New Sorokin: Disoladskaya station

“I remember the last rulers of Russia: some small ones, with a strange speech, like schoolchildren. One played on something, it seems, on an electric mandoline, and the other was fond of sports. It was fashionable then, and once he flew with the cranes. ” The collapse of Russia and Europe into many heterogeneous states and territories of varying degrees of well -being, madness and freedoms after a series of global and local conflicts; In the preface of Corpus, this is with modesty called "a view of the future of Europe." "Tedluria" is free, like an orbital complex, it is able to accept the "Oprichnik Day", the "Sugar Kremlin", and "Metel". All of them were, as we now understand, only by fragments of future global utopia.

Sorokin’s writer cycles alternate: either social criticism prevails, then the leitmotif becomes longing for humanity in general. Another round of “longing” began with a “blizzard” (“I wanted to write a story about the Russian space,” said Sorokin). It is characteristic that there is no regret about people there; People can no longer save people. In this novel, a real and only hero is a language, more precisely, different languages: this is a new Babylon. Each language is individual, each is inherent, speaks of the speaker - it is again conceptual, regardless of the degree of literacy or possession. There is a place for philosophical thoughts - on the battlefield, among the breasts of those killed in interregional battles. The very phrase “Field of the Brand” acquires a different meaning here: the field of dead words, the field of former verbal battle, verbal husk.

There is no other way to return to conceptuality, gaining the tongue - except for the disaster.

Sorokin is almost the only writer today in Russia for whom language, speech play a key, independent role. The speech diversity of the 1990s was replaced by a plug of the 2000s, devoid of creative potency. The most interesting linguistic phenomenon of the new century was the incident - the synthesis of the bureaucratic and church, new officials, a mixture of the XVI and XXI centuries - on which the "Opipher Day" and further stories were built. But here, the game is already built on borrowing, on books. Finally, in the "snowstorm" we rest in silence. The signs of new dumbness, powerlessness are already distinguishable here.

With the Soviet hollow canon, a “game” was at least possible. With the current depressurization of the language, there is nothing to play with - this is the main problem. Actually, the language writer has nothing to eat from. The modern language is such a stranger. He has no "nature." No density, volume. There is nothing to play with - because these words themselves, even at the time of birth, refuse to be. They do not report anything about themselves. They do not belong to anyone. Everyday speech-to which Sorokin was always a bit-even abandoned some expressive borrowings from Feni-for the sake of bleaching, for the sake of general immersion in the language "nothing". Speech now gives rise to nonsense (from the Sartrean "" nothing ") of being, and not the residents of the famous house.

Sorokin is almost the only writer today in Russia for whom language, speech play a key, independent role.

The genuine today's language is the language of interjections, defaults, arrears and self -reprint. No wonder a symbol of authenticity, truthfulness in arthouse cinema - when the heroes do not succeed. On the contrary, any attempt at the folding, smooth -colored, “expanded dialogue” and “correct speech” is recognized today as a sign of non -true.

Sorokin today, in fact, has two options. To cope with a bloody trouser - to state an injury, a complete disintegration of the tongue - averaging, truncation, disappearance - and write about this conditionally the novel “Destroy”. Sorokin, however, chose to describe not the decay of the language, but the breakdown of civilization - to regain his tongue. More precisely, languages. That is, this utopia is needed primarily by the writer himself, so that there is something to work with.

The most touching short story here is the monologue of the in love that is grown at the tribal factory. The language of love is not French at all, but a certain pseudo -Slavic, most reminiscent of Belarusian. He is compassionate, touching. It can no longer be used for anything - with these repeating “T”, “c” and “С”. On it you can only "sob internally"; These words seem to be suitable only for intimate. The language of the hidden, the language of the soul.

Returning to linguistic diversity is a catalyst.

Following the language, a return to true social nature is also taking place. There are no more mixtures, tricks, flaws. Everything becomes himself. As part of the return to the purity of genres, not one, not two, but all the utopias that are possible are carried out in post-Russia. Russia is like a freezer, where everything has been preserved and now thawed, more precisely, it wilted, where everything was found: from the SSU (the United States of the Urals) to the Stalin SSR. In the Ryazan kingdom, the intellectual dream came true: here everyone is saying cleanly, right. For the wrong language of children, they put on peas. In a strange way, Roman dares the author: the very “purity of the language”, a certain Turgenev kingdom, closed from alien winds, inevitably leads to the fact that one intelligent man says to another intelligent person: “Jews are to blame.”

But the two main utopias - Orthodoxy and communism - in uncontrolled conditions rushed towards each other and developed into an amazing pattern: "Princess Semizorova, a member of the party." "The Orthodox casting plant drops party honor." Nothing bothers them anymore, does not share - Orthodox communism has been realized in Muscovy.

The happiest territory is Altai under the leadership of the French. The President of the Republic of Tedluria, Jean-France Trokar, descends on narrow black wings into the valley, speaks with local (in French-with young, in Altai-with the elderly), eats clean foods, gives tiny sand clocks with tellurine sand inside her goodbye. Ritual.

The only territory in Russia, which has not undergone essential changes, is Kapotny. They are now referred to there.

The basis of the current Sorokinsky mythology is the two, so to speak, Heidegger object: a hammer (“Ice trilogy”) and nails (“telluria”). A set of tools for creating a new world. Theelur is a special clove that drives a thirsty for the fullness of being. This is not a fool, not streams of musical and visual slopes intended for passive oblivion. Not abstraction is a specific object. Real thing.

Here everything is permeated with a return to objectivity, functionality. The human animal now is not just a slave to the machine: it is now created in accordance with its main function. Each is made for something specific. Everyone has become equal to himself. The carpenter is the main profession of the new Middle Ages, he pronounces the key monologue: "The world has become human size, the nation has gained themselves, people gained a sense of things, a person ceased to be the sum of technology." The carpenter drives nails. The knight flies. And swears. A man with a dog’s head philosophizes. What else to do.

New robots are invented specifically for theft. They steal bags with seeds, small belongings. The centuries -old dream of a Russian man came true - so that cars were stolen for him, and he himself would lie on the stove and did nothing. Theft without remorse, the sterility of evil. Theft as a technology, but also as metaphysics. Or here is the intelligentsia. She was at Sorokin by a dissident guslyar (“Oprichnik Day”), served in the Shutovskaya Chamber (“Sugar Kremlin”). In the new novel, an intellectual is a living UD, sent by Count Sheremetyev as a gift from the Dowager Queen Dorothete Charlottenburg. The physical form is brought into line with the main function - to give pleasure, to pamper the mistress - power.

Or, on the contrary, at the moment of doubt, longing - the UD turns into an intellectual? .. After the disaster, the culture ceases to be an image project - and becomes necessary, physiological need. And her choice is again related to danger. At the moment when the UD decides to escape - from the mistress, - there is a return to the traditions of dissidentism. Everything is again in a circle.

This is not a political novel, not a satire - this is a Kadish about the language. A prayer performed in fifty different languages. Return what you can work with, with what it is possible to play. In longing, according to the differences, Sorokin represents even the language of socialist realism - in the face of a new danger, much more terrible: in front of the threat of hardening. And then what is important: nothing can be done about it. Only a disaster will save.