The special correspondent of "Novaya Gazeta" Elena Kostyuchenko 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, the special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta Elena Kostyuchenko shares her stories about favorite books.
Literature for me has ceased to be something sacred, as only bearded men from textbooks, in the tenth class, do. Then I lived in Yaroslavl and went to a circle for high school students in which we discussed modern authors - from Viktor Pelevin to Tatiana Tolstoy. I always read a lot, but after moving to Moscow, it turned out that there is a whole layer of literature that all journalism-Muscovites loved - and which I did not know at all. All modern abroad from Suskind to Palanik. I panicked. I went to the book fair at the All-Russian Exhibition Center and bought two thousand books. It was money for a month from mom. The remaining month ate buckwheat - shared neighbors. For the first six months in Moscow, I only did what I read, I didn’t even walk at all.
Probably, the Strugatskys, Boris Vasilyev and Svetlana Alexievich influenced me the most. I recognized Alexievich before her Nobel Prize - she plowed me about twelve years old. I still have a very complicated attitude towards Zakhar Prilepin. Sankya and Pathologies is a modern classic. His books and life do not seem to contradict each other, but they do not connect at all in my head. It seems like a person who feels so keenly cannot do what he does and say what he says.
Chekhov, of course, can learn endlessly; This is the golden ratio. There is a “Story about the Seven Hung” by Leonid Andreev, there is a “Red Flower” by Vsevolod Garshin. I always feel that I do not have enough knowledge of Russian. I rest on the fact that I don’t have enough words to describe what I saw, what I take is not the most accurate, what I don’t know, I can’t: it is simultaneously a humiliating and very sobering feeling. The description of the city in the Strugatsky Nasty Swans is unattainable for me. Although this is not Tolstoy - Soviet fiction.
Some say: it is easier for writers than for journalists, they are free from reality, formats and generally take the world out of their heads. But the scope of the profession is actually very helpful in writing. I understand that writers live in another dimension, for them the language is like the ocean around a small fish: endless, scary and dear. We can not see the world through the eyes of another person, literature helps to get closer to him. You can get into the head to the dead - wow.
Reading is also a way to quickly get into the right state, move away from difficult events, which you regularly get on business trips and just while working. Very often I see traumatic things. Of course, there are skills that allow you not to "fall" deep into someone else's life. You can gather at the right time, you can not cry, do not feel at all, but everything that I see and hear in me, of course, is postponed. Reading helps better than cinema, it is more thorough.
Journalism is a completely unhealthy activity, of course. And when it's hard for me, I reread something already known. The world of an unread book is always infinite: you do not know where the author will lead you, how cruelly he can do with you. A familiar book does not surprise with new twists, but brings tranquility: you can safely go through something. For a long time I scolded myself for endless re-readings - there is a sea of unread. They say every journalist has a list in his head. Here I have it. I did not even open a third of the books in my library, and this seems to be a shame to confess. But my therapist convinced me that with so many variables in life it is perfectly normal to have an island of stability. And for me, this island is my favorite book.
Marina and Sergey Dyachenko
"Vita Nostra"
I like modern fiction very much, I follow them closely. I read this book a few years ago and since then I come back to it about once a year. I remember very well how I read it for the first time: I opened it at work in a browser, then I printed it, I continued on the subway, then at home that evening. I finished at two in the morning, and it seemed that I was standing inside the light pole. This is the story of a student, in whose lives there are strange turns - I do not want to spoil at all. "Vita Nostra" for me is a novel about language, mixing the language and physical fabric of the world. The book explained a lot to me about myself.
Natalie Sarrot
"Tropism"
This is Mulholland Drive, written in the form of a book forty years earlier. Natalie Sarroth looks at the world from an unimaginable angle. "Tropism" is a term from biology, denoting the semblance of reflexes in plants: how they tend to light or seek support, are revealed or perish. In more general terms, tropism is a reaction of the living, unconscious. Sarrot concentrates on everyday situations, but not on the semantic and not on the emotional component. Anyone needs to change the "focal length" (for me as a journalist, this is generally necessary), and Nathalie Sarrot is the best author for this.
Ksenia Buksha
"We live wrong"
These stories are somewhat similar to Sarroth - not by how they are made, but by what both writers see in a completely different way. Bukshi has a very simple, transparent Russian. Her stories often begin from a random moment and end in an unexpected place - they do not even take into account the classical model of narration. Look awkward, random. I love to read women, and Bucksha is one of the most beloved. I learned about it five years ago and then I saw it in Petersburg. We even seemed to ride in a limousine. The world around her somehow twists in a different way.
Hillary Rettig
"To write professionally. How to overcome procrastination, perfectionism, creative crises"
The manual for overcoming the writer's bloc and perfectionism, relevant to people who are constantly working with the text. It can be said, this is my reference book: I do not have enough strength to systematically work, but I constantly use the methods described by Rettig. About three years ago I got into the most severe writing block and almost finished myself off - I got used to defining myself through texts and a profession. What could be funnier than a non-writing journalist?
Retting very clearly explains why this stupor occurs, and suggests ways to work around it. She writes about systemic myths that interfere with just about everything: inspiration as a magical state, writing as inevitable self-destruction, and so on. He explains what the problem with the letter consists of, how it is connected with the peculiarities of character and why the writing block is more like a defense mechanism. In the same place - about time planning, negotiations with publishers, basic rules of working communication. Now I find out the relationship with the inner dictator and learn to finish the texts that are difficult for me to learn faster. I am very grateful for this book to publishers and translators.
Roman Super
"One blood"
A very powerful book of Roman Super - at the same time about cancer and about love, about music inside and the insides of our state, about inevitability and wonders. Super takes a terrible piece of his life and tells about it in great detail and very honestly. He is absolutely not shy about writing what he feels, not afraid to seem naive and vulnerable. With the author, we simultaneously studied at the journalism department and then followed one after another; I knew that he was writing this book, he asked for some publishing stuff - but the book stunned me.
She helped me a lot more: a person close to me died of cancer two years ago. I still can not say that I left it behind. I burst into tears from the third page (there is nothing scary there yet) and roared to the very end. It was as if everything had passed anew, but not one. In fact, this is a great book about love, where cancer is just a circumstance. It is also about confidence in the world and about gratitude: I read it and called all my loved ones to say thanks to them.
Alexander Anashevich
"Unpleasant Movie"
In the middle of the 2000s, we had an explosive flowering of poetry (this is true), and I tried to read everyone. Nowadays, poems are somehow outside the general agenda, but I am very concerned about poets writing in Russian. Anashevich among them is quite special: he has dark magic and miracles, he counts, music that you can’t confuse with anything. These are very sensual poems. Sometimes I wake up and understand: I want to read Anashevich - and I read without stopping all day. And the book is thin.
Pascal brückner
"Eternal euphoria. Essay on forced happiness"
I almost do not read philosophy - for me it is difficult. This book was presented by a friend, it strongly influenced me. Bruckner writes that the common pursuit of happiness is the dictates of a culture, and a modern one, and happiness for many of us is an imposed goal. It is the desire to be happy constantly and at all costs makes people most of their lives feel their “unsuccessfulness” and “inferiority”. At first this is shocking, now I rather agree with Bruckner: it is not necessary to be happy. Life is good without it. Allowing yourself to feel different, you find in yourself and around a lot more reasons for joy and tranquility. This book is about how to shut down from the competitive race for happiness - Bruckner expands the scope of normativity and introduces the opportunity to honestly be sad, sad and angry.
Maria Berkovich
"Nestra's world"
These are notes of a correction teacher, in essence, a working diary, sometimes a notebook of poems. Here Berkovich describes how she works and is friendly with a girl who does not speak, does not see, does not hear, and hardly walks. And they have such a serious, intense life - with all kinds of passions and joys. The “frightful world” very much moves the boundaries: I even began to feel my fingers in a different way.
Masha is also an example of how you can be grateful for almost everything - naturally grateful, without effort. In my work, I constantly run into questions why the world is so arranged; Masha does not even see them, although she constantly descends into the abysses of pain and systemic misfortunes. She conquers the children of darkness and walks with them to the other side, and all this is very exciting. She is sure that the world is not scary. I often re-read this book when I become completely ungrateful: “A naughty world” does not work for pity, but for a fundamentally new view of a person.
Konstantin Sedov
"Neuropsycholinguistics"
I am very sorry that I entered the journalism department instead of the philology department. The newspaper would never leave me, but I would understand much more about my native Russian. From time to time I drive the Sparrow Hills to the first humanitarian building. There are two shops on the first floor. I buy professional literature, then I read with pleasure. Such a guilty pleasure media worker. I, of course, will not make up anything and will not acquire system knowledge. But it is great to refresh the sense of language and help to better understand some of its hidden movements. Moreover, it is simply wildly interesting.
Linor Goralik
"Oral folk art of the inhabitants of the sector M1"
I really like invented, constructed folklore. This book was given to me in the hospital - I lay there after the attack on the gay parade and slowly lost my hearing. It was hard: my auditory nerve was damaged, journalists constantly called to ask what it was like to be a lesbian, my mother called, and it was beyond the limits. This book is a description of hell and a collection of local folklore. Goralik generally thinks a lot about the structure of the world, she has a very complex and intense relationship with God. It sounds sadly, but it saved me then. Saves now. Freaky book.