Mikhail Elizarov

In interesting times we live. The collapse of the "evil empire" (or good); Change of socio-economic formation; The collapse of privatization; Brothers-oligarchs-bloody gebnya, as in a kaleidoscope replacing each other in the role of the hosts of the country and the role model; Dashing nineties; Fat tenth. Two decades have passed, but what has happened to the homeland and to us has not yet been realized by psychologists, sociologists, or historians.
And literature, the mirror of the age, can not formulate the essence of what happened. Attempt to fix the state of minds, the collective unconscious really failed to any of the bison of the domestic literature. As mechanics, teachers, taxi drivers, accountants and other victims of shocks survived, it is not described and understood. But really, how? We do not understand ourselves, we search for answers and we do not find. Instead of comprehension to the public, endless "Old songs about the main thing" are offered.
Realism, as a literary device and style, was beyond the control of any of the "golden feathers." The authors seem to diligently avoid work "in an alien way of describing life as it is." Literary monuments of the epoch are the creations of Pelevin, Sorokin, whose fantasies tell more about the pathologies of the authors than about the reality surrounding them. Dmitry Bykov closest to life, but too keen on faking reality under his own, very controversial views. The other extreme is the endless description of the uneasy and dramatic life of the masters of life, the moral throws of their companions and the other half-light ladies who joined them. The business was divided, my husband was ordered, London was flown away - and where are the stories from the life of ordinary citizens?
Empathy with what happens to ordinary people, I suddenly found in the works of Mikhail Elizarov. At first glance, with respect to psychopathy, the author removes both Pelevin and Sorokin, but ... such colorful and at the same time exact metaphors of the subconscious experiences of the townsfolk were not encountered before. "Librarian" unexpectedly received the "Russian Booker", but the true merits of the novel were never clearly pronounced. Meanwhile, the text is obviously subject to in-depth sociological analysis. Crazy ruby librarians, drivers and other losers with axes, spears, pitchfork, sharpening and other improvised means for the right to get comparable with the narcotic euphoria from reading works written with standard patterns of socialist realism with production leaders, milkmaids, party secretaries and other cardboard characters in the role of protagonists - the most accurate artistic reproduction of painful longing for the lost Soviet paradise. Yes, the same turned inside out "Old songs about the main thing", revealing the true reasons for their success.
The reaction of the aspirants to the chroniclers of the era was not long in coming - here Yury Polyakov called Elizarov's rewarding an absurd misunderstanding. His own works, the only time sign in which is the author's pathological hatred of Yeltsin and Gaidar, the editor-in-chief of the "Literature" and the presenter of the program on "Culture" considers to be undervalued. For me, there is nothing to evaluate there, the artistic and historical value of his texts obviously does not correspond to the writer's claims. Get up in line behind Dontsova, right in front of Ustinova, to the right of Bushkov, dear Yuri!
Perhaps Elizarov did not mean a deep sense in his work, but, like a great writer, he became a conductor of the collective unconscious regardless of his own intentions. Perhaps he conceived a household thrash thriller, but the value of the work does not decrease from this.
The next publication, "Cartoons", does not contain such a deep meaning, but here the author appeared as a magnificent stylist. So reliably describe the adventures of young brothers from the area could not be anyone, either in the cinema or in the literature. The works of Germanicus, issued for the standard of brutal school realism, on this background seem fictitious and insipid. Criticism of the work did not notice, probably the author did not adhere to any influential literary groupings.
It is good that this does not determine the quality of works. "Librarian", "Cartoons" - dear Elizarov, we are waiting for the continuation. Interest in the public and evaluation of criticism, I'm sure, will grow according to the ascending