Contents

1. From the Other Side of a Page

The poet is much more the one who inspires, than the one who is inspired.

―Paul Eluard

His mindset was quite ordinary for a genius. Pretty erudite, slightly crazy, somewhat eccentric he was, with an original view on many things and the courage to defend it. Like all other typical geniuses (from those of ancient times to his contemporaries), he stood out from the crowd and was destined to take his rightful place in a very long row of those whose biography would be read from the textbook pages and whose monuments would be put in the areas where they lived for at least a short period of time. He would be another person in the endless list of regular household names such as Dante, Caravaggio, and Handel — and nothing more. However, it seemed that the fact did not depress him a bit.

He wasn’t a prideful person by nature; moreover, he didn’t consider anyone worse than himself in principle, believing that people were given different types of thinking, gifts, and inclinations from above so that they could pursue various goals and objectives. Thus, it wasn’t necessary to bother about surpassing someone in one way or another; instead, it was worth trying to fulfill those goals and objectives for which certain prerequisites were given. It was also important to remember that any goal, in turn, wasn’t an end in itself, but a particular aspect in the fulfilment of the global goal — namely, serving the Creator. And since there was nothing good in man, beyond the qualities the Creator had intended for him to have (although their development required diligence on the part of man), then, in his thinking, feeling proud of one’s talents was equivalent of feeling proud of one’s eye color or the number of their ears.

The man had a waxed moustache and a lyric baritone voice: he often sang melodies from a low-grade vaudeville, which, for some reason, was dear to him. They were simple, but addictive and funny, and helped him to find inspiration when he needed to attune his working mood during creative breaks or the comprehension of works he had already written. With the same purpose, he, among other things, spent time with his crazy, hysterical Muse, whose body exuded the aroma of sweat mixed with cheap perfume.

However, sometimes, he could perform in full voice his favourite arias of Rigoletto or Conte di Luna from Giuseppe Verdi’s operas, but since not everyone around shared his musical tastes, it happened relatively rarely.

A mouse lived in his modest abode, and from time to time, the writer left pieces of free cheese at the small hole — without any mousetraps, it is important to note.

But most of his time, the man devoted himself to literary creation, guided by the principles of “not a day without a line,” “the best is the enemy of the good,” and “if you have nothing to write about, then write about your writer’s block at least.” Of course, in practice, these principles served more as motivation to work than some maxims interpreted verbatim: his imagination, knowledge, and experience allowed him to write about many things and, as a rule, he wrote many lines in a day.

His creative style, as well as choice of theme, was very unusual, so he had long been accustomed to critics’ attacks; at the same time, his writing was bold and had an undoubted right to exist. As a rule, all the critics’ imaginary contradictions were actually observed not in the text, but only in the minds of the readers, who unfairly transferred to the original author their attitude toward a certain group of creative people. In fact, they had nothing in common, and the author could be associated with them only by mistake.

The writer was repeatedly blamed for views and beliefs he didn’t share, although he never made statements or put forward some of the assertions that were attributed to him.

Mais c’est la vie, as the French say.

He wasn’t a bit worried about what people said. He had his views on life, religion, and creativity, and in general, never regarded these subjects as separate, in no way considering it possible and necessary to talk about one outside the context of the other. If every slander and reproof, verbal or written, could have prolonged his life, he would have lived to the end of time. However, he didn’t like idle debate or wasting his time trying to prove something to somebody — only if it was absolutely necessary. He quickly drew the lines in discussion, calling each thing by its right name in a proper tone. If circumstances demanded so, he correctly put people in their place not only with a word — though usually, words were quite enough. In communication, he immediately marked certain limits and bounds, not allowing anyone to overstep them.

He has never had “militant escapism”, or “deliberate contempt for reality”, as it seemed for some critics.

He highly respected and acknowledged the magnitude of talent and depth of cultural influence in many works. The contradiction between him and them was false — he didn’t oppose reality, he opposed the banality, routine, mediocrity and creative impotence.

After all, many of those who called themselves “realists” in fact replaced “the reality” with the seamy part of life description, trying to fill the pages of their novels with as many murderers, maniacs, fallen drunkards and inveterate prostitutes as possible. They believed that due to the abundance of vulgarity and dirt, their works were “closer to life”. Others, like those who proclaimed the so-called verismo manifesto, focused their creative work on a detailed description of peasants’ life or daily routine of the average man in the street.

In fact, all these trends multiplied the mediocre writing and in an artistic sense, could easily be called not even second-hand, but third-hand literature, ossified in static inertia and immersed in self-digging. The author didn’t think it had any relation to realism as a literary movement.

No doubt, the movement itself had a whole gallery of worthy works and even some perfect masterpieces of world literature, but essentially, it wasn’t closer to reality than any other group. And the author, who considered himself a realist too, didn’t pretend to have some true insight and presented to the public his subjective vision of this very reality, passed through the prism of personal attitude.

Naturally, world-view perspectives differed dramatically based on a person’s background — the one of a nightman and an opera singer, an atheist and a believer, a hard worker and a loafer, an intellectual and an ignoramus, a rich man and a beggar, a killer and a pacifist, a republican and a monarchist. People of different sex, culture and age also had their own views. Even the facts of everyday life differed: ones — for an ordinary avant-garde artist, for instance; others — for those who didn’t accept and, most importantly, didn’t want to accept any views from another angle.

Referring to the numerous works of world-renowned geniuses in various fields of art, one could easily find the examples of many beautiful creations that had a significant impact on the masses and great minds but still failed to fit a harsh evaluators’ Procrustean bed of ideological and aesthetic premises. All in all, many of these principles were not an inevitable certainty, but the result of an agreement in certain circles reached by a number of individuals over the years.

As followed from the most illustrative examples of sculpture and painting, the creation of an artwork identical to reality had no sense, since the banal prose of existence and the ordinariness of grey days already pursued everyone everywhere as a visual inevitability.

The greasy crust of applause had long been scraped off, revealing rusty rails, and along them, one after another, passed a single bundle of cars. They were jadedness, tedious formalism, creative laziness, lack of original ideas and presentation. This road led to a dead end.

Naturally, art not just could, but had to resemble reality, because, no matter how paradoxically it might sound, even the fantasy of a fiction story depended on description genuineness manifested in reliably transmitted experience, deep characters, and true feelings. Since the mythology served as a basis for any culture formation, it complemented the world of an individual, enriching that personal universe, which, otherwise, would inevitably remain under the yoke of limited sensory perception.

There had always been and would remain works that conveyed no single fresh idea, contained no single bright form. Faceless and regrettable they were, like an army of spermatozoa that failed to achieve their goal and conceive unique and significant offspring. After all, one way or another, dung is also necessary to cultivate a fragrant grove. And our zealous writer wasn’t positively “against” the existence of such art forms as well as he didn’t speak in favour of them. He opposed only the situation when this art had no alternative.

Since art existed in diversity, there were necessity and fascination in both academically well-established forms and in deflecting from classical traditions. And creations in which the unusual was noticed in the ordinary, naturally stood out from the grey monotony. After all, even life itself provided those who had due flair and attention, with a lot of real stories that surpassed any fictional inventions. One could remember mysterious and at the same time, the true-life story of odd Kaspar Hauser, for example, or genius Roger Bacon’s biography.

The denial of reality as such led nowhere. And that was not the path the author had chosen for himself, counteracting the assertions of critics and envious ones.

The denial of real experience, the denial of credibility and internal logic didn’t bring anything new but multiplied low-grade worthless works of another kind. They were deprived of freshness. They thoughtlessly passed along the shabby rails of imitation. They exploited the same patterns. They were distant from taking risks and looking at things from a different angle, being unable to raise and discuss serious topics. Their authors either avoided them or reasoned about them with the naivety of infantile ignoramuses. Their arrogant posturing forced them to muddy the water in a puddle, pretending it to be a deep well. And despite their declarations, they didn’t “overcome imposed stereotypes and prejudices”, but simply followed stereotypes of a different kind, replacing one Procrustean bed with another.

The writer respected academic art and at the same time paid tribute to avant-garde, however, he rejected both the militant snobbery of aesthetes and the scandalous tricks of pseudo-vanguardists. The former ones, swelling with importance, attacked from the height of their lecterns all ingenious forms of creative expression that didn’t recognize their supremacy and superiority in the right to judge, or more likely, condemn the works of others. As for the latter ones, they usually concealed the banal lack of talent and inability to create under the catchy slogan “art is not for all”.

The line separating “art” and “not art” was obvious and concrete for him. And at the same time, he didn’t accept the standard views that made a fetish of subjectivism and proclaimed the absence of objective criteria in art.

In any work of art, he primarily identified three main aspects. Firstly, there was a subjective component which lied in the field of tastes and opinions. On the contrary to some individuals’ statements, he recognized this aspect one way or another but simply didn’t see it in absolute terms. Secondly, there was an objective component which lied in the field of things and categories. They didn’t depend on someone’s subjective opinion but could be the material of expert analysis. And thirdly, there was a spiritual aspect which, in his understanding, wasn’t identical to morality or ethics. It determined whether a given work contributed, harmed or at least didn’t prevent from bringing a person (no matter a creator or an admirer of the creation) to God.

Of course, many would call such an approach subjective too. But in this case, the point wasn’t in some established ultimate truth. This particular writer approached all the issues with his systematic manner, differing from the overwhelming majority of authors by the fact that he never wrote without investing a good deal of effort. Instead, he had developed if not indisputable, but a clear and complete creative system and implemented its maxims.

First of all, he firmly rejected the very notion of genre and didn’t try to determine his works as belonging to this or that category. In his understanding, it would be a particular example of Procrustean bed to which the authors resorted because of their creative laziness, critics — for the convenience of labelling, and readers — because of the forcibly instilled pattern of thinking. Any writer who intentionally wanted to create in a certain genre, in fact, focused on a template set of stereotypes and expectations which the reading masses sometimes considered as an immutable canon for this type of literature. At the same time, the writer didn’t set such a goal or task for himself and simply described what he considered worthy of his time and attention without feeling the need to squeeze his work into certain conventional frames. It was the “no genre” principle. The very definition of a work as genre or non-genre was in no way evaluative. However, an ignorant critic often undertook to argue that the author “went beyond the limits of the genre,” when, in fact, the writer was never in these limits.

Secondly, adhering to the principle of perception unity, he mostly tried to write texts of a small volume — poems, stories and novellas that could be finished at one sitting, without taking breaks and in no need to fragment perception, as when reading a long novel. However, moderation was important in everything; otherwise, such an approach could result in writing plain epigrams or the collections of aphorisms. Still, that was a recommendatory principle, not an immutable canon, and our hero also had some major works among his texts.

Thirdly, in response to almost every question about why he undertook to write a story, a verse or a novella on this or that strange and complex topic, he could answer with peace of mind, “Just because I wanted to.” And that was his whole point: he was a creative person who would continue to write even if he were alone on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, without the opportunity to bring his works to one living soul. The desire to write, a God-given talent was the main and self-sufficient engine of the creative process — all sorts of goals and objectives could or could not exist in parallel, but as a rule, were somewhat secondary. Perhaps, except some works emphasized on religious issues, which had quite specific goals to achieve, most of his writings were focused on the process rather than on the result, without a task to convey or claim anything. However, that didn’t make them empty, unprincipled or meaningless. For example, pure love for poetry was the cornerstone of his poetic works, regardless of their topic and imagery. Themes and images just appeared naturally in the process of creation. It seemed that some things simply wanted to be written, and did what they thought was necessary, allowing the writer to hold the reins pro forma.

That was the principle of creative self-sufficiency. But even when the work had a specific, clear purpose, there was also a mass of topics that the author sometimes hardly planned to discuss, but touched on anyway.

In fact, the author didn’t always want to convey any information, because instead of thoughts, he could wish to transmit certain feelings, sensations, experiences, pass on an aesthetic image which occupied his mind and haunted him. He might not know exactly what he was doing, why, and for what purpose, having no full understanding of his work, even after he finished it. And a commitment to the plot often faded into the background, giving a leading role to descriptiveness and immersion into the atmosphere.

By definition, any creation worked as a generator of interpretations, and, as a matter of fact, it could be assumed that the author had a definite opinion about the perspective he saw in his own story and its possible explanations. However, the perennial question of what the author wanted to say wasn’t entirely correct, since the author’s opinion could be no less subjective than the one of an ordinary reader. The latter was able to look at the work from a different angle and draw conclusions which wouldn’t even come to the creator’s mind. Therefore, our author didn’t want to impose his vision as the only possible and correct to anyone; however, the title of the work could influence the perception, presenting the creation in a certain light. It wasn’t an easy problem, and to avoid it, the writer approached the process of creating a title as an independent work so that the title itself would attract attention but, at the same time, didn’t impose a definite look at the creation or reveal its essence until the end of the reading.

Last but not least, the playing principle came. It often expressed in experiments and creative search with the purpose of making the reader an accomplice to the process. That could be all sorts of punchlines when the last phrase turned already settled perception upside down or “parabola stories” in which wordplay meant a one-time plurality of equivalent allegories. In the inversion method, a narrative began at the moment where it should have ended logically. Then, it gradually returned to the point from which, in theory, it must have been started in the first place. The author also often used in media res opening, and in this case, the story began in the context of rapidly developing events, so the reader had to comprehend the essence and pick things up quickly. In his “supposed prose”, the text was written in the prosaic form but contained a traceable poetic rhythm. Sometimes “an unreliable narrator” appeared, and his introduction violated the tacit agreement between the author and the reader since this narrator began to mislead the reader consciously or unconsciously — either because of his own infantilism and ignorance or because of mental disorders and other reasons and circumstances. One could also notice “quotation reciprocity” when the character from the story A could read a fragment from the story B, while the character from the story B could read a fragment from the story A. The author had numerous other methods in his disposal. Particular attention was paid to the two framing sentences — the one that began the story and the one that ended it.

At all times, there was the art with the purpose of speaking directly and straightforwardly about things that were relevant and important at a particular time for specific people. And of course, this kind of art had legitimate grounds for existence, respect and recognition. But at the same time, and in parallel with it, there was always the art of a different kind that used partisan poetry of metaphors and the ramming force of allegories. It overcame prejudices and convincingly conveyed ideas and views which relevance didn’t depend on a particular era or region.

At the same time, our author recognized the right to exist for things written exclusively for aesthetic reasons, believing that if something was beautiful, then it should live; however, the content was still the cornerstone. Creativity, in its various manifestations, was supposed to make a person kinder and better; otherwise, it would become like dirt with which a man fills his stomach, dying of starvation and unable to get bread.

The form of presentation, with all the variety of possibilities and multicolour of the creative palette, had a secondary role, albeit an important one, as long as the creator’s individuality manifested in it to a considerable degree. But this additional principle wasn’t as trivial as it might have seemed at first glance, since the prolific writer fundamentally rejected abstract humanism. As a result, his clearly expressed views on personality development, about good and eternal were strikingly different from the widespread ones. But that could be a topic for a separate in-depth conversation.

Discussing a narrower aspect, we can note that the writer always smiled indulgently, hearing the same trite questions over and over again. Where did he get his ideas? Why did he write and what’s the purpose? What benefits could his creative work bring?

Explaining his position to admirers and detractors, he spoke for nobody but himself and responded that creative self-expression has the same meaning for every creative person as the need for sleep or food for any ordinary man. Naturally, under certain circumstances, it’s possible to deprive this opportunity — by breaking the pianist’s fingers, cutting off the singer’s tongue, and so on. And after that, a person will still be able to exist, if not to live a full life, but such an existence would be like a life of eunuch in serail, with nothing more but yearning for his lost. A creative person, deprived of the opportunity to realize his potential, will suffer greatly as if the fish agonizing on dry land.

A person feels a craving for creativity and embodies it to the best of his effort and capabilities — whether he is a creator or a fan, for whom a particular object is available or close for embodiment and perception. But in the case of art creators, the matter was always more complicated, even though gifted readers existed along with gifted writers.

Any creator, be it a writer, sculptor or painter, has a whole whirlwind of creative energy inside. He is overwhelmed by this energy, and it’s looking for a way out, a transition to another form of existence. Drawing a picture or writing a novel is like the birth of a child: first, the creator discovers the conceiving of something new; then he is overcome by thoughts, feelings and images. They haunt him day and night until they become materialized. And when a child is born, nobody is asking the mother why she is giving birth, what her kid can give to the world, does he fundamentally differ from other children, and so on.

Advising to novice fellow authors, he reminded them about some principles. First, there is no need to understand the whole writing process (for the skill is developed over time), but one has to know what not to do. These don’ts were: don’t shoot yourself in the foot and don’t stumble on pitfalls previously discovered by others. That was true even in a situation when such a shooting was naively considered as the done thing from the side. Next, don’t forget that brilliant fantasy requires brilliant knowledge; only then it can enrich the palette of artistic expression. Don’t hesitate to edit and be able to do it, cutting off all the excess. Avoid unnecessary adjectives and don’t create a whole poem where it’s enough to say a phrase like “the barefoot man went out on a cold street”. Write about things you really understand: experience and knowledge can be acquired directly or indirectly, but it makes no sense to describe the field in which you are incompetent. Don’t aim at global goals at once, but set more modest tasks while being sure to bring them to an end. Be ready to put yourself in the character’s place, so that he would act in accordance with his inherent motives, depending on the existing circumstances, but not in the way that accidentally occurred to the author at a particular moment.

And anyway, there was the most important advice among these and many other tips, namely — to find and preserve your literary identity and creative individuality. Indeed, one had to study, adopt the experience, select and filter out distinctive features from typical, learn from others’ examples and mistakes, respect their work and sometimes even imitate it (for the time being, it was necessary and useful, and normal). But in the end, one should become an original author, one way or another. It is impossible to be a congenial soul to everybody, however, trying not to become a parody, even a brilliant one, is a must.

Answering the questions about the objective criteria of creativity, the writer noted that any good author has to be a good critic too, which means an analytical approach to the assessment of his or others’ works. Feelings and emotions shouldn’t guide one since they could be dictated by various reasons, ranging from personal relationships with the creator to the mood at the time of reading.

After all, a lot of things did not depend on tastes and opinions solely — for example, internal consistency, causation of the events, factual and historical accuracy, reasonable motivation for the characters’ actions, competence in the matters covered, stylistic coherence, avoidance of semantic, grammatical and punctuation errors, historical and cultural context.

Yes, of course, even some objective flaws didn’t take away all the artistic value — a generally poor work could still contain original inventions and solutions. However, that didn’t change anything: if an ordinary reader wasn’t competent in some matter and took the word of the equally incompetent author, he could give the work an unfairly high rating, but it rather characterized both the author and the reader in a certain way.

Neither commercial success nor popularity among the masses were the evidence of high literary quality: even a low-grade product could find its fans (especially if it was originally focused on their tastes) while a genuine masterpiece could be honoured in a relatively narrow circles since setting the bar high, it was initially demanding for the reader.

According to our hero’s principles, the work had to be done primarily in a way that it could not be claimed in the academic sense; whether it would catch someone’s fancy was an entirely different question. The literary work was not a gold coin to please everybody.

And at the same time, any work, if useless, should at least not be harmful. Beautiful trifles had the right to exist, but ideally, the creation must serve as an aid in bringing the soul closer to God without replacing religious feelings with aesthetic ones.

The author considered an art form in the context of comparison with the natural. An architect can show creative individuality and has a wide range of tools for this. But if in the course of construction he forgets the basic principles of foundation laying or installation of load-bearing walls, the building will collapse. The viewer may know nothing about chiaroscuro modelling, shades balance, dynamic tension, spatial organization and perspective, but if the artist has taken all these concepts into account, then every reasonable evaluator will have to admit that a Caravaggio’s canvas, for instance, was made at a highly professional level (regardless of whether he likes it or not). A complex picture begins with main colour combinations and basic shapes. Virtuoso singing starts with the simple harmonies of vocalizes. And if a violinist is able to play according to sheets of music, or a guitarist is ready to play by ear, they both can be considered as musicians objectively. However, it’s impossible to say so about a person who picks the strings of a detuned guitar randomly or blows air into a flute carelessly. One cannot objectively address to the person as an artist if the latter is fundamentally incapable of working in a classical manner.

Going beyond the barriers of tradition was still possible since many of them were truly created artificially, in the context of certain circumstances. However, the reasons for that varied from the exceptional author’s talent to the complete lack of talent. Whereas outstanding vanguardists began their career with classical techniques, gradually enriching them with new methods and fresh ideas, initially talentless ignoramuses were unable to compete with masters because using techniques required abilities, intelligence and education.

The author had all due respect to anyone who had achieved significant results, but at the same time, it was essential for him to avoid awe and reverence. They were men of flesh and blood, and there was no need to make idols of them or worship them blindly.

Overall, that was the creative vision of the energetic author, who brought forth his works with the same speed as a baker produced his buns. And in general, he thought that a virtuoso in any artistic pursuit was a poet in the philosophical sense of the term.

Not aspiring fame, popularity, wealth or other external benefits, the writer even considered them superfluous and harmful (at least, for himself), so he created things that appealed to his soul to the best of his effort and capabilities, covering in his peculiar way the themes and matters close or important to him personally.

And yet the author’s relationships with his characters were sometimes not as simple and straightforward as you would expect. On the one hand, they obviously shouldn’t complain. After all, this writer was quite liberal: loosening the reins, he allowed his characters to take the initiative and turn the story development in the way they wanted. Any other person in his place, possessing such power over the lives and fates of those entrusted to him, could turn out to be a real despot and would act rashly, without any compromises. He could make any character a morphinist, a pervert, a drunkard at once, and that’s all — you had no choice but to fit the role. But this author was different.

Having lost the guiding hand, the heroes began to live according to their mind and principles only, in a way that seemed natural and logical for them. However, they soon had to reap the fruits of independence, which occasionally turned out to be quite bitter. Speaking with other authors’ characters, they concluded that freedom and responsibility were sometimes a much heavier burden than thoughtless drifting by the will of the helmsman.

Some heroes started to grumble quietly about it. But there were other reasons, too. For example, a character, whose image had initially appeared in the author’s mind as a kind of charismatic mixture of Hamlet and Don Juan, could later find himself in the story where the circumstances didn’t allow him to prove his inner self fully — and all because other characters didn’t want to play as background actors. Sometimes, a novella was rewritten and overwritten two hundred times already but remained unfinished in a desk drawer, while the heroes, exhausted by editing, suffered in the agonizing anticipation of the outcome.

But we must say, the author wasn’t always deaf to characters’ problems and aspirations. Another thing was that the creative needs could often go against the desires of a single character, and even many of them. The creative process, like everything else, was still an integral part of life, which brought its adjustments and generated emotional involvement, no matter how the writer tried to abstract from that. Therefore, heroes had keen senses of the author’s joy or pain from time to time.

They respected him and yet wanted some changes for themselves, so they appointed a general gathering on the third shelf of the desk, in the middle of The City of a Thousand Canals — a small novel about Venice. The place was chosen because it was most vividly described and equally satisfied with various demanding tastes. Even book characters have their aesthetic preferences, you know.

The gathering had quite a picturesque view: the council, chaired by the Doge of Venice, represented people from different eras and places, whether they were real historical figures, such as Cesare Borgia and Maximilien de Robespierre or mythological heroes like Jason and Hercules. All kinds of creatures from fables and legends who didn’t even belong to the human race also participated.

The place of honour was empty. It was intended for the author who could sometimes establish direct contact with his literary universe. It usually happened in the moments of the most powerful immersion into a story atmosphere or during sound sleep. But this time he was so absorbed in the vanities of the world that he couldn’t seem to leave them and attend the meeting. Despite the personal invitation, by the way! Naturally, his psychiatrist would be glad to hear it (if he had one, of course), since that would be the first step to recovery. But book inhabitants were gravely offended by the fact of his absence.

The verdict was clear: henceforth — they would begin to write a novel about him. And they would create an author who would meet all their expectations. Fortunately, they had a good teacher…