Analysis of Aksenov's story "Victory" (Essay on a free topic). Vasily Aksyonov's story "Victory": an attempt to analyze the semantic organization Literary analysis of the story Aksenov's victory

In the story "Victory" Aksyonov, undoubtedly, speaks not only about how two characters, two temperaments collide, but about the struggle of intellect and strength, about the doomed struggle. This completely ordinary game becomes a denunciation of the laws of reality, quite symbolically reflecting the patterns of real life. The game becomes life, and life becomes a game.

The problematic concerns questions about the clash of characters, about life principles, about dignity and honor, but most importantly - about the struggle between reason and strength. Much in Aksenov's story is not accidental, and the laws of reality receive a detailed assessment in the images of two heroes who collided in a chess duel: the grandmaster and G.O. An outside observer, a narrator, draws their character in some detail, focusing on specific details and patterns, such as, for example, the brand name on a chess player's tie, or the constantly flickering fists of a "random companion".

It is then that the reader understands how different the characters are, how the humanistic life principles of "mind" contradict the meager "forces". Here the issue of honor and dignity is raised. In this game, only one could win with dignity - and he wins - while the second, following an initially wrong goal, was doomed, if at all, to win, then exclusively dirty and dishonorable. However, the question is this: why is a quiet and hidden victory an indicator of dignity? Probably, because it does not rise and does not cloud the mind, but is accepted as "the charm of the minute." This range of problems leads to one important and common one: the clash of mental strength and physical strength. The Grandmaster, as the personification of reason, enters into a hidden conflict with G.O., the personification of power. When the first one wins, it would seem that the story should come to its logical conclusion, but the laws of life dictate their own rules, destroying the mind, which hides its victory so freely and easily. And she goes to unbridled power, to that which leads to chaos and destruction. This is what happens in reality, too, when for some reason force destroys reason more often than reason destroys force.

If we refer exclusively to the plot as a change of actions, we can say that Aksenov depicts a chess tournament between antagonistic people: a grandmaster and G.O., who meet in a train compartment. The game is dynamic, on the one hand justifiably restrained, on the other - impulsive. Both win: the inconsistency of the situation lies only in the fact that one truly wins, and the other, being already a loser.

The grandmaster undoubtedly stands before G.O., and the beginning of the story speaks of this, when Aksenov notices that "the grandmaster played chess with a random companion." The reader is offered a detailed description of the hero, but even in comparison it is possible to reveal that the sonorous "grandmaster" is fraught with a lot, in contrast to the brief G.O. "The grandmaster was the epitome of neatness... the severity of dress and manners, characteristic of people who are insecure and vulnerable." This is the reason for the final defeat of "reason", which peacefully transfers victory into the brute fists of "power". He leads a fair fight, and his game is a reflection of a bright and rich life. He then plunges into memories of the family, then philosophical thoughts take possession of his consciousness, then bright feelings awaken beauty in the soul. He lives by playing fair and sensible, but backs down at a key moment when G.O. suddenly comes with his startled victory. Takes flight from unbridled power. Internal weakness, some uncertainty and secrecy, of course, become the main impetus for retreat. His character, as the personification of the properties of "reason", which, being a symbol of goodness and purity, does not have a strong inner core and firm confidence.

On the other hand, the “strength” that G.O. personifies has this confidence and strength. Aksenov also introduces the reader to him in some detail, as far as possible with the poor inner world of the hero. Nothing but a "pink steep forehead" and massive fists in the appearance of the hero is not remarkable. "took two pawns, squeezed them into his fists and showed his fists to the grandmaster." The repetition used by the author allows you to emphasize

the reader's attention to the features of the image of G.O. His actions are "the accumulation of externally logical, but internally absurd forces.", behind which there is only one thing: the desire for an early victory. It blinds him, which proves the climax of the story when he does not even notice the quiet victory of his opponent. "He did not notice the checkmate to his king." Behind all this lies a rather nasty character. What is the dismissive "chess" thrown by him at the beginning of the game of life. It is also noteworthy that the inner world of G.O., it would seem, is completely empty, because apart from actions and strategic reflections, there is nothing sublime in it. "I'll finish him anyway, I'll break him anyway." And "strength" cannot be considered sublime if it is expressed in two strong fists with an absurd tattoo of the indefinite name "G.O."

The peculiarity of the composition lies in the depiction of two completely different worlds: mind and power, between which there is, as it were, constant throwing. Now the thoughts of the grandmaster come forward, then G.O. Yes, and victory itself glides from one to another, finding shelter where it was to the point of exhaustion, but senselessly desired. "Nothing so proved the meaninglessness and illusory nature of life." Also in the story "Victory" the unity of time, place, action is observed. This allows it to be considered logically complete, complete and complete. Indeed, Aksyonov carries out the idea of ​​the struggle between reason and strength from its very inception to the resolution of the hidden conflict, when two opposite phenomena converge on the chessboard. And the scene is pretty iconic. Train. His movement is commensurate with the movement of life, and he is most welcome "fast", which speaks of the swiftness of the passing life time.

Aksenov quite often uses repetitions, which often confirm the author's note "A story with exaggerations" and somewhat predetermine the end of the story. So, for example, G.O. "fired up with an unthinkable desire for an unthinkable victory," which immediately indicates which side the victory will actually be on. And then "the center immediately turned into a field of senseless and terrible actions," "nothing so definitely proved the meaninglessness and illusory nature of life." Undoubtedly, both the previously mentioned fists and the pink steep forehead of G.O. are repeated many times in the text. Artistic details are also important. These include not only G.O.'s prominent fists, symbolizing strength, but also, for example, the House of Dior logo on a simple tie, which, as it were, anticipates the concealment in the image of the Grandmaster, complementing his desire to hide not only his eyes, but also his lips. , and then the appearance of a secluded corner "behind the terrace, behind the dilapidated stone terrace" (repeat again). The color of chess is also important. If a decent and deep grandmaster, "reason", the color turns out to be white, as a symbol of the light of the soul, a pure heart, then for G.O., "strength", the figures turn out to be black, like evil and dirt.

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Vasily Aksenov
Victory
exaggerated story

In the compartment of a fast train, the grandmaster was playing chess with a random companion.

This man immediately recognized the grandmaster when he entered the compartment, and immediately burned with an unthinkable desire for an unthinkable victory over the grandmaster. “You never know,” he thought, casting sly, recognizing glances at the grandmaster, “you never know, you might think, some kind of frail.”

The grandmaster immediately realized that he was recognized, and resigned himself to anguish: at least two games cannot be avoided. He, too, immediately recognized the type of this man. From the windows of the Chess Club on Gogolevsky Boulevard, he sometimes saw the rosy, steep foreheads of such people.

When the train started moving, the grandmaster's companion stretched himself with naive cunning and indifferently asked:

- Shall we play chess, comrade?

“Yes, perhaps,” the grandmaster muttered.

The companion leaned out of the compartment, called the conductor, chess appeared, he grabbed it too hastily for his indifference, poured it out, took two pawns, clenched them in his fists and showed his fists to the grandmaster. On the bulge between the thumb and forefinger of the left fist, the tattoo indicated: "G.O."

“Left,” said the grandmaster, and winced a little, imagining the blows of these fists, left or right. He got the whites.

“You have to kill time, don’t you?” On the road, chess is a nice thing, - G.O. said good-naturedly, arranging the pieces.

They quickly played the northern gambit, then everything got confused. The grandmaster looked attentively at the board, making small, insignificant moves. Several times before his eyes the possible mating routes of the queen appeared like lightning, but he extinguished these flashes by slightly lowering his eyelids and obeying a faintly buzzing inside, tedious, compassionate note, similar to the buzzing of a mosquito.

“Khas-Bulat is daring, your saklya is poor ...” - G.O. pulled on the same note.

The grandmaster was the embodiment of neatness, the embodiment of the strictness of dress and manners, so characteristic of people who are unsure of themselves and easily hurt. He was young, dressed in a gray suit, a light-colored shirt, and a simple tie. No one but the grandmaster himself knew that his simple ties were marked with the House of Dior trademark. This little secret always somehow warmed and consoled the young and silent grandmaster. Glasses also quite often helped him out, hiding from strangers the uncertainty and timidity of his gaze. He complained about his lips, which tend to stretch into a pitiful smile or tremble. He would gladly close his lips from prying eyes, but this, unfortunately, has not yet been accepted in society.

Game G.O. amazed and upset the grandmaster. On the left flank, the figures crowded in such a way that a tangle of charlatan Kabbalistic signs formed. The entire left flank smelled of the latrine and bleach, the sour smell of the barracks, wet rags in the kitchen, and castor oil and diarrhea from early childhood.

“After all, you are such and such a grandmaster, aren’t you?” asked G.O.

“Yes,” the grandmaster confirmed.

Ha ha ha, what a coincidence! exclaimed G.O.

“What a coincidence? What coincidence is he talking about? This is something unthinkable! Could this happen? I refuse, accept my refusal,” the grandmaster thought quickly in panic, then guessed what was the matter and smiled.

– Yes, of course, of course.

“Here you are a grandmaster, and I’ll put a fork on your queen and rook,” said G.O. He raised his hand. The provocateur horse hung over the board.

“Fork in the ass,” thought the grandmaster. - That's a fork! Grandfather had his own fork, he did not allow anyone to use it. Own. Personal fork, spoon and knife, personal plates and sputum vial. I also remember the “lyre” fur coat, a heavy fur coat with “lyre” fur, it hung at the entrance, the grandfather almost did not go out into the street. Fork for grandparents. It's a pity to lose old people."

While the knight hung over the board, luminous lines and dots of possible pre-match raids and victims flashed before the grandmaster's eyes again. Alas, the croup of a horse with a lagging dirty-purple bike was so convincing that the grandmaster shrugged his shoulders.

- Are you giving away the rook? asked G.O.

- What can you do.

– Sacrificing a rook for an attack? Guessed? - asked G.O., still not daring to put the knight on the desired field.

“Just saving the queen,” the grandmaster muttered.

- You're not catching me? - asked G.O.

- No, you are a strong player.

G.O. made his cherished "fork". The grandmaster hid the queen in a secluded corner behind the terrace, behind a dilapidated stone terrace with carved rotten posts, where in autumn there was a sharp smell of rotting maple leaves. Here you can sit in a comfortable position, squatting. It is nice here; in any case, self-esteem does not suffer. Standing up for a second and looking out from behind the terrace, he saw that G.O. removed the rook.

The introduction of the black knight into the senseless crowd on the left flank, its occupation of the b4-square, in any case, was already suggestive. The grandmaster realized that in this variation, on this green spring evening, youthful myths alone would not be enough for him. All this is true, glorious fools roam the world - cabin boys Billy, cowboys Harry, beauties Mary and Nellie, and the brigantine raises sails, but there comes a moment when you feel the dangerous and real closeness of the black knight on the b4 field. There was a struggle ahead, complex, subtle, fascinating, prudent. There was life ahead.

The grandmaster won a pawn, took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. A few moments in complete solitude, when the lips and nose are hidden by a handkerchief, set him up in a banal philosophical way. “This is how you achieve something,” he thought, “but what next? All your life you strive for something; victory comes to you, but there is no joy from it. For example, the city of Hong Kong, distant and very mysterious, and I have already been there. I've been everywhere before."

The loss of a pawn did little to upset G.O., for he had just won a rook. He responded to the grandmaster with a queen move, which caused heartburn and a momentary headache.

The grandmaster realized that he still had some joys in store. For example, the joy of long, along the entire diagonal, moves of the bishop. If you drag an elephant a little along the board, then this will to some extent replace the swift gliding on a skiff along the sunny, slightly blooming water of a pond near Moscow, from light into shadow, from shadow into light. The grandmaster felt an irresistible, passionate desire to capture the h8 square, because it was a field of love, a tubercle of love, over which transparent dragonflies hung.

- Deftly, you won back the rook from me, but I slammed, - G.O. boomed in a bass voice, only betraying his irritation with the last word.

“Excuse me,” the grandmaster said quietly. - Maybe you can return the moves?

- No, no, - said G.O., - no concessions, I beg you very much.

"I'll give you a dagger, I'll give you a horse, I'll give you my rifle ..." - he dragged on, plunging into strategic reflections.

The stormy summer celebration of love on the h8 field did not please and at the same time worried the grandmaster. He felt that soon there would be an accumulation of outwardly logical, but inwardly absurd forces in the center. Again there will be a cacophony and the smell of bleach, as in those distant corridors of damned memory on the left flank.

- That's interesting: why are all chess players Jewish? asked G.O.

- Why is everyone? the grandmaster said. “For example, I’m not a Jew.

- Well, here you are, for example, - said the grandmaster, - after all, you are not a Jew.

- Where am I! - muttered G.O. and plunged back into his secret plans.

“If I like him like that, then he likes me like that,” thought G.O. - If I shoot here, he will shoot there, then I go here, he answers like this ... I'll finish him anyway, I'll break him anyway. Just think, grandmaster blattmeister, you still have a thin vein against me. I know your championships: you agree in advance. I’ll crush you anyway, even if there’s blood from my nose!”

“Yes, I have lost an exchange,” he said to the grandmaster, “but that's okay, it's not evening yet.

He launched an attack in the center, and of course, as expected, the center immediately turned into a field of senseless and terrible actions. It was no-love, no-meeting, no-hope, no-hello, no-life. Flu-like chills and again yellow snow, post-war discomfort, the whole body itches. The black queen in the center croaked like a crow in love, crow love, in addition, the neighbors scraped a pewter bowl with a knife. Nothing so definitely proved the meaninglessness and illusory nature of life as this position in the center. It's time to end the game.

“No,” thought the grandmaster, “there is something else besides this.” He put down a large reel of piano pieces by Bach, soothed his heart with pure and monotonous sounds, like the splashing of waves, then left the dacha and went to the sea. Pine trees rustled above him, and under his bare feet there was a sliding and springy coniferous crust.

Remembering the sea and imitating it, he began to understand the position, to harmonize it. My heart suddenly became clear and bright. It is logical, like Bach's coda, that Black came to checkmate. The matte situation glowed dimly and beautifully, completed like an egg. The Grandmaster looked at G.O. He was silent, puffed up, looking into the deepest rear of the grandmaster. He did not notice mat to his king. The grandmaster was silent, afraid to break the charm of this moment.

“Check,” G.O. said quietly and carefully, moving his horse. He could barely contain his inner roar.

…Grandmaster screamed and rushed to run. Following him, stomping and whistling, ran the owner of the dacha, the coachman Euripides and Nina Kuzminichna. Overtaking them, the dog Nochka, unleashed from the chain, overtook the grandmaster.

“Check,” G.O. said once more, rearranging his horse, and gulped air with agonizing lust.

...The grandmaster was led down the aisle among the hushed crowd. Going behind slightly touched his back with some hard object. A man in a black overcoat with SS zippers on his buttonholes was waiting ahead of him. Step - half a second, another step - a second, another step - one and a half, another step - two ... Steps up. Why up? Such things should be done in the pit. You have to be courageous. It is necessary? How long does it take to put a stinky bag of matting on your head? So, it became completely dark and it was difficult to breathe, and only somewhere very far away the orchestra played Bravura "Khas-Bulat daring".

- Mat! - G.O. cried out like a copper pipe.

“Well, you see,” the grandmaster muttered, “congratulations!”

“Ugh,” said G.O., “Ugh, uh, just worn out, just unbelievable, damn it! Unbelievable, checkmate the grandmaster! Unbelievable, but it is a fact! he laughed. - Oh yes I am! He playfully stroked his head. “Oh, you are my grandmaster, grandmaster,” he buzzed, put his palms on the shoulders of the grandmaster and pressed in a friendly way, “you are my dear young man ... Nerves could not stand it, right? Confess!

“Yes, yes, I lost my temper,” the grandmaster hastily confirmed.

G.O. With a broad, free gesture, he swept the pieces off the board. The board was old, chipped, in some places the surface polished layer was torn off, yellow, worn wood was exposed, in some places there were fragments of round stains from glasses of railway tea placed in the old days. The Grandmaster looked at the empty board, at sixty-four absolutely impassive fields capable of accommodating not only his own life, but an infinite number of lives, and this endless alternation of light and dark fields filled him with reverence and quiet joy. “It seems,” he thought, “I have not committed any major meanness in my life.”

“But you tell it like that, and no one will believe it,” G.O. sighed sadly.

Why won't they believe? What is so incredible about this? You are a strong, strong-willed player,” the grandmaster said.

“No one will believe,” G.O. repeated, “they will say that I am lying. What evidence do I have?

“Allow me,” the grandmaster looked a little offended, looking at G.O.’s pink, steep forehead, “I will give you a convincing proof. I knew that I would meet you.

He opened his briefcase and took out a large, palm-sized, golden token, on which was beautifully engraved: “The giver of this won a game of chess from me. Grandmaster such and such.

“The only thing left to do is to put in the number,” he said, taking out engraving supplies from his briefcase and beautifully engraving the number in the corner of the token. “This is solid gold,” he said, handing over the token.

- Without cheating? asked G.O.

“Absolutely pure gold,” said the grandmaster. – I have already ordered many of these tokens and will constantly replenish stocks.

February 1965

Nov 05 2015

Aksenov's story "Victory" was written in the early sixties of the XX century, at the height of the Khrushchev thaw. At this time, society slowly flourished, recovering from thirty years of cruel totalitarianism. This heyday was marked by the arrival of a new wave of writers and poets who became the "rulers of thoughts" of the younger generation. Some of them returned from the camps, others got the opportunity to print previously banned works, and still others (including Aksenov) were completely new people in literature.

Inspired by the thaw, they created works that were absolutely independent of the party line and nomenclature instructions and expressed all the thoughts and hopes of the youth. Aksyonov became a leader among young prose writers in the 1960s. "Victory" is one of his first stories.

It is quite small, but very interesting. So, in the compartment of a fast train, the young grandmaster meets a random fellow traveler. The fellow traveler, immediately recognizing the grandmaster, is instantly charged with an "inconceivable desire" to defeat him. Just because the sight of an awkward, intelligent grandmaster evokes ridicule and contempt in him: “… you never know, you think, some kind of frail” / The grandmaster easily agrees to play, and the game begins ...

And here a very strange thing happens: having begun, the party acquires an unexpected character. From a simple sports competition, it develops into a merciless struggle between two generations, completely different in spirit and beliefs. On the chessboard, not just white and black pieces converged, but two lives, two views on. Conflicting constantly and in real life, they converge openly on the chess field, and a life-and-death battle begins.

The grandmaster in this battle represents the entire young generation of the 60s. He is neat, well-mannered, correct and, although timid, is ready to fight for his ideals to the last. His mysterious fellow traveler acquires frightening and almost mystical features. Its external description is almost absent; his physical appearance is unclear, faceless and foggy, only a steep pink forehead and huge fists stand out clearly, on one of which (left) is visible the tattoo “G. O.". But this is also a collective character.

It contains all the worst features that are found in the uncultured part of modern society: hypocrisy, ignorance, rudeness, hatred of the "smart", contempt for the young. Without a shadow of a doubt, he asks the grandmaster: “I wonder why all chess players are Jews?..” There is something infinitely vile in this, and the grandmaster calls for help all the bright that is in his soul.

The battlefield comes to life for him: a secluded corner appears behind the stone terrace, where you can hide the queen; the h8 square, which is strategically important for the grandmaster, takes the form of a "love field". In contrast to the black figures marching under "Khas-Bulat the daring", the white ones go into battle to the piano pieces of Bach and the splashing of the sea waves. The cacophony and confusion in the head and on the field of G.O. is opposed to the clear and clear thoughts of the grandmaster. While the grandmaster is making beautiful and subtle plans of possible moves, the G.O. thinks: “If I am his way, then he will be so. If I shoot here, he shoots there, then I go here, he answers like this ... Anyway, I'll finish him off, anyway I'll break him. Just think, grandmaster-choreographer, you still have a thin vein against me.

The place on the board where G.O.'s pieces break through becomes the center of "senseless and terrible actions." Carried away by a deep offensive, G. O. makes a number of mistakes, and now the grandmaster is close to victory, and the reader who loves justice is looking forward to this victory, when suddenly, quite unexpectedly ... the grandmaster loses. G. O. announces a checkmate, and the entire bright disposition of the grandmaster collapses, and he himself sees how he is led to execution by black people in overcoats with SS zippers and how he is put on all so ch. ru 2001 2005 a stinky bag on your head to the distant sounds of "Khas-Bulat"... What happened?

Is it possible that ignorance also came out victorious and is it really destined for them to strangle all bright ideals? In no case. The defeated grandmaster still feels that he is higher than his winner, that he has never committed meanness, and gives the jubilant G.O. a golden token with the inscription: “The giver of this won a game of chess from me. Grandmaster such and such. The main thing that expresses this is the willingness of the younger generation to defend their views and beliefs, to fight for the very right to an independent existence, no matter what force this generation tries to crush and absorb.

Although the grandmaster lost the game, he is not morally defeated and is ready for future battles. The story ends with his words that he has already ordered a lot of gold tokens for his future winners and will constantly replenish stocks. The grandmaster, like his entire generation, has a long life ahead of him, like a big, exciting game.

Need a cheat sheet? Then save - "Vasily Aksenov. "Victory" (a story with exaggeration). Literary writings!
Journal "Literature", 2013, No. 4.
Dmitry Bykov
TWO VICTORIES
Thank God, the teacher is free to choose works for studying in the eleventh grade - Soviet short stories of the sixties and seventies are represented by "one or two texts on the recommendation of the teacher," as it is officially called. I think it makes sense to offer children for comparative analysis - in class or in home writing - two stories written and printed almost simultaneously. These are “Victory” by Vasily Aksyonov, which first appeared in “Youth” (1965), and “Winner” by Yuri Trifonov (“Banner”, 1968).
“Victory” has been analyzed many times and in detail, almost nothing has been written about “Winner” - except that there is an enthusiastic review in a letter from Alexander Gladkov to the author (“a huge heavy subtext ... impossible to retell ...”). Children react to both texts with great interest - it is clear that the grotesque and surreal "Victory" when read aloud is perceived much more vividly, with constant laughter, but it all depends on temperament: there are people who are closer to the melancholy "Winner", since the theme of death is always burningly interesting in adolescence, then brought to the fore. The situation itself is symptomatic, when two giants of urban prose simultaneously write stories about defeat disguised as victory, and about how to live with this defeat now. It is possible to explain in a few words in the lesson the literary situation of the second half of the sixties - the dying thaw, the fate of which became obvious long before August 1968, the depression and the split in intellectual circles and circles, the feeling of a historical impasse. It is no wonder that in both stories we are talking about dubious, quoted winners: Trifonov’s hero, who was the last to run at the Paris Olympics, literally runs the longest and wins such a life as a prize that the other hero of the story, Basil, recoils in horror from this stinking future. The young grandmaster at Aksyonov defeated G.O., but the winner turns out to be precisely the stupid, cruel and deeply unhappy G.O. from childhood. “He did not notice the checkmate to his king.” As a result, he is solemnly awarded a token - "So-and-so won the game from me."
Behind each of these two texts there is a serious literary tradition: Aksyonov - although by this time, according to his own testimony in a conversation with the author of these lines, he had not yet read Luzhin's Defense - continues Nabokov's literary game, blurring the boundaries between real and chess collisions. There is a lot of Nabokov in general in Pobeda - his rapture with the landscape, his eternal sympathy for softness, delicacy, artistry, hatred for stupid rudeness. Trifonov continues a completely different line, and here you can’t disown the source - everyone in Russia read Hemingway, not just writers, and Hemingway’s method is evident in The Winner: Gladkov is right, little has been said, much has been said, the subtext is deep and branching. There is also a completely Hemingwayian hero in this story, international journalist Basil, whose turbulent life fits in five lines:
“An amazing character is our Basil! At thirty-seven, he had already experienced two heart attacks, one shipwreck, the blockade of Leningrad, the death of his parents, he was almost killed somewhere in Indonesia, he skydived in Africa, he was starving, poor, he learned French by self-taught, he masterfully swears obscenities, is friends with avant-garde artists and loves fishing in the summer on the Volga more than anything in the world.
True, in this stormy and bravura-living journalist Yulian Semyonov is guessed rather than Hemingway, but the prototype is also visible: all Soviet young prose, not excluding Semyonov, made itself with the Pope.

Trifonov and Aksyonov continue in the sixties the eternal dispute between Nab and Ham - two almost twins, snobs, athletes who have lived almost all their lives outside their homeland, albeit for completely different reasons. Both were born in 1899. Both went through the school of European modernism. Both simultaneously published their main novels - respectively The Gift (1938) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Both disliked (to tell the truth, hated) Germany and adored France. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine more opposite temperaments; it is curious, of course, to dream up how many rounds N. would have survived against H. - both were fond of boxing, Ham was denser, Nab was taller, thinner, but faster. Ham liked to chat with his friends about how many rounds he would have survived - in a hypothetical literary competition, he just had boxing terminology - against Flaubert, Maupassant ... “Only against Leo Tolstoy I would not have puffed a round, oh no. Damn it, I just wouldn’t have entered the ring ”(Of course, he did not read Shklovsky’s “Hamburg Account”). They worshiped Tolstoy in the same way, revered both Chekhov and Joyce, but otherwise ... We practically do not know Ham's reviews of Nab, he did not notice the literary sensation called "Lolita" at all, and he was not up to it; Nabokov said devastatingly funny, insulting and inaccurate about Hemingway. "Hemingway? Is it something about bulls, bells and balls?” — about bulls, bells and eggs! The pun, as often with Nabokov, is excellent - but Hemingway, no matter how much the bells and bulls, not to mention the eggs, worried him, is still about something else, and the scale of his problems is not inferior to the questions that worried Nabokov; Of course, it’s stupid to draw Nabokov as an aesthete locked in a bone tower—there are few such powerful anti-fascist novels in the world as Bend Sinister—and yet Hemingway’s characters and plots are more diverse, the geography is wider, narcissism is naive and somehow touching, or something . In short, calling him in the afterword to the Russian Lolita a modern substitute for Mine-Reid, Nabokov was expressing feelings not so much for his prose as for his 1954 Nobel Prize.
It is interesting that Hemingway was a rather nice old man, although he did not live to a real old age - but you can imagine him something like the Old Man in his last masterpiece: moderately self-ironic, moderately helpless, moderately invincible. Nabokov, here's the paradox, was a rather nasty old man - arrogant, captious, capricious. Hemingway treats old age with horror and dignity - perhaps such a combination; he is generally very serious when it comes to life and death. For Nabokov, the main tragedy is the incomprehensibility and inexpressibility of the world; real tragedies, he not only neglects, but arrogantly, courageously, stubbornly denies them authenticity. He lived an exceptionally difficult life, he had something to complain about - but we will not find a trace of complaint in his writings; he was in poverty - but he was remembered as a master, he worked with frantic intensity - but he was remembered not as working, but as playing. There is a special elegance in not baring one's head at a funeral - "Let death be the first to take off its hat," as Nabokov's fictional philosopher Pierre Delalande said; but there is also the bitter, simple, American seriousness of life and death as they are, and Hemingway is more touching here, if not deeper. Nabokov has impeccable taste, and Ham has very dubious taste, although his European training has taken away from him the aplomb and toughness of an American reporter; but we know that artistic taste is not necessary for a genius, a genius creates new laws, and by old standards he is almost always a graphomaniac. Both Nabokov and Hemingway love a common through plot, which is generally typical for their generation: "The winner gets nothing." Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, on the eve of the first night with Zina, finds himself at the locked door without a key; having experienced a brilliant insight, Falter cannot tell anyone about it; Humbert pursues Lolita, only to lose her every day and every hour. The winner gets only a moral victory - like an exiled, dismissed, ridiculed Pnin: his consolation is in his own intellectual and creative power, in the fact that he is Pnin and will not become anyone else. The author himself, a triumphant, handsome man, everyone's favorite, formally overcoming him and taking his place, envies him. Perhaps, Pobeda copies (unconsciously, of course) not so much the plot of Luzhin’s Defense, with which it has only the chess theme in common, but rather the plot of Pnin, where a meek, loving, dreamy Russian professor turns out to be a delicate grandmaster. And the triumphant vitality that ousts him from the university and from life is personified, sadly, in the narrator, although he does not at all resemble G. O.
Considering the classic "Winner gets nothing" plot, as one of Hemingway's finest collections was called, Ham and Nab approached it differently. The consolation of the loser, according to Nabokov, is that in real game he will always win, and rough earthly chess is just an approximate and boring literalization. The loser is consoled, like Aksyonov's grandmaster, by the fact that "he did not commit any especially major meanness", by the fact that he is honest and clean in front of himself, by the fact that he has Bach's music, a friendly environment and a tie from Dior. According to Hemingway, there are no winners at all. The winner is the one who, regardless of the final result, holds on to the end; the one who brings back from fishing only a huge marlin skeleton, and this skeleton represents everything that the winner gets. It's completely useless, but VERY BIG. And it shows what great prose we would write if, on the way to paper, a great thought did not turn into its own skeleton. According to Hemingway, the main victory of the loser is the very scale of the failure. The one who got lucky is, by definition, chalk. If a hero doesn't die, he's not a hero.
Aksyonov's conflict is precisely Nabokov's: the secret joy of the conqueror lies in the fact that the vanquished is never conscious of his own defeat; that "The winner does not understand anything." Playing in the compartment of a fast train with a self-satisfied idiot who is incapable of appreciating the light, volatile charm of the world—with an idiot whose chess thought does not go beyond the formula “If I am like this, then he makes me like this,” a grandmaster can console himself with the fact that he himself builds a magnificent party, crystal, transparent, infinitely thin, like beaded cunning combinations in Hesse's novel. The defeat inflicted in Russia on freedom, thought, progress, everything good in general, everything that alone makes life life, is not final, if only because G.O. no longer constitutes the vast majority. There are cowboys Billy and beauties Mary, there is the Riga seaside, a country veranda, there is an environment in which the grandmaster is no longer alone. There is also a well-designed ironic self-defense - a golden token that marks not so much surrender as a new level of mockery of the enemy.
Trifonov puts the question harder and more seriously - and his story appears not in the frivolous "Youth" (besides, in the humorous department), but in the traditionalist "Banner", which was then a stronghold of military prose. The defeat here is not so much historical, social, but ontological (children, as we know, love buzzwords and willingly memorize them). Soviet journalists are sent to the only surviving participant in the second - Paris - Olympics. He ran last then, but calls himself the winner. Why? Because everyone else, having fallen into the monstrous twentieth century, left the race, and he still runs his ultra-marathon. He is lonely, out of his mind, he has a bald head and bald gums, they call him dirty, stinky - the old man has no one, and a nurse goes after him; he remembers nothing and understands almost nothing, but in his eyes a spark of Methuselah pride smolders - he is alive! He sees this sharp star in the window, he smells the burning branches from the garden... And Trifonov sorts things out not so much with Hemingway, but with the heroic generation of his parents (the fate of the repressed parents was for him - as well as for Aksyonov - an eternal trauma). These heroes believed that only a life filled with exploits, in extreme cases, with the most intense work, makes sense. But the generation of sons no longer knows what makes more sense - in self-burning, self-squandering, or survival at any cost; after all, apart from life, there is nothing, and there is no meaning other than to see, hear, absorb, feel - there is none either. There is Basil, who does not want such tortoise-like immortality, who burns a candle from two ends - and Semyonov actually lived only 61 years, literally burned out, leaving a gigantic legacy, nine-tenths of which has already been forgotten today. And there is an old man who has accomplished absolutely nothing in life - but he is alive, and there will be no other victory. One can argue about the greatness of the feat, about the collective will, about fantastic achievements, but everyone dies alone, as another great prose writer of the 20th century wrote. And aren't all these thoughts about the greatness of one's own business ridiculous in the face of old age and death, if this business itself looks doomed by 1968? And at this time, it must be admitted, there was not a single ideology left in the world with which one could solidarize without a sense of shame: all the recipes for universal happiness once again cracked.
Children are usually happy to discuss "Victory" and almost always claim that the grandmaster won regardless of the author's assessment: checkmate? - enough. G.O. noticed, did not notice - what's the difference? Important result! The sobering remark of the teacher that the result is a golden token flies past the ears. Won - and that's enough, but whether the fools understood their defeat - we should not worry. Children are still small and do not understand that today's G.O., triumphant everywhere, and not only in Russia, also lost a long time ago, back in the Middle Ages, but does not notice this - and rules the world. Probably, this happens because the main value and the main victory is still life - and not, say, truth or creativity. The winner is the one who runs the longest - no matter with what result. And horrified by this, like Aksyonov, in our hearts we are ready to put up with it as soon as possible, like Trifonov. Burnt branches smell very good.