Literary critic Varvara Babitskaya about favorite books

IN BACKGROUND "BOOK SHELF" we ask journalists, writers, scholars, curators, and other heroines about their literary preferences and publications, which occupy an important place in their bookcase. Today, literary critic, editor and translator Varvara Babitskaya shares her stories about favorite books.

I started reading late by the standards of my family: the older brother had already taught you to read the younger ones, and I sabotaged everything, even though I knew the letters. When I was almost five years old, I was sent to live with my grandmother for several months, due to the confluence of political circumstances, she found herself in a Kazakh village. There, for the most part, I entertained myself and once I built a house of chairs and a rug, climbed there and began to imitate the normal household activities of a person, that is, I took a book and began to look at it. And the letters suddenly formed into the text - almost with a click. I read the page to myself to make sure that I wasn’t imagining, and said to my grandmother, "It seems I can read!"

In childhood, the skill of reading what is written caused a lot of frustration: I could not take it on faith that it was funny, and then it was valiant. I was angry and frustrated that the symbol of nobility - Athos - hung up his own wife for the crime for which she had already been punished by the law, and Carlson mocks Tiny, eats all his sweets, brings him under the monastery and throws him in trouble, but for some reason it is proposed to be their fan simply because of the political sympathies of the author or at the whim of the translator. To this day, excessive empathy with respect to heroes - victims of copyright arbitrariness prevents me, and slightly in the novel will smell fried, I look into the epilogue to make sure they get married or die to get ready in advance.

Chukovsky in Gogol quoted “High Art”, speaking of a good translation: “... you don’t see it: it turned into such a transparent" glass "that it seems like there is no glass", but for me any text was like mica glass, that is obstacle, but with its own interesting texture. When I was nine years old, I knew by heart entire pages from Chernyshevsky’s novel “What to do?”, Which I considered to be the purest nonsense the purest model, because I was fascinated by unusual syntactic constructions, alien syllable and the feeling that with their help I understood more about the author than he himself was going to tell me.

I love paper books - more precisely, my paper books. Over time, the bookshelves became a spatial model of my brain. And they also became a model of a house: in recent years I had to frequently change apartments, but the books that I carry around in fifty boxes and arranged on the walls in the usual manner, geometrically repeat the shape of the dwelling and give it a familiar look.

Sometimes I write an article and remember that on such a occasion it was already well said: before I figure out who the author is and what kind of book I already find a quote, because I remember at what point in space the right thought lies - on which shelf, right or left on the turn, on what a centimeter of thickness of the volume. In general, any library is a life-size model of literature, and from this it also follows that it is not necessary to familiarize yourself personally with each brick in the building in order to understand what kind of structural load it has.

Because of the habit of perceiving a text in three dimensions, it is difficult for me to read books in PDF, although to review them, of course, it’s faster and easier to get it that way, and the Kindle is very helpful. I always read with a pencil, write back and write in the margin. Therefore, I reluctantly give my books to read: it is intimate, I am afraid to give myself "now with a short word, now with a cross, now with a question hook." In addition, I myself need them: as a rule, I prefer the old one, I can re-read every year, for example, "Jane Eyre", the first volume of "A Man without Properties" by Robert Musil, and so on.

I don’t understand at all why one text should interest me more than another, on the grounds that I haven’t read the first one yet. On the contrary: I already know about the old one, that it is interesting, but the grandmother still spoke in two about the new one. There are not so many new ideas in each generation, as Maugham noted four years after Harms, who belonged to the next generation, wrote about a colleague: "He did not hesitate to tell me in person that he composes ten thoughts every month. He's lying."

A medieval author could read fewer different books in his whole life than we did in a couple of years, and which ones achieved impressive cognitive results: the human mind is qualitatively changed not by new information, but by new neural connections. But I grew up in a situation of a book deficit, which left an uncontrollable greed towards books, and family upbringing inspired me with a sense of guilt for laziness and lack of curiosity, and it turned out that I would have to read new books. So I became a literary critic in the hope that I would at least pay for it (looking ahead, I would say that the plan turned out to be so-so). These books literally make up a shelf, which I pack as a last resort when I move, because it reliably comforts and maintains mental health in difficult times.

Vladislav Khodasevich

"Necropolis"

Khodasevich taught me everything: what is national identity, how does pornography differ from art with an erotic plot and how to live in a literary tradition, and not museumize it. He was born forty-nine years after the death of Pushkin, and died forty-two years before my birth, wrote about Pushkin from the same historical distance with which I write about him, but it seems that the gaps in consciousness are incomparable, and Khodasevich is understandable, close people of the twentieth century. This is by no means self-evident, his comrades were not such. They were addicted to life-creation, they set up wild experiments on themselves and others, which now cause laughter or moral protest. For them, we are all - "pharmacists", as in "Stray Dog" called the inhabitants, who converged to look at the bohemia.

Among them, Khodasevich, as a poet, as a critic and as a memoirist, stands quite apart due to some exceptional human quality and sobriety: you can identify with him alone, look at the tangles of literary and human relationships of the Silver Age with his eyes. This does not mean agreeing with him on everything, especially since his views have evolved, just like the authors whom he reviewed. A very exciting job - to follow the literary process of the past in real time: on page 486 he rinses on Tsvetaeva for his debut collection, and on page 523 calls her poem “Good Man” incomparable, so he gradually resolves Mandelshtam's zaum. And nobody will surpass him with poison: "I would like to keep silent about Vladimir Narbut ..." - I have no doubt, Narbut would also like to.

Similar: Georgy Ivanov "Petersburg Winter"; Irina Odoevtseva "On the banks of the Neva"

"Personal file №: Literary and Art Almanac"

The poetic almanac "Personal Case No." was published in 1991, and about that time I switched to verses for a long time. I swallowed the Silver Age, then Lianozovtsev, Brodsky somehow did not go. And then suddenly I found a number of absolutely alive, poetry now happening. The group "Almanac" did not include many of my favorites - Ivan Zhdanov, Lev Losev, Alexey Tsvetkov Sr. But Dmitry Aleksanych Prigov, Lev Rubinstein, Mikhail Eisenberg, Sergey Gandlevsky, Timur Kibirov, Viktor Koval were not just collected under one cover - the opening essay by Eisenberg, which I never read anything like, and the article by Andrei Zorin, setting the context, was a revelation. These were not any separate underground or emigrant voices, but a living ecosystem, which had happened before. I got home, especially since in the year when I graduated from school, the OGI Project opened, where we were all ten years old and settled. My copy of the “Personal Case No.” was presented to me by Michael Eisenberg, a friend and (cheekfully I will say) teacher. Then one day I tried to take it away, but it was too late, because I prudently asked for an autograph on the book. Of all the books in case of fire, I would have saved this first.

Similar: the whole poetic series of the publishing house "Project OGI"

Taffy

"Nostalgia. Stories. Memories"

Taffy is a Russian classic underestimated in its scale, she was pushed into a humorous angle by inertia, when only a novelist is considered a serious writer (except for Chekhov, they make an exception, although I find it much funnier to be a sniper and psychologist). This inertia still constitutes the curse of Russian literature: “Our Russian novel is very restless. Then we’ve got the tide, and the deacon poured it on the third — they drank,” and then suddenly the smash hit my husband began to swell with pillars of fire. . I do not often quote Taffy, but just talk quotes from her, especially with my mother.

"Nostalgia" is a good collection; her memories of spontaneous emigration in 1918 are also included there. Almost the best of her book, in comparison with the stories of the little-known. I don’t remember another example of such equal and at the same time high degrees of comic and tragic on one page. But in general, Teffi is absolutely necessary for any neurasthenic, from the first letter to the last.

Similar: Arkady Averchenko "Joke Patron"; Daniil Kharms "How I Disheveled One Company"

Grigory Dashevsky

"Featured Articles"

Dashevsky once sadly joked that his journalistic rule was two obituaries a week, and don't ask for more. Like no one, he found words for the dead, I think it was related to his other work - he was a classical philologist and poet, translated poetry from a dead language to a living one in various senses. You can not get used to that he died. I have never met a man of such mental concentration and with such a gift of interpretation: in conversation he extracted from the most unstressed message a grain of thought, cleaned and gallantly returned to the owner, who wondered: "How clever I am, it turns out!"

Many of his reviews gave me much more than the books to which they are devoted. Although the text “How to read modern poetry”, which was included in another of his books, “Poems and Translations” is most precious to me - partly because I took part in it as a dictaphone, partly because he really explains how to read modern poetry . Poems are more complicated than prose, they really need clear criticism, an encryption key, but I don’t remember other examples available to the unprepared reader. Dashevsky was the smartest and clearest critic. Many people (I am the first) mistakenly mistaken for verbalized emotions, and the “Selected Articles” illustrate this difference as a golden critical meter.

William Somerset Maugham

"Jane"

I love little prose, that is, stories, and I consider Somerset Maugham's “Jane” a model story, not to mention that the title character is my role model. So far, I rather look like her antagonist, but I still have time left, because she is fifty in plot. Maugham was considered by many to be a cynic, he wrote: "I have no innate faith in people. I tend to expect from them more bad than good. This is the price that one has to pay for a sense of humor." But he, in my opinion, is deprived of cynicism to the same extent as sentimentality: he surprisingly experiences equal empathy towards all characters without exception, idealizes no one and does not condemn.

In addition to stories, he has very valuable critical essays on the structure of plays, stories and novels, especially his own - a rare writer gives us such convenience, and Maugham, without coquetry, looks at himself with the same naturalist look as others. A good story is always a little detective. In Jane, Maugham makes a plot turn three times on several pages, although the real prize is not an event, but a short replica last. I generally feel a weakness for secular people and respect authors who take the trouble to compose an interesting story, even if they have thoughts to keep their attention without it: it is polite to the reader.

Similar: Evelyn Waugh "Vile Flesh"; Graeme Green "Traveling with the Aunt"

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

"Unexpected Chesterton"

I bought this collection of Chesterton publicist myself in a bookstore where I worked as a saleswoman. Prejudice against new books does not apply to new texts of favorite authors: here I feel that I have found a treasure. Essentially, I almost disagree with Chesterton, but during the reading he hypnotizes me as the embodiment of common sense and radiant norms. This is an opponent you can only dream about. I would say he teaches us with his example that any common sense and norm has a limited scope and shelf life; Chesterton is consciously sentimental just, this is his ideological position. He is invaluable in the service of a healthy, ridiculous and intellectual Christianity, which is now difficult.

Natalia Leonidovna Trauberg, his translator, being very sharp in the language, shared in her work, one might say, apostolic hypocrisy - I heard that she censored even Woodhouse in some way (I can’t imagine what he could insult shame) its translations are so brilliant that they are reluctant to check. The entire company — Chesterton, Woodhouse, Clive Staples Lewis — described a lost paradise that cracked at the seams in World War I and destroyed the Second. I didn’t want to move out of paradise, so I switched to Maugham and Evelyn Waugh, who looked at things soberly, but still smelled familiar, with the same “complete pacification that was given by long-term happiness,” as Jan Satunovsky wrote in military verses.

Similar: Clive Staples Lewis "Letters of the Balamut"

Giovannino Guareschi

"Small World. Don Camillo"

And another Christian journalist in the brilliant translation of Olga Gurevich - and I say that not because she was my favorite Italian teacher at the university. So far, Guareski in Russia does not enjoy fame, but I do not get tired of promoting it. This collection includes stories of feuilletons, showing the history of one, 1947, the year of Italian political life in the form of the history of the struggle of the rural Catholic priest Don Camillo and the mayor-communist Peppone. Any person who has found the USSR will rejoice by reading Don Camillo bickering with Christ in the altar: "Lord, but you give yourself an account of what makes me work for Agitprop?" True, in post-war Italy, the opposing political forces were represented by Stalinists and Christians, and we found themselves oddly on the same side, but Guareschi writes about the conflict of individual reason and collective ideology, conscience and propaganda, Christ calls upon him not to breed politics. in my house. "

Publius Ovidi Nazon

"A cure for love"

Somehow I fell in love unfortunately, and a friend said: “Well, what are you sobering up - read“ The Cure for Love ”!” - with intonation: “Why endure the heat, drink aspirin!” “I laughed, but although it began with“ Science of Love ” as a child, my sexual enlightenment, the “Drug”, passed me by, so I read it, and it, firstly, helped, and secondly, delighted me with its modernity. In some places it was terribly funny (for example, it is recommended to imagine an object of passion in an unfavorable perspective), but in general it is read as a simple and effective instruction on personal growth, Alain Ka p: "Cunning looking for love to her beneficent delay; / There is no better day to save than today! "

Young people often learn to comprehend their feelings with the help of the lyrics of the Silver Age, which is good for everyone, but it is not suitable for the needs of a modern person because it comes from another worldview - still Christian, romantic, implying idealism, sacrifice as a value and feature in a mortar. And modern man, even a believer, is already an atheist and rational egoist in his psychology. He needs to read the classics, which somehow, without appealing to eternal life, convincingly substantiated that this life must be lived with dignity and steadfastly endure its vicissitudes. Logic is not an ideal way to establish the truth, but it is better not yet invented. When I see the growing political and social absurdity, I remember Mariengof's “Cynics”: “It’s all because, Gog, that you didn’t finish the gymnasium.” That is, I did not read the classics.

Similar: "Conversations" of Epictetus; Guy Valery Catullus, lyrics; Lucius Annieus Seneca "Philosophical Dialogues"

Sergey Dovlatov

"Compromise"

At the beginning of my career, I worked for a year in the magazine Russian Newsweek, to deep mutual dissatisfaction. I wrote intolerable philosophical treatises, and the editors turned them into infotainment, only scraps flew along short streets. Once I was sent to Novosibirsk to write a report on the work of Theodore Currentzis. Everyone was very nervous, the editor-in-chief personally called to control: it was believed that the report was the most complex genre that one could master in practice, over the years, after going through fire, water and sewer pipes.

The text was suddenly demanded two days before it was submitted - which is what it is, you still have to rewrite the entire editorial board. I haven't had any yet. I thought: what do I even know about the reports? She opened "Compromise", singled out the structure, replaced, conditionally speaking, "milk" on "rehearsal of the orchestra," wrote a report in twenty minutes. It was my only text in Newsweek, which was not ruled at all and praised at the fly. Не знаю, приведены ли в "Компромиссе" подлинные публикации или шутки, но Довлатов в любом случае описал пародию на профессию, а пародия - это всегда лучшее пособие, концентрат ремесленного приёма.

Лидия Гинзбург

"Записные книжки. Воспоминания. Эссе"

I have always been confused by the stereotype that "a philologist is a failed writer" (and there is nothing to say about criticism: a failed and embittered one). The most ingenious refutation of this stamp is Lydia Ginzburg. She was engaged in documentary prose as a philologist, while her own notebooks, memoirs, and, above all, "Notes of the besieged man" - the top of Russian documentary prose. After Ginsburg, it is surprising that someone is still hierarchically divided into fiction and documentary literature, fiction and non-fiction.

I am not at all a supporter of the traditional hierarchy of genres, which was crowned first with tragedy, but now with a thick novel, as is clearly seen from my choice of books. I myself am a typical unsuccessful writer, in my youth I wrote poems, I thought about a novel, but now from all genres I would have dreamed of working out in "intermediate prose." Among other things, this is simply the most natural way of literature functioning in hopeless times, when literature wants, quoting Mikhail Eisenberg, "die, not be, not happen yet."

Similar: Mikhail Gasparov "Records and extracts"; Witold Gombrovich "Diary"; Susan Sontag "About Photography"