Great Octobers

Alexander Chernykh about Roger Zelazny's novel - the best book for autumn reading

Many people like to return to books they have read long ago in order to refresh their impressions, better understand the work, or remember themselves five, ten, and so on years ago. At the request of Gorky, Alexander Chernykh, a correspondent for the Kommersant newspaper, wrote a lyrical essay about Roger Zelazny’s novel, which he rereads every October for the fifteenth year in a row.

Every year on the first evening of October I take the same book out of the closet. Small, published on bad, already yellowed paper - but this is exactly the case when the stupid flashy cover says nothing about the magical content. This was the custom in the nineties: even the most elegant fantasy novels were decorated by pirate publishers with images of muscular barbarians or creepy monsters, like on the albums of heavy metal bands. The time was like this: it was believed that otherwise they would not buy. However, it’s not for me to turn up my nose - I first read this book that year when I bought Manowar and Blind Guardian cassettes at the Rock Arsenal store on Kurskaya. I open it now, and for a second I remember how I leafed through these pages on the way home from school. My hands were freezing - it was a cold October 15 years ago.

I read the short introduction and the first chapter, and then put the book back. Tomorrow I will read the second, the next evening the third, and so on. This story has 31 chapters, one for each day of October. I will finish the book just in time for Halloween, when all its magic will gain strength, once again changing the characters - and me.

Roger Zelazny's best books are based on playing with myths: in The Prince of Light, earthly colonists, having arrived on a distant planet, turn themselves into heroes of the Indian pantheon; in "Creatures of Light, Creatures of Darkness" the Egyptian gods are at work. The multi-volume Chronicles of Amber, the writer's main work, is filled with references to the Celtic and Scandinavian epics, medieval literature and Shakespeare. And in his last novel, “A Night in Lonely October” (another translation is entitled “On a Dreary October Night...”), Zelazny was inspired by the work of his colleagues in the “low genres” - science fiction writers, detective writers, horror authors “and the creators of many old films.” They are all honestly listed in the dedication, from Mary Shelley and Conan Doyle to Lovecraft and Bradbury. Their characters are found on every page: a private detective with a klutz companion, a gloomy count from Romania accompanied by a gypsy camp, an eternally drunk Russian monk with suicidal tendencies, a kind doctor and his suspiciously large but stupid assistant...

I first read this book the year I bought Manowar and Blind Guardian cassettes at the Rock Arsenal store.

Crossover, the collision of characters from different worlds, is not a new genre. Beginning with literary fare like Holmes vs. Nat Pinkerton, the genre is now on the rise in major art forms such as comic books, computer games, and related movies like Batman v Superman. At the same time, truly successful examples can be counted on one hand; most attempts to cross a grass snake and a bat cause legitimate irritation among the public. The authors of such works must walk a very thin tightrope: they are required to show a familiar character in an unexpected way, but at the same time do without major changes so as not to violate the usual canon.

Zelazny coped with this task brilliantly. He came up with an elegant move: the book is filled with well-known characters, but they are on the periphery of the story and are written out rather schematically. Each of them has an intelligent companion animal - a dog, a cat, a snake, an eagle owl, a rat. They are the main characters: while the owners are busy with some important matters, the animals communicate, form alliances, explore the world around them, climb ruins, and track each other. And even when people kill each other, animals maintain armed neutrality.

The action takes place in 1887 in the outskirts of London. We watch what is happening through the eyes (or rather, the nose) of Nyukh, a deliberately stern but kind dog. His owner, the immortal Jack, loves to walk around Soho at night with a sharp knife in his pocket, looking out for red-haired beauties, but in general he is a kind fellow. A couple of times a century, when Halloween night coincides with the full moon, a mysterious Game begins on earth: some of its participants want to change the world, while others are trying to stop them. And Zelazny plays his game with the reader: well, who guessed where? and now? But you definitely didn’t expect such a turn? And indeed, who would have thought that Jack the Ripper and Count Dracula would turn out to be positive characters, but the vampire hunter would look something like the Orthodox activist Enteo.

A couple of times a century, when Halloween night coincides with the full moon, a mysterious Game begins on earth: some of its participants want to change the world, while others are trying to stop them

And most importantly, this is truly a very well written book that will appeal not only to geeks who can recognize most literary references. Even if the reader hears about Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath for the first time, he will still get great pleasure. I will not pretend to be a snob and honestly admit: only after several years of annual reading did I learn that the title of the book is a direct quote from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. And I only figured out the dedication to science fiction writer Robert Bloch only this summer: while reading his creepy “Notes Found in an Abandoned House,” I came across a story about druids worshiping the Ancient Gods.

There's great humor here. What is the moment when a snake solders a bat with the help of fermented plums, finds out all the secrets of its owner, and then tactfully crawls away, explaining: “Snakes are the last thing you want to see when you wake up with a hangover.” Or the scene in the cemetery, when the players conclude a temporary truce in order to obtain the necessary ingredients for magic potions - and begin to exchange the bones they find.

Fans call A Night in Lonely October the most "autumnal" book, and it's true. October is another full-fledged character in the novel. With each chapter, the nights become longer and colder, it begins to rain, the dog and cat complain about “continuous dampness and drizzle,” at night they freeze in the cold wind and rejoice when the sun occasionally peeks through the gray clouds. October 12 Jack and Sniff don’t go out at all - they just sit in front of the fireplace and look out the window, drinking sherry. Several years ago I read this short chapter while flying over the autumn forest in a frozen helicopter. Later, crawling out of it in the cold October rain, I was terribly jealous of the dog and his owner.

With each chapter the nights become longer and colder, it begins to rain, the dog and cat complain about “continuous dampness and drizzle”

There really is some magic in this book that makes you come back to it every October. By dividing the novel into 31 chapters, Zelazny achieved an amazing result. If you read a chapter a day, then very soon you begin to feel like one of the characters, the same participant in the Game as the others. In the same way, you try to predict the actions of others, and most importantly, you constantly decide whose side you are on. This effect is not lost when re-reading - on the contrary, over the years I was surprised to find that I eventually changed my position: from Opener to Closer.

Lately, I’ve been increasingly reading the next chapter from my phone screen, but that hasn’t changed anything. I remember them almost by heart, but the magic has not gone away. Zelazny’s magic was supplemented by my own: when I enter the world of the Game, even for a few minutes, I find myself in my past. I read these stories at school during breaks, at the university, on a trolleybus on the way to or from a date, on the subway, wiping off blood after a fight, in each of the editorial offices, in foreign cities in other countries. And every time I relive all fifteen cold Octobers, and how many more there will be. Jack and Jill went up the hill.