Where to look for a leader

On May 31, a traditional literary lunch will take place in the Demonstration Hall of the GUM with a view of Red Square, at which the finalists of the eleventh season of the Big Book literary prize will be called

The award entered into a nervous teenage state - so wait for surprises. A long list is really stretched today - 33 books and 4 manuscripts, although not a record. The composition is strong, however, without an obvious leader. So competition for places in the short list is expected to be serious, surprises are possible. The absolute maximum “short” is 15 positions, but usually experts try not to marry a dozen. So that respected members of the Literary Academy are not very scared of the volume of the “compulsory program”.

Let's try to predict the results of the work of experts, based on texts, contexts and guided by our own taste.

To begin with a book that can be conditionally defined as a must be. If they do not find them in a short list, it will be, to put it mildly, strange.

The Winter Road is a documentary romance, telling about an almost unknown episode of the Civil War - the “Yakut campaign” of General Pepelaev, 1922-1923. Leonid Yuzefovich has a fantastic ability to turn historical verified material into high literature. Places, people, circumstances, baseness and nobility, courage and atrocities, dignity and fanaticism are all present: documents remained, memories. The precious ability to maintain a strict, almost Melville equanimity turns the chronicle into a myth about the illusoryness of victory and time, which will reason all or later.

“Jacob's staircase” Lyudmila Ulitskaya, the spiritual-in the highest sense of the word-the epic-allege of six generations of the family has already been evaluated, all words have been said, therefore-undoubtedly-yes.

“Herman could easily shoot any of the guys, but did not shoot. This is how life turned. He holds the defense in the country house, and against him - four “Afghans”, former comrades in the “Comintern”. Yes, he stole money, he is a thief-but no one gave them the right to raise weapons. And they will not get off. “Perhaps they will kill me soon,” Herman thought calmly. He had a piercing foreboding of the last battle. He remembered this prophetic longing for Afghanistan, and now he only thought about Tanyosha, because on the edge of the death (he knew by himself) those who you love are becoming more expensive, and those who you hate are indifferent. So, a person was not created for war. And therefore, he did not shoot the guys at the wood of the barn. "

This is the “bad weather” of Alexei Ivanov, an attempt to understand the 90th, a very recent past from which ours has grown today. Expressive detail: the author of the “heart of Parma”, “The Gold of the Riot” and “Geographer drank the Globus ...”, one of the most popular modern writers, always avoided premium passions - and now, for the first time - in business! I want not to be disappointed. If only because in the "bad weather" the spirit of the era is so accurately recorded.

Air, plot, with the intrigue "Aviator" Evgeny Vodolazkin. After the "laurel" is difficult to continue: the expectation is too high. Therefore, the Aviator has everything else, including the pace, intonation and even a slight subjunctive inclination - what would happen if ... if a person was resurrected at the turn of the century, in the 20s of centuries of XX sent to Solovki. The novel is frankly invented, even artificial and - charming. If you continue the “line” of the “BC” “BC” of the last two years of the “monastery” and “Zuleikha ...”, which, so converged, are dedicated to the Stalinist repressions, then the “aviator” in a sense closes the topic, translating it to a qualitatively different level-pierced by sadness and self-identity of the search for lost time.

“Kaleidoscope: Consumables (1885-2013)” Sergei Kuznetsov is really a very large book: there are many pages, many not related at first glance fate, many ideas, the disability of densely populated space and dispersion in time. Kaleidoscope? Rather, the avalanche of scattered puzzles that make up the multi -level design - communication and associations are formed in the most bizarre way.

“... everything is repeated, you just have to wait. It seems to people: they are unique, their fate is unique, love, hatred, all that ... And I know: our Lord does not have many materials to start again every time. He works like a good master, according to ready-made patterns ... "

This top five should simply be among the finalists, otherwise it is completely non-multiphery.

The next few books that are not so obvious to the final list, nevertheless, each of these books may be in it - depending on the addictions and mood of experts.

A very interesting, albeit uneven novel “Fortress” by Peter Aleshkovsky, who is that “History is always a terrible thing.” Here, show where in modern literature our branded “warriors in the field” were extinced, sipped, disappeared, only here, in the “fortresses”, one appeared, not without reason the archaeologist and the case has the case with antiquities. Why in this case unevenly? The balance, including stylistic; Next to brilliant landscapes, delicious household refinements, an epic scale of immersion into the past - a weak lyrical line, about vodka, laziness, hopeless, bureaucratic arbitrariness is also a common place, while no one has such rural pictures. A strong romance that lacks ... harmony. Although where, in our life, harmony is “by relics and fir trees”. Last year, the “fortress” would definitely be in Short, and possibly in the cherished three laureates, now the alignment of a slightly different one, so not a fact. The atmospheric “autumn in the pockets” of Andrei Avostsaturov is a pretty, ironic, but still “people in a naked” were more coality, again-the effect of novelty, here the hero, the texture, and intonation are already familiar. The detective and arts of the “Kamov and Kamink” by the artist Sasha Okun is readily read: the author is an exceptionally skilled storyteller, a lot about bohemian customs and visual arts, including modern ones. About art seriously - “The thistle. Philosophy of painting » Maxim Kantor. Hard novels - Sergei Soloukha with the defiant name “Stories about animals” (causing because just about people) and Sasha Filippenko “Harming” - are primarily interesting not so much by the quality of the text as with acute sociality, for diversity, one of them may well take this niche. "Pelevin?" - Ask. "Carerin" ? Well, how much can! BC experts were always not indifferent to him, but here, most likely, no.

Without a “ZhZL”, of course, it will not do. There is a choice, the most interesting - Prilepin and bulls, respectively, “Unlike poets” and “The Thirteenth Apostle. Mayakovsky: Buff tragedy in six actions. ” Perhaps the jury is more likely to peck on the non -banal plan - to combine the incompatible: Mariengof - Lugovskaya - Kornilov. Yes, and a sober, compassionate look today is necessary: ​​"Who needs excuses here, who has the right to accept them."

The historical study of Sergei Belyakov “Shadow of Mazepa: the Ukrainian nation in the Gogol era” , the novel by Alexei Nikitin “Shkil-Mozdil” and the journalism of Igor Svinarenko “Donbass to ...” . The first book is about the roots and origins, from where everything “is and went”; The second, according to the author, was started before the Maidan and was not about it, but it happened and entered the plot, Svinarenko was smart, without hysterical a conversation about a hot point, which is his homeland and remains it, although he lives in Moscow for a long time. All three are worthy, here for sure: how the card will lie. We put on "Donbass to ...".

Two books stand apart. On the formal signs, neither the “crystal in a transparent rim” Vasily Avchenko, nor the “boy following the wild duck” Irakli Kvirikadze fall into the “big -hunged” format. There is neither epic scope, nor relevance - continuous particular, details, observations, thoughts. Avchenko has almost Buddhist enlightenment, playing with words and meanings. Quirikadze has everyday lyrical tragicomedies “about people”, told deliciously and temperamental. This is cool prose, regardless of shape and genre. And most importantly-they, each in their own way, about almost lost by all of us, living in constant bustle, fullness and diversity of life, about the "sky in a cup of flower."

As a result, my list turns out this:

Vasily Avchenko.

What will he actually be, we will find out tomorrow ...

Clarisa Pulson

(The opinion of the editorial office may not coincide with the opinion of the author)