Director and actress Alisa Khazanova 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, actress Alisa Khazanova is sharing her stories about her favorite books - on Thursday her directorial debut, Fragments, will be released.
I am against the position that some books are better than others, and some should not be at all. I do not like lists and hierarchies, and I never divide authors by period and geography. I can conquer completely different books of writers who can not be compared, and not necessary. The more frames, the more I suffer. Regardless of the fame of the author and the limitations of my relationship with him, I am deeply grateful to everyone who could change something in me — such was the reading in my youth and it happens to books now. I remember all the book shocks well: for example, Dostoevsky's Idiot with his unique aching intonation in relation to the fragile human life, and also the work of Proust and Cortazar.
It is important for me not to forget why I do what I do - and books often help. A creative person in general is called upon not to let others rest. It is important for me to enter into dialogue and remind of emotions that are retreating to the tenth plan because of a crazy life. Acting and directing work is not about the ego or the desire to please, but about the need to talk about basic things in different ways. And also my case has a peculiarity: literature lives with me regardless of my desire. The acting game is associated with memorizing a huge amount of text that the brain starts to drive around in a circle on a machine at some point — it’s just that way. So even without reading a book, you live a long time with it, and sometimes this forced neighborhood turns into discoveries.
I do not like to read in a situation of emotional congestion and even less like to take on several books at once: I get the feeling that I betray one or another writer. This does not apply to non-fiction literature. Non-fiction, I read in chunks, randomly, in order to engage in a quick dialogue on topics that are interesting to me - probably the fact is that I am just a curious cat. I have choreographic education, but there are many interests outside of art: I love nature, science, space, history, psychology and study them with great inspiration.
Because of the quality, it’s rare to go back to reading books, I don’t have a long relationship with big novels and there’s no main writer of a lifetime. But there is a favorite coach on the formulation of the actor's voice - Patsy Rodenberg, which I have infinite respect and delicate feel. If I need to return the balance, I re-read "The Right to Speak": formally, this is a tutorial on how to deal with a voice on stage, but for me this is a textbook of life, telling about energy in our profession. This is a soothing bright mind that helps to reset and start from the beginning.
Another similar book is David Lynch’s Catch the Big Fish tips. When she came out, I was not interested in meditation, but the book — compact, simple — was avidly read and learned instantly. Lynch says simple things about how to separate the important from the unimportant: for example, its basic principle - loyalty to the original idea - helps me bring projects to the end. It doesn't matter if it's a role or a scenario, Lynch talks about how not to let circumstances distract you from the main thing. The idea is an original flash, an energy impulse that came to you for a reason, you need to continue working with it, despite the obstacles.
Gerald durrell
"Hounds of Bafut"
In my childhood I was a real young naturalist, all animals and plants were incredibly interested in me. Until now, on any trip, I remember that I read about the local flora and fauna, and begin to recite from the encyclopedia of my childhood. Darrell was a revelation to me - his sense of humor, irony towards himself and his surroundings and a particular view of life were very different from what Soviet people read at the time: the set of books was still about the same for everyone. Darrell awakened the desire to travel and learn the world, to look for something new; I later ended up in his places — Burundi and Malawi. And I also dream to be in Amazonia, which he described so inspiringly.
David Foster Wallace
"Endless Joke"
This book was not easy for me - I will say right away. It is difficult to read it for a long time, just boil the brain - you need to get used to a completely new coordinate system. I can not imagine how the "Infinite Joke" will be translated into Russian, it seems to me incredibly complex, sometimes untranslatable. In general, I love literature coming from the inner stream of consciousness.
Foster Wallace made a breakthrough and moved this method of presentation for decades to come. This is a completely new round of literature and a very unexpected look at human life - from an invaluable author's point of view. I really liked the Foster Wallace movie. ("End of the tour." - Ed.), made thinly and without pathos: he is about what it means to be a person whose tectonic plates are shifted in his head, and he needs to be integrated into the overall system. And the lead man there is amazing - I adore when a famous comedian plays a sad genius.
Virginia Woolf
"Waves"
I really like the way Wolf is presented and her randomness, which in this book, in my opinion, is the most obvious. In general, I correlate myself with its prose, where the stream of thoughts splits into a dozen fragments - this is how human thinking works, this is how our ambiguity looks in the description. Sometimes our contradictions are painful, because we are pulled in different directions, and Wolfe wrote about this property in a human way, with a very correct intonation, which was not easy for her. "Waves" help to come to terms with human nature: we are all imperfect, different, but we have a common cycle of life that can be followed and lived together. More waves are a very frequent and close metaphor for describing cyclical, strong and unpredictable feelings.
Mark Haddon
"Mysterious night killing a dog"
I read this book as soon as it came out - for me it became a breath of fresh air. Now this is not only an English-language bestseller, but also a hit theatrical production on Broadway. Some time ago, the authors became more interested in autism and people with special features in general. For a long time, autism was a medical topic that concerned only family members and specialists, and was approached with caution and even fear. But then, almost simultaneously, those who had never been heard before, started talking - and it turned out that these voices in art were lacking. Besides the fact that the book is very coolly written, it helps to get into the head of another person with his logic - a talented protagonist who interacts with the world in a special way.
Thomas Sterns Eliot
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", "The Waste Land"
Reading poetry in a foreign language is always difficult: you have to either speculate, or endlessly search for the desired value in your own language. Question "Do i dare disturb the universe?" from Eliot's "Love Song" - one of the main for me. Every person who is engaged in creativity, probably asks this question for himself, and if he does not, then it does not pass without a trace. The question is very well formulated and embodies the correct, from my point of view, position: it reflects the doubt in its own importance and work with the painful ego. I generally perceive poetry and literature as music - and if the book contains rhythm for me, then reading turns into pleasure.
Michelle Welbeck
"Map and territory"
This book has opened a new way for me of Welbeck - and for me it is the most honest of all the books by this author. In The Map and Territory, the author does not seem to want to shock anyone and prove something to anyone, but simply speaks from himself. He is not looking for mastery techniques that would have allocated him. A sincere conversation about a man, his nature and creative vocation secured for me Michel Huelbeck as a great and important writer. Another one of his indisputable property: he intuitively catches something that does not yet have a name - and produces an array. This author’s influence on society makes him related to another of my favorite writers, Vladimir Sorokin. Their gift of foresight and the ability to say something that only hovers in the air is incredibly valuable to me.
Rainer Maria Rilke
"Letters to the young poet"
I will briefly say about Rilke: this is a very accurate, albeit naive answer to the question of why a person should engage in creative work (and what will happen if you choose this path).
Alessandro Baricco
"Sea ocean"
This is one of the first books that made me think about a non-linear way of telling stories. Barikko is only one step away from kitsch and sugar syrup, but it seems to me that it never enters the territory of excessive sentimentality. This book is not only a very poetic love story, but also one of the best examples of my favorite narrative structure: when several, as it were, unrelated stories intertwine in the final. Barikko writes in such a way that his prose instantly awakens strong visual images - not only the writer is felt in it, but also the musician.
Colin McCullough
"The Thorn Birds"
The first family saga I read, which I was very proud of. It was then later Golsworthy, Franzen and all the rest. Heroes that I don’t remember - I didn’t open the book from adolescence - seemed humane to me, because they were all wrong, they didn’t fit in with the surrounding reality, and it was very interesting to watch them. My first teenage impressions of a series of this size were very strong - and “Gone with the Wind” was quickly added to “Singing in the Thornberry”, which I also read in one breath
Vladimir Sorokin
"Norm"
The hair on my head is stirring from what Sorokin wrote about some things fifteen or twenty years ago - now they occur before our eyes. For many years I have lived alongside his books and never ceases to wonder how funny, serious, and prophetic a writer is. At the end of "Norms" there is a monologue of the main prosecutor, which can be read separately. It is very scary to do it, because everything looks modern, if not topical. Sorokin feels the tectonic plates of society - and everything that is happening now with our culture and censorship, everything that is in the air, can be found in a few pages of text. Unfortunately, now it looks like a tragic manifesto.