"Love Fiction" By Pavel Basinsky: A Frivolous Experiment By A Serious Author

"Love Fiction" By Pavel Basinsky: A Frivolous Experiment By A Serious Author
"Love Fiction" By Pavel Basinsky: A Frivolous Experiment By A Serious Author
Anonim

Pavel Basinsky, an authoritative writer, author of books about Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy (Escape from Paradise, Leo in the Shadow of Leo, Saint versus Leo), laureate of many prizes, presented his work of a fundamentally different kind to the public. It is called "Love Fiction". This, one might say, is an artistic experiment: can a serious, unserious writer create an absolutely frivolous work? The experiment is staged on a living human intellect. "Love Fiction" is puzzling not in itself, but precisely as a work by Pavel Basinsky. He researched not only the inexhaustible Leo Tolstoy, he also has books of a different plan - for example, the fascinating novel Look at Me, dedicated to Elizaveta Dyakonova, who wrote the Diary of a Russian Woman and died tragically under strange circumstances. But it was a work based on facts and documents and completely immersed in the past. To recreate the past, to comprehend it - this was the task of the writer, and "Love Fiction" has the subtitle "fake novel", and its task is the opposite: to come up with artistic reality. Moreover, to base it on the clichés and clichés of "love stories". To meet people, towards mass readers (female readers in this case)? People want pulp! That is, they already do not want to read, but they want mmm to see it, that is, serials, but after all, reading reads easily turns into brightly, doesn't it? Basinsky cannot take and get a love story according to rigid rules (they are listed in the text) for organic reasons: he is not able to write as the genre requires. You cannot learn this, it is a gift. (Shy erotic scenes betray the author's complete chastity in this matter.) No, the writer starts a complex insidious game that reveals the work of the intellect, which is already weighty, rough and visually cut off from a very mass audience. Although the fake novel is written in an easy, impetuous syllable, does not have long dialogues, complex phrases, boring descriptions and reasoning (here the author has stood the standards), it is too overwhelmed by the plot, too multilayered and confused. The narrator, a writer of a difficult fate, having conceived to drink vodka on a bench, having seized it with toffee, meets in the park an elderly man with a stroller and a dog without a left front paw. A man named Innokenty Inozemtsev turns out to be also a writer and hands a manuscript to a new acquaintance, claiming that these are notes to a novel that he will not write, because he parted with this occupation forever and became happy. The composition of Inozemtsev is not "notes" at all, but a full-fledged canoe, which tells about all the stages of this Inozemtsev's romance with the girl Valeria. The story periodically goes back into the past, then sideways to other characters, forming the effect of a “story in the story of a story” (which, of course, does not surprise the sophisticated reader since the days of the “Gothic novel”, but it is not used very often today). The action takes place entirely in the writing and publishing environment, and the essence of this action is indicated in the dispute between Inozemtsev and his publisher Igumnov. The publisher believes that writers like Inozemtsev love only themselves and not the reader, which is why they cannot produce a bestseller. To love the reader, “with all his vices, with all his ignorance and curiosity,” to understand him, to serve him - that’s when the book that the masses need is written. "You demand love for yourself, but you don't love your reader!" Inozemtsev accepts the challenge and rushes to study the "love story" phenomenon. In his life, a mysterious girl Valeria appears, who moves to his rented studio (the hero left his wife) and helps the writer to master new continents of knowledge. Between the writer and the girl, she clearly sparks, but Inozemtsev does not enter into an intimate relationship with her for a long time, although he is desperately jealous: Valeria is damn attractive. Blinded by jealousy, Inozemtsev suspects Valeria of promiscuity, moreover, without reason: the hypothetical lover turns out to be just an uncle. This is not the only mirage - every time the truth about Valeria turns out to be a lie and vice versa. The matter is complicated by the fact that after the injury Inozemtsev suffers from partial amnesia and much of the past for him is buried in fog. But the fog gradually dissipates. And who is this Inozemtsev and did he write his books? Who is his bastard daughter? Who is the ex-wife pregnant with? Troubled questions bring vague answers Well, Cervantes, after all, also composed a parody of romances of chivalry, and the result was Don Quixote. Perhaps, setting up his experiment, parodying the cliches of love stories, Basinsky also wanted to reach a new level of expressiveness? Did not work out. The heroes did not come to life - neither the Inozemtsev disintegrating into multiple shadows and highlights, nor the vulgar and, moreover, faded Valeria. And then the parody is still a relative of humor, and with this the author's relationship is not hostile, but not close either. It is quite possible that Basinsky did not intend to at least partially repeat the "Cervantes phenomenon", but simply rested creatively. After all, he existed not for years, but for decades in the field of Leo Tolstoy, that is, in a state of exceptional spiritual tension. So the author made a kind of "escape from paradise" - to the long legs of the mysterious girl Valeria and to a literary game, no less amusing than the dance of a bear at a fair. The position of a "serious writer" imposes such dull chains that to move away from a majestic pose and a stern face, play with the reader, entertain him, try to be frivolous - such a movement of the mind is quite forgivable. In addition, there is one more circumstance. At the beginning of the book, Pavel Basinsky considered it his duty to express his heartfelt gratitude to "the poet, prose writer and journalist Yekaterina Barbanyaga for support and advice during the writing of the novel." Barbanyaga We do not know much about the author's life. However, this is beyond our competence, and it is not so important. The mass consumer of any "Love Fiction", of course, will not prevail. His needs are satisfied by the masters to love the reader "with all his vices, with all his ignorance" - completely. Fans of Basinsky's will certainly treat the new book with understanding. Let me remind you that writers do not spend a dime of state money on the creation of their works. Why criticize them at all?

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