What Klim Samgin was silent about

Boris Paramonov: Reading History

Alexander Genis: The 150th anniversary of Gorky did not pass at all as noted similar round dates earlier. In Soviet times, when Gorky was almost the fourth classic of Marxism-Leninism, such an anniversary would turn into a bacchanal. Now, rather, on the contrary. When the leading Russian critics were asked to evaluate Gorky’s contribution, the majority agreed that there was nothing especially to talk about here.

Is this so, I asked Paramonov, who, in his answer - in the framework of his personal section “The History of Reading” - concentrated on the final book of Gorky “The Life of Klim Samghin”.

Boris Paramonov: It seems that Maxim Gorky is no longer a living phenomenon of Russian literature, and as a classic he was always doubtful - he was too tightened into officialdom, declared the founder of socialist realism, which, by the way, is not quite nonsense. For Gorky was characterized by a kind of myth -making installation, he initially called for literature to decorate their lives: they say, show people beautiful, and they will actually become better. At the same time, he himself did not seek to work in this technique: he is a realist, quite rude, "household", as he called himself.

Alexander Genis: Nevertheless, it was the Gorky novel "Mother" that was officially recognized as a matrix for all socialist opuses in the Soviet school. For which I still cannot stand him.

Boris Paramonov: This is doubtful. "Mother" is a simply bad book in which Gorky brought to the highest concentration one of his features. He loved to make his heroes home -grown philosophers who expressed all stylized wisdom. A simple person as a philosopher is a frequent character of Gorky, and this rightly considered a lack of his creative manner - this tendency to such characters. He even spoiled his best things in such a manner: for example, in the play "at the bottom" of all kinds of philosophy, Satin expresses a hymn to a person; At the same time, Satin is a cards Shuler. Perfect inconsistency.

Alexander Genis: What gives a certain ambiguous charm of the play. It’s like Chichikov, discussing the greatness of Russia. But we decided to talk about the novel "Life of Klim Samghin."

The intellectual cannot be an epic hero, especially in realistic performance. The novel cannot be an epic at all, although Hegel called it a bourgeois epic, which is an ironic characteristic. The bearer of individual consciousness cannot be an epic hero

Boris Paramonov: About the last and largest Gorky work. Moreover, there was a temptation to consider this thing the best of Gorky: a sort of panorama of pre -revolutionary Russia. Four volumes. The fourth, however, is not added. Size, volume, what to say, epic. But the hero is by no means epic - an intellectual of average virtues. And whatever his dignity, the intellectual cannot be an epic hero, especially in realistic performance. The novel cannot be an epic at all, although Hegel called it a bourgeois epic, which is an ironic characteristic. The bearer of individual consciousness cannot be an epic hero.

Alexander Genis: Moreover, Gorky himself began to consider “samgin” for some time as an “samgin” perhaps a satellite on the Russian intelligentsia, over time he began to characterize his hero negatively.

Boris Paramonov: Well, yes, he has such a characteristic of Samghin - as a waste in the Russian intelligentsia: they say that the intelligentsia died in a revolution, but there is a road there. Gorky began to give such characteristics to his novel by no means immediately, in the first volumes there is no satirical pathos.

Another question: how does he even feel about his hero, is identified with him, does he expose him as a horn of his own ideas? Or is it some kind of generalized type, which, however, even began to look for real prototypes? In the prototype, Samgin was put by a certain Nosa, an editor of some of the original Marxist magazines (legal Marxism, of course). But this is a very insignificant figure - Cos. But among the legal Marxists were large people: Struve, Berdyaev, Sergey Bulgakov, Frank. All four are future "Vekhovtsy".

But more recently, I met an attempt to declare the prototype of Samghin Vladislav Khodasevich: he, they say, lived for a long time with Gorky in Germany, and then in Sorrento, so Gorky watched him and seemed to transform his hero.

Alexander Genis: Well, and how do you evaluate this hypothesis yourself? It sounds very curious.

Boris Paramonov: Insolvent hypothesis. Khodasevich was undoubtedly unpleasant, but he was a significant, sharp and very smart person. And you can’t say this about Samgin. Samgin is no, it seems to be a shallow, but he has no person, he is silent all the time, even in childhood, having guessed that they would consider it smartly smart.

Yes, I, the diligent reader of Shklovsky, do not believe in the theory of prototypes at all, you can’t write a huge novel, so to speak, with the wrong hands. On this occasion, one position of formalists is recalled: the hero of the novel is not a real type or prototype, but a certain plot abstraction, motivation of the plot movement, a thread connecting individual novel episodes, and the thread, says Shklovsky, gray.

I would even say that, in the "Life of Klim Samghin", all his characters are more interesting than the protagonist. And this, by the way, forces us to recall one very interesting mistake of the great Flaubert, who in the novel "sentimental education" is exactly the same pale, inexpressive hero - against a very interesting background. At the same time, the background resembles the “Samginsky”: the revolution, the French revolution of 1848 and its then types, which give a striking resemblance to the relevant Russian characters, mostly nihilists from the circle of the Nekrasov “contemporary”. It is undoubted for me that in Klim Samgina, Gorky focused on “sentimental education” - “raising feelings”, as they began to translate in Russia.

In the "Life of Klim Samghin", all his characters are more interesting than the main character

Well, as for Samgin, he has one indisputable prototype - the author himself. Question: Why is he so cautious silent? And this Gorky retroactively corrects himself: the fact is that he spoke a lot of excess at his early stages, wrote a lot of tasteless works, like "Songs about a falcon" or American essays - "The city of the Yellow Devil" and others. He was very criticized for these things, and he knew how to perceive criticism, and threw this false and philosophical manner over time. Here is his hero Samgin and is silent - everything is better than speaking out on the questions unknown to you. Gorky in Samgin feels this newly acquired self -doubt, heaviness, inadequacy for him of the reputation of the classic.

Alexander Genis: An interesting parallel. But the key question is: do you, Boris Mikhailovich, like this final opus of Gorky?

Boris Paramonov: Here there is a phenomenon, which in America is called "nostalgic reading." For the first time I read Samgin in the ninth to twentieth grade, in the late Stalin years, when the literary field was almost completely scolded. It was possible to read three authors from the not -free in the Soviet Union: Gorky, Alexei Tolstoy and Ehrenburg. Whatever you say about them, but these are writers, professionals, not Soviet butt. And in this desert, "Klim Samgin gave a teenager-book a lot-a lot was recognized about old Russia, how interesting, diverse, rich in people and, so to speak, goods. I once wrote an article about my reader experience called "Read only children's books."

Alexander Genis: A line from Mandelstam, I always remember her when I lose my glasses.

Boris Paramonov: Now it's just a kind of meme.

So, I learned a lot from Klim Samghin. For example, about the collection "Milestones", which is read in the novel in the fourth volume. And there the phrase that struck me sounds: "The Russian man does not like wealth." This, as I later found out, from the article by Ludwigovich Frank "Ethics of Nigilism." By the way, in the second volume of Samgin describes such a hypothetical “Vakhovsky” circle, led by a kind of river, in which Peter Struve is recognized, and in the same place, in this circle, there is a man named Berdnikov. Guess who is.

Alexander Genis: Berdyaev!

Boris Paramonov: Of course! There, such a dash is described: "He moves around the room all the time, as if he wants to sit on all chairs." The image of the Berdyaevsky continuous searches.

Alexander Genis: Boris Mikhailovich, in our time it is difficult to put the reader for such a community. Therefore, I will ask: which of the volumes do you consider the best? Everyone praises the first.

"He moves around the room all the time, as if he wants to sit on all chairs"

Boris Paramonov: Yes, undoubtedly. And it contains a wonderful ending: the Nizhny Novgorod fair is described, and on it is a certain important Chinese who demanded to give him a gem from among the exhibits, and did not even demand, but he simply took it, took it out of the window. Some prophecy, if you like: will devour China Rashka, will devour with all the giblets.

Even in the first volume there is a very bright character - Vladimir Lyutov, it seems like Savva Morozov is described in him. But it is not true, as it seems to me, it is described: it is very somewhat torn, unprecedented, although, undoubtedly, smart. What I read about Savva Morozov, for example, in the memoirs of Alexander Nikolayevich Tikhonov, does not resemble Samginsky Lyutov. Lutov says interestingly in one place: "Yes, Russian people tomorrow the whole world will take off their place and go to look for some Opon kingdom!" Well, where could you read something similar in 1952?! ..

Alexander Genis: But Lutov ends with suicide, like a real Savva Morozov.

Boris Paramonov: Yes, and there, in the first volume, there is a fairy -tale beauty Alina Telepneva, which Lutov is in love with: the prototype in reality is Savva Morozov, who loved Maria Andreeva, the actress of the Moscow Art Theater and one of the civilian wives of Gorky. Well, and Alina Telepneva herself in the novel is a chansonnet, unauthorized, taking mainly bodily beauty.

The second volume loses the tempo, begins to sag, the material floods the construction. But the third volume is very interesting. I, then reading it, missed it, but recently Alexander Etkind explained this composition. The third volume of Klima Samghin, he says, is written as a polemic with the Silver Pigeon Andrei Bely, whom Gorky was terribly jealous and which was envious. There, in the third volume, the Khlystovsky “ship” and his Mother of God are described - the rich merchant Marina Zotova, who is killed by her nephew of the noble, made by a doctrine. This is an allusion to the "silver -pigeon".

Well, one more wonderful detail from the first volume should be remembered-how a man arranges for the gentlemen, I catch a catfish, a sort of sports attraction. Moreover, it turns out that he pouted the gentlemen - there was no catfish. Shklovsky spoke very sarcastically about this scene. “This som,” he wrote, “was taken from Balzac, where the peasants catch a lynx with the same manner, and again they deceive the intelligentsia.” “So the catfish“ floating ”along the pages of Klima Samghin,” writes Shklovsky, “is a quote”.

These are my memories of Klima Samgina, Alexander Alexandrovich, which I considered it possible to share Gorky in the current anniversary. Of course, this is not the best Russian writer, but the figure is significant. And he has a very interesting parallel in the latest Russian literature.

Alexander Genis: Who is this?

Boris Paramonov: Yevtushenko. In Russian literature, there is always a vacancy of celebrity - the ruler of the Dum, and this place does not happen empty.