Booker 2012: money was found, but books were not

The shortlist for the Russian Booker Prize 2012 has become known. It includes six works: “Diary of a Suicide Woman” by Marina Akhmedova, “The Peasant and the Teenager” by Andrei Dmitriev, “Arbeit, or the Wide Canvas” by Evgeniy Popov, “Light Head” by Olga Slavnikova, “Women of Lazarus” by Maria Stepnova, “The Germans” by Alexander Terekhov .

The Russian Booker is an annual prize for the best novel in the Russian language, serious and expensive: this year’s winner will receive as much as 1.5 million rubles, the finalists – 150 thousand each. It was conceived as an analogue of the British one, but, like any tracing paper, it acquired its own features in Russia and exists according to mysterious local rules.

Until some time, Booker really meant a significant Russian novel. In the 90s and the very beginning of the 2000s, the winners were Georgy Vladimov with a powerful book about the war “The General and His Army”, Lyudmila Ulitskaya with the “Kukotsky Incident” dearly loved by the intelligentsia, Mikhail Shishkin with the sophisticated “Taking of Izmail”.

In 2003, the Russian Booker opened White on Black by Ruben David Gonzalez Gallego, a short but absolutely poignant novel about the grandson of the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Spain, paralyzed since childhood and raised in Soviet orphanages. In 2004, Vasily Aksenov received the Booker.

And then - and it’s not just the organizers - it became increasingly difficult to choose the best Russian novel. In 2008, the main prize went to Mikhail Elizarov for “The Librarian” - this was also a discovery, but of a completely different kind: something like an advance to a young writer, which, judging by his next books, Elizarov did not work out.

In 2011, after the winner was announced, a scandal erupted. The jury's choice seemed to many to be trolling: the main prize was given to Elena Kolyadina for "Flower Cross" - an erotic novel about the fantasy Russian Middle Ages, which Kolyadina herself calls "cheerful totemic nonsense about a fiery tree and golden lads." The novel begins with the memorable phrase “Did you give it to the aphedron?” That year, sponsors refused to give Booker money, critics gave up on Russian literature, and the word “aphedron” became a meme.

Last year, due to funding problems, the prize was not awarded, but this year a sponsor was found and increased the prize fund of the competition almost threefold.

And now the short list of Booker 2012 winners has been announced: on the way from the long list to the short list, significant contemporary authors became outsiders of the award: Dmitry Bykov, Zakhar Prilepin and Eduard Limonov.

At the same time, the commission’s choice of six finalists is surprising in its monotony: all the books on the shortlist, to a certain degree of approximation, can be called social literature. They all depict the life of individual social strata, and this is in a sense sad. Literary scholars state: in modern literature, no one has yet created a complete historical canvas about modern Russia.

Not all of the books on the shortlist are known to the general reader; only Stepnova’s “Women of Lazarus” became the best-selling book in the “Moscow” store for some time.

It is absolutely impossible to guess who will receive 1.5 million on December 4 for the best Russian novel of this year. We will briefly talk about each of the contending novels and quote excerpts from them. And we won’t say a word about the fact that Russian literature is now in great decline, and all the awards only confirm this.

Marina Akhmedova "Diary of a Suicide Woman"

This is a girl’s story about life in one of the mountain villages of Dagestan, about moving to the city and what decisions Caucasian women have to make.

Akhmedova is a journalist for Russian Reporter ; she conceived the book after another business trip to Dagestan. She says that writing for her is something like psychotherapy: “You write a book and you don’t remember corpses anymore.” The book, of course, is based on real events.

If troubles start, everything happens in one day. Late in the evening my uncle came all pale. It turned out that Ibrahim, who came to visit us a few days ago, was killed. It was a miracle that his uncle did not explode with him. They stood on the street near the road, talking, then the aunt called, the uncle went behind the stall, and at that moment the suicide bomber approached and exploded.

“I swear there’s nothing left of him.” — Uncle drank cognac. - It all fell into pieces.

“I beg you, you don’t need this work anymore!” - Auntie screamed.

“No shaitan will force me to leave this job!” - Uncle hit the table with his fist.

Aunt sat down on a chair, began to cry and wipe her eyes with the ends of her handkerchief.

“Khadizha, quickly pour me some tea, I’m in a hurry,” said the uncle.

While he was drinking tea and his aunt was crying, his phone rang.

“I swear, I was hanging by a thread myself,” said my uncle. “If Zukhra hadn’t called, I would have stood with him.” To whom Allah wrote what, we also do not know. I swear I didn't see it, I was talking on the phone. Then it boomed, I see there’s nothing left of Ibrazhka... Let’s look at the lists to see who lives closer there, we need to take them. I’m also already getting out, the car will come for me in fifteen minutes. Let’s, in short, today, let’s not sleep, let’s take revenge for Ibrazhka. All.

Andrey Dmitriev "The Peasant and the Teenager"

A prose poem—that’s how the press announced this novel about the dialogue between the Russian village and urban youth. Critics call it sad and at the same time bright - implying that such dialogues cannot exist in Russia, although the author really wants it.

Hera dreamed of the screech of a saw; When the blows of the hammer woke him up, the old alarm clock on the windowsill showed two o'clock in the afternoon. While Hera was sleeping, Panyukov dug a cesspool at the back of the garden and built a toilet over it. Gera dared to ask Panyukov how he had previously managed without a toilet, and he answered without embarrassment, but for some reason referring to himself as “we”:

“We don’t need this; We go to the barn, from the top; Where the cow goes, we go, and we clean up after ourselves and the cow; and you - come on! - you will fall towards the cow from the top, you will break the backbone, answer later; so he built it, like in a hotel; use it.

Hera took advantage.

Then he went to the well on the near edge of the village, foolishly taking a rocker with him. The pain in my neck and shoulders quickly forced me to throw the rocker at the well and drag both buckets of water in my hands... I washed my face, ate greasy, yellowish cottage cheese with bread and bad instant coffee; I spent the rest of the day getting used to it.

Evgeniy Popov "Arbait, or Broad Canvas"

This is an Internet novel, which the author published in parts on his LiveJournal and encouraged visitors to comment on it.

It was approximately 2009. The writer Gdov sat at his desk and tried to work. He wanted to create a broad canvas on the theme of the post-Soviet life of the Russian intelligentsia, languishing under the yoke of wild capitalism, which replaced the totalitarianism of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a powerful empire of a new type that existed exactly until 1991, and then was covered with a copper basin, as, with rare exceptions , everything in this completely imperfect world has been covered or will be covered.

But suddenly I remembered the younger sister of my childhood friend Sasha Z., who died in 1974. Liver cirrhosis is not a joke, doctors tell the truth.

Sasha Z. was the son of the head of the local railway department, with its center in the city of K., located on the banks of the great Siberian river E., which flows into the Arctic Ocean. Rails lead from Kazakhstan to the South, almost to the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Station, and to the West towards Europe, and to the East to the Chinese. There is just no railway to the North, there is permafrost there, Stalin and Beria built there, but even they did not finish the construction, everything sank into oblivion.

But the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, which was also recently razed to the ground, will most likely still be restored, and it will carry its life-giving current back to the aluminum smelters of the oligarchs and into the homes of ordinary people.

Olga Slavnikova "Light head"

A novel about a successful manager of a large company, who one day is approached by strange officials and told that he must shoot himself to save the world. Writer Vladimir Sorokin described the book as follows : “Viscous, cloying, hopeless... Madame Slavnikova cooks and cooks her literary jam on a Soviet stove, cooks and cooks. And it gets thicker, more cloying and hopeless.” Olga Slavnikova is a Booker laureate in 2006.

- But I don’t want to! We found Alexander Matrosov! - Maxim T. Ermakov blurted out, rejoicing that in the dressing room they could hear him yelling at the state monsters who scared everyone half to death. - Higher considerations! Stick these totalitarian gadgets up your ass! I will still be raw material for your propaganda! Straight Gastello! If the “boots” of that time had been paid normally during that war, the Germans would not have been allowed all the way to Moscow!

“An interesting concept,” the Fetus grinned, and the translucent bubble of his head turned slightly pink. - So, Maxim Terentyevich. This is not our last conversation, you understand. Here, take a business card, there are phone numbers, call if necessary.

With two fingers, as if with tweezers, he handed Maxim T. Ermakov a cardboard square, on which the same double-headed eagle glowed like a rowan leaf. “Kravtsov Sergey Evgenievich, leading specialist,” was embossed above two seven-digit telephone numbers, where the first three digits were 111. While Maxim T. Ermakov skeptically turned the cardboard, the Germ looked askance at Erased’s robe. The erased one understood, nodded, reached into the deep chewed fold with his hand and pulled out a heavy thing, which turned out to be a large corrugated pistol. Maxim T. Ermakov shuddered. Grinning with half his wrinkled face drooping like a pocket, Erased launched the pistol along the tabletop towards Object Alpha, who was fascinated by the slow rotation of the weapon, as if the last rounds of roulette.

- This is PMM. Twelve round magazine. Charged, reliable, simple,” the embryo presented an ominous phenomenon that drove Maxim T. Ermakov into a beady sweat. - Take it and keep it with you. It will come in handy, you can trust me.

Maria Stepnova "Women of Lazarus"

This is a family saga that tells how completely peaceful geniuses are adapted to war. This book was expected, discussed and celebrated at NATSBEST . She was also included in the short list of the "Big Book" .

Behind the door stood a woman—a complete stranger to Lidochka—in a dress of incredible, alarming, night-color. She was very beautiful - very much like a flight attendant. Almost as beautiful as mommy. Only the lips are too red. The woman, without looking, pushed Lidochka aside, like a small and not very valuable object, and entered the house.

Where's mom? - Lidochka asked and stretched her mouth in advance in order to roar more politely. She died,” the woman answered very calmly, and the neighbor crossed herself again. And dad? - Lidochka didn’t know what “died” meant, but she canceled the roar just in case. The woman's lips trembled slightly, as if she was about to kiss the air, and then changed her mind. Your dad will be back soon,” she said and finally looked at Lidochka. Her eyes turned out to be gray-blue, transparent, smooth and with some complex bluish tint at the very bottom. And mommy had red eyes. Red and cheerful - like a cheerful red dog. And then - further, all her life - more than anything else in the world, Lidochka was afraid to forget it.

Alexander Terekhov "The Germans"

This novel is a detailed and very voluminous description of the life and customs of Moscow bureaucrats, the winner of this year's "NATSBEST". Dmitry Bykov described this book as follows: “for a feuilleton it is long and pathetic, for a novel it is feuilleton.”

“You see,” the zombie unzipped his briefcase with a precise movement, “my client is a serious person and occupies a prominent position in one, let’s say,” he sang, “structure.” Power. And the purpose of his participation in the elections is not election, but ... - he carefully, like a ticking device, took out a gift bag with white wicker handles from the leather confines of his briefcase and moved it to Eberhard on the table, briefly showing: inside - a Nokia in a titanium case, and faltered , cautiously biting his lip and peering at Eberhard with disbelief, as if thinking for the first time: who is this, exactly?

— And some kind of check is planned in this structure. “Unfriendly,” Eberhard suggested, pulling the package towards him by the handles. “And for one serious person... from this structure... it would be nice to go on vacation during the check... connected with his registration as a candidate for the City Duma,” Eberhard loaded the sign of respect into the bottom drawer of the table, to the twins, cousins, older and younger, who were already crowded there brothers; he made sure that there was nothing edible, otherwise he got it one time...

The zombie closed his eyes and nodded fearfully at every word he uttered, piercing the jaw nerve, only raising his hands beggingly: t-ti-ho! quiet! - and jumped up:

- I'm just getting acquainted. Please forgive me for not calling. Won't happen again.