— Alexey, it is difficult to imagine a more favorable time for the publication of a book in which mystical creatures once a year change a bad memory in people’s minds for a good one and fight “debris”. It seems that we all need superpowers like this. Can you tell us how the novel was created and how the idea to unite ordinary people and creatures from the other world was born?
– The story unfolded by itself, so it didn’t need to be specially packaged. All the heroes appeared with all their girlfriends. It was clear what they were doing, who was kidding stupidly, who was not kidding, who was more focused on her life (Praskovya) and who was less, namely Nadia. There was this idea: although he leads a rather unusual life, his problems are very close to everyone. This theme of oblivion, his being excluded, not recognizing himself in the mirror, not remembering anything. Very close to me too.
— And how do you create stories in general: do you see the image of a character in progress, or is it still some kind of topic and then already populated by heroes?
– Different. It will play some music, then something else. Everything is gradually filled in somehow, you constantly think about it for months. Then you start writing, you keep thinking, you draw a kind of diagram of what should happen. Some elements are gradually thrown out as they slow down the narrative process. This is a very complex, difficult to define, sometimes tedious, but quite interesting process.
– Series screenwriters, characters, biographies, etc. they create what is called the “bill of the show,” which is a separate text from the screenplay, in which it is entirely written. Do you do anything similar as a writer?
No, it usually happens in my head. I don’t have many heroes to think that way about them. They usually appear with already finished works, with their way of life. Their image is already linked to their earnings level and what they do (where they work, how they get along is important to me). Everything always comes from nowhere. I don’t write the “Bible of Characters”.
The idea turned out that Nadia would joke with silly jokes, and Praskovya would be a little harsh, too quick-tempered, fiercely wanting to solve some problems, but, as a rule, it did not succeed. She is a very traditional woman. It seemed to me that such women are already leaving. Although she looks young, she is still the woman of the past, the penultimate generation, she. Because of his age, he is strictly heterosexual and intolerant of innovations.
– “Occult Treger” is an urban fantasy with its own interesting mythology. Considering the recent period of Ivan Filippov’s The Shadow and even earlier periods of Pelevin’s novels, the urban fantasy genre now seems to have found a rebirth. You do not think so?
— This genre naturally arose and evolved from a fairy tale. Currently, the city plays the role of an impenetrable forest. What is the development of a fairy tale? The impassable forest also becomes the residence of all the places where the hero lives his adventures. It is the evolution of history, its telling.
– Your quote: “We have people who come from depression, if it gets deeper and wider they start to get some kind of pleasure. The darker, the brighter.” It feels like a Buddhist perspective on things: accepting the unchangeable. Are your characters rebelling against imperfect reality or do they underestimate it?
Some things they cannot accept. There are always things that remain within us that cannot be completely betrayed, or you cease to be yourself. It’s just that each person has different limits on what they are prepared to endure.
– And you yourself are more interested in stories about rebels or “little people” who refuse to recreate the current reality?
I find the different characters interesting. I realized that politics is separate, life is separate. Because politics is a kind of force that throws up the rules of the game in which you have to survive.
– “Afisha” named “Occulttraeger” “your most read novel” in its review. Do you agree with this? How much of the story did your fans understand?
“When I started reading the novel to my wife, I realized how funny it was. There’s really a lot going on. Compared to this novel, basically nothing happens in the other three. There is more variety here.
Yes, I agree, this is a reader’s novel, I liked it too. Usually, when a book is in the editing stage, you start to get bored with the story. And here all the time, when you come back to these events, they are very pleasant, funny and arouse sympathy.
— You’re called a modern classic. As a writer, is it important to you that you have time to “hot-follow” the truth, or rather, is it better to reflect on what happened after a while?
— All writers capture real reality in the here and now: from science fiction writers to detective writers. Even though the detective doesn’t match reality and legally incredible events happen there, it’s still a dream of how it should be, this is the answer for today. Literature is always the present moment. There is no literature independent of the period in which it was written. Otherwise, they simply do not read.
– Following the popularity of your other great novel, In Grip and Around the Petrovs, a debate has grown about what kind of world your stories are: hell or heaven? Galina Yuzefovich sums up in her Occulttraeger review that the world of your stories is undoubtedly a paradise. What do you think?
Everything is very different, but basically I’m trying to show that life is actually a magic thing. In everyday life, sometimes everything falls into some kind of routine, so I want to show some kind of magic and miracle of life.
– By the way, would you like “Occulttrager” to be shot about “Petrovs” who achieved such a successful screen life?
— Yes, it can be pulled, I hope so. The story turned out to be quite interesting.
– It is believed that modern Western authors immediately released a book with a backlog so that they could later sell the rights to the film adaptation in Hollywood. Do you consider this when creating your books?
“At first, I didn’t think about it. When I see a story that’s already done, I think it will look good on screen.
– I understand that the stage with the “Petrovs” took a long time, but tell us how your cooperation with Kirill Serebrennikov developed and how easy it was for you as a writer to put your “brain” in the wrong hands?
– gladly gavesmiling). I was wondering what to make of this. We didn’t work closely because his main task was to make a movie with his idea. What he conveyed in the movie seemed to me full of sympathy and complicity with the novel. It showed some lyrical moments particularly sharply, even better than the book itself. Shooting in first person is both funny and touching. I watched it a few times with pleasure, I still listen to music from there sometimes.
Which authors do you read and reread yourself? What has had the strongest impact on you lately?
– Sometimes I reread Zoshchenko. For the last six months, I have been proud of the discovery of Fazil Iskender. He impressed me with his great texts and childhood memories. “Sandro from Chegem” is his wonderful novel. For me, history and style always go together.
– Speaking of the reader’s reaction to your previous novel, you admitted that “indirectly”, “I realized that you were in complete peace and quiet, I was doing everything that I experienced”. Is this the last emotion or does it disappear with the start of the creation of each subsequent book?
– This excitement arises, but when despair is overwhelmed when writing the next novel, you think, “You can already calm down, look around, see the great, I have succeeded” and keep writing more. This is a way to relax a bit and not overdo it.
— You’ve won several major literary awards. Literary critics themselves treat them ambiguously, they say, that there is not much left in them. Do you think that literary awards can still ignite new names, or are they now simply recording the phenomenon of this or that author?
“They bring into literature something that is not found in the daily life of writers – a kind of bloody passion. A writer’s life is often a daily routine. And this competitive moment brightens up gray everyday life. You can argue about the fairness and injustice of these awards, and such a discussion is always welcome when the names of the finalists are finally known.” It happens, but this is such a sport. If they are, then they are necessary. They have a sporting value: It doesn’t matter if you wrote badly, it’s okay, but if you have a chance to win, then it still stays with you and consoles you.
– You once said a phrase like “the funniest thing right now is real”. Now, when we’re not all in the mood for a joke, I’d like to end the conversation by reversing your answer: what is truth to you now?
It stays funny. If you start parsing any truth, it’s nonsense. For society it is a unified idea; for each person these are some individual things. That’s the highest justice for me, when anyone who’s screwed up for some business comes in. There is hope for that.