Linguist Asya Boyarskaya 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, Asya Boyarskaya, who is engaged in linguistics in IT: search engines and artificial intelligence, shares her stories about favorite books.
Everybody in my family read everything, but mostly the books were shoved by my mother — she watched so that I was interested, discussed them with me. I adored fairy tales, I composed them on the go and with the sequel; there is a film where I improvise myself, telling a story about a princess and her great-great-grandfather. I read a lot out loud: great-grandmother was ready to read out my favorite fairy tales again and again, at least in a circle. She was sitting in the chair, and I was on the armrest. There is a memory: mom reads loudly in my ear "The Hobbit. There and back" right on the subway. Never since then have I heard of such exploits. On the way to the dacha, all three hours, she told me by heart with my brother the very long death of King Arthur in the translation of Sokovnin, which was never published anywhere - but we have a notebook at home. My grandmother had huge very heavy books on genetics with scary pictures and even more difficult dictionaries - she loved to learn languages at leisure. And, of course, it was not without a teacher of literature in the gymnasium. She often walked in black, she had an ashtray in the form of a huge golden fly, and she said that Pechorin died simply because it was time. Lermontov, therefore, does not describe exactly how he died - it is absolutely unimportant.
In the wake of my love of reading, I found myself in philology at the RSUH. It was a dreary time. I also had writing ambitions - the next year I spent in the Literary Institute. But even there I didn’t sit long, but I got acquainted with modern poetry. Once, in a tiny publishing house at lunchtime, one woman complained about a dubious diploma in linguistics, which she defended the day before — she was on the commission. I brought some quick counterargument, and she said that to be a linguist, I must act urgently. So I did.
A big turn in reading happened not so long ago. As a teenager, I loved Dostoevsky, who eventually flowed smoothly into Tolstoy. I read a lot, I was ashamed that I didn’t read more actively - there were a lot of people around me who somehow had time more than mine. Then I got into the hands of the book "Path of the Artist", and there one of the tasks was not to read at all - a week or something. I decided to try. It became clear that I spend on all sorts of texts 80% of the time, and also - that this is not necessary. It was a challenge to look for new activities. I, of course, cheated. When I went to therapy, at some point I was offered to filter the information coming to me. It was a question of temporarily exchanging the entire unread philosophy of existentialism for kittens video. Over time, I found that I wanted to read only in pleasure and nothing else. So the experiences that I do this little have sunk into oblivion.
I don’t remember any one turning piece for myself, there were a lot of books-discoveries. I remember how, a few years after school, I re-opened Fathers and Sons and burst into tears, - this story seemed so cruel to me. I would now generally re-took re-read the classics, especially Pushkin. At school, he seemed flat to me, like many others, especially poetry: everything is so smoothly written, these rhymes, strict rhythm - there’s nothing to catch on, I fell asleep. Until now, I read mostly free verses. But now I think that Alexander Sergeevich is our everything, the most healthy Russian-speaking writer.
There was a time of mysticism: I read religious literature, Rumi, Celan, adored Rilke's first “Dull Elegy”:
Is it time to break free
Us from loved ones, trembling to withstand liberation,
As the arrow holds the bowstring before takeoff,
To transcend yourself.
It has passed completely, even insulting. Now I open the text, and if there is endless scope for interpretations, then I'm bored.
Salinger appeared at school. That same teacher gave me a five plus for an essay on "The Catcher in the Rye" in fifth grade. I recently re-read it: focus on the fact that Holden Caulfield does not really fit into capitalist reality. Salinger was my favorite author half of the reading life. The Nine Stories were written as if specially for me. Later, I got his complete work - it fit in one book. Much became clear about the Glass family, I just went crazy with love for them. I could not understand only one thing: why did the Selling protagonist, Simor, commit suicide? Symor for me was like Jesus, only 100% of the people and more understandable than the unfortunate Prince Myshkin. He was capable of subtle compassion - it generally united many books that I liked then. Question: why does such a person want to die? I was considering a letter to Salinger just a few days before his death in 2010. Later, I read his daughter's autobiography, and all my love vanished. The question about suicide Simor also disappeared.
I carry books with me like crazy. It is still difficult for me to imagine a journey without a couple of paper books. Once in Spain, a hefty Tom Maugham saved my life. A young man, whom I met for several years, wrote to me somewhere in social networks that everything was over. It was a severe co-dependency relationship, parting seriously nailed me to the ground. For days I sat on the balcony, read and looked at the mountains. I do not know what I would do if it were not for an amazing book - then it was absolutely necessary for me to be distracted.
Heinrich Böll
"House without an owner"
This is a children's book, and probably the most important. From it grew my idea of justice, of morality as well. Boll was able to tell me about post-war Germany in such a way that I understood. The decision not to eat meat is also connected with the “House without an owner”: the grandmother traditionally drags the boy into a restaurant, red everywhere on the plates, and he is scared, the waiters say about them: “The Grand Duchess came with her blevun”, - somehow this image imprinted in memory. My mother slipped the book, she was in charge of my children's reading, and I liked everything. I do not know where she took it, the view from the publication is unusual. It is intertwined with a very pleasant to the touch cloth - apparently, someone did it with his hands.
As a child, I did not understand the religious component, for me it was such a jumble of meanings and images - just life, just stories. But Boll is very Christianized, in the sense of breaking affection and sympathy for a man - but at the same time he is constantly arguing with Catholicism. In his other book, The Group Portrait with a Lady, there is a wonderful image: a beautiful, educated nun who selflessly kisses one of the heroes in the monastery's garden.
Tove Jansson
"Daughter of the sculptor"
I bought this book by chance, in Chelyabinsk. It was published disgusting, there was a photo of porcelain dolls on the cover - I tore it off. And since then, never seen in paper. "Daughter of the Sculptor" - an autobiographical book, Tove Jansson talks about his childhood. There, everything is like in the stories about the Moomin, only about people: a lot of humor, warmth and truth about life. I love the description of a typical feast when Tuva was small: she was put to bed, and the bed floated among the flickering candles in cigarette smoke, my father's friends got drunk and attacked the wicker chair, and the next morning you had to behave very carefully so as not to disturb the fragile balance. To me, the book invariably raises the spirits, and I also amuse myself by looking for the prototypes of future characters from the Moomin. For example, it seems to me that I now know where the image of meaningless creatures of hatifnatt came from - but I won’t tell you.
Richard Bratigan
"In watermelon sugar"
This is a sad book in its own way, and soft. I read it not so long ago, and I was directly ill with Bratigan - I began to read everything that he was praised for — it turned out not so. I tried to poke in my dad, who read and noticed that it was written on the backside that the author had committed suicide - in general, his picture had taken shape. The book simply fascinated me from the first page, it is impossible to break away from it. Bratigan built a beautiful, very laconic world of pine, watermelon sugar and stones. But for me, this is a story that things just happen, and then pass, - so it seemed to me.
Toon Tellegen
"Letters only for their own"
A wonderful book about the relationship between animals, Tellegen has a whole series of these, and all are good. Sitting squirrels and ant at sunset, an elephant who dreams of dancing in the trees more than anything, shy aphid that does not leave the house - in general, I have this one of my favorite books to read aloud to friends. And she also promotes basic values: honey and beech nuts. All stories end well.
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya
"True Tales"
This is also a book from childhood. I remember well that from impatience I read it aloud to my grandfather while I am sick, and not vice versa. The stories in it are not like fairy tales, they are really too real. Later I read everything from Petrushevskaya to which my hands reached out, but there the stories were tougher, I lacked this straightforward, humor from fairy tales infused with life experience. I took them recently - it turned out that I still cry over some.
Linor Goralik
"Unattended"
Goralik is a very important author for me, at different times I am touched by different texts. But this story is not losing ground, holding on. Very touching, thin, funny - right about us with you now. She also wrote the novel "No" in collaboration with Sergei Kuznetsov - here he is about the future.
Vigen Arakelyan
"In the beak and sound"
This is the only collection of poetry that I will mention here, while poetic texts are very important to me. I have long and complex relationships with great, well-known poets - but Vigen had a book just recently, and she’s good. It is as if there is no claim, no poetic arrogance, but only observations. It still seems to me that, since the language is not native, he speaks in a special way, not in the way we used to.
Julia Cameron
"The path of the artist"
This is an instruction book, something like a 12-step program for anonymous artists. Cameron, herself a notorious author, gives a fascinating task of finding yourself in the works. Thanks to her, I developed a strong habit of keeping a diary in the mornings, which served me faithfully for several years. Frankly speaking, I did other tasks under the lash, I started and threw several times, but in the end it became much easier to write texts. I am grateful to Cameron for the fact that in part it was she who helped me say goodbye to my inner literary snob and perfectionist.
John Shemyakin
"Wild Barin"
Shemyakinsky book appeared to me after we decided to do this material. I discovered it and realized that in the course of several years my tastes of therapy had changed so much that I had to throw out all the Fat and Dostoevsky from the list, because lately I have not been suffering from martyrdom and torment. This book is such that we laugh in the voice of the whole family. Style, indeed, "wild gentleman," nothing like. Bought on the recommendation of Tolstoy, he is her protege.
Alexander Voitsekhovsky
"My Endless Friend"
At first I saw his calendar in Khodasevich, I had a lunch break. Grabbed, and he was over the past year - upset, and then I saw a book. I think that our climate should definitely put something cheerful on the walls. The pictures of Wojciechowski are almost history, and he often makes good signatures from Petersburg. He himself is amazing - I went to his exhibition.