Dovlatov Sergei Donatovich

Main article: Culture of Russia

Sergey Dovlatov in New York, 1980s

List of favorite books of youth

In one of the letters to Tamara Urzhumova, actress of the Leningrad Youth Theater, written on July 1, 1963, Sergei Donatovich (he at that time served in the protection of camps near Leningrad) gives "a list of 30-40 books that, in my opinion, should be read."

"Most of them are obviously familiar to you, but it's not scary," Dovlatov writes to the girl. "You'll even know what books I like." Its compiler at that time was only 21 years old.

Let's start with compatriots. 1. If you have not read, be sure to take Herzen, "Past and Duma." You will be surprised how much Herzen was "his own," earthly and clear man, how smart and noble he was. Fiction does not need to be read. Very disappointing.

2. Read Dostoevsky's Demons. The best prose writer of all time and peoples. Still read the excellent story of his Alien Wife and Husband Under the Bed. Very similar to Dostoevsky.

3. "Sevastopol Stories" and "Cossacks" by L. Tolstoy.

4. Reread Kuprin every year. Bunin and Andreev after him can no longer be read, although they are both masters.

Soviet prose does not exist at all. But there are separate great books. They should be read.

1. All Alexey Tolstoy. Especially early stories. They seem to be called the "Volga cycle."

2. Evgeny Zamyatin. It's very hard to get hold of. He was shot in 37. The writer is crafty, superficial, very bright. If you get your hands on it, read, but carefully and carefully. The whole Zamyatin is made on the waste from Dostoevsky.

3. Elena Guro. Mac's favorite writer. Hard to get hold of, too. A rather tedious aunt.

4. Essays by Larisa Reisner. There has recently been a reissue. Fat Red Book. You'll love it. Wonderful essays about the Decembrists. For example, about Kakhovsky. Reisner, by the way, was Trotsky's lover.

5. Read Olesha's Envy. I don't like this book, but everyone else likes it.

6. Lev Slavin "Heir."

7. Boris Pilnyak. Everything you get. Most likely, you won't get anything. Also shot. (!)

8. Read Tendryakov's "Behind the Running Day." Grubin's favorite writer. This book is in any factory library.

9. Arkady Averchenko. The best Soviet comedian. It's almost impossible to get it. He emigrated in 18 (?).

10. M. Zoshchenko. One greatly undermined the Soviet government. Sometimes they will be vulgar, but very funny.

11. Victor Konetsky. Quite a young Leningrader. There are in all libraries (?).

12. Yury Kazakov. Also of the young. His stories are graceful, slightly cutesy and flirty. There are very good ones.

13. Find Alexander Green's story "The Port Commandant." (Tamara, I skip textbook books like "Quiet Don," for example.)

Now let's touch on dry English prose. England has no artists, no composers, no poets, but there is great prose. Simple, verbose, I would say, business prose. Here, for example, is a typically English phrase. From Chesterton. Of course, I bring it to my memory inaccurately:

"The cut of Mr. Monk's grey suit carried in it the healthy and sprightly spirit of English social compromise, all the English bad weather with its rains and fogs, though at that point Mr. Monk paced the sunlit hills of California."

So. 1. Chesterton.

2. P. Aldington. Stories and "Death of a Hero."

3. John Wayne. "Hurry Down."

4. Read the stories of Herbert Wells. For example, "Magic Shop."

The literature of France is beautiful, like France itself. French prose is sometimes pretentious, slightly feminine. But the French were excellent stylists.

1. Reread "Dear Friend."

2. Jules Renard. "Redhead." Wonderful book. Renard was called the "pocket Maupassant."

3. Paul Guimard. Modern Frenchman. Yachtsman and boxer. He wrote "Le Havre Street."

4. Exupers. I don't like him, but everyone likes him.

5. Jacques Cocteau. Great plays. "Bull on the roof," etc.

6. Marcel Proust. It will seem difficult to you. Also waste from Dostoevsky.

7. Reread Balzac. Unconditionally beloved writer. Genius, simply put. Read Shagreen Skin.

I miss the Germans at all, except for one who does not look like a German. Germans are all philosophers and thick-blooded burghers.

I somehow had to read Mann. I almost approached with longing and hatred.

Zweig was a good German. Rather, even a Frenchman, not a German. And then there's the fine West German contemporary writer Heinrich Böll.... "And did not say a single word," "House without a master." There is also "Billiards in the half of the tenth." But in this book, Böll is a bore and a Catholic. All in dogma and sermons. It is not worth reading.

Further Americans. There is no literary tradition in America. And there are almost no everyday traditions. The British, for example, turned all bad habits into traditions. And they call England a country of tradition. But the predecessors of the great American Hemingway can be considered anyone, from Aeschylus to Stendhal, from the Bible to the Japanese three-verses. The Americans not only created a cult of gangsterism and female infernality in literature, they came up with not only a "golden boy," a kind of violinist and boxer at the same time, a kind of smash and at the same time aesthete. They talked about what is truly courage, truly honesty, what is simplicity, taught to believe in good luck, in a happy occasion, to believe in the road and in oneself.

Two years ago, Hemingway, a writer I believed, died. His code was Fair Play. There should always be fair play in everything. The man must be simple and strong. He did not like cold-blooded and judicious women. Everything must be as nature commanded. Children must be childish, dogs obedient, etc. He loved light and warm clothes, smart and clean animals, gray-eyed weak women, and he himself was a broad-shouldered man with a round cat chin. I will write you a special letter about him. He was a true writer. Reread everything they have written. Especially "Fiesta," "Death in the afternoon," "White Elephants," "Killers," "In Our Time," "Where it is clean, light."

2. There was also Stephen Crane. Read "The Blue Hotel." Hemingway's favorite story.

3. Read Steinbeck. "Pearl" and "Winter of Our Anxiety."

4. Faulkner. There is such a collection "Seven Stories." So read it.

5. There is also Saroyan. William Saroyan, American Armenian. Very nice, but the texture is not the same. Read "Human Comedy."

6. John Dos-Passos "Manhattan." A very worthwhile book.

You see, Tamara, it turned out an idiotic catalog letter. It's just that you probably understood (according to the latest rules, "probably" you don't have to single out with commas) that this is my favorite thing. He once loved boxing very much, but injured his leg and threw it. If I don't follow myself, I start to limp. Do you like lame ones?