I was thinking of compiling a list of books/writers to read under the rubric of How to keep sane in 2015 (something which I think will be increasingly difficult as the year progresses- at least thats how I see it from the Moscow region where I am now living). The first name which came into my head was Danilo Kiš- to my mind one of the sanest writers that Europe possessed in the 20th century. I remember a Croatian friend once telling me (if I remember correctly) how she rescued the collective works of Kis from destruction in a Zagreb library because they were printed in cyrillic (ie Serbian) rather than in the latin alphabet (ie Croatian) and so for the nationalist-minded librarian suspicious literature which needed to be got rid of. I cant find the full text of Kiss On nationalism on the net but it is one of those texts like Stanislav Markelovs Patriotism as Diagnosis which should be read again and again in this part of the world (but also elsewhere). Almost everything written by Kis is of immense value- I think his unfinished piece Debt is just as memorable as many of his perfected works. From Kis to a re-reading of Karlo Stajners Seven Thousand Days in Siberia. Stajners account should have been the first major account of an experience of the Gulag but it remained unpublished for 14 years. Kis wrote the introduction to the book: nytimes/1988/07/10/books/siberia-taught-him-a-few-things-an-enemy-of-the-people-returns.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1 The world discovered Solzhenitsyn (who revealed himself too much of an ideologically-driven character himself) instead of Stajner or Varlam Shalamov Varlamov whose works should be on such a reading list. A contemporary writer in Russian who helps to keep us sane is Mykahil Ryklin. One of the most powerful books I read in 2014 was his The Quay of Dionysus in which he wrote about the story of his wifes (Anna Alchuk) suicide after a long campaign of hatred and denigration by religious fanatics due to her part in the Beware Religion exhibition. The persecution of those curating and organising the exhibition marked the start of a massive onslaught on culture in Russia lasting over decade in which conservative religious nationalism has done its very utmost to destroy everything that was original and valuable in Russian culture. Ryklins account brings us back to grasping the present nightmare from which we are still trying to escape. Id probably add a whole list of other writers- Juan Rodolfo Wilcock because of his ability to reach the heart of contemporary grostesquerie has certainly helped to keep me sane in previous years. Wilcock came to mind after having been subjected to Putins New Year address on Russian television last night. If youre at home in Russia and dont know when the New Year starts it is directly after the Presidents address at five to midnight (at least the Queens Speech in the UK is at 3pm so theres no need to listen to her trite nonsense to tell the time). Only Wilcock could have described Putins essence in one of his great portraits of monstrous beings- he seemed to me like some kind of resentful, menacing slug. It was truly difficult to raise a glass to 2015 after listening to his speech and watching his rather slimy and reptilian body movements to take ones attention away from the words - whose banality truly emptied out all life energy one had preserved until that moment. In any case only Wilcock has come up with the kind of bestiary that really describes the kind of contemporary rulers that force themselves into our present-day lives. Well the list is not long at the moment: Kis, Markelov, Stajner, Shalamov, Ryklin, Alchuk, Wilcock (maybe Id add Maxim Kantor whose voice on the present situation between Ukraine and Russia is most worth listening to). If I were in Italy I would be writing a different list perhaps- and the same goes for the UK. Plus there are other thinkers- Evald Ilyenkov, for example, who found a way to rescue Marxist philosophy from a system that paid only lip service to it and at the same time managed to elevate Marxism by linking it with the figures of both Hegel and Spinoza (without turning his back on either these great thinkers). Then there are poets to keep us sane- Cesar Vallejo to my mind is one of the most important- for me the voice of Vallejo makes us saner than does that of fellow Latin American poet Pablo Neruda. Needless the say the list of writings keeping us sane doesnt end here. New names pop up in my head and then disappear. Nikolai Erdmans humour is still relevant as is Daniil Kharms and so on. Pier Paolo Pasolinis pessimism and sentiments and his desire to describe what contemporary fascism really looks like is indispensable.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 11:03:45 +0000