1

Essays & Musings

Contents: 1. ...! 3

2. : - :) 7

3. ? 13

4. , ... 21

5. 30

6. 59

7. Remembering J. D. Salinger 63

8. 71

9. ... 75

10. [Wislawa Szymborska] 78

11. - 82

12. 87

13. 96

14. How I messed up an essay 112

(continued...)

2

15. ( -2) 116

16. , ! 123

17. ... 141

18. 146

19. ! 148

20. exhilaration 151

21. 156

22. 159

23. A story without an author 160

24. Notes on the narrative of Crime and Punishment 162

25. What we talk about really when we talk about reality 167

26. : The Gift 172

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June 11, 2011 *

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. : He was an out and out solitary; there was not one really congenial friend to comfort him -- and between one and none there gapes, as always between something and nothing, an infinity.

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: Prose is not be read aloud but to oneself alone at night, and it is not

quick as poetry but rather a gathering web of insinuations Prose

should be a long intimacy between strangers with no direct appeal to

what both may have known. It should slowly appeal to feelings

unexpressed, it should in the end draw tears out of the stone

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February 26, 2011 *

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[The good readers] approach to a work of fiction is not governed by

those juvenile emotions that make the mediocre reader identify himself with this or that character and "skip descriptions".

March 24, 2011 *

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: As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope, for

the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself

to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so like myselfso

like a brother, reallyI felt that I had been happy and was happy

again.

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gentle indifference , . , . ()

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June 29, 2014 *

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, (benign) , , . , , , . , , . , . ; , , , . : , , , , . the very impossibility of living .

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, 1939, , . : (Limited circle

is pure), : : ,

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December 6, 2013 *

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There were times when I had nothing else inside me except

reproaches driven by rage, so that, although physically well, I

would hold on to strangers in the street because the

reproaches inside me tossed from side to side like water in a

basin that was being carried rapidly.

Sunday 19th July 1910

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. July 28, 2010 *

63

Remembering J. D. Salinger

I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and

all those dopes thought I was terrific, Id hate it. I wouldnt even want

them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I

were a piano player, Id play it in a goddam closet.

Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye

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; , , , ; , , ; : Phonies ! , :

If there is an amateur reader still left in the world or anybody who

just reads and runs I ask him or her, with untellable affection and

gratitude, to split the dedication of this book four ways with my wife

and children.

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69

, .

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. goddam, and all, swear to

God, I know its crazy .

. chatty tone . . .

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February 4, 2010 *

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. . For some months, I have been digging him thoroughly. , .

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; , . . It would be a condescention on his part to do that. .

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. In a world thickly covered with meaningless pulp, this is what the underneath essence that really counts. This is the essential world. A world sans superficiality. , , . . .

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July 27, 2008

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): Every seperate day in the year is a gift presented to only one man

the happiest one; all other people use his day, to enjoy the sunshine or

berate the rain, never knowing, however, to whom that day really

belongs; and its fortunate owner is pleased and amused by their

ignorance. A person cannot foreknow which day exactly will fall to

his lot, what trifle he will remember forever: the ripple of reflected

sunlight on a wall bordering water or the revolving fall of a maple

leaf; and it often happens that he recognizes his day only in

retrospection, long after he has plucked, and crumpled, and chucked

under his desk the calendar leaf with the forgotten figure.

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77

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( .)

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: ...but all in all it is not my favorite piece, and if I include it in this collection it is only becasue the act of retranslating it properly is a precious personal victory that seldom falls to a betrayed authors lot.

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(April 17, 2009) *

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[Wislawa Szymborska]

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. . Who knows, perhaps a ball already / in the bushes, in childhood? . .

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. (April 11, 2009)

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: Crossiet, January 16, 1852

There are in me, literally speaking, two distinct persons: one who is

infatuated with bombast, lyricism, eagle flights, sonorities of phrase and the

high points of ideas; and another who digs and burrows into the truth as

deeply as he can, who likes to treat a humble fact as respectfully as a big

one, who would like to make you feel almost physically the things he

reproduces; this latter person likes to laugh, and enjoys the animal sides of

man...

-- ; . . :

Bombast: . Lyricism: . Sonorities of phrase: .

-- eagle flights ? .

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eagle flight .

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. ( , ; .) eagle flight

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: What seems beautiful to me, what I should like to write, is a

book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which

would be held together by the strength of its style, just as the earth,

suspended in the void, depends on nothing external for its support; a

book which would have almost no subject, or at least in which the

subject would be almost invisible, if such a thing is possible. The

finest works are those that contain the least matter; the closer

expression comes to thought, the closer language comes to coinciding

and merging with it, the finer the result. I believe that the future of Art

lies in this direction. I see it, as it has developed from its beginnings,

growing progressively more ethereal, from the Egyptian pylons to

Gothic lancets, from the 20,000-line Hindu poems to the effusions of

Byron. Form, as it is mastered, becomes attenuated; it becomes

dissociated from any liturgy, rule, yardstick; the epic is discarded in

favor of the novel, verse in favor of prose; there is no longer any

orthodoxy, and form is as free as the will of its creator...

It is for this reason that there are no noble subjects or ignoble

subjects; from the standpoint of pure Art one might almost establish

the axiom that there is no such hing as subject, style in itself being an

absolute manner of seeing things.

, . verse [discarded] in favor of prose , .

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For the record: "" . .

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89

As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope, for the first time,

in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference

of the world. Finding it so like myselfso like a brother, reallyI felt that I had

been happy and was happy again.

: As if this great outburst of anger had purged all my ills, killed all my hopes,

I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for

the first time to the benign indifference of the world. And finding it so much like

myself, in fact so fraternal, I realized that I had been happy, and that I was still

happy.

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: (gentle indifference). . . . , , , , . , , .

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? You see, I don't give a damn about Christian Judgment Day or Hindu

Karma phalam, or Islamic Yawm ad-Din. I am not secular either, I am anti-

religious. And my God is such a sweet guy to boot :-) He won't judge anybody on

anything.

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. . June 2009 *

96

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, I eat when I am upset ; I write when I am upset . .

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No, not for the heck of it. . .

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103

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: When the head of state didnt play guitar

Not everybody drove a car

When music really mattered and when radio was king

When accountants didnt have control

And the media couldnt buy your soul

And computers were still scary and we didnt know everything

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

In seventy-seven and sixty-nine revolution was in the air

I was born too late into a world that doesnt care

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

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. . 1935

1941 . .

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I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire

generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has

us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we dont

need. We are the middle children of history man! No purpose, no place. We have

no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war ... our Great

Depression is our lives.

. .

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11, , .

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, . : , . unique identity , . , ( ) .

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; , . , . Deep down inside, I know that I am fucking faking it. ( , . .

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ploughing through !

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! . (, . .

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.) (October 26, 2008)

*

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How I messed up an essay . ` '. . .

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; () . . , . vantage point . .

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. , . Megalomaniac is the word for me. . ? , ; ? , , ? , . . . ? ? ?

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(ENOUGH!! I don't feel like writing it anymore. . , . . .

. .

! .

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. . . .

.) Carl Sagan Can We Know the Universe?

(August 18, 2008)

116

( -2) , vantage point .

. vantage point . ; . epiphanic moment . , . , ( )

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; . A mere fleeting phenomena. , . .

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. Because, this universe this mad, irrational universe don't give a shit about you and your tiny little existence.

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. vantage point . ,

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119

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, . . . worthwhile . worthwhile ? ; what do we do now? .

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. . , . ( ). , : Oh! the sweet caress of all those names of villages and towns in the railway timetables, the charming evocation of lands of lightness and life that I will never visit....

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, . ; , , , . . , . . . , . At the fatal end, I should feel at home with the world that I had lived in. , . . . , . , .

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. , . 2008 , , .

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.) . !

, . We are all prisoners of time.

122

! . , . , , . I guess then, we are all prisoners of space too. 1980 2060 (Oh! the greedy me!) . .

(August 18, 2008) *

123

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. rail-door realizations an exercise to the literary pedant

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May 17, 2011 *

140

[1] How to Read and Why. , , .

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[2] , .

. , , Doors closing, . .

[3] . ) , , ...) .

. .

. ) . (.

[4] . , , , .

[5] I am not a child of nature;'her wonders' move me less than those of the Arts. She crushes me without inspiring any 'great thoughts' in me. I feel like saying to

her inside myself: 'It's all very fine. I came from you just a while ago, in a few

moments I shall return thence; leave me alone, I need other amusements.'

The Alps, moreover, are out of proportion of man's being. They're too big to

be of any use. This is the third time they have provoked an unpleasant reaction in

me. I hope it's the last.

141

... .

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(

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142

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145

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, . : The better part of life is spent saying: it's too

early, and then it's too late. , , . , . , , .

:

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July 27, 2009 *

146

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148

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April 17, 2011 *

151

exhilaration . .

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152

: Borges. , . . .

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153

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? . !? . . : ( ) , ? : . . . . . . .

. : . . . ? : . -- . .

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' ' : There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go.

I was starting to think that the reason it matters to care so passionately about

something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.

( , , . . , .)

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November 10, 2008 *

156

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, . ; ; (!), , , ; ; , , , , ; , , .... ENOUGH!! I don't feel like describing this insipid image anyway; let's get down to something more enchanting.

. . , , . , . .

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157

. ; , ...

. . , . ! ! , condescending . . , . ; - , - . , , , . , , ? . . !

. , , , . But that kills all the fun. .

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158

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Sometimes, it sucks to be a big man. It really does!! April 2, 2008 *

159

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February 18, 2010 *

160

A story without an author ! !

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, . ( The Lady with the Dog .) : For sale: baby shoes, never worn. . .

.

. , . .

.

.

( )

: Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her

head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her

lover like a dog. So, Sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and

she could not keep up with me; and, when I rode a little slower, she

passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be

made the slave of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end.

I therefore pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The

road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it;

and I contrived that she should soon come up with me. When she

did, I observed her to be in tears.

! !

;

161

, . , .... .

. I like to see it as a story without an author (in the literal sense; not in some

Flaubertian sense). A story that life itself wrote in first-person narration the

narrator incidentally being Johnson. It's complete with an engaging beginning,

distinct characterizations (she had read the old romances, I resolved to begin as

I meant to end), brief but essential description (The road lay between two

hedges), and a piercing ending.

(Above selection is from the book Life of Samuel Johnson by James

Boswell) July 3, 2010 *

162

Notes on the narrative of Crime and Punishment

(

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, . , . , , ? -- . , , , , , . . , .

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1865 . . ()

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165

.

: the story must be narrated by the author and not by the

hero. (

) . .

.

? : Narration from the point of view of the author, a sort of invisible but omniscient being, who doesnt leave his hero

for a moment. , . (Omnipresent

narration) . :

This astonishing, shifting formulation as the (subjective) authors point of

view fades into the more abstract and detached ominiscient being, and then in a

doubling back tethers the omniscient author to the heros side, foreshadows, as we

shall see, the lineaments of a revolutionary new form in the history of the

novelone that is central to the novels power and scope and to its direct grasp

upon its readers.

:

: , . , , , . . . ( , . ), ( , ) . . ,

, , .

166

: Dostoyevsky is the first novelist to have fully accepted and dramatized the principle of uncertainity or indeterminacy in the presentation of character.

. , ,

, . , , , .

.

.

. .

. form presupposes a material . October 8, 2008 *

167

What we talk about really when we talk about reality

. . ; .

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? ? , , ? :

(Subjective reality) , . , (Objective reality) . ; . :

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168

; . .

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, , ; . , , objective ; . ; : ; ; , . : , , , ...

. ? ( ); . , , . (Collective reality)

169

. .

; .

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.)

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170

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tangible . .

(I am thinking about the ultimate range of Valmiki and Shakespeare now). , , ? . . .

.

; . , ( )

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; . . ; mystic view . .... ? ?

171

; .

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. ; . (Self-contained World). ; subjective reality . ; internal logic . A writer has no obligation to any reality except his own. ***

, , .

May 15, 2008 *

172

: The Gift , :

Try some day to write a novel in which the artist (the real artist) is the

hero, you will see what great, but delicate and restrained, vigor is in it, how he

will see everything with an attentive eye, curious and tranquil, and how his

infatuations with the things he examines and delves into, will be rare and

serious. You will see also how he fears himself, how he knows that he cannot

surrender himself without exhaustion, and how a profound modesty in regard

to the treasures of his soul prevents him from scattering and wasting them. The

artist is such a fine type to do, that I have never dared really to do him. I do not

consider myself worthy to touch that beautiful and very complicated figure;

that is aiming too high for a mere woman. But if it could certainly tempt you

some day, it would be worthwhile.

( . , ; , ; , , . ; ,

.

. , ; . , .)

, . .

:

173

I dont agree with you that there is anything worthwhile to be done

with the character of the ideal artist; he would be a monster. Art is not made to

paint the exceptions, and I feel an unconquerable repugnance to putting on

paper something from out of my heart. I even think that a novelist hasnt the

right to express his opinion on any subject whatsoever. Has the good God ever

uttered it, his opinion? That is why there are not a few things that choke me

which I should like to spit out, but which I swallow. Why say them, in fact!

The first comer is more interesting than Monsieur Gustave Flaubert, because

he is more general and there fore more typical.

( ; . ; , .

. ? , , . !

.

, )

, . .

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( ), . .

174

: ( ). , . .

; , . .

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. , , , , , ( ) . ( ):

You can depict wine, love, women and glory on the condition that you

are not a drunkard, a lover, a husband or a private in the ranks. If you

participate in life, you dont see it clearly: you suffer from it too much or enjoy

it too much. The artist, in my opinion, is a monstrosity, something outside of

nature.

( , , , , . :

175

. , , .)

. (

.)

.

; , , . .

, ( , ):

Nature expects a full-grown man to accept the two black voids, fore and aft, as

stolidly as he accepts the extraordinary visions in between. Imagination, the supreme delight

of the immortal and immature, should be limited. In order to enjoy life, we should not enjoy

it too much. I rebel against this state of affairs.

:

.

. , , . ,

, . . The Gift . ( , , ; . , .)

176

.

.

.

, . .

. (

, , ), , ( , , , ; , , ):

There he is, a special, rare and as yet undescribed and unnamed

variant of man, and he is occupied with God knows what, rushing from lesson

to lesson, wasting his youth on a boring and empty task, on the mediocre

teaching of foreign languageswhen he has his own language, out of which he

can make anything he likesa midge, a mammoth, a thousand different clouds.

What he should be really teaching was that mysterious and refined thing which

he aloneout of ten thousand, a hundred thousand, perhaps even a million

menknew how to teach: for examplemulti-level thinking: you look at a

person and you see him as clearly as if he were fashioned of glass and you

were the glass blower, while at the same time without in the least impinging

upon that clarity you notice some trifle on the sidesuch as the similarity of the

telephone receivers shadow to a huge, slightly crushed ant, and (all this

simultaneously) the convergence is joined by a third thoughtthe memory of a

sunny evening at a Russian small railway station; i.e., images having no

rational connection with the conversation you are carrying on while your mind

runs around the outside of your own words and along the inside of those of

your interlocutor. Or: a piercing pityfor the tin box in a waste patch, for the

cigarette card from the series National Costumes trampled in the mud, for the

poor, stray word repeated by the kind-hearted, weak, loving creature who has

just been scolded for nothingfor all the trash of life which by means of a

momentary alchemic distillationthe royal experimentis turned into

something valuable and eternal. Or else: the constant feeling that out days here

only pocket money, farthings clinking in the dark, and that somewhere is

177

stocked the real wealth, from which life should know how to get dividends in

the shape of dreams, tears of happiness, distant mountains. All this and much

more he would have been able to teach, and teach well, to anyone who

wanted it, but no one wanted itand no one could, but it was a pity, he would

have charged a hundred marks an hour, the same as certain professors of

music. And at the same time he found it amusing to refute himself: all this was

nonsense, the shadows of nonsense, presumptuous dreams. I am simply a poor

young Russian selling the surplus from a gentlemans upbringing, while

scribbling verses in my spare time, thats the total of my little immortality. But

even this shade of multifaceted thought, this play of the mind with its own self,

had no prospective pupils.

* * * . (

.) 1935-37 . .

( .)

, 1952 , . ,

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178

It is the longest, I think the best, and most nostalgic of my Russian

novels. It portrays the adventures, literary and romantic, of a young Russian

expatriate in Berlin, in the twenties; but hes not myself. I am very careful to

keep my characters beyond the limits of my own identity.

. (Pnin), (Laughter in the dark) , , (Lolita), (Pale Fire) . :

1922 ; , ( ) , ! . .

, , . , . , ; , .

.

. , ; : , . (

, ). . .

(

: Bedlam turned back in to bethlehem thats Dostoevski for you). , , .

179

; , , , . :

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. , . , . , . . . !

, .

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( , , ); , , . , .

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, . , .

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180

. .

, , . ! , , , . , , .

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. .

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, , . :

, . .

. Laughter in the dark :

Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus.

He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of

a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.

This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there

not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space

on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a mans

life, detail is always welcome.

, . Caress the detail, the divine detail . , , , ,

.

,

181

, , : ; . ; , , .

, , ; .

:

: ;

(

. fate ). , . . , , ; .

. .

, ( ) , . ,

. , . ( , ). .

182

. , .

( ) .

, , . ( ) .

1926 .

. , ? . . 1917 () . , (tsars) , ; . , . , ; . , , , .

.

, . . () .

.

1916, , . . .

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183

, .

1926 . . .

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184

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; .

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185

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. , . ( , ), . .

, . , .

. , . !

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, , ,

... . , . .

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, , ,

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(

).

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186

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: , ,

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. , .

; . , (1927) , . , , . , . , , , , .

, . .

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187

, , . , ,

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.

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. , .

. , .

. 1928 ()

.

.

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, . ,

188

(, , ) . .

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. .

. .

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, . . , .) , , . , . , , . ( ; ; .)

189

. . . , .

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, , .

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. ( ) .

. .

, , . , . .

. .

(

) . .

. 1929 ( ) . .

(1828 - 1889) , () , , . ; ; , , ; .

, .

190

. .

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; , , , .

: , ,

.

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191

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, .

, , .

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192

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193

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194

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195

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196

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Good-by, my book! Like mortal eyes,

imagined ones must close some day.

Onegin from his knees will rise

but his creator strolls away.

And yet the ear cannot right now

part with the music and allow

the tale to fade; the chords of fate

itself continue to vibrate;

and no obstruction for the sage

exists where I have put The End:

the shadows of my world extend

beyond the skyline of the page,

blue as tomorrows morning haze

nor does this terminate the phrase.

197

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198

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199

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200

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: NABOKOV: ... the marvel of consciousnessthat sudden window

swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidst the night of non-being.

201

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...he knew that the external world resists the desires, however

desperate, of the world within. While he often glories in the power of human

consciousness, he also laments the absurdity of its limits: death, solitude, our

exclusion even from our own past. Thrilled by all that the mind offers but

aghast at all that it shuts out, Nabokov devotes his whole oeuvre to

ascertaining our position in regard to the universe embraced by

consciousness and to analyzing the bizarre discrepancy between the richness

of our life, as it accumulates moment by moment, and its becoming

inaccessible, so utterly unlike the present around us, as it retreats into the past

or as we advance into death. ~ from Vladimir Nabokov: Russian Years by