Translated material
Uncle will think
About Alexey Slapovsky’s novel “Gossip”
Five prisoners were taken to Moscow for trial. The clutch of stupid pads allowed them to escape: due to a shortage of cars, five were shoved into one “funnel”; one prisoner was missing handcuffs; the accompanying person - there was no second one - suffered from claustrophobia and therefore sat in the driver's cabin; the castle was held on by snot... Only three were ready to give in, but one of them - a seasoned killer - looked at the doubters so much that they obediently jumped out of the “funnel”. The godfather did not allow his unwitting companions to scatter in different directions: they say, they will quickly catch the suckers and they will lead to the trail. (In what way, I wonder?) He has a different plan: he needs to “spray himself” by moving away from Moscow. (Why would the accomplices become less dangerous in this case? The prudent scoundrel doesn’t think about this. Or he really does, and it doesn’t occur to the others that the “leader” will easily deal with them one by one?) Money is found (from one of the fugitives, a former oligarch , there is a stash), civilian clothing is purchased at the clothing market, five prisoners, looking like ordinary hard workers, board an intercity bus. Meanwhile, the police authorities are in a panic: in addition to the oligarch and the inveterate bandit, a maniac, a demobilized man who shot half the village (why were they walking at the wedding of the bride who cheated on him?), and a dashing car thief fled. The interception is organized in the same way as transportation: the criminals easily disarm a policeman who has entered the bus to check documents, fourteen passengers and two drivers (the uncle is driving, the charming nephew is so fast asleep at first that he does not notice what has happened) become hostages.It is clear that Alexei Slapovsky’s novel “Peresud” (M., “Eksmo”) is based on the many-times-tested Hollywood model: an extreme situation and the reaction of ordinary people to it, drawn from different age and sociocultural groups. The characteristic “type” of different characters (not only hostages, but also criminals) works for a “parable” reading of the text. When the godfather, having decided to have fun, arranges a “judgement” (first he forces the passengers to recognize the invaders as innocent, and then extracts from them confessions of crimes, real or immediately invented), the degree of parable (and therefore, convention) increases.
The incredible game of chance is constantly growing. The machine gun captured by the criminals, at the point of which their evil and senseless courage is carried out, ended up uncharged. A completely different gun (that belonged to one of the passengers) shoots (more than once and effectively), which should have helped the unfortunate prisoners. The defeat of the prisoners (they were captured because of an incident with a machine gun) does not change anything - among the victims there are those who want to win back, the driver is forbidden to stop, a new mocking “gossip” is started, blood is shed again. The final “release” of the hostages is as unprofessional as the transport that caused the terrible incident (four killed, two seriously wounded, not counting the three deliberately killed fugitives and those who died before). The command coming from the very top “the main thing is not to miss Fedorov” (the dispossessed ex-oligarch, whose death will cause an international scandal), going down the stairs of authorities to the executors (you are not supposed to ask the authorities again, a game of broken phone is involuntarily started), is understood with precision on the contrary (“Why do they need him alive? He spoils their blood all the time.” - “That’s an infection.” - “Otherwise. Politics!”). The woman who was hit first by the bullet, a few hours before the assault, contrary to the confidence of the characters and readers, did not die, but lay unconscious all this time...
In a strange way, however, both the eye-catching “parable-likeness” of the story and its aggressive absurdity work not for convention, but for the authenticity of the narrative. And it’s not just that memory helpfully offers a whole heap of no less sinister, illogical, as if invented specifically for moralizing, but in fact completely real (known throughout the country) plots. Well, yes, probably, Khodorkovsky and Chikatilo (two of Slapovsky’s characters are endowed with their features) will not be caulked into one “crater” after all... Although who can tell them apart... In this (our common) bewildered shrug of the shoulders is the answer. We are used to the fact that anything can happen. For no one can calculate the consequences of their speeches and deeds. (Hoping for the best, I’ll add the unscrupulously sentimental “almost” in parentheses.) And this applies not only to representatives of law enforcement agencies and the criminal world. Nonsense organizes the everyday life of the vast majority of Slapovsky's characters. The absurdity for them began much earlier than they sat down on the ill-fated bus - the absurdity (perceived as the norm) led them there.
As the epigraph to the novel, Slapovsky set the lines of Timur Kibirov: “This, my dear, is about each of us - / guilty, but insane.” I'm afraid that without context (which Slapovsky certainly keeps in mind) they are not read quite accurately. Well, let me remind you: “Watching with quiet hatred / another Hollywood blockbuster (NB! - A.N. ) <...> I was struck by the accuracy and unconditionality / of the legal definition / of insanity: // the inability to distinguish Good from Evil / and misunderstanding consequences of their actions." One implies the other. Stupidity (which inevitably turns into horror) is tightly linked to an internal readiness to recognize the reasons for Evil. Evil is capable of driving its slaves into hell (not only the hereafter, but also this world - they will arrange it themselves), because the “pragmatic” and “rational” servants of the prince of this world do not know how to think, or count two moves ahead.
It turns out that the boss who started the “debate” on the bus was right? And Comrade Stalin, with whom one of the passengers, a touching young man, is having an unsuccessful mental argument, trying in vain to “justify” (and affirm) Good? It turns out that there is no difference between a captured maniac and a potential rapist who simply didn’t have the chance to go wild? It’s only at first glance that each prisoner has a special character, each “free spirit” has his own way. And if you look closely, you will see how similar the evil, self-intoxicated boor of the passengers is to a boss (and even a maniac), and the hijacker is like the youngest of the drivers... Everyone is smeared with the same world, they live by the same Hottentot morality: my cows were stolen - bad, I stole the cows - great. It remains to acknowledge this diabolical verdict, since there are no “plot” refutations of it in the novel. Perhaps the exchange of remarks between the drivers shortly before the finale: “I’m turning over (the confusion will defuse the situation, the police are nearby and have been notified of this plan. - A.N. ). <...> Otherwise there will be a mountain of corpses now.” - “Wait. Do you see that ramp? There will be even more corpses." The younger one, who wanted to fall into a ditch, will survive the assault. The older one, seemingly much less charming, will die.
This dialogue weighs not so little. And many other seemingly “passing” details of “Gossip”. The poet was right to recognize in the formulation of the American film “the ideal definition / of the current state of culture, and the world in general.” Only his poems are about the impossibility of accepting such an “order” of things. And so does the romance associated with them.