like some kind of local mass madness. It turns out that the disaster is not purely local in nature. Now masters of literary prose from all continents advise, as a therapy and to avoid loss of creative energy, to travel from offices to Buddhist monks, or closer to mountain peaks. The target audience reacts to such advice very quickly and actively. You will read a dozen such novels and really believe that the only way out of endless workaholism, interspersed with beer and parties, is to hang yourself in Indian baubles or get hit in the head with a snowboard.
However, options for internal emigration also exist. I have already written that, as an alternative to modern literary spam, smart publishers are increasingly unearthing previously unpublished for ideological or other retro reasons. This month, everyone was surprised by the British old woman Iris Murdoch , who was most often listed in the “women's prose” section. Her 1970 novel “An Honest Loss” (Limbus Press, translated by V. Kobets) is an excellent example of the literature from which both John Fowles and Ian McEwan later grew. The plot is based on a psychological “experiment” carried out on several quite prosperous British families by the insidious biologist Julius King. Having made a bet, in a week he manages to destroy the strongest human connections and family relationships. This novel about an experimenter-manipulator, a kind of progenitor of modern political strategists, at one time excited public opinion and was even considered “harmful and dangerous.” It looks quite relevant even now. At least as an example of inventive and good “great” literature. Natalia BABINTSEVA
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