In the twenties and thirties, a man in Leningrad (I can’t remember his last name, but there was such a name) finished the novel, brought the printed version from the typewriter, traditionally and solemnly destroyed the drafts, put the novel on the shelf. window sill – suddenly a crazy Leningrad wind came: no novels, look for it on the roofs of houses, in the wells of courtyards, in the water of the canal.
Mikhail Bulgakov burns the first version of The Master and Margarita after their play was banned for censorship. Also in Leningrad, he began to rewrite it page by page, trying to restore the novel that had been destroyed three years ago. “I have been possessed by a demon,” he writes of this restoration work (actually, of course, this is a completely new work, in a different pull, with a different strength). It happens, it happens, it happens. Name options: “Devil”, “Black Theologian”, “Black Magician”, “Advisor’s Hoof”.
“And personally, with my own hands, I threw a draft of a novel about the devil on the stove.” But manuscripts, as you know, do not burn. (Still lit.)
Second option, second try, second volume.
…Volume two, volume two… We’ve heard it before somewhere. Oh yes, Gogol. Nervous people, nervous writers. But we will return to Gogol later. There were things more exaggerated than burning the second volume or the first version.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a poet and Pre-Raphaelite artist, after the loss of his wife Elizabeth Siddal, in anguish decided to put a notebook of unpublished poems in his coffin, and at the same time vowed not to write anything. Again.
But even then there is a curl in the chest,
Secret – the last gift of a loved one,
What ignites the heat hidden in the blood,
And life flows faster and between
Days flying through the night have not changed
The curl shines with imperishable beauty.
But seven years have passed and now he still wants to print these poems. He asks her to open the tomb.
We can only imagine how indestructible the curl is there. Manuscripts not only do not burn, manuscripts are also more important than dust, which is better not to disturb.
All the writers are crazy
As one of my acquaintances said: “Genius is usually getting rid of culture. Exemption from physical education due to participation in the Olympics.
I don’t know what kind of genius Dante Gabriel Rossetti is in the texts (I can’t appreciate the original), but we all remember his portrait painting “Blessed Beatrice” even though we’ve never heard of his name: romantic girls love to hang this portrait in their profile picture. He won his Olympics.
But here is our Gogol. He is also an Olympian. He comes to a Roman tavern and wants most of everything at once: macaroni, cheese, oil, vinegar, mustard, and ravioli.
The waiter boys start running from the kitchen to the table, wearing everything ordered. Gogol happily accepts what he has brought – and now he has piles of greens of all kinds, bottles of oil before him, and now they have brought pasta, the lid of the bowl is opened – and from there steam . Gogol puts butter, pours cheese, performs rituals.
The night Gogol burned his second volume in Moscow, he appears to be on duty, too. He calls for a maid (I read somewhere that it was a male maid, if it was then a poor boy: he should have followed this holy madness). He orders her to open the chimney in the office and bring a briefcase from the closet. When the briefcase is brought, he takes out the manuscript and puts it in the oven. He stands with a candle, then burns the written pages with it.
The flame does not take the manuscript and goes out after licking the corners. Then he pulls out a bunch of notebooks from the folder, untie the ribbon, and lays out the pages so it’s easier to set fire to it.
How similar it is to the scene of bringing food: heaps of bright words, vignettes of meaning, text oil, and here’s a little hard pasta dough of the characters, now they will burn, already not far from the “steam” bowl.
And now the flames are eating everything. And then Gogol too would fall ill and would not be able to get up again. The burned text will eat it too.
Because you can’t forget the book you buried at the bottom of the coffin or burned in the oven.
… someone told me recently. The Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, the founder of pathopsychology, realized that what is forgotten has full form. In a cafe, Zeigarnik caught the attention of students that if you ask the waiter what the customer ordered until the customer pays, the waiter will list the entire order correctly. However, as soon as the question is removed and the payment is completed, the old visitor’s order is instantly forgotten.
You should be able to make a point. To add. Come to an end. End a relationship or a book.
Unfinished work, perhaps far from the best of the author, but difficult, painful, so they stay with the author forever, until his death. Because you didn’t pay them and they paid you back.
The unfinished novel does not leave Bulgakov, the poems buried in the tomb of his beloved haunting Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the burnt second volume of Dead Souls do not leave Gogol even after he is dead, and Gogol continues to wander through the pages and walk. our literature is like a crazy waiter and nothing will forget this “order”.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.