Planuri, nene

Pentru 2008 mi-am propus dupa cum urmeaza:

1. pe langa toate cartile pe care le voi citi, vreau sa trag brazde adanci prin Flaubert si Joyce. In the old fashioned way, vreau sa ii parcurg cu creionu-n mana, capitol cu capitol. Nu ca vreau sa aduc vreo contributie majora la interpretarea lor critica, departe de mine gandul asta, vreau doar sa-i citesc cu atentie si sa pus pe hartie niste impresii. Cu Flaubert n-ar trebui sa am mari probleme, insa Joyce e oricand o aventura. Am mai citit odata Ulise cand eram in liceu si l-am parcurs  mai mult la nivel anecdotic, carevasazicasuperficial. Cu Finnegans Wake, insa, e alta poveste. O varianta in romana nu exista, iar in engleza…

2. mai sunt cateva carti pe care tin neaparat sa le citesc:

- Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon (sper sa apara la Polirom anul asta. Am mai citit-o in engleza, da mi s-a parut f. grea. Am avut o rata de intelegere undeva pe la 70-80% )

- Ada, Vladimir Nabokov (asteapta cam de multisor in biblioteca)

- Asasinul orb, Margaret Atwood

- Versetele satanice, Salman Rushdie

- Orbirea, Elias Canetti

- si Cainii paradisului, Abel Posse

Mai am si cateva bete noire, de care nu cred ca voi scapa anu’ asta. Una dintre ele este Omul fara insusiri  - Rober Musil. Am editia in cinci volume de la Univers, l-am inceput de mai multe ori, dar…Si poate voi citi si Orbitor cap coada. Inca nu mi-am dat seama daca e the real thing sau nu.

Ningeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Ce surpriza frumoasa! Ca in povestile lui Dickens sau romanele lui Tolstoi. E prima zapada adevarata pe care am prins-o in Bucuresti in cei doi ani si ceva de cand m-am mutat aici. Am mai prins pe la Sibiu, in facultate, si pe acasa cand eram mic.

La munca a trebuit sa-mi fac loc printr-o zapada care avea mai bine de jumatate de metru, ceea ce mi-a placut teribil. Cred ca deseara o sa imi scot pisoii putin afara sa ii tavalesc si pe ei prin zapada.

Din nou printre cititori

M-am hotarat sa postez ceva, dupa cateva luni de abstinenta, imbunat de spiritul sarbatorilor. Mai precis, de cadoul aruncat azi pe piata de Polirom: Versetele satanice ale lui Rushdie. Una dintre cartile pe care le-am asteptat cu infrigurare, alaturi de Curcubeul lui Pynchon ( si el in lucru la Polirom). Sper sa nu ma dezamageasca. Alaturi de Orbitorul complet, sper sa imi satur apetitul pentru lectura pana dupa revelion. Sa auzim numai de bine!

The New York Times, doar online?

Compania The New York Times vrea sa treaca cotidianului cu acelaşi nume de la versiunea print la cea online. Am gasit stirea pe http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/SearchEn.jhtml. The NYT şi-a dublat numărul de cititori online, ajungând la 1,5 milioane pe zi, în timp ce versiunea print îi aduce zilnic 1,1 milioane de cititori. Probabil ar fi o afacere bunicica. Cred ca ar fi primul ziar cu renume care ar face acest pas.

Mania topurilor

Azi mi-am dat seama ca sunt obsedat sa alcatuiesc topuri. Se insinueaza, iti intra pe sub piele si te trezesti ca nu mai poti sa iti ordonezi gandurile fara ele. Micile sertarase cu valori valabile doar in scafarliile noastre. Nu conteaza daca se modifica de la o zi la alta, important e sa nu dispara sertarasele. Cele mai bune carti, cele mai tari filme, cele mai cool bloguri.

Asa ca hai sa ma dezbrac si eu in fata publicului si sa imi exprim preferintele in materie de literatura. Sa zicem ca daca maine as fi exilat pe o insula pustie si as putea sa iau cu mine operele a 10 autori, i-as alege pe (bineinteles, ordinea in care ii voi scrie aici este irelevanta):

Thomas Pynchon

Mario Vargas Llosa

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Vladimir Nabokov

James Joyce

Gustave Flaubert

Vladimir Sorokin

William Shakespeare

Mihail Bulgakov 

Lev N. Tolstoi

Abia am terminat pomelnicul asta, ca mi-am si dat seama cat de stupida e chestia asta cu topurile. Am lasat pe afara carti pentru care as comite si crime (cine le-a citit isi va da seama de ce): Zatul- Tatiana Tolstaia, Moby Dick- H. Melville sau autori precum Borges. Mizerabila treaba.

Oricum, daca tot m-am bagat in chestia asta, o sa revin si cu o lista a filmelor care imi plac.

Genetically Modified Mozart

It’s rare for a new opera to get the kind of controversial publicity associated with rap artists and Hollywood movies. But that’s what’s happening at the Bolshoi. As soon as it was announced, three years ago, that the Bolshoi was going to produce its first Russian contemporary opera in a quarter of a century, all hell broke loose. The shadowy anti-communist youth group, Moving Together, whose members wear T-shirts featuring Vladimir Putin as a sign of their support for the Russian president, began staging noisy demonstrations in front of the theatre and the residence of Alexander Vedernikov, the music director.

They’re protesting at the fact that the opera, Rosenthal’s Children, by the cult composer Leonid Desyatnikov, has a libretto by the avant-garde author Vladimir Sorokin, a controversial figure well-known in Russia and Europe. Moving Together had already filed a criminal complaint - prompting a police investigation of the writer - over Sorokin’s alleged promotion of pornography and homosexuality in his 1999 novel Blue Lard, which deals with cloning and, among other things, depicts a sadomasochistic encounter between the clones of Josef Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev. During one of the demonstrations outside the Bolshoi, the members of Moving Together ripped apart copies of Blue Lard and threw them into a huge mock toilet bowl, while demanding the country return to traditional moral values.The demonstrations prompted a political debate over freedom of expression and censorship - historically hypersensitive subjects in Russia. The Kremlin distanced itself from the events, criticising the criminal investigation. Sales of Sorokin’s books soared, and the Bolshoi’s project received promotion nobody could have dreamed about.

The criminal investigation quietly fizzled out in court, and eventually the demonstrations died down - only for passions to flare up again this month, ahead of Rosenthal’s Children’s premiere on March 23 on the Bolshoi’s New Stage. As a result, the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s Parliament, passed a resolution ordering its culture committee to evaluate the content of the opera and assess whether it was morally acceptable. The Bolshoi countered this resolution with a statement that the opera contained neither obscene language nor pornographic scenes. And the Bolshoi’s director, Anatoly Iksanov, thanked the Duma’s members for the extra promotion.Rosenthal’s Children has managed to capture the attention of the press and audience at a time when Russian culture in general, and classical music in particular, has been going through an aesthetic and financial crisis. Soviet classical music - in contrast to Soviet literature - left a significant and lasting heritage. It was part of the state ideological machine, and, as employees of the state, composers were compensated for their labour. (Of course, this financial security was offset by a system of censorship and punishment.) When communism collapsed in 1991, artists were left on their own, without sponsorship - but also independent from the state. With Soviet realism no longer a religion, artists could now work freely and openly.Desyatnikov and Sorokin have adapted well to the wild-west-like post-Soviet society. They acquired a cult following individually, making it only a matter of time before they became a creative team. They first met during the production of the film Moskva (2000), for which Sorokin wrote the script and Desyatnikov the music. The film’s producers were sued by a Moscow newspaper for the negative depiction of the city as a capital of filth, lust and profanity. Desyatnikov and Sorokin, meanwhile, forged a close friendship and began to think of a new collaboration. “Desyatnikov’s complex compositional method is similar to my sensibility,” says Sorokin. “Also, he is a natural and original melodist.” Opera seemed a logical choice. “At first, I wanted to write an opera based on one of Sorokin’s plays,” says Desyatnikov. “But eventually, we decided in favour of an original libretto.”They came up with the idea for a story of five cloned composers living in Soviet and post-Soviet time. “The subject of cloning is very close to me,” says Sorokin. “I’m sure human beings should not be cloned. However, from an artistic point of view, the idea of cloning is rich with possibilities and implications, allowing us to travel in time and meet long-dead classics.”In Rosenthal’s Children, we meet clones of Wagner, Verdi, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Mozart. They have been created by a Jewish-German scientist, Alex Rosenthal, who, with the rise of fascism in the mid-1930s, has had to leave Germany for the Soviet Union. With Stalin’s help, he establishes a secret laboratory where he harvests and raises clones for labour and military needs. An ardent music lover, he creates the composer clones for himself, raising them in total isolation as his children.After the collapse of the Soviet Union, his laboratory is closed due to lack of state funding. He dies, and the composers, who have no sense of reality, are left homeless. They make their living by performing their music on the streets, in underground passages and railroad stations. They meet the prostitute Tania, and she and Mozart fall deeply in love. After paying off her pimp, the entire group celebrates the couple’s wedding. However, they are all poisoned by the jealous pimp. Only Mozart survives, because as a clone of a composer who was poisoned in his “previous” life, he has acquired immunity. The last scene shows Mozart in the hospital: in his hallucinations he sees the spectral shadows of his brothers.

“Our goal has been to show damaged, ridiculous heroes, who cannot adapt to modern society and are doomed to fail,” says Desyatnikov. “This idea has grown into a syncretic combination of the tragic and grotesque.”Rosenthal’s Children became a perfect vehicle for Desyatnikov and Sorokin to play their complex stylistic games. Both are masters of polystylism - of imitation, allusion, collage and pastiche. The entire structure of Sorokin’s Blue Lard is based on the comparison, confrontation and transformation of different styles, as he resurrects a multitude of literary giants who write their own diaries. Desyatnikov is similarly versatile in postmodern eclectism: in The Russian Seasons he modernises Russian folk songs, his Like the Old Organ Grinder is a commentary on Schubert, and he quotes Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky in his symphony Sacred Winter 1949.”Rosenthal’s Children is based on the premise that each of five composers writes his own opera,” says Desyatnikov. “They snatch a pen out of my fingers and create the opera themselves. I avoid direct quotes. Rather, I use some melodic and harmonic gestures that define their manner. So, each of the five scenes is written in the spirit of a composer - in a kind of mean-statistical style, so to speak.”

What results is a collision of operatic styles, transcended by Desyatnikov’s own sensibility. It becomes an opera about opera.”I associate each composer with one of his characters,” says Desyatnikov. “For example, Wagner is Brünnhilde; Tchaikovsky, Lensky; Mozart, Papageno. Also, each composer is linked to a particular musical instrument: Verdi, for example, plays the harp, and Mozart plays the flute.”Periodically, Desyatnikov leaves the spheres of his heroes and enters the realm of official Soviet music to remind the listeners of the place and time of the events. The first act finale contains fragments from speeches by Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Even so, “there are no political allusions or meanings,” says Desyatnikov. “To me, this opera is a ticket for a selfless artistic expression.”On the stage, perhaps. Outside the theatre, however, the controversy around the production rages on, apparently and increasingly disconnected from the context of the opera itself.

16.03.2005

sursa: www.srkn.ru

Free Speech

On July 11 prosecutors charged novelist Vladimir Sorokin with dissemination of pornography, a violation of article 242 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The case may mark the launch of a new phase in the Russian state’s eternal battle against dissent.

Vladimir Sorokin 46, is a representative of the new literary establishment and one of the more popular modern authors among Russia’s “golden youth.” His novel Ochered (The Queue), published in 1985 in France, brought him to prominence in Europe. His works have been translated into the major European languages, Japanese and Korean.He makes liberal use of nonstandard vocabulary, relishes toying with cult figures from Russian history and turning official ideology inside out, stepping effortlessly over all aesthetic taboos. He is one of the Moscow conceptualists, a group formed in Soviet times of dissident writers who badgered state security agencies with endless jokes at the expense of the society of “developed socialism.” Twenty years ago his work was sharp, funny and new, even dangerous at times.Then, when perestroika came along and the barriers of censorship collapsed, Sorokin’s work emerged from the underground. The controversy surrounding him brought him publicity and prosperity, though his nonconformist pathos admittedly lost some of its meaning. He became a very successful (not to mention talented) literary opportunist.The first attacks against him were not so much shocking as surprising. In early 2002 the volunteer organization Idushchie Vmeste (Forward Together), which represents the youth wing of the pro-presidential Unity party (a sort of Putin Komsomol) publicly dubbed Sorokin and writers Viktor Pelevin and Viktor Erofeev–perhaps the most popular authors among Russia’s intelligentsia–”dangerous writers.”Forward Together called upon Russians to cleanse themselves of this “literary dross.” They invited anyone who wanted to bring a book by any of these authors to specially organized drop-off points, where it could be exchanged for a book by Boris Vasiliev, published for the occasion. Vasiliev is a veteran prose writer of the older generation who produces mainly patriotic books about the war. The “dangerous” books brought in by the public would be returned to the authors, but only after they had been stamped to prevent their being sold again for commercial gain. Interestingly, the press release in which these champions of cultural purity announced the book swap contained two glaring spelling errors.The Forward Together initiative did not meet with widespread public support. In particular, Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoi said in an Interfax interview that the organizers were “calling for a return to censorship, and acting against the constitutional right to creative freedom…. This is not merely a youthful aberration, but a conscious provocation, targeted against Russia’s constitutional structure, which looks like it was arranged with the help of some ‘grown-ups.’” It transpired later that Forward Together did not forget what he had said.On June 27 Forward Together organized a protest in Moscow they called the “Sorokoviny for the Bolshoi Theater.” In Orthodox tradition, the Sorokoviny is a wake held on the fortieth day after a death, and the protest took place on the fortieth day after the signing of a contract in which the Bolshoi Theater commissioned Sorokin to write the libretto for a new opera.The protest began at one o’clock outside the ministry of culture. About 300 people showed up, and, to the accompaniment of classical music, held up posters and banners with quotations from Sorokin’s work, replete with unrepeatable expressions. They read out Mikhail Shvydkoi’s reply to Forward Together’s letter, in which the minister criticized the organization’s attitude to the work of contemporary Russian writers. They littered the main entrance to the building with books by Sorokin, and then headed off to the Bolshoi Theater, where they rigged up a huge toilet bowl as an improvised monument to the writer. Books were torn up and thrown in there too, followed by chlorine, poured in as a disinfectant. There were a lot of pensioners there, invited by the organizers to take part in these acts of vandalism. It was obvious that these members of the older generation only found out about Sorokin’s existence during the meeting itself, and became acquainted with his work at the same time–via the texts on the posters.The first image that springs to mind is the destruction of “dangerous” books by the fascists in the 1930s. The movement used the same iron tones in a press release: “When people reading one of Sorokin’s books try to hide the cover in embarrassment, when people who read Sorokin and his friends are no longer welcome in decent homes, and when Sorokin starts packing his bags, then we will consider that our task has been partially completed.” The movement’s leader Vasily Yakemenko said in an interview with Kommersant-Vlast, “We won’t rest until Sorokin is behind bars.”On the same day that the mob was destroying books outside the Bolshoi Theater, the media learned that on June 3, 49-year-old Muscovite Artem Magunyants complained to the Zamoskvorechie department of the Interior Ministry, that he found certain scenes in Sorokin’s novel “Goluboe Salo” (Blue Fat) pornographic. He said he bought the book in a railway station forecourt, and started reading straight away. When he got to the passage in question–a scene involving an explicitly depicted sexual encounter between Stalin and Khrushchev–he suffered serious spiritual trauma and decided to bring a case against the book that had offended him. Later, Yakemenko confirmed that Magunyants represented the Forward Together movement.Goluboe Salo was published three years ago, and had been the topic of heated debate for all this time, but it had not occurred to anyone to accuse Sorokin of disseminating pornography. Many people (including myself) do not hold Sorokin’s work in high regard, but right-minded Russians recognize that persecuting a writer for his work is unacceptable under any circumstances in a society that claims to be civilized. The experience of the all-too-recent past has thankfully taught us something.No one really seemed to believe that the Prosecutor’s Office would actually bring a case against Sorokin. Arguably, an accusation of disseminating pornography could only be brought against Sorokin’s publishers, Ad Marginem. There is no provision in Russian legislation for censoring an author’s right to write whatever he wants. And in any case, the affair seemed too absurd for the Prosecutor’s Office to take seriously. The description of a sexual act between two elderly Soviet leaders would hardly be capable of causing sexual arousal–at least, not in any normal person. How could there be talk of “pornography?”Yet the case was brought. According to Russia’s Criminal Code, the article under which Sorokin is indicted carries a punishment of a hefty fine or imprisonment of up to two years.Forward Together is celebrating victory. Yakemenko told Radio Ekho Moskvy that the case could be seen as “a first sign of the moral regeneration of our society” and “a sign that the era of the marginals, who use filthy language to describe all kinds of perversions, and who publicly promise to bury Russian literature, is coming to an end.”Forward Together does not plan to leave it at that. On July 1 the movement’s leaders brought a similar case against Sorokin’s novel “Led” (Ice). Sorokin’s publishers responded by launching a criminal case against Forward Together, accusing the movement of infringing Sorokin’s copyright by publishing the above-mentioned collection of quotations from his works.Interestingly, thanks to Forward Together, the prolific and much-criticized Sorokin can, after twenty years, once again experience the thrill of opposition. But even in Soviet times no one tried to take him to court.Sorokin’s unpleasant situation brings him financial rewards. Since the scandal broke, sales of his novels have increased fourfold. In this sense, Forward Together’s fight to suppress dangerous literature has achieved precisely the opposite effect.What lies behind this curious situation? Probably not Forward Together, at least not alone. Until the Sorokin case, neither the media nor political groups took Forward Together seriously, and the young Putinists themselves bemoaned their lack of support from the authorities they adore. Considering the scale of the effort against Sorokin, and the financial investment, Shvydkoi is probably right that there are “grown-ups” involved.

Sorokin’s show-trial persecution gives the least cultured and most numerous section of society an opportunity to associate itself with the current president. The majority who reads little if at all may like the sound of an attack on irritating yet prosperous intellectuals, who are relatively few in number but in many cases distrust Putin.At the same time, by deliberately distancing themselves from the activities of their “overzealous supporters,” the authorities protect themselves from possible accusations from the intelligentsia, while the president (who in keeping with Russian tradition is viewed by the masses as a separate entity, detached from the difficult situation in the country) gains a few extra points in his already high popularity ratings. As for Shvydkoi, he is merely the minister for culture, and can painlessly be offered up as a sacrifice in this game.There are also deeper roots to the Sorokin scandal. The need to create a new state ideology means that the ruling classes are faced with the task of defining the extent and the possible ways in which individual key figures of Russian culture can influence the public consciousness. In this respect, what is happening to Sorokin may be seen as a sounding of public opinion, a test of society’s reaction to the encroachment of ideology into the cultural process.The affair has one more interesting aspect. Forward Together’s manifesto is striking in the constant, almost obsessive use of the word “marginal” to describe the fashionable and commercially successful Sorokin, Pelevin and Erofeev. According to the dictionary, “the concept of marginality serves to justify the repression of a specific group of people who do not conform to the accepted norms and values of society.” As the Putin youth march into the arena of aesthetics, it seems that the Russian authorities have begun a new phase in their endless battle against dissent.

13.08.2002

sursa: www.srkn.ru

Moscow Belives in Tears

Nowadays it is fashionable for a major film release to be accompanied by the publication of its screenplay. But for his film Moskva (Moscow, 2000), Aleksandr Zeldovich published the script, written jointly with the enfant terrible of Russia’s literary establishment Vladimir Sorokin, before shooting even began. The result was a literary sensation, and the script was nominated for the Russian Booker Prize.Taking the genre of the gangster film, Zeldovich and Sorokin used the dialogue to create a tense portrait of the 1990s and to evoke the changing power structures in a Russia, where Communism has given way to what Zeldovich terms the “new totalitarianism.”

Ballet and business
The film centres on Mike, a businessman in decidedly the “new Russian” mould. When Mike gets stung on a deal, his suspicions immediately fall on Lev, who receives the customary torture to make him reveal where the money has gone. When Lev doesn’t confess, Mike’s suspicions waver and turn to other quarters, but as a precaution he still keeps Lev close at hand, locked up in the nightclub of an old friend and lover, Irina.Here, Lev meets both Irina’s daughters: Masha, who is engaged to Mike, and Olga, who suffers from autism which she has treatment from another of Irina’s old flames, Mark. Mark is also secretly in love with Olga and commits suicide when he discovers that her innocence has been lost.Despite the financial problem the disappearing money brings Mike, he goes ahead with an ambitious plan to open a new ballet school and theatre. His love of ballet also leads him to hold his wedding reception at an opera house, where during a performance of an extract of The Dying Swan, Mike is gunned down by a sniper.With Mike disposed of, Lev is able to collect the money that he swindled Mike out of and with his new-found wealth marries both Masha and Olga at a double wedding ceremony attended by Irina.

More than just a genre film
Moskva is just one of a whole slew of gangster films to have emerged from Russia since the Soviet Union disintegrated, with film-makers inexorably drawn to depicting the sleazily luxurious life of the New Russians like moths to the light.However, when CER spoke to Zeldovich at the 44th London Film Festival last year, he insisted that Moskva was different. Citing the need to create a national market after the fall of Communism, Zeldovich noted that genre films were a quick and cheap way of ensuring an audience. “Basically as a result, especially the first attempts were weak copies of B (and probably ) genre movies,” he explained, adding that these cheap gangster films became something of a national product. Although he admits that some of them are “not bad” now, Moskva is not a genre film and its use of the gangster genre is only a “construction” in which to hold the dialogue.Moskva, as a film about the 1990s, draws on the cheapness of gangster films and uses them both to create the emotional and spiritual atmosphere of an era in which the genre dominated and as a metaphor for processes in society.
However, Zeldovich also insists that inclusion of the crime elements was an essential part of the film’s realism in the portayal of the decade:In the 90s people were very often asking have you seen this guy or this one and the answer was no, I haven’t seen him or him for a week or a couple of weeks. These people were somehow disappearing and never coming back. It was a time of disappearing people. And it was an everyday event… so that means that the criminality of this life really existed.

Breaking up and breaking down
Zeldovich’s Moscow is not just over-ridden with crime, it is a dysfunctional and cynical world. This disfunctionality is symbolically portrayed in the important character of Olga, who in her regressive, autistic state is unable to communicate with the real world. Zeldovich, though, emphasises that all the characters are in some way autistic, with a total inability to relate to those around them.
The depiction of the cynicism of the age, is perhaps less damning, with the director pointing out that:The only privilege—well, not the only one, but the main one—which the Soviet system brought out was cynicism. Which, in a way, it’s not too bad somehow, because it brings with it some sort of tolerance and adaptability for survival. But, on the other hand, it is quite poisoning. So, that is the problem: how to cope with this heritage in some positive and normal way.Lingering totalitarianismMoskva, of course, is more than just a film about the Russian capital, and its themes of ideological heritage are international. What makes Moscow in the 1990s such a fascinating subject, is that it is a city caught between the end of totalitarianism and a failed attempt to provide a new ideology (free-market capitalism).
Zeldovich continually shows us the remains of the old ideology, which has somehow failed to go away: Mike’s curiously passionate interest in ballet, the old Stalinist songs that Olga sings but does not understand and the newly married Lev standing before the eternal flame.Zeldovich was keen to assert that this has a wider implication than for just Russia:The twentieth century has been a century of totalitarianism and a century of ideological construction, not only in Russia but I think all around the world and in the West as well. So, for nearly 100 years the West finds itself in this opposition, and finally in the 1990s this opposition was exploded… and now it is over it has produced a sort of frustration… the democratic West somehow needs a totalitarian mirror.As such, the decline of the old ideology and its supplanting with a new totalitarianism is something which has global implications. Expounding on his theme, Zeldovich even ascribes the recent interest in Iranian cinema to this need for the West to think in terms of ideological opposition.

All in the script
If Moskva has won praise, it is not for its use of plot, which is almost completely dispensible. The real attraction of the film has been the dialogue, written by Zeldovich in collaboration with “conceptualist” writer Vladimir Sorokin. Conceptualism started as a tendency in the visual arts in the late 1970s, with ordinary signs and billboards taken and put in a gallery as a piece of art and given a new meaning in addition to the one they originally had. These small details of everyday life became metonymic symbols for the functioning of society. Moskva’s dialogues work on a similar metonymic principle Zeldovich also compares the dialogues in Moskva to those in Chekhov (with the mother and two daughters becoming the playwright’s three sisters). The tea drunk from samovars may be long gone and replaced with tequilla, but the construction of conversation through a web of contemporary clichés Zeldovich considers to be entirely Chekhovian.
This use of cliché in dialogue also has some bearing on the film’s plot. As Zeldovich explained:When we started to rehearse, it was clear that these dialogues could not exist in normal, natural environment. It needed some artificial environment; it needed some sort of distance, because the dialogue always presumes some sort of distance between the character and the language they are speaking.To illustrate this principle of distance, Zeldovich contrasts the characters in Moskva with those in a Hollywood movie. With the latter, what they say is what they think, and there is no difference or tension between the two. In Moskva, as indeed in Chekhov, the characters say one thing as they think another, and it is not so much important what they are saying but how they are saying it.

Mixed bag
It is instructive to compare Zeldovich’s Moskva with Czech director Vladimír Michálek’s Anděl Exit (Angel Exit, 2000): both were written and co-scripted by the director and a leading (and controversial) member of the literary establishment; both are depictions of a city (Anděl is a Prague Metro station); both chart society’s decay; both represent larger realities through dialogue and have plots which are almost completely irrelevant to understanding the film; both are shot in vivid extremes of colours; and they both were released at around the same time.
With their overlapping aims and artistic means of expression, Moskva and Anděl Exit share the same strengths and weaknesses. Visually they are captivating films, but their deliberately unlikable characters and the lack of direct communication makes them unengaging to watch. This is film as sociological statement rather than as entertainment.Moskva particularly suffers here, with Zeldovich anxious to point out that the film’s real merit—its razor-sharp dialogue—is masked from English-speaking audiences by inadequate subtitles which were prepared in something of a rush to get the film on the festival circuit. So extreme does he consider this to be a problem that another print is to be made with new English subtitles.But beyond this, some will question Zeldovich’s assertion that the film is an accurate portrayal of a decade in Moscow, with the film steadfastly refusing to look at the ordinary life of millions of Muscovites on the breadline. As such, the semantics of the new totalitarianism seems to be something of a middle-class affliction.

sursa: www.srkn.ru

Led

LED (Ice), Vladimir Sorokin’s recent novel, continues his well-established practice of deconstructing ideological, mythological, and discursive clich6s of totalitarian power. Although the socialist-realist discourse of mythmaking is the proto-subject for the author’s creative exploration, Led apparently exceeds the boundaries of Sots-Arts. Being a reaction against Soviet social, ideological, and aesthetic values exemplified in socialist realism, it also responds to broader universal issues. Although Sorokin’s text is free from nauseating descriptions and incongruous bloody episodes, it still contains the blunt graphic scenes and coarse language of his earlier work. However, the author of Led does not attempt to shock or disgust his readership. On the contrary, he quickly draws the readers into the captivating orbit of his fiction and does not relieve the narrative tension until the last page. The novel can be classified as a thriller, which is not unusual for a postmodernist text. In accordance with the generic repertoire, it is characterized by an intriguing entanglement and a vibrant plot, which energetically unfolds through a rapid succession of brief episodes. Led is densely populated with sketchy, schematic, and yet interesting and memorable characters. It is easy reading and thought-provoking.

What makes Sorokin’s text more than just a successful thriller is its sophisticated and skilful deconstruction of a utopian project of human transformation, one of the most central, consecrating, and all-exculpatory mythologemes in the canons of socialist realism. Sorokin’s text consciously parodies the construction of such a far-reaching and refined goal as joining the Kingdom of Light by the chosen people, the road to which is paved through executions, abuse of power, fraud, and other similar activities. There is no doubt that the concept of forced happiness is borrowed from recent Soviet history, but it is also reminiscent of other regimes and historical periods whose features can be recognized in the novel. The converted brothers and sisters tirelessly murder people described as being incapable of rebirth and thus remain “meat machines” or “walking corpses” in order to advance the moment of spiritual transition. These converted ones are all blonde and blue-eyed, a suggestive allusion to the true Aryans. Moreover, all of them are vegetarian, which is possibly another historical allusion, this time to Hitler. The spiritual awakening resulting from striking the victim’s chest with a hammer made of ice from outer space is a brutal act, causing bodily damage. This act links the motif of suffering to that of spiritual elevation in the tradition of the Christian and Orthodox concept of martyrdom. The idea of a chosen people and that of the end justifying the means are by no means restricted to the Soviet experience. Both are rooted in human history and reflected in the Old Testament. The idea of asexual brotherly love between individuals as the sole avenue leading to spiritual transformation is not quite original. Leo Tolstoy’s later works, beginning with Kreutzer Sonata (1889), attest to this, as well as such movements as the Skoptsy, the “globe morality,” and the “Shakers.” Ritual gestures and incantations of the rebirthing ceremony portrayed by Sorokin are obviously invented, but ritualistic practices as such are a significant component of any mythological order within many social and religious systems.Reconstructing the fundamentals of the mythmaking process, Sorokin parodies the technique. The writer employs various narrative techniques and language stylizations that question the validity of the constructed mythologeme and undermine it from within. The discursive syntactical simplicity and spontaneity contradicts the complicated task to be completed by brothers and sisters through meticulously prepared and carefully planned actions. The refinement of the mission clashes not only with the brutal acts but also with the primitive language used by many converts, including their spiritual leader. The succession of narrative voices and focal points almost unanimously praising the spiritual revelation provided by the technologically advanced system “LED’–at a point when the mythological construct and the fictional reality seem to merge, according to the utopian standards of Socialist Realism–is contrasted with the terse depiction of a child’s treatment of the spiritual transformation tool and the core mythological symbol: the ice. A child’s naive ingenuousness ends the quest for the absurd mythological concept, emphasizing the futility of such an endeavor, underlined in chapter 38 of the Book of Job, from which the epigraph is borrowed: “From whose womb has come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth?” The novel’s diegesis suggests that the text should be placed within the broader context of human experience rather than within the restricted locale of Soviet reality, which was the source of and natural habitat for socialist realism. Generally, conceptually, and aesthetically, Led is a considerable step forward as compared to the author’s previous works, which attests to the maturity of the writer’s talent. This is an important novel, which should be translated into English so that readers unfamiliar with the Russian language can appreciate Sorokin’s skilful intrigue, plot structure, and challenging discourse.

Tatiana Nazarenko University of Manitoba10.01.2003

sursa: www.srkn.ru

Norma

NORMA (Norm) is the fifth novel by Vladimir Sorokin (b. 1955) to be published by Ad Marginem. Sorokin has become the most scandalous Russian novelist of the postcommunist era. In 2002 he had to face a legal trial, as his 1999 novel, Goluboie salo (Blue fat), was accused of being pornographic. Norma follows basically in the satirical pattern of Sorokin’s novels, though in comparison with Goluboie salo, the lyrical and nostalgic elements have now been considerably enhanced. Sorokin’s narrative strategy is emphatically postmodern, but at the same time Norma can be deeply linked to the realistic tradition of the Russian novel. The goal of Gogol’s Dead Souls was the same: to reflect critically and ironically Russia’s historical reality, to transmit it “just as it was.” Norma is (post)modern in its form, and (post)realistic in its content.

In contrast to Dead Souls, the title of Sorokin’s novel is not applied symbolically but rather allegorically: its meaning is not revealed to the reader gradually but stands out immediately, as an allegorical sign. “Norm” appears as a piece of food that every Soviet citizen considers important, even prestigious to possess, taste, chew, and eat, notwithstanding the fact that it smells bad, almost like excrement. Children most of all, whose tastes are not yet spoiled, especially do not like it. Like the “dead souls” in Gogol’s novel, “norm” provides Sorokin’s narrative with a witty counterpoint through which a great variety of scenes from everyday Soviet life are exposed. There are scenes of low and brutal violence, erotic passages, including some with lesbian lovers, episodes with children, chess players, intimate family circles, et cetera. “Norm” often appears in the most unexpected situations; the effect it thus provokes is quite funny. Most parts of the novel are written in a lavishly colloquial style.

“Norm” becomes a grotesque embodiment of the uniformity of Soviet life, devoid of any individuality that could escape “norm.” It is not tasty or attractive, but everybody is made to believe that accepting it is the only way to exist. In a Rabelaisian manner, chapter 2 (over forty pages) names one by one everything that can be “normal”: normal childbirth, normal boys, normal cries, normal sighs, normal milk, and so forth. By the way, the adjective normal’nyi in its adverbial application (normal’no) became a widespread commonplace in everyday Soviet Russian parlance. It could not be translated as “normally”; rather, it meant “acceptably well.” When asked how life was, one could normally expect the answer normal’no–that is, “acceptably well.”

Beginning with chapter 3, Sorokin tries to provide a kind of a counterbalance for the dullness of life under Soviet rule. He nostalgically evokes the Russian past, the spiritual endeavors of Russian writers as well as the Orthodox religious devotion and closeness to nature in the pre-communist era. At times, Sorokin’s style becomes maudlin, as in the episodes in which he compares Russian soil with a beloved woman. Chapter 4 comprises twelve poems, some of which are lyrical-nostalgic and others brutally sexist. Chapter 5 contains a series of letters sent by a common man from the countryside to a well-established scientist in Moscow. At first, the tone of the letters is polite, but later it becomes offensive, ending in a Joycean stream of meaningless, deformed words and mumbling as well as characters without any sense whatsoever. Similar meaningless speech, as a symbolic reproduction of the absurd official language of the former communist empire, is largely exposed in chapter 8.

In conclusion, Sorokin’s Norma is a skillfully constructed and bitingly witty narrative. The question remains whether its narrative strategies are not too transparently preplanned to allow the work to become something more than just another normal’nyi (”acceptably well made,” that is) postmodem, postrealistic novel.

Juri Talvet University of Tartu, Estonia10.01.2003

sursa: www.srkn.ru