Bang Creative Director! Bang! Natasha Klimchuk 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, co-founder and creative director of the Bang! Illustrator agency and online school of illustrations shares their favorite book stories! Bang! Natasha Klimchuk.

The smell of the book takes to some mystical story in the magazine "Change", there was a bunch, since paper books for me is a mystery. I read and read a lot, quickly and haphazardly. I do not remember how it began, it seems the books were more interesting than living in a city with a population of 125 thousand inhabitants. She graduated from school with distinction because of the good attitude of teachers in literature - literacy soaked up from the pages, she swallowed the program for the next year for the first month of summer, she turned Chekhov, Byron, Sappho into her works. Home books falling apart - read to the holes. Up to 17 years after the obvious Dumas, I remember books with bright flashes from a class teacher - “White clothes” by Dudintsev, Balzac’s collected works, from a neighbor — Rene Descartes, from a mother’s colleague - “Rose of the World” by Leonid Andreyev (esoteric, but after she stopped eating meat) .

Bookmania led to entering the faculty of philosophy in a big city, with a bottomless library. I remember the happiness of being in the file of the next poet-beatnik. At the university for the first time I met someone who read faster and whose stack of books was always higher. It is worth making a reservation that I consider this omnivorous and unrestrainedness in books, in films as a flight. In the early 2000s, she went to poetic festivals, bought samizdat and everything that was sold, for example, in the OGI Project club, from Crowley to Vodennikova. Read the first, then friends. It was a few quiet years, where she turned out except Akunin. It was very difficult to go to the electronic format, with this Bookmate helped. Since 2008, I have been reading mostly there, from the phone. Just everything in a row, returning for doping to trusted authors. In English, I read mostly poems and professional literature about illustration, design, art, artistic texts are now hard to come by.

Almost all the books I adored, which I reread after ten years, have disappointed - Salinger, Kerouac, Miller. Tolstoy - no. Sontag, Bart, Lacan seem to me to be lauded, in my opinion, this is not heavy artillery, but honestly I continue to read books from the shelves of the Garage museum, this literature determines the taste of my generation. They now talk about books more often and seem to read more, with serious texts on sociology, urbanism, and philosophy (ten years ago, Pelevin and Pavich were more read), I looked at the shelves of people I was interested in and tried for the tooth.

After the opening of Education, I read more often only on the road, if I'm lucky, 40 minutes a day. Now most of the books remain unfinished - it is a pity of time and you can’t find one that captures. But one thing is for sure - not a single movie will turn it over like a good book. When you read, you can stop, think, ram up the meanings, argue with the author. Heroes, places do not have a real complete image - here there is more space for imagination, you both read and create. And although I work with visual culture half my life, for me the most ideal picture will lose to Anna Karenina.

Words - a delicate instrument, a talented artist (or designer, musician), who owns it, is great. I have a few visual friends who were poets at first, then became artists, their works seem to me deeper than those of the nuggets with the concepts lying on the surface, which were invented after the paints lay on the canvas or screen. In the work of an illustrator, by the way, the ability to invent a complex metaphor for a task is very important, and books are an excellent preparation for working with ideas.

Merab Mamardashvili

"Lectures about Proust"

Reading this book was like a conversation with God, I do not know how to sound less pathetic. For several months I savored a couple of pages a day (and this is not similar to me), returning, as to a friend, wrapping herself up in an interlacing of meanings, kindness. Often re-read quotes. I advise everyone to begin acquaintance with the philosopher from this book, even if they did not read Proust.

Andrey Tarkovsky

"Time Taken"

From time to time I read what their favorite directors write. Sometimes the beautiful comes across. “Time-Taken” is reflections on art, whether it has a task, whether evaluation criteria are possible, which interests me very much. Tarkovsky requires art to loosen the human soul, to prepare it for death. Bergman, by the way, said in consonance: that there is holiness in everyone and the artist must expose it.

Ray Bradbury

"Dandelion Wine"

For the thought, "That all people would remember that they are alive," thanks Bradbury even more than for dreams about Mars. The mythology he created is important to me just as, for example, Greek. But to return to the present is priceless.

Soren Kierkegaard

"Diary of a seducer"

Not reread many years, but does not let go. Amazing artistic prose of a religious philosopher. Another appears as research material, mining, object. Conceived - done. After this book, I can’t overcome my dislike for topics like “10 ways to achieve a goal,” Carnegie and others.

Poetry of French surrealism (Rambo, Lotreamon, etc.)

The silver cover book first introduced me to Rimbaud, Lotreamon, Baudelaire, Schwab. It was in this edition were collected, as far as I was able to compare, the most successful translations and works. I don’t know French, for the sake of curiosity, I read the recent line-by-line translation of Schwab, and I must say that what I like in this book has little to do with the author, but the translation is really beautiful. I remember a lot by heart.

Alexander Pyatigorsky

"The Philosophy of One Lane"

A recent discovery. Friends strongly recommended, relying on my enthusiasm for Mamardashvili. I read everything that I find, with a slip, as if learning a new language. The heroes of Pyatigorsk talk, argue in such a way that you agree with everyone. Actually, since the whole book is built on dialogues, then after reading it is clearly understood one thing - you need to re-read.

Gaito Gazdanov

"The Story of a Journey"

Unjustly little-known talented writer from a generation of immigrants, tasty describing the pre-revolutionary Russia and the loss of home. Moreover, the events in his books are secondary, it is difficult to retell them, the heroes make a journey to death, on the way trying to find themselves. Gazdanov at one time was called an existentialist, compared with Proust. Now I read everything that I find on the net.

Charles bukowski

Poems

Bukowski, Burroughs, Limonov, Miller, Celine, Letov opened the world from the other side - forbidden, interesting tactile, where everyone is alone. It is surprising that Bukowski's prose is unpleasant to me now, but they amuse and still captivate his poems.

Simone de Beauvoir

"Pretty Pictures"

Perhaps this book has defined my profession. From it, I first learned that you can do advertising. I do not remember how she came to me, but absolutely fascinated. Later, Sartre, Camus, “The Second Sex”, disappointment and pity for Simone after reading her letters, where she, writing the bible of feminism, is exposed, falling in love, happened.