Salnikov writer: "Modernity in literature is almost always magical realism"

What makes the writer get out of the room and why do not kill the hero, even if you really want to? The author of the household phantasmagoria “Petrova in the flu and around it” - one of the main Russian books of the last season - and the criminal novel “Department” Alexei Salnikov talked with Taiga.info, gathering in Novosibirsk for the literary festival “New Book. Volume III ".

Taiga.info: You have a poem that begins with the words "Literature in this speech floats like an iceberg / (most of it is not visible)." What was you in the visible part of the iceberg and how unexpected it was?

-Firstly, this is the illusion that most of me became visible: everything that happens in the writer’s head will never be visible to anyone. And if you are talking about some success - yes, it was unexpected. Just some kind of miracle-as I understand it, it is not for many that it happens. And always the author is surprised that they suddenly begin to read him, even when this is preceded by a long job.

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Taiga.info: You look like a rather closed person, and after National Best, when a wave of popularity arose, you had a choice: to make an image out of your closure and become such a mysterious writer - or take a step towards the reader with all the ensuing conversations with journalists, meetings and festivals. Why did you choose this path, that this communication gives you?

- I am trying in this way to thank people who read my book - if they want to see me, why not? I am not as closed person as it seems; Still, poetry before prose gave me a rather rich experience in communicating with people. Not to say that I am quite an extrovert - it can be difficult for me to communicate - but not so autocused. And then, it is embarrassed to refuse if my name is somewhere or ask for an interview.

Taiga.info: How did it occur to you to write the first big novel? Did you need a change in optics, reconfiguration of thinking?

- No, not at all.

Taiga.info: Have you just sat down and started writing?

- I am a curious person, and I was interested in making a big text just for the sake of some experience. You have to try a lot - here, I tried.

Taiga.info: How does work on prose from creating poetry differ in general?

- Of course, it is more solid, this is physical labor. Work on a poem is sometimes quite difficult, but still it is not so difficult physically. Here you need to sit and write, and for a very long time. And prose is not a collection of stories put one on the other; This is a certain big coherent text that requires more attention than a poem.

Taiga.info: Are you a perfectionist? How long are you editing yourself?

-I write, re-read, taking into account what I could be tasted, then I send the editor, I re-read the layout again, and then, when published, I find out that several jambs still have left. It seems to me that everyone has it. Any big job, whether it is cinema or something else, still turns out with errors. Take at least Dostoevsky, who came to us in numerous editors, or Tolstoy’s names are confused in Tolstoy in the “war and peace”.

“For example, the hero can be so tired of the end of the large text that he wants to kill him. So, you don’t have to kill him. And in general no one is needed. Let him live "

Taiga.info: Have you wanted to be a writer from childhood or dreamed of something?

- Oddly enough, I wanted from childhood. Just about eight years, when I read Krapivin and thought: I can do the same. And this road took quite a lot of time, and this experience had to be survived, it was wonderful. Maybe he already ends - God knows how it will go further.

Taiga.info: That is, you are already ready to talk about yourself as a writer in the past tense?

- No, I’m rather ready to say that I do not know what will happen next.

Taiga.info: On the question of secrecy: is it not so easy for you to find on social networks-readers often manage to contact you?

- I have enough.

Taiga.info: Do ​​you thank or scold?

- As a rule, if they reach me, then they thank. Because in order to scold, enough to write a post somewhere. Gratitude is a more intimate action.

Taiga.info: Can you recall the most unexpected response?

- I liked the review on Lyulib, starting with a quote from “Doctor Who” because I love him very much - that there are no unimportant people. “For 900 years of travel and space, I have not met anyone who would not be important.” Although I didn’t think about it when I wrote the Petrovs, I really liked it.

Taiga.info: In general, you often read reviews and reviews on your novels?

- Sometimes it rolls - I look at the "Laulb" or the "Bookmate". At Lauliba, it all started with negative reviews and for some reason gradually evolved, and outside the reviews of professional criticism. Apparently, there are attentive readers - those who like to read books, and not succumb to news. Although it is clear that we are in the media space, a lot affects us, and sometimes it becomes awkward: now, you did not solve the text, and someone else solved. Of course, part of the success or failure of the book is due to the reviews of other people.

Taiga.info: Are you accused of imitation?

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- I myself was horrified that he first wrote and published the Petrovs, and then read Andrei Ilyenkov’s book “The Tale, which describes itself”. The wife, who read her too, said that I was wrong, but I was horrified that I had almost plagiarism. It was as if both books had come out of some common Ural noosphere: Ilyenkov also lives in Yekaterinburg, he is the editor of the magazine Ural and the author of the script of the film “Country Oz”. In addition, I also later looked him, and somehow in the end I overcame this inner horror. Then, I recently handed over to AST and Volga my completed third romance and the protagonist made a Volga German. And here we meet with Guzel Yakhina - and she, damn it, is a whole book about them. There are such amazing intersections.

Taiga.info: Tell us about the third novel, what can be told now. What will it be about?

- About a woman who writes poetry, let's say so. It turns out that the main character will first appear. The wife read, she did not have discomfort, she did not say anywhere: “We don’t have the way you have.”

Taiga.info: It was more difficult for a woman to write than the same Petrov?

- No. Despite my autism, I may have a rather high level of empathy. Plus, I grew up among the sisters - I have a sister and a lot of cousins. Maybe this influenced the fact that it became easier for me to understand women. We have a certain difference in the ways of thinking - possibly hormonally determined. And nothing more.

“I recently surrendered my completed third romance and made the protagonist a Volga German. And here we meet with Guzel Yakhina - and she, damn it, is a whole book about them "

Taiga.info: How will the novel be called?

- I hope the name will not change: it will be called "indirectly." In the Volga, the book will be released in the Oktyabrsky-Noyabrsk issue. In AST - I don’t know how it goes.

Taiga.info: What does you mean to live in Yekaterinburg and be Yekaterinburg?

- Know the people around - if not by names, then at least remember the face. I have a terrible memory for faces. It happens that I take two different children for one, and then suddenly I meet both in the elevator at once - and the brain turns off. Then, all sorts of conversations with sellers in stores, jokes - in general, good things. In our country, although the area has been famous since the time of the nineties is not very good, but people here are very funny and mostly good.

Taiga.info: You once said that the “Petrov” is a fabulous story for you. It did not seem to you that you got into some hitherto unknown niche in modern Russian literature, that she lacked such a fairy tale? Or are you determining the reason for the success of the "Petrov" for yourself in a different way?

-In a different way, because we, in principle, have enough fairy tales and magical realism. Modernity in today's literature is almost always magical realism, and the past is fantasy. I don’t even know what the reader who liked the novel was missing. Apparently, it is still not fairy tales, but rather intimacy, which is the same for all layers of society, regardless of material wealth and education. Communication between spouses, child, friends, crazy and normal people; The feeling that you yourself are crazy.

Taiga.info: When I read the “Petrovs”, I had the feeling that you were in a good way-the new Grishkovets in his best years, that you managed to hook something in common for everyone and at the same time what everyone is afraid to talk about, despite the community of this fear and what generates him.

- Maybe - I am not familiar with the work of the Grishkovts at all. I am more in Russian classics and foreign authors.

“The wife said: well, no, the“ department ”will not be published for sure. It turned out that there are people who are ready to take on this risk. Some mat, however, had to be removed "

Taiga.info: What recently read good?

- Oh, I read the “feast of the sages” of Athenaeus, and this is a wonderful thing - despite the fact that this is generally an ancient author. As he was remarkably thawed even by Homer, saying that the heroes of the Iliad have been living on the seashore for ten years - and eat only bulls, although their fish swims almost underfoot, and it can be safely caught. There are many humorous moments that remain ridiculous so far.

Taiga.info: Did anyone recently hooked out of more modern authors?

- There is such a Petersburg author of wonderful stories Irina Glebova. And so she hooked me very much, although her publication is already six years old, and she is undeservedly unknown, while she writes very funny and at the same time terribly. You do not know whether to laugh or be horrified.

Taiga.info: When you wrote a “department”, kept the Russian modernity in your head? ( The protagonist of the novel Igor, a former FSB officer, is settled to work in a secret government organization, whose work is to kill people, and then arrange it on paper - approx. Taigi.info )

- Obviously, yes, but I did not expect the book to be terrible. I laughed when I wrote it. The heroes quickly became independent, did what they wanted, and sometimes it was really funny. But when I re-read it-oh-oh-oh.

Taiga.info: And when Roman came out, there was no fear that you would be accused of something?

- Absolutely not. And for less sometimes they plant, and the “department” is a rather controversial book in this regard. I had several episodes-visions both in verses and in prose-I wanted them to stay. The wife said: well, no, the “department” will not be published for sure. It turned out that there are people who are ready to take on this risk. Some mat, however, had to be removed.

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Taiga.info: Are you reading news?

- Certainly.

Taiga.info: And how do you feel?

- Already in addition to surprise, little is left. I look and think: what else can all this reach and how low it is? It's just interesting. How to influence this is unknown.

Taiga.info: No fear?

- Yes, it seems not.

Taiga.info: In the end I will ask about the Festival "New Book". What do you think, why such a story needs a big city?

- The holiday is always good, especially book. It seems to me that the book needs to be promoted. And writers, quite hooligan people, can often tell others something interesting-but this, by the way, is not talking about myself now. Here at least Misha Faustov is a wonderful person, such a nimble fat man, just like me, only I'm not nimble. Festivals are charged with energy, curiosity, cause dissatisfaction with some local young people who have come up with those who came up. We do not know where the new Dostoevsky will come from - we can only rub it with a stick. It is necessary to excite in him some healthy anger with such demonstrative behavior that a person gasp: why are they, not me?! - And he wrote, wrote, wrote.

“We don’t know where the new Dostoevsky will come from - we can only rub it with a stick”

Taiga.info: What will you talk about in Novosibirsk?

- I can tell how to write a book. Giving your own experience in combating great text - not quite about literary, rather about applied things. For example, the hero can be so tired of the end of the large text that he wants to kill him. So, there is no need to kill him, and generally no one needs. Let him live.

The meeting of Alexei Salnikov with Novosibirsk readers will be held on September 1 at 17:30 at the Festival “New Book. Volume III ”in the Pervomaisky Square. Full program of festival: Bookfair.life

Talked by Julia Isakova