Editor-in-Chief of Theories and Practices Inna Herman 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, Inna German, the editor-in-chief of the Theory and Practice website, shares his stories about favorite books.
I do not remember how I formed the habit of reading. Now it seems that this was the only logical way out of the situation - a way to make friends, get life experience, a source of inspiration. My childhood in a distant seaside town was filled with solitude - I was the only child in a family in which parents work a lot and don’t like to spend time together.
I remember that my grandmother made manually "almanacs" from children's fairy tales - she sewed several editions under one cover. These were the first books in my life. I learned to read in my head, not out loud, on the book The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen. It seems that my mother was very annoyed that I constantly mumbled something - we lived in Old Peterhof at that time, where she wrote her PhD thesis. After she once again screamed, I stopped talking - and was surprised to find myself that I could perceive the text without saying it out loud. These were mostly hunting stories that now seem incredibly cruel. For example, such: “I slowly walked over to the fox and started whipping her with a whip. She was so sick of pain that — believe me?” She jumped out of her skin and ran away from me naked. And the skin went to me whole, not spoiled by a bullet, not a fraction. "
Next was the series "Library of Adventures": Jules Verne, Alexander Green, Mark Twain. Long stuck on Dumas - a surprisingly prolific writer. She got to the most exotic works of the type "Gentlemen of Sierra Morena and the wonderful history of don Bernardo de Zunigi". I remember that even the amounts were easier to calculate in sou and livres than in rubles. And, of course, science fiction: Bradbury, Strugatsky, Asimov.
I fell in love with the characters of the books completely and irrevocably; it was painfully difficult to part with them. Anyone could be the subject of my keen research interest: after “The Master and Margarita”, for example, for about a year I was seriously infatuated with the hero Yeshua Ha-Notsri, I read all the fiction that I could find on this topic: from the Gospel of Jesus, José Saramago to "Judas Iscariot" Leonid Andreev.
Life circumstances pushed me to the fact that I was fascinated by the books of the children's writer and the cult teacher of the Urals Vladislav Krapivin. In the center of his works is a romantic hero, a selfless and courageous child with a heightened sense of justice, who is often contrasted with some abstract "adult world." I read this prose to the holes, because it gave me a sense of belonging to something big and important, to the lofty idea that a person has inner strength and his own mission. After many years, I understand that this romantic pathos has long limited my interests. But at the same time, it was from these seeds that the fruits of leftist views grew, which, as I now understand, were always close to me.
Now I can not call myself a bibliophile or drunken reader. Reading for me is hard work: it is difficult to concentrate, other forms of entertainment constantly lure the horizon. It is difficult to argue that reading can heal. I like the way philologist and researcher Yulia Scherbinina speaks of reading as a process that literally defines the vertical of being: "The main states in which our body is in a horizontal position are sleep, illness, death. Reading, even if it is lying , sets the movement vertically. Following the development of the action, being carried away by the narration, we remain in a state of altered consciousness for some time, disappear from reality. "
The thing is that there are easier ways to have fun, so our limbic system - the ancient part of the brain - pushes us to instinctive actions, tends to succumb to emotions and temptations. The good news, however, is that there is also the prefrontal cortex, which is the logical part of our brain. She tells us that reading a book can be no less exciting and useful, and is responsible for the constant interest in knowledge. If you wade through the defocusing of the mind on the front pages, exclusively “pre-frontally” forcing yourself to concentrate on the narrative, the limbic system is activated next (if the book is really good, of course), and both these parts will go from confrontation to cooperation - which seems to me the best result of mental activities. Like many others, it is especially good with me on an airplane: it is during these few hours a month that reading is especially easy and pleasant.
Now I am working closely with the publishing house "Alpina Publisher", because of what is constantly surrounded by an incredible number of non-fiction books. The cover of each of them creates an impulse to read it: how to take life into your own hands, overcome stress, learn Turkish, ensure the explosive growth of your company, develop your will, find your true vocation, do three times more, defeat procrastination and bring order to house. All these covers are circling before their eyes and they promise, beckon and whisper. Probably somewhere inside me there is still hope that I will learn speed reading and read eighty books a year, become better, smarter, more relaxed, more productive, straighten my shoulders and start to get up early. But at some point I stopped taking all these books home and stored them on the table. While I read in airplanes and trains and try not to scour myself for it especially.
In the last year, my main hobby was literature devoted to Buddhist philosophy. I am aware that this sounds esoteric, but, in my opinion, this is the most secular philosophical doctrine, which for me logically continues to be infatuated with Western existentialists. I am interested in meditation, calm the mind, awareness and the nature of reality. In particular, I am interested in the “de-esoterization” of the esoteric discourse and how modern research is connected with the Eastern traditions of spiritual inquiry: the theory of relativity and the concept of voidness, Shamatha meditation and Husserl’s phenomenological reduction.
Jonge Mingyur Rinpoche
"Joyful wisdom"
Buddhism became close to me first of all because it is more of a set of discoveries obtained through self-directed contemplation than a dogmatic belief system, conditioned by belief in the supernatural. Very many of the conclusions that the author tells in a rational language are consonant with my own reflections.
Joyful Wisdom is the second book of the outstanding Tibetan meditation master Mingyur Rinpoche, who spent many years talking with scientists and specialists from various branches of science, including sociology, psychology, physics and biology. In this book, he explains basic Buddhist terms and concepts that we can use to get to know ourselves better. For example, an eternal and familiar feeling of dissatisfaction (life could be better under other circumstances, I would be happier if I was younger / slimmer / richer, if I were with someone together or, on the contrary, I did not contact him / her) For several thousand years Buddhists have described it by the term "dukkha." Ways of overcoming dukkha have also been known to Buddhist teachers for a long time - in the book Rinpoche describes in detail how to practice meditation, stop “pushing away” fears and finally meet them face to face.
John arden
"The taming of the amygdala"
One of the studies in which Tibetan teacher Yonge Mingyur Rinpoche took part was about the connection between meditation and brain neuroplasticity - the ability to form new neural connections under the influence of experience. It has been proven that regular meditation sessions for many years can increase the ability to positively alter brain activity.
This property of neuroplasticity is explored in the book of the neurophysiologist John Arden. He is also worried about the idea of "reprogramming" the brain, in particular, "taming" the amygdala - the amygdala, which is located in the limbic system of the brain and plays the most important role of the "siren", creating a vivid emotional response to danger and danger. Once it saved the lives of our ancestors, but now the side effects of this phenomenon paralyze us, even in moments when the threat is virtual. I would recommend this edition to those who are frightened off by the "mysticism" and "spirituality" of Eastern philosophy, while skepticism does not allow to turn to a psychotherapist, but the request to do something with my life has already matured.
Erich Fromm
"To have or to be"
This book is one of the most famous among the prominent German thinker, the author of the concept of "consumer society". This is a philosophical analysis of the state of affairs in the postindustrial world, an attempt to find the reason for the constant growth of people's anxiety. With the beginning of progress, people anticipated material abundance, waited for personal freedom, felt growing supremacy over nature and hoped that this would be enough for a sense of happiness. But the industrial age could not meet these high hopes - it became clear that even unlimited satisfaction of all desires in a consumer society leads exclusively to the growth of these desires.
Can radical hedonism, nurtured within the framework of the modern capitalist system, lead to happiness at all? I do not believe that those qualities that current economic models require from man - egoism, selfishness and greed - are innate and inherent in human nature, and I assume that they are rather a product of social conditions, thanks to which industrial society developed.
Jeremy Rifkin
"Civilization empathy"
American economist and political consultant Jeremy Rifkin, whose lecture we held in Moscow a year ago, also denies the sinfulness of human nature. He foreshadows the end of a large industrial era, which rests on the resource ceiling - more precisely, the bottom. We will be forced to unite in the face of global problems that are becoming more and more clearly confronting the planet. Why have we still not been able to agree? Because for hundreds of years the church was the main expert on human nature, and it was expressed very clearly: we were born in sin and if we want salvation, we must earn it.
However, new discoveries now allow us to rethink our long-established views on human nature: Rifkin talks about mirror neurons and innate empathy, which may show that we are not in the mood for competition, but for cooperation. Sooner or later, the scientist believes, the field of our sympathy will expand to sympathy for the whole human race as our large family and neighboring species as part of our evolutionary family, as well as the entire biosphere - as part of our community. I hope to live to this point.
Thomas Piketty
"Capital in the XXI Century"
Of course, the heyday of empathic civilization is possible only in the context of new economic models, which can be built by finally clarifying for themselves what the old ones are bad for. Thomas Piketti's bestseller (which is almost called the new Marx) in this sense is an excellent reason to figure out what will happen in a situation of too high a concentration of wealth, which is ahead of the growth of the economy itself. Short teaser: the rich will become even richer (mainly due to the middle class), and the poor - poorer.
The author, however, does not predict the collapse of capitalism, but believes in tax reforms that tightly regulate, for example, the free market, which is regarded as a cruel and anti-social phenomenon. I want to believe that full transparency of financial flows, global registration of assets and widespread coordination of taxes on wealth will become a reality thanks to the emergence of blockchain technologies and smart contracts. Not everything is clear with them, but I have some moderate techno-optimism in this regard.
Joseph Brodsky
"Praise boredom"
The speech given by Brodsky to the graduates of Dartmouth College in June 1989 is dedicated to the condition that many would call one of the worst - boredom. "Known by several pseudonyms — melancholy, languor, indifference, depression, spleen, apathy, depression, lethargy, drowsiness, emptiness, discouragement, boredom,” says the poet, is a complex phenomenon and, in general and in general, is a product of repetition. It can not be avoided, to look for an antidote is meaningless. The main way to cope with boredom is to make friends with it, indulge in it, get to the bottom and accept your insignificance in an endless passage of time.
I think a lot about why we are so diligently trying to get rid of the redundancy of time: for example, a prison sentence is essentially a punishment of time that cannot be avoided. Brodsky also says that boredom deserves such close attention just because it is "pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor."
HG Wells
"About the mind and cleverness"
Another essay that had a great influence on me when I first read it. Since childhood, it seemed to me that “clever” or even just entertaining, entertaining people is the easiest way to find and keep friends. I felt uncomfortable when in the room, for example, at dinner, there was a pause - as if maintaining a general atmosphere of interest and fun a priori is my area of responsibility. The role of the toast-master and the cheerful wise guy, apparently, was given to me convincingly - until she enslaved me and almost turned into someone who avoids people who expect only cheerful and accurate remarks from him.
At that moment, I was caught by the words: "Cleverness is the last refuge of the weak-minded, the joy of a vain slave. You cannot win with a weapon and are unable to adequately bear the secondary role, and here you go into eccentric jokes and exhaust yourself your brain with wit. Of all the animals, the cleverest is the monkey, and compare its pitiful beating with the royal majesty of an elephant! " But this, of course, is my personal interpretation of the fragment taken out of context.
Wells, I think, says that the desire to over-intellectualize everything sometimes leads to inaction: then the action is directed inward, not outward. Simply put, "stupid" are less afraid to take risks. They have immediacy and uncompromising, allowing to open new horizons. “I assure you, the rational is the opposite of the great. The British Empire, like the Roman one, was created by stupid,” Wells writes in 1898. “And it’s possible that the clever people will destroy us.”
Maxim Ilyakhov, Lyudmila Sarycheva
"Write, cut"
I immediately wanted to have this book in print at home, although I have long been trying to engage in collecting paper publications. This manual is for those who want to make their text simple, clean and as effective as possible. There is no secret: force is in truth, meaning is more important than form, the simpler the better, write as for yourself and respect the reader. The authors, the creators of the Glavred Newsletter, the most popular text and editing tool in Russia, patiently and in detail explain how to even turn an ad at the entrance into a message free from language garbage, stamps and cliches. The main thing is that the thought was sound.
John berger
"Art to see"
The book "The Art of Seeing" by John Berger was written based on the famous BBC film and was first published following its premiere in 1972. Critics have written that Berger does not just open his eyes to the way we see works of art, he will almost certainly change the very perception of art by the viewer. Many ideas, as the author himself admits, are borrowed from the Benjamin's "Works of art in the era of its technical reproducibility." This is the desacralization of a work of art, for which there remains only a utilitarian function: to entertain, promote and disperse attention.
I am most interested in this book is the chapter devoted to the development of the image of a woman on a canvas. How a woman is present in society was formed due to the fact that women lived under guardianship and in a limited space, Berger writes. For this, the woman had to pay for a split personality, she must constantly watch herself. And the observer inside the woman is also a man, and the observed inside is a woman. Thus, it turns itself into an object, into an object of vision into a spectacle. Further, the author traces the history of how a woman presented herself in the portraits of the classicism era - and, not least, in a bizarre way, this is reflected in the exploitation of female stereotypes in modern media.
Vladimir Nabokov
"Other shores"
For me, nabokov is first of all the language of amazing pictorial power. He is an uncompromising master of words, having written his autobiography three times: the English original, the author’s translation into Russian and one more - this time the translation of this translation. The Russian language was considered by the writer to be musical, “unsaid,” while English was thorough and precise (apparently because he considered English as his main language).
I open "Other shores" when I need a balm for the soul.Some synesthetic descriptions of the sounds are: “The black-brown group consists of: thick, without Gallic gloss, A; fairly even (compared to ragged R) P; strong rubber G; F, different from French J, like bitter chocolate from dairy; dark brown, polished I. In the whitish group, the letters L, N, O, X, E represent, in this order, a rather pale diet from vermicelli, Smolensk porridge, almond milk, dry bread and Swedish bread. "