“Let's kill the children and live happily ever after. "The Noise of Time" by Julian Barnes why none of the Russian writers wrote such a novel

Dedicated to Pat

Who to listen

Whom to wind on the mustache

And who should drink bitter.

THE NOISE OF TIME

All rights reserved

Translation from English by Elena Petrova

A great novel in the literal sense of the word, a true masterpiece from the Booker Prize-winning author of Premonitions of the End. It would seem that he had read not so many pages - but as if he had lived a whole life.

A new book by Julian Barnes, dedicated to Shostakovich and his life in the era of terror and thaw, is booming in the UK. But Barnes's ambitions are certainly greater than writing a fictionalized biography of the great composer in his jubilee year. Barnes is only playing an informed biographer, and the shaky ground of Soviet history, largely consisting of unverified information and outright lies, suits this perfectly: there are many truths, choose any other person, by definition, is an incomprehensible mystery.

Moreover, the case of Shostakovich is special: Barnes largely relies on the scandalous "Evidence" of Solomon Volkov, to whom the composer either dictated his memoirs, or partially dictated, or did not dictate at all. One way or another, the author has an artist's license for any fantasy, and the ability to get into the head of Shostakovich invented by him allows Barnes to write what he wants: a magnificent reflection on the rules of survival in a totalitarian society, on how art is made, and, of course, about conformity.

Barnes, who is in love with Russian literature, has studied the language and has even been to the USSR, shows an impressive grasp of context. At the level of names, facts, toponyms - this is a necessary minimum, but not only: in understanding the structure of life, the system of relations, some linguistic features. Barnes now and then trumps phrases like “a fisherman sees a fisherman from afar”, “he will fix a humpbacked grave” or “to live life is not to cross a field” (“Zhivago”, of course, he read carefully). And when the hero begins to make up for his reasoning Yevtushenko's poem about Galileo, this suddenly seems not like the painstaking preparation of a British intellectual, but some kind of completely authentic good-heartedness of a Soviet intellectual.

Stanislav Zelvensky (Afisha Daily / Brain)

Not just a novel about music, but a musical novel. The story is told in three parts, merging like a triad.

Gustave Flaubert died at the age of 59. At this age, the famous writer Julian Barnes, whose deity was and remains Flaubert, wrote a novel about Arthur Conan Doyle investigating a real crime. Barnes turned 70 and released a novel about Shostakovich. The novel has a Mandelstam title - "The Noise of Time".

Barnes, tirelessly praising not only Flaubert, but also Russian literature, hints in the title at once at three cultural and historical levels. The first is Mandelstam himself, who died in the camp a year after 1937, when Shostakovich was teetering on the brink of death. The second is the music of Shostakovich, which the Soviet ghouls called "mess", that is, noise. Finally, the noise of the terrible 20th century, from which Shostakovich drew music - and from which, of course, he tried to escape.

Kirill Kobrin (bbcrussian.com / London Books)

The novel is deceptively modest in scope ... Barnes again started with a clean slate.

The Daily Telegraph

Barnes began his book with an attempt at some non-standard structure - on the first pages he gave a digest of the themes of Shostakovich's life, which then emerge in detail. This is an attempt to build a book about the composer precisely musically, leitmotifically. One of these motifs is the recollection of the dacha of Shostakovich's parents, which had spacious rooms, but small windows: there was, as it were, a mixture of two measures, meters and centimeters. So in the later life of the composer this theme unfolds: a huge talent, squeezed into the fetters of petty and hostile guardianship.

Still, Barnes sees his hero as a winner. A running aphorism runs through the book: history is the whisper of music that drowns out the noise of time.

Boris Paramonov (Radio Liberty)

Definitely one of Barnes' best novels.

This meets not only my aesthetic perception, but also my interests - the spirit of the book is best expressed through style, by using certain turns of speech, a little strange turns of phrase, which can sometimes resemble a translated text. This, I think, gives the reader a sense of time and place. I don't want to write something like "he walked down such and such a street, turned left and saw a famous old candy store opposite or something like that." I do not create the atmosphere of time and place in this way. I'm sure it's much better to do it through prose. Any reader is able to understand what is at stake, the meaning is quite clear, but the wording is slightly different from the usual, and you think: "Yes, I'm in Russia now." At least I really hope you feel it.

Julian Barnes

In his generation of writers, Barnes is by far the most elegant stylist and the most unpredictable master of all conceivable literary forms.

It was at the height of the war, at a half-station, flat and dusty, like an endless plain all around. The lazy train left Moscow for two days heading east; there were still two or three days of travel left - depending on the availability of coal and on the transfer of troops. At dawn, some peasant was already moving along the train: one might say, half-hearted, on a low cart with wooden wheels. To control this device, it was necessary to deploy where required, the leading edge; and in order not to slip, the invalid inserted a rope into the harnesses of his trousers, passed under the frame of the cart. His hands were wrapped in blackened rags, and his skin had hardened as he begged in the streets and train stations.

His father went through the imperialist. With the blessing of the village priest, he went to fight for the king and the fatherland. And when he returned, he did not find either the father or the tsar, and the fatherland was unrecognizable.

The wife wailed when she saw what the war had done to her husband. The war was different, but the enemies are the same, except that the names have changed, and on both sides. And the rest - in the war as in the war: young guys were sent first under enemy fire, and then to the horse-surgeons. His legs were chopped off in a military field hospital, among the windbreak. All sacrifices, as in the last war, were justified by a great goal. But it doesn't make it any easier for him. Let others scratch their tongues, but he has his own concern: to stretch the day until evening. He has become a survivalist. Below a certain threshold, such a fate awaits all men: to become specialists in survival.

A handful of passengers descended onto the platform to take a sip of dusty air; the rest loomed outside the windows of the carriages. At the train, the beggar used to start a rollicking wagon song. Perhaps someone will throw a penny or two in gratitude for the entertainment, and whoever doesn’t like it will also give money, if only they would drive further as soon as possible. Others contrived to throw coins on edge to mock when he, pushing off the concrete platform with his fists, started up in pursuit. Then other passengers usually served more carefully - some out of pity, some out of shame. He saw only sleeves, fingers and change, but did not listen. He himself was one of those who drink bitter.

Two fellow travelers, traveling in a soft carriage, stood at the window and wondered where they were now and how long they would stay here: a couple of minutes, a couple of hours, or a day. No announcements were broadcast over the broadcast, and it’s more expensive to be interested. If you are at least three times a passenger, and as soon as you begin to ask questions about the movement of trains, they will take him for a pest. Both were in their thirties, at that age some lessons were already firmly established. A lean, nervous, bespectacled man, one of those who listen, hung garlic cloves on a string around himself. History has not preserved the name of his companion; this one was one of those that wind up on the mustache.

A cart with a half beggar was approaching their carriage, rattling. He bawled dashing couplets about village indecency. Stopping under the window, he gestured for food. In response, the bespectacled man raised a bottle of vodka in front of him. Out of courtesy, I decided to clarify. Is it ever heard of a beggar refusing to drink? Less than a minute later, those two descended to him on the platform.

I mean, there was an opportunity to figure out for three. The bespectacled man still held the bottle, and his companion brought out three glasses. Poured, but somehow not equally; the passengers bent down and said, as it should be, "we will be healthy." Clink glasses; the nervous thin man tilted his head to one side, which caused the rising sun to blaze for a moment in the glasses, and whispered something; the other chuckled. Drank to the bottom. The beggar immediately held out his glass, demanding to repeat it. The drinking buddies splashed him the rest, then they took the glasses and went up to their carriage. Blissful from the warmth that spread over the crippled body, the invalid rolled to the next group of passengers. By the time the two fellow travelers settled in the compartment, the one who heard it had almost forgotten what he himself said. And the one that I remembered, just began to shake his mustache.

Part one
On the landing

ABOUT He knew one thing for certain: the worst of times had come.

For three hours he languished at the elevator. I was already smoking my fifth cigarette, and my thoughts wandered.

Faces, names, memories. Peat briquette - weight in the palm of your hand. Swedish waterfowl beat their wings overhead. Sunflowers, whole fields. Aroma of cologne "Carnation". The warm, sweet smell of Nita leaving the tennis court. Forehead wet with sweat dripping from the toe of the hair. Faces, names.

And also the names and faces of those who are no longer there.

Nothing prevented him from bringing a chair from the apartment. But one way or another, nerves would not let me sit still. Yes, and the picture would be quite defiant: a man is sitting on a chair waiting for the elevator.

Thunder struck out of the blue, but it had its own logic. It's always like that in life. Take at least attraction to a woman. It rolls unexpectedly, unexpectedly, although it is quite logical.

He tried to focus all his thoughts on Nita, but they, noisy and importunate, like blowflies, did not give in. They dived, of course, on Tanya. Then, buzzing, they were carried away to that girl, Rosalia. Was he blushing at the thought of her, or was he secretly proud of his wild escapade?

The patronage of the marshal - after all, it also turned out to be unexpected and at the same time quite logical. And the fate of the marshal himself?

The good-natured, bearded face of Jurgensen - and then the memory of the harsh, inexorable mother's fingers on the wrist. And the father, the sweetest, charming, modest father, who stands at the piano and sings "The chrysanthemums in the garden have faded a long time ago."

A cacophony of sounds in my head. Father's voice waltzes and polkas that accompanied the courtship of Nita; four F-sharp screams of the factory siren; the barking of stray dogs, drowning out the timid bassoonist; revelry of percussion and brass under the armored government box.

These noises were interrupted by one very real one: a sudden mechanical growl and the grinding of an elevator. A leg twitched, knocking over a nearby suitcase. The memory suddenly vanished, and its place was filled with fear. But the elevator stopped with a click somewhere below, and mental abilities were restored. Picking up the suitcase, he felt the contents shift gently inside. Why thoughts immediately rushed to the story of Prokofiev's pajamas.

No, not like blowflies. More like mosquitoes that swarm in Anapa. They covered the whole body, they drank the blood.

Standing on the landing, he thought he had control over his thoughts. But later, in the solitude of the night, it seemed to him that thoughts themselves had taken all power over him. And there is no protection from the fates, as the poet says. And there is no protection from thoughts either.

He recalled how he was in pain the night before his appendicitis operation. Twenty-two times vomiting began; all the swear words he knew fell upon the sister of mercy, and in the end he began to ask a friend to bring a policeman capable of putting an end to all the torment in one fell swoop. Let him shoot me from the threshold, he prayed. But a friend refused to let him go.

Now neither a friend nor a policeman is needed anymore. Well-wishers abound.

To be precise, he spoke to his thoughts, it all started on the morning of the twenty-eighth of January 1936 at the railway station in Arkhangelsk. No, thoughts echoed, nothing begins in this manner, on a particular day, in a particular place. It all started in different places, at different times, and often even before you were born, in foreign lands and in foreign minds.

And once started, everything goes on as usual - in other lands, and in other minds.

His own mind was now occupied with smoke: "Belomor", "Kazbek", "Herzegovina Flor". Someone guts cigarettes to fill a pipe, leaving a scattering of cardboard tubes and scraps of paper on the desk.

Is it possible at the current stage, although belatedly, to change everything, fix it, return it to its place? He knew the answer - as the doctor said to the request to put his nose on: “Of course, you can put it on; but I assure you that it is worse for you.”

Then Zakrevsky came to mind, and the Big House itself, and who would replace Zakrevsky in it. A holy place is never empty. This world is so arranged that there are a dime a dozen Zakrevskikhs in it. That's when paradise will be built, and it will take almost exactly two hundred billion years, the need for such Zakrevskys will disappear.

It happens that what is happening is beyond comprehension.

This cannot be, because this can never be, as the mayor said at the sight of the giraffe. But no: it can be, and it happens.

Fate. This majestic word simply denotes something that you are powerless against. When life announces: "And therefore ...", you nod in agreement, believing that fate is speaking to you. And therefore: it was appointed to be called Dmitry Dmitrievich. And you won't write anything. Of course, he did not remember his christening, but he never doubted the veracity of the family tradition. The family gathered in my father's study around a portable font. The priest arrived and asked the parents what name they had chosen for the baby. Yaroslav, they answered. Yaroslav? The father winced. He said that the name is too catchy. He added that a child with that name would be teased and pecked at school; no, no, it’s impossible to call Yaroslav. Such an undisguised rebuff puzzled my father and mother, but I did not want to offend anyone. What name do you suggest? they asked. Yes, it’s easier, answered the father. For example, Dmitry. The father pointed out that his own name was already Dmitry and that "Yaroslav Dmitrievich" was much more pleasant to listen to than "Dmitry Dmitrievich". But the priest - in any. And therefore, Dmitry Dmitrievich entered the world.

And what's in the name? He was born in St. Petersburg, grew up in Petrograd, and grew up in Leningrad. Or in St. Leninburg, as he used to say. Does the name really matter?

He was thirty-one years old. A few meters from him, his wife Nita is sleeping in the apartment, next to her is Galina, their one-year-old daughter. Galya. Lately, his life seems to have taken a turn for the better. He somehow did not characterize this side of things directly. Strong emotions are not alien to him, but for some reason it is impossible to express them. Even at football, he, unlike other fans, almost never bawls, does not buzz; it suits him to sotto voce the skill - or mediocrity - of a particular player. Some see in this the typical stiffness of a button-up Leningrader, but he himself knows that behind this (or under this) shyness and anxiety lurk. True, with women he tries to throw off shyness and rushes from ridiculous enthusiasm to desperate uncertainty. It's like the metronome is skipping out of order.

And still, his life eventually acquired some orderliness, and with it - the right rhythm. However, now uncertainty has returned again. Uncertainty is a euphemism, if not worse.

The suitcase with the essentials standing at the foot reminded me of the failed departure from home. At what age was it? Probably seven or eight years old. And did he take the suitcase at that time? No, it's unlikely - my mother would not allow it. It was a summer in Irinovka, where my father served in a leadership position. And Jurgensen was hired as a laborer to them in a country estate. He made, repaired, coped with any business in such a way that even a child was pleased to watch. He never taught, but only showed how even a saber, even a whistle, is obtained from a piece of wood. And once he brought him a fresh peat briquette and gave him a sniff.

He was drawn to Jurgensen with all his heart. He said, offended by one of the household (and this happened often): “Well, okay, I’ll leave you for Jurgensen.” Once, in the morning, before he got out of bed, he had already voiced this threat, or perhaps a promise. Mother didn't make him repeat it twice. Get dressed, she ordered, I'll take you. He did not fold (no, it was not possible to collect things); Sofya Vasilievna firmly squeezed his wrist and led him across the meadow in the direction of Jurgensen's hut. At first, walking nonchalantly next to his mother, he swaggered. But soon he was already trailing foot by foot; wrist, and then the palm began to be released from the maternal vice. At that time it seemed to him that is he breaks out, but now it became clear: the mother herself gradually let him go, finger by finger, until she completely freed him. She released him not so that he would go to Jurgensen, but so that he would burst into tears and rush back to the house.

Hands: some slip out, others reach greedily. As a child, he was afraid of the dead: suddenly they would rise from the graves and drag him into the cold, black darkness, where his eyes and mouth would clog with earth. This fear gradually receded, because the hands of the living turned out to be even more terrible. Petrograd prostitutes did not take into account his youth and inexperience. The harder the times, the harder the hands. So they strive to grab you by the causal place, take away food, deprive friends, relatives, livelihood, and even life itself. Almost as much as prostitutes, he was afraid of janitors. And those - whatever you call them - who serve in the organs.

But there is also a fear of the opposite nature: the fear of letting go of the hand that protects you.

Marshal Tukhachevsky defended him. Not one year. Until the day when, before his eyes, sweat began to trickle down his forehead from the marshal's toe. A snow-white handkerchief fanned and soaked these trickles, and it became clear: the protection was over.

More versatile people than the marshal, he did not remember. Tukhachevsky, a famous military theorist throughout the country, was called the Red Napoleon in the newspapers. In addition, the marshal loved music and made violins with his own hands, had a receptive, inquisitive mind, and willingly talked about literature. For ten years of their acquaintance, the marshal in his jacket kept flashing on the streets of Moscow and Leningrad after dark: not forgetting either about duty or about the joys of life, he successfully combined politics and pleasant pastime, talked and argued, drank and ate, did not hid his weakness for ballerinas. He said that the French at one time revealed to him a secret: how to drink champagne without getting drunk.

He failed to adopt this secular gloss. Self-confidence was not enough; and there was no particular desire, apparently. He did not understand fine delicacies, he quickly got tipsy. In his student years, when everything was being reassessed and reworked, and the party had not yet taken full state power, he, like most students, pretended to be a philosopher, without having any reason to. The issue of gender relations was inevitably subject to revision: as soon as outdated views were discarded once and for all, someone at every opportunity referred to the "glass of water" theory. Intimate intimacy, the young wise men said, is like a glass of water: to quench your thirst, it is enough to drink water, and to quench your desire, it is enough to have sexual intercourse. In general, such a system did not arouse objections from him, although it necessarily assumed a reciprocal desire on the part of the girls. Some people have a desire, others do not. But this analogy worked only within certain limits. A glass of water did not reach the heart.

And besides everything else, then Tanya had not yet appeared in his life.

When, as a child, he once again announced his intention to go live with Jurgensen, his parents, apparently, saw this as a rebellion against the rigid framework of the family, and possibly even childhood itself.

Now, upon mature reflection, he sees something else. There was something strange about their dacha in Irinovka—something profoundly wrong. Like any child, he didn't suspect any of this until it was explained to him. Only from the mocking conversations of adults did he understand that all proportions were violated in this house. The rooms are huge and the windows are small. For a room with an area of, say, fifty square meters, there could be one single window, and even then a tiny one. Adults believed that the builders made a mistake - they confused meters with centimeters. And the result was a house that terrified the child. As if this dacha was purposely invented for the most terrible dreams. Perhaps that is why he was drawn to carry his feet out of there.

They were always picked up at night. And therefore, so that he would not be dragged out of the apartment in his pajamas and not forced to dress under the contemptuously indifferent gaze of a law enforcement officer, he decided that he would go to bed dressed, over a blanket, having put the assembled suitcase by the bed in advance. There was no sleep; tossing and turning in bed, he pictured to himself the worst thing imaginable. His anxiety was transmitted to Nita, who also suffered from insomnia. Both lay and pretended; each pretended that the fear of the other had neither sound nor smell. And in the afternoon he was haunted by another nightmare: suddenly the NKVD would take Galya and place her - this is at best - in an orphanage for the children of enemies of the people. Where she will be given a new name and a new biography, where she will be raised as an exemplary Soviet person, a small sunflower who will turn after the great sun named Stalin. Than toiling from the inevitable insomnia, it is better to wait for the elevator on the landing. Nita demanded that all nights, each of which could be their last, they spent together. However, this was the rare case when, in a dispute, he insisted on his own.

The first time he went out at night to the elevator, he decided not to smoke. There were three packs of Kazbek in the suitcase - they, in his opinion, could come in handy during the interrogation. And later, if sent to the camera. The first two nights he held on. And then, as it hit, suddenly they will be taken away: what if it is impossible to enter the Big House with tobacco products? Suddenly there will be no interrogation at all or will it be very short? Just hand him a piece of paper and make him sign. What if? .. There was no longer enough imagination for another. Only in none of these cases will cigarettes be needed.

And therefore, he did not find a reason to refrain from smoking.

And so he smoked.

He studied the Kazbek cigarette held between his fingers. Malko once sympathetically, no, perhaps even admiringly, said that he had graceful, "not pianistic" hands. And then he noted - already without a shadow of admiration - that, they say, Shostakovich was not doing enough. How to understand this is not enough? How much is needed, so much is done. And let Malko look at the score and wave his wand.

At the age of sixteen he was sent to a Crimean sanatorium to restore his health after tuberculosis. With Tanya, they turned out to be the same age, to the point that their date of birth coincided, with only one small correction: he had the twenty-fifth of September according to the new style, and she had the old one. Such an almost perfect synchronicity of the birth overshadowed their romance; you could say they were made for each other. Tatyana Glivenko: short hair and the same lust for life as he has. It was the first love, in all its apparent simplicity and in all its doom. His sister Marusya, assigned to him, slandered his mother. Sofya Vasilievna warned her son by return mail against any connection with this stranger and, in fact, against any connection. In response, with the aplomb of a sixteen-year-old youth, he explained to his mother the principles of Free Love. In the sense that everyone should have the freedom to love as they please, that carnal love is short-lived, that the equality of the sexes is not in doubt, and the institution of marriage should be abolished, but as long as marriage still exists in reality, a woman has every right to love another , and if later he wants to go to him, then the man is obliged to give her a divorce and take the blame; and yet, for all that, children are sacred.

His arrogant, sanctimonious sermon on life was not answered by his mother. Be that as it may, soon after they met, the lovers had to leave: Tanya returned to Moscow, and he, under Marusin's escort, went to Petrograd. But he did not stop writing to Tanya; they went to visit each other; He dedicated his first piano trio to Tanya.

Mother never changed her anger to mercy. Then, three years later, he finally spent a couple of weeks in the Caucasus alone with Tanya, without family care. They were nineteen years old; for concerts in Kharkov, he had just received a fee of three hundred rubles. Rest in Anapa ... it seems that it was a long time ago. However, the way it is: since then, a third of his life has passed, if not more.

And therefore, everything began, to be precise, on January 28, 1936 in Arkhangelsk. He was invited to play his First Piano Concerto with a local orchestra conducted by Viktor Kubatsky, with whom they had already performed a new cello sonata. They played well. In the morning he went to the railway station to buy a fresh issue of Pravda. I skimmed through the first page, skimmed through the other two. That day, as he himself later said, was the most memorable in his life. He decided to celebrate this date every year, until his death.

One caveat, his thoughts persisted: nothing begins exactly that way. It started in different places and in different minds. The true starting point was his own fame. Or his opera. And perhaps in the beginning there was Stalin, who, by virtue of his infallibility, could criticize and lead everything in the world. Or perhaps the origins were rooted in something primitive, like, say, the arrangement of the instruments of a symphony orchestra. In fact, it is best to think so: the composer was first branded with disgrace and mixed with dirt, then arrested and shot - and all because of the seating of the orchestra.

If everything really began not here, but in other people's minds, then Shakespeare, who composed Macbeth, is most likely to blame. Or Leskov, who transferred this story to Russian soil under the title "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District." But no, nothing like that. Naturally, he himself is to blame for the creation of this work, offensive to the people. And who is to blame for the fact that the success of the opera, both at home and abroad, aroused the close attention of the Kremlin? Yes, the opera itself is to blame. Stalin is also to blame - none other than he inspired and approved the editorial of Pravda, and perhaps he wrote it with his own hand: such a cloth style suggested that the text came from the pen of one whose flaws it is unthinkable to correct. Stalin is primarily to blame for the fact that he imagines himself a patron and connoisseur of all the arts. It is known that he never misses a single performance of Boris Godunov at the Bolshoi Theatre. For him, Prince Igor and Sadko by Rimsky-Korsakov are almost on a par with this opera. So why shouldn't he also listen to the new opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District?

And therefore, the composer was obliged to attend the performance on January 26, 1936. The arrival of Comrade Stalin was expected, as well as Comrades Molotov, Mikoyan and Zhdanov. They all took their places in the government box. Directly below which, unfortunately, were drums and brass. Whose parts in the opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" are not distinguished by benevolence and modesty.

He clearly remembered how, sitting in the director's box, he looked at the government box. A small curtain blocked Comrade Stalin, and high-ranking escorts obsequiously turned to this invisible presence, knowing that they, too, were being watched. In such an environment, both the conductor and the musicians, needless to say, were nervous. During the orchestral intermission to the picture of Katerina's wedding, woodwind and brass, as if by agreement, suddenly began to play louder than he had planned in the markup. And it began, like a virus, to spread to other groups of instruments. If the conductor noticed something, he was powerless; every time under the government box a fortissimo of percussion and brass rumbled, so much so that the window panes almost flew out, comrades Mikoyan and Zhdanov deliberately shuddered and, turning to the figure behind the curtain, let out some mocking remarks. When, at the beginning of the fourth act, the audience looked at the government box, there was no one there.

After the performance, he took his briefcase and went straight to the North Station to go to Arkhangelsk. The government box, as he remembered, was reinforced with sheet steel in case of an assassination attempt. But in the director's box there is no such protection. By the way, he was not even thirty then, and his wife was in her fifth month.

1936: The leap year always inspired him with superstitious fear. Like many others, he believed that a leap year brought bad luck.

The elevator mechanism rumbled again. When it became clear that the cab had passed the fourth floor and was going higher, he picked up the suitcase from the floor. And he began to wait for the doors to open, a flash of a cloth tunic, a nod of recognition to follow, and then hands to reach out to him and someone's sweaty fives to close around his wrist. And without the slightest need: he does not resist, but, on the contrary, hurries to take them away from his apartment, away from his wife and daughter.

Then the doors opened - and it turned out that it was the late neighbor who returned home; followed by a nod of recognition, but of a completely different kind, designed to express nothing, not even surprise from this nightly meeting. In response, he also bowed his head, went into the elevator cabin, poked at the first button he came across, went down a couple of floors and, after waiting a bit, went up to his fifth, and then stepped onto the platform and continued the night vigil. Such meetings with neighbors, like a blueprint, have happened before. They happened without words, because there was danger in words. Neighbors may well have believed that his wife mockingly drove him out night after night, or that he himself timidly left his wife night after night, only to return soon. But it is very likely that from the outside he looked like himself: one of the hundreds of citizens who, night after night, expected to be arrested.

Many years, many lives ago, back in the last century, when his mother studied at the Irkutsk Institute for Noble Maidens, she, along with two other pupils, danced the mazurka from A Life for the Tsar in the presence of the heir to the throne, the future Emperor Nicholas II. In the Soviet Union, this opera by Glinka, of course, was not performed, although its plot basis - an instructive story about how a poor peasant sacrifices himself for the sake of a great leader - would apparently have been to Stalin's taste.

Booker Prize winner, impeccable stylist, original thinker and just about the main modern writer of Great Britain Julian Barnes released the novel The Noise of Time about the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and Soviet Russia. The book will be published at the end of August by the Inostranka publishing house. "Lenta.ru" publishes a fragment of the novel by Julian Barnes.

He shifted his attention to the driver's ear. The driver in the West is a servant. The driver in the Soviet Union is a representative of a well-paid, prestigious profession. After the war, many front-line mechanics became drivers. The personal driver must be treated with respect. Not a word of criticism about his driving style or the condition of the car: the slightest remark - and the car will be driven away for two weeks for repairs due to some mysterious breakdown. It is also supposed to turn a blind eye to the fact that your personal driver, when his services are not required, is most likely cheating somewhere in the city. In short, it is supposed to curry favor with him, and rightly so: in a sense, he is more important than you. Some drivers have reached such heights that they hire their own drivers. Can a composer reach such heights that others compose music for him? Probably, it can: there are all sorts of rumors. Rumor has it that Khrennikov is so busy groveling before the authorities that he only manages to sketch out the main theme, and entrusts orchestration to others. Perhaps this is how it is, only the difference is small: if Khrennikov undertook to orchestrate on his own, it would not be better or worse anyway.

Khrennikov is still on horseback. Zhdanovsky's henchman, who zealously threatens and intimidates; who does not spare even his former teacher Shebalin; which is kept that way because with one stroke of the pen it can deprive composers of the right to purchase music paper. Khrennikov was noticed by Stalin: the fisherman sees the fisherman from afar.

Those who happened to become dependent on Khrennikov as a seller of music paper willingly told one story about the first secretary of the Union of Composers. Once he was summoned to the Kremlin to discuss candidates for the Stalin Prize. As usual, the list was prepared by the board of the union, but the final decision remained with Stalin. For some unknown reason, at that time, Stalin threw off his paternal mask of Helmsman in order to point out to the seller of music paper in his place. Khrennikov was shown into an office; Stalin did not raise an eyebrow - he pretended to be immersed in work. Khrennikov hesitated. Stalin looked up. Khrennikov began mumbling something about the list. In response, Stalin, as they say, nailed him with a look. And Khrennikov messed himself up. In horror, he muttered a far-fetched apology and flew out of the office of Power like a bullet. Two burly orderlies, accustomed to such embarrassment, were waiting outside the door: they grabbed him under white arms, dragged him to the bathroom, washed him out with a hose, let him catch his breath and returned his trousers.

Of course, there was nothing supernatural about it. It is impossible to condemn a person if he has run into diarrhea in the presence of a tyrant, who does not have to pulverize anyone at his own whim. No, Tikhon Nikolaevich Khrennikov deserved contempt for another reason: he talked about his shame with delight.

Now Stalin has gone to another world, Zhdanov too, the cult of personality has been debunked, but Khrennikov is still sitting in his chair: unsinkable, he fawns on the new masters, as he fawned on the old ones, admits that yes, some excesses were probably allowed, which are now successfully fixed. Without a doubt, Khrennikov will outlive them all, but someday he too will depart to another world. True, it must be taken into account that the law of nature can falter and Khrennikov will live forever, as a constant and necessary symbol of admiration for the Soviet government, who managed to make the Soviet government fall in love with him. Even if not Khrennikov himself, then his twins and descendants will live forever, regardless of any changes.

It's nice to think that death doesn't scare you. Life is terrible, not death. In his opinion, people need to think about death more often in order to get used to this thought. And allowing death to sneak up on you unnoticed is not the best solution. You have to be short with her. It must be spoken about: either with words, or - as in his case - with music. The sooner you start thinking about death, the fewer mistakes you will make.

However, it cannot be said that he himself completely avoided mistakes.

And sometimes it began to seem that if he had not focused on death, exactly the same number of mistakes would have been made.

And sometimes it began to seem that it was death that frightened him more than anything else.

One of his mistakes was a second marriage. Nita is dead; less than a year later, my mother passed away. The two most tangible female presences in his life that gave him direction, guidance, protection. Loneliness was oppressive. His opera (Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District) - approx. "Tapes.ru") was slaughtered a second time. He knew he was incapable of easy relationships with women; he needed his wife by his side. And therefore, heading the jury of the competition for the title of the best combined choir at the World Festival of Youth and Students, he noticed Margarita. Some found in her a resemblance to Nina Vasilievna; he didn't see it. She worked in the Central Committee of the Komsomol, and, in all likelihood, they planted it with intent, although this does not justify him. She was not fond of music and had almost no interest. Tried to please, but to no avail. His friends, who did not immediately like her, condemned this marriage, registered, it must be admitted, suddenly and secretly. Galya and Maxim (daughter and son of the composer - approx. "Tapes.ru") accepted her with hostility (and could one expect otherwise if she so quickly took the place of their mother?); She never managed to get in touch with them. Once, when she began to complain about them, he suggested with an impenetrable expression:

Let's kill the children and live happily ever after.

Margarita did not understand this remark, and apparently did not even catch the humor.

They separated and then divorced. He was the one to blame for this. It was he who created unbearable conditions for Margarita. From loneliness climbed on the wall. The case is well known.

He not only arranged volleyball tournaments, but also refereeed tennis matches. Once he rested in a government sanatorium in the Crimea and acted as a tennis referee there. Army General Serov, who then held the post of chairman of the KGB, went to the court every day. If the general disputed the judicial exclamations “out” or “line”, he, reveling in his temporary power, invariably upset the chief Chekist with the phrase: “You don’t argue with the judge!” These were extremely rare conversations with the Power, which gave him real pleasure.

Was he then naive? Of course, yes. But he was so accustomed to threats, blackmail and malice that he lost his vigilance regarding praises and toasts, but in vain. There were a lot of gullible people like him. When Nikita exposed the cult of personality, when Stalin's excesses were officially recognized, and some victims were posthumously rehabilitated, when prisoners began to return from the camps, when One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was printed, was it conceivable to condemn those who had hope? And even though the overthrow of Stalin meant the rebirth of Lenin, even though changes in the political course were often aimed simply at confusing opponents, even though Solzhenitsyn’s story, as far as one can judge, varnished reality, and the truth was ten times worse - so be it, but men and women stop hoping, stop believing that the new rulers will be better than the old ones?

And at that time, of course, tenacious hands reached out to him. You see, Dmitry Dmitrievich, how much life has changed, you have been surrounded with honor, you are a national treasure, we let you go abroad as an envoy of the Soviet Union to receive awards and academic degrees: do you see how they value you? We believe that you are satisfied with both the cottage and the personal driver; Would you like something else, Dmitry Dmitrievich, have another glass of wine, we can clink glasses as much as you like, the car will wait. Life has become immeasurably better under the First Secretary, don't you agree? And by any measure, he had to answer in the affirmative. Life really changed for the better, just as the life of a prisoner would change if a cellmate were thrown into the punishment cell, they were allowed to pull themselves up on the grate to take a sip of autumn air, and they assigned another guard who does not spit in the gruel - at least in front of convicts. Yes, in this sense, life has changed for the better. That's why, Dmitri Dmitrievich, the Party wants to press you to its chest. We all remember how you got it during the years of the cult of personality, but the Party is no stranger to constructive self-criticism. We live in a happy time. All that is required of you is to admit that the Party is no longer what it used to be. This is not an excessive demand, is it, Dmitry Dmitrievich?

Dmitry Dmitrievich. Many years ago he was supposed to become Yaroslav Dmitrievich. But the father and mother gave in to the stubborn priest. On the one hand, we can say that in their home they, as expected, showed courtesy and due piety. But on the other hand, it can be said differently: that he was born - or rather, was baptized - under the star of cowardice.

For his Third and Last Conversation with the Power, Pyotr Nikolaevich Pospelov was chosen. Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, chief party ideologist of the forties, former editor of the Pravda newspaper, author of a certain book of the same type as the works recommended at one time by Comrade Troshin. Appearance is not odious, of his six orders of Lenin, only one flaunts on his chest. Before becoming an ardent supporter of Khrushchev, he was an ardent supporter of Stalin. He could briefly explain how Stalin's victory over Trotsky helped preserve the purity of Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet Union. Today, Stalin is not in honor, but Lenin is again in honor. A couple of new turns of the steering wheel - and Nikita Kukuruznik will also lose confidence; a little more - and, probably, Stalin and Stalinism will be resurrected. And such Pospelovs, as well as the Khrennikovs, will smell any shift, while it still does not smell, they will crouch with their ears to the ground, look for a convenient moment and lick their fingers in order to understand where the wind is blowing from.

Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich (right) with his grandson Dmitry and son Maxim

You are the largest living domestic composer. This is recognized by everyone. Your hard times are over. That's why it's so important.

I do not understand.

Dmitry Dmitrievich, we know that certain consequences of the cult of personality have not escaped you. Although, I must say, your position was stronger than many.

I assure you, I didn't feel it.

That is why it is very important for you to head the Union of Composers. To demonstrate the end of the cult of personality. I'll tell you straight, Dmitry Dmitrievich: in order for the changes that have taken place under the leadership of the First Secretary to become irreversible, they should be supported by public statements and appointments like yours.

I am always ready to sign any letter.

You understand very well that this is not the point.

He said - and doubted that this allusion would reach Pospelov; and in fact, he just chuckled incredulously.

I'm sure we can overcome your natural modesty, Dmitry Dmitrievich. But this is a separate conversation.

Translation from English by Elena Petrova

Pavel Basinsky and Mikhail Wiesel read a novel by one of the greatest contemporary British writers, a novel about a major Russian composer, and thought about different things

Photo: a fragment of the cover of the book by Julian Barnes "The Noise of Time"

Julian Barnes. "Noise of Time"

Translation from English by E. Petrova - M., Foreigner, 2016.

Pavel Basinsky

Sunday marks 110 years since the birth of Dmitri Shostakovich. This issue of RG publishes an interview with Igor Virabov with a US-based musicologist and cultural historian Solomon Volkov, author of the books "Evidence" and "Shostakovich and Stalin". The first was published in English in 1979 ("Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, recorded and edited by Solomon Volkov") and caused the effect of a bombshell.

It featured the “other” Shostakovich, who had a negative attitude towards the authorities, speaking sharply about his colleagues in the workshop of Soviet composers.

There was a lot of discussion about the book, but one way or another, it set a different tone for the conversation about Shostakovich as a person.
Interest in the personality of Shostakovich is incredibly great in the English-speaking world. It is to the personality, and not just to music. Feature films have been made about Shostakovich (The Proof with Ben Kingsley, 1988), plays have been staged (Master Class by David Paunal, 1983), and voluminous works have been published (Elizabeth Wilson Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, 1994, reissued in 2006). And finally, novels are written (William Wollman Europe Central, 2005).

Literature about Shostakovich in England exists in all conceivable genres, and this list is replenished. This year a new novel about Shostakovich was published in England. Its author is, without any exaggeration, already a living classic of English prose. Julian Barnes. He is called "the apostle of postmodernism". His novels "History of the World in 101/2 Chapters", "England, England", "Flaubert's Parrot", "Premonition of the End" and others are being translated into the languages ​​of all countries where literature is only interested. In Russia, Barnes has been translated entirely, and his new book, The Noise of Time, was no exception, published by the Inostranka publishing house a few months after the English edition. It has already received rave reviews. Kirill Kobrin, "Barnes Levels". It occupies one of the first places in the book sales ratings.

They talk about it, they argue about it, which happens infrequently today even with Russian bestsellers. And it's wonderful! This speaks of the cultural level of our reader, who is sensitive to the latest novelties of world literature.

If not for one "but" ...

Solomon Volkov himself, in an interview with RG, asks the question: why did Barnes write a novel about Shostakovich, and not, for example, Andrei Bitov? Bitov wrote a wonderful essay about Shostakovich in the 1990s, but why didn't he write a novel about him? After all, Bitov can be called our "apostle of postmodernism." From his "Pushkin House" came Russian literary postmodern in many respects. And postmodern just involves a game of genres, a violation of the usual genre boundaries. Barnes turned 70 this year. The writer, as they say, is very respectable. But this does not prevent him from overlaying books, as a student, consulting with leading biographers of Shostakovich, imbued with the spirit and atmosphere of a country that he had never been to ...

Personally, The Noise of Time did not strike me as Barnes's most outstanding work. But I take my hat off to a writer so in love with Russian culture. And compositionally, the novel is built perfectly - as a three-part piece of music and at the same time as a polemical antithesis to the title of the scandalous article in the Pravda newspaper of 1936 "Muddle instead of music", in which Shostakovich's opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" was crushed. Barnes believes that music, and creativity in general, is what remains above the confusion or "noise" of time. The music stemming from the “noise of time” (by the way, Barnes directly borrows this name from Osip Mandelstam) is both connected with him and independent of him.

The question why this novel was not written by Andrey Bitov is, of course, rhetorical. Didn't write or write. No one can dictate the artist's ideas. But

why didn't any of the Russian writers write such a novel?

Why didn’t he write it ... choose any name from, and others. Was there no internal "order"? Why did Barnes have it?

Curiously, back in 1972, another “apostle of Russian postmodernity” announced that he had written the novel “Dmitry Shostakovich,” but the manuscript was stolen on the train along with a string bag containing two bottles of chatter. Since the train was the central setting for the story "Moscow-Petushki", this hoax was a great success. And still

Venedikt Erofeev remains the sole author of the Russian novel about Shostakovich.

As if existing ... As if a novel ...

This is the Russian postmodern. Compare it with English and find two differences.

First difference. The English postmodernist treats the cultural material with which he works carefully and seriously. And to the hero of the novel - reverently and sincerely. For him, this is not a "sign" and not a "concept". Just do not think that I condemn Erofeev. It's just that his favorite character was Venechka, not Shostakovich. And in Barnes' novel, the strongest thing is precisely the quivering love for Shostakovich. And for this, my Russian ear forgives him both “endless snowy plains”, and “Russia is the birthplace of elephants”, and other truisms, which, of course, would not have been in the conventional Bitov’s novel.

The second difference. The English postmodernist takes seriously not only himself, but also the genre. Julian Barnes does not get tired of looking for himself in new transformations of genres - in this case, in the non/fiction genre. The Russian writer loves himself more than anyone, and uses genres only for self-expression. And to express yourself against the backdrop of Shostakovich is somehow difficult, you see.

The Guardian wrote of Barnes' new novel: "A great novel in the literal sense of the word". The English do not skimp on self-praise. Take yourself seriously...

***

Michael Wiesel:

In 2016, one of the greatest composers of the 20th century was celebrated, reflecting in his music all his complexities and contradictions.

No wonder that Julian Barnes, one of the largest centuries, which also reflected in its novels all the contradictions of the turn of the modernist and postmodern eras, undertook to write a novel about him. Especially when you consider that Barnes, whose adolescence fell on, studied Russian in college, and becoming a professional writer, read avidly - which is clearly seen in this "Russian novel" of his.

It is full of Russian proverbs, carefully returned by the translator back to their native soil, and unexpectedly subtle and precise details. For example, passengers of a soft car (that is, privileged passengers) went out to smoke on the platform; they are very interested in when they will go further - but

they will never ask the station attendant about this, fearing that they will be mistaken for spies.

What is surprising is the form the British author gave to his novel about the Russian composer. This is not so much a classic novel with dialogues and storylines as a three-movement symphony. The first part is called "In the Elevator", the second - "In the Airplane", the third - "In the Car". And one theme runs through all three parts: the dialogue of the creator with the authorities. Or, in Russian - "poet and tsar."
This topic is covered in three parts in different ways. Here the hero sits at night in the stairwell with a suitcase, expecting that they will “come” for him now, as they did for his patron (and not wanting this to happen in front of his wife and one-year-old daughter). Here, after the war, he flies in an airplane to the United States to read other people's speeches written for him from a piece of paper. But already in Khrushchev's times he rides in a personal "Volga" with a driver. But this dialogue always “sounds” the same way: the authorities are rude and aching (moreover, each time more subtle and more sophisticated), the composer evades. And also more inventive.

It is no coincidence that Barnes cites several times Shostakovich's favorite answer in disputes with conductors who insist too much on their own interpretations of his compositions.

"What I read about Shostakovich convinces me: he no longer wanted to deal with such an inconvenient thing as life, not to mention such terrible things as politics and power."

“Not just a novel about music, but a musical novel. The story is told in three parts, merging like a triad” (The Times).

Abstract: "For the first time in Russian - the latest work of the illustrious Julian Barnes, winner of the Booker Prize, one of the brightest and most original prose writers of modern Britain, the author of such international bestsellers as "England, England", "Flaubert's Parrot", "Love and so on" , "A Premonition of the End" and many others. This time, "by far the most elegant stylist and the most unpredictable master of all conceivable literary forms" refers to the life of Dmitry Shostakovich, and in the anniversary year: in September 2016, the whole world will celebrate 110 years from the day the birth of the great Russian composer. However, writing a fictionalized biography excites Barnes the least, and he aims much higher: having as an artist a license for any fantasies, in love with Russian literature and excellent command of the context, he builds his structure.

Such a large-scale figure as the great Russian composer Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich is difficult to fit into the volume of a small novel. Therefore, the music itself, as a source of greatness, remains outside the scope of the plot, mentioned only by dates and numbered markings. The narrative focuses on the key moments of the biography related to the confrontation between the creator and the authorities: the painful expectation of arrest after murderous criticism in the pages of the party press, the humiliating participation in the propaganda visit of Soviet cultural figures to the United States, forced membership in the Communist Party and leadership of the hateful Union of Composers...

Those were days of moral ups and downs, betrayals and forced compromises, but it is hardly worth blaming the brilliant protagonist for sacrificing dignity in favor of well-being, by the way, of his own and those close to him. Not everyone can be a hero, and the question of what is more important, creativity or honor, remains open to this day. Surviving in cloudy times, bending before the noble ignoramuses, Shostakovich miraculously managed to avoid unforgivable abominations. The noise of time is a metaphor for the unrighteous, empty fuss that is commonly called "life". Only art, only high music can overcome it. In his declining years, Shostakovich was favored by the authorities and critics, he received all conceivable awards, but humanity was also fully rewarded by his music.

Arguments against. The book of the famous English novelist Julian Barnes does not claim to be included in the Life of Remarkable People series. Due to its compactness, it is more like a synopsis of a big failed novel. Attempts to reflect the thoughts of the brilliant musician in the days of his trials look shallow and even naive, and the personal assessments of individual contemporaries and colleagues of Shostakovich are also doubtful. Do not trust the enthusiasm of critics who called Barnes' novel "one of the best": in his track record, this work looks superficial and optional.

Arguments for. One of the greatest writers of our time, the Booker Prize winner turns to the life of our compatriot ─ this is interesting in itself. Julian Barnes promises a combination of brevity, complexity, talent and tragedy: "What I read about Shostakovich convinces me that towards the end of his life he could not wait for death, and this expectation was reflected in his music. He no longer wanted to deal with such an uncomfortable thing as life, not to mention such terrible things as politics and power. And music allowed you to escape from social circumstances. " Although the novel was created in English, Barnes tried to convey the peculiarities of Russian speech, tracing our idioms and characteristic phrases. One of the foreign critics even compared The Noise of Time with Lermontov's prose.