Editor-in-Chief of Kinopoisk Lisa Surganova about favorite books

IN BACKGROUND "BOOK SHELF"we ask heroines about their literary preferences and editions, which occupy an important place in the bookcase. Today, Liza Surganova, editor-in-chief of Kinopoisk, tells about favorite books

I started reading early, my grandmother taught me. For a long time I grew up on books about animals: Bianchi, Darrell, "Tomasina" - I was worried about each beast and often sobbed over someone's fate. Then, already in the elementary grades, my mother began to advise the books to me, but I did not respond kindly to every sentence of her. For example, "The Lord of the Rings" at first did not bother me at all: a thick volume that combined all three books in itself was frightening in size, and the beginning seemed very boring - but after a couple of years I reread the novel in a circle and dreamed of becoming a Tolkiener. Mom continued the family tradition: in the same way, her father, Professor of the Literary Institute, once slipped her books. She likes to remember how her grandfather gave her to read the first Soviet publication of The Master and Margarita, which she also did not immediately appreciate.

It is always a shame when people remember school with hatred, because, on the contrary, I was very lucky: I studied in a beautiful place where children were always treated with respect and warmth. I was also lucky with a teacher of literature - Yulia Valentinovna Tatarchenko, a strict woman with a no less strict Akhmatova profile, who loved her subject very much. I went with two girlfriends to her special course on the Silver Age: we drank tea and informally discussed our favorite writers. Yulia Valentinovna has a talent for telling about authors as bosom friends - it seems as if you are sitting with them in some "stray dog." I remember once she finished the lesson with the words “And the next time I will tell you about my affair with Blok,” to which my classmate bluntly blurted out: “How old are you ?! This love of the Silver Age - which many people experience at a young age - led me then to the literature of the Russian emigration.

The most important period for me in literature is the twenties and thirties and Paris of that time. I am fascinated by the idea of how many talented writers, artists and musicians were nearby: they walked along the same streets, ate in the same cafes and at the same time very few intersected - especially the Russian and Western literary environments. The hero of the not very successful movie "Midnight in Paris" in this sense lives my dream - it turns out, at least for a short while, next to the very people. I read many Russian-speaking and Western authors of that era, and I always liked to find points of contact. For example, Hemingway wrote in the Holiday that is always with you about jealousy of Joyce, who could already afford expensive restaurants, while he and his wife lived on the conditional twenty francs a day. And Irina Odoevtseva in his memoirs On the banks of the Seine, in turn, responds to Hemingway that they could have spent a week on these twenty francs and he, he says, does not know real poverty.

Since my work is not tied to books, for the past few years I have not read as much as before. At the same time, my memory worries me terribly - once I memorized the plot very well, I could quote quotes right away. Now, with horror, I understand that it is necessary to strain in order to remember what this or that work was about. And my favorite books, many of which I read in my youthful years, often have vague memories. I even tried to re-read them, until I realized that a repeated approach often distorts a strong first impression. As a result, I almost stopped doing this so that I would not be disappointed once again.

Another problem is that I spend my free time mostly on movies and TV shows. Largely due to the work - although, of course, it is easy to have such an excuse. I remember once in my childhood I came to my mother with a thought that upset me very much: what if you want to watch so many films, but you still don’t have time? And she answered me with a question: "What about all the books?" This difficult choice has always tormented me. Now I miss quiet reading, I try to set myself down for books, but I can not admit: the older I get, the less works leave a mark for a year.

Gaito Gazdanov

"Claire's Evening"

The book and the writer who identified me. I was about seventeen when my mother offered to read “Evening with Claire,” but I did it only a couple of years later. And then - avidly - read the rest of Gazdanov, I think, one of our most underrated writers. Meanwhile, this is a man of amazing fate: at the age of sixteen he went to the Volunteer army, and then, as a boy, emigrated to Paris through Constantinople. And, unlike many accomplished emigrant writers who left already with a name and connections, Gazdanov found himself all alone abroad, without family, support, and published works.

This is a real nugget, a man who wrote an amazing language that you rarely meet. At the same time, he worked in parallel as a loader, night taxi driver, just to feed himself. I like his gaze on the characters, subtle psychologism. Actually, Gazdanov became one of the heroes of my diploma, which was dedicated to the generation of writers who lived between the two world wars, and their worldview.

John steinbeck

"Winter is our anxiety"

I am a fan of American literature - the so-called great novels of the twentieth century and modern classics: Foer, Franzen and Tartt. I always enjoy a thick book that I like from the very beginning: it means that you can stretch the pleasure for a long time. But, for example, at Steinbeck, I most of all love non-monumental works - “Grapes of Wrath” or “About Mice and People” (they always irritated me with a social orientation) —but a much more chamber novel, “Our Worry's Winter”. This is a book about a difficult moral choice, where the main character must understand what is more important for him: to restore family honor and fortune or still remain himself, not sacrifice principles.

Harper lee

"To Kill a Mockingbird"

Recently, I was reviewing my favorite legal series, The Good Wife, and there in one series the heroes discuss why they decided to become lawyers. One of them says that the reason was the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird", and the second says that it is certainly not for him alone. Interestingly, for many Americans this book is about racial discrimination and the fight for justice, about the court, which is not always on the side of the weak. For me, this is a novel about parting with childhood and a gradual (and sometimes traumatic) transition into the world of adults, including with external circumstances.

I have always been interested in this topic: childhood is an important period for me, the memories of which I want to keep for life. I have a small set in my head, which includes important books about childhood, including "Dandelion Wine", "Lord of the Flies", "Other Voices, Other Rooms". But, fearing to be disappointed in Harper Lee, I, for example, did not read "Go put the watchman", the Mockingbird prequel, issued with a noise a couple of years ago.

Sean asher

"Notes for a note. A collection of letters of legendary people"

One of the most successful purchases at last year's Non / fiction: then my husband and I took away a huge pile of books, and I even took a picture of her, intending to go on maternity leave and start reading. The eternal delusion of future mothers - the belief that when raising a small child there is a lot of free time. In fact, in the first year it is very difficult to even tune in to reading. This book is not as long with me as the others on this list, but I really like the format. This collection of interesting letters from different eras and countries, both famous and ordinary people.

There is a note by Nick Cave, who refuses the MTV award, arguing that his “muse is not a horse” and he does not want to drive her, trying to grasp the glory. There is a fascinating letter from a NASA scientist who answers the question of a nun, why spend huge money on space exploration, if you can spend it on helping the disadvantaged. This book does not necessarily read in a row, you can constantly open and close it, choosing what you like most. My favorite letter, for example, is the response of the Michigan farmer to the request of the authorities to eliminate beaver dams on its territory. He approaches the bureaucratic request with humor, promising to stand up for the rights of beavers and to turn to a beaver lawyer.

George Ivanov

"Decay of the atom"

I can constantly re-read this book, return to it and not be afraid that it will disappoint me. Estet George Ivanov, an incredibly talented Silver Age poet, wrote a great prose poem, one of the most unusual and daring literary works that I know. It is a stream of consciousness with postmodern references to classical literature and culture, piercing memories of Russia, the most tender declarations of love and at the same time shocking descriptions of sexual fantasies, corpses and Parisian dirt. Ivanov tells how a person feels around whom, in all senses, the familiar world collapses. And on the one hand, this is an epoch cast, and on the other hand, it is a completely timeless book about loneliness, discord with yourself and disappointment in the future.

Yuri Annenkov

"Diary of my meetings. The cycle of tragedies"

Loved among numerous memoirs of Russian emigration, I read. Annenkov is a very talented artist, graphic artist and first illustrator of the poem "The Twelve." In the book, he remembers first of all not his life, like many memoirists, but friends and acquaintances: Blok, Zamyatin, Akhmatova, Mayakovsky.

Annenkov says how these people influenced him, recalls amusing and sad meetings, leads fragments of correspondence, tries to soberly explain what happened to many of them. Each story is accompanied by a portrait of the hero by Annenkov. It is no coincidence that the subtitle of the memoirs is “The Cycle of Tragedies”: many biographies end in early death, suicide, arrest, emigration - and, reading them, each time, along with the author, again live through this loss of a huge stratum of Russian culture. From her, we seem to be unable to recover until now.

Evelyn Waugh

"Unforgettable"

Getting started with V began for me, as well as for many, with Return to Brideshead, which I read at the age of seventeen. The novel impressed me so much that I began to read everything else. The most beautiful "Unforgettable" - the most evil and funny his book. This is an absurdist tale of a luxurious funeral home in Los Angeles, where all the dead are styled Unforgettable, their bodies are prepared for a farewell ceremony for a long time, they make up and embalm. Next to this bureau there is the same for pets, which, in everything, is trying to imitate an older fellow. This is a merciless satire of almost everything: the American way of life, advertising, consumerism, Hollywood, poor education, arrogance of the British. Evelyn Waugh spares no one.

Victor Klemperer

"LTI. Language of the Third Reich. Notebook philologist"

This is a rare book that my dad advised me to read an infinite number of documents and works related to the Second World War. Its author is a philologist, a Jew, who miraculously survived in Nazi Germany - thanks in large part to a German wife. After the war, he became one of the main ideologues of denazification and published this book in 1946.

This is not a monumental scientific study, but rather an observation of how Nazi ideology penetrated people's minds through German, which was greatly changed by the influence of propaganda. In parallel, Klemperer describes his difficult life, the persecutions that his family undergoes, meetings with friends who suddenly begin to divide people into Germans and non-Germans. It is very interesting to look at all the known events from a different angle - from the point of view of linguistics, cultural studies. We do not have enough of this approach to history.

Evgenia Ginzburg

"Steep route"

A lot of memoirs about the Soviet camps and repressions have been published, but for me the most important are these. First, because they are written by a woman. Secondly, because they tell how the system treated loyal people. Yevgenia Ginzburg was a member of the party, was the wife of the chairman of the Kazan City Council, but all this did not help her when in 1937 she was charged with relations with the Trotskyists. As a result, she spent more than twenty years in prisons, camps and exile.

Her memories of the first days after the arrest make a great impression. It is clear that when others were arrested, she, as an ideologically trustworthy person, seemed to have been justified by these arrests - so to say, "it was for that." And by example, its logic breaks down. The hardest thing in this book is to read how the heroine continues to hope that she somehow ended up in prison by mistake and will be “saved” soon. Even in the “Steep Route” there are shrill lines about the sons Alesha and Vasya (the future Soviet writer Vasily Aksyonov) - Ginsburg writes a lot, how hard her separation from children was. The eldest, Alyosha, will die in Leningrad during the blockade, and she will never see him again. She will meet Vasya as a teenager after twelve years of separation. And involuntarily call the name of the eldest son.

Fedor Swarovsky

Poems

To my shame, I am not very interested in modern poetry. Swarovsky is a great exception that I owe to my friends for my passion. I love his poems for a combination of lyricism and humor close to me, inexhaustible love for people, unexpected rhymes and plots. They are easy to read, but this does not make them less deep. But rather than trying to describe it, it's better to quote one of my favorite poems:

in the middle of spring from a bullet of a criminal

on the Petrograd bleed policeman

coughs and hiccups among the sparkling

reflecting sky puddles

recalls childhood, as he was:

basketball player, pioneer

and then became an officer and husband

thinks: here and my life flashed

like some vague dreams

light enters the blue eyes

sunset sun

leaning nurse