Contents
Dystopia, novel or storybook? Everyone can choose what he likes. We tell you about the most fascinating book novelties of May. Among them, there is sure to be something that will hook you.
SAVE YOUR MEMORY
Memory Police Yoko Ogawa
Books are like people: some become our friends, while others become passers-by. The novel by the Japanese writer Yoko Ogawa “Memory Police” resembles a close relative. A brother or sister, someone with whom we feel connected even after parting. Why? Part of it is the language. Laconic, gravitating towards simple descriptions, sometimes similar to haiku poems, it hypnotizes.
But the main thing, perhaps, is in the story itself: the young writer lives in a country where from time to time something disappears forever, primarily from memory. Yesterday people used perfume, but today no one understands what it is.
Once upon a time, sailors fished on ships, but one day navigation disappeared, and now even coastal waters are empty. If forgotten objects remain in reality, they are destroyed. This is monitored by the Secret Police, which is also looking for those who, contrary to the general order, remember the missing things.
Such a person turns out to be a friend and editor of the writer, and she hides him at her home, risking getting into the dungeons of the Secret Police as an accomplice. And things continue to disappear, and the writer is unable to recognize them again, no matter how hard the editor tries to help her in this.
Dystopia? Formally, yes, but there is no attempt to scare, no social conflicts. The Memory Police is a lyrical parable about the confrontation between man and time. In the course of our lives, many things disappear, a SIM card with the numbers of old friends accidentally breaks, a winter scarf, beloved from childhood, is lost when moving.
And those losses are painful. The memory of what is dear supports us, allows us not to get lost, to maintain our integrity. In other words, be yourself. And the Memory Police is about people who are trying to remain themselves despite the aggressive flow of time, knocking out of them knowledge about themselves and about the world.
“Memory Police” by Yoko Ogawa, Translated from Japanese by Dmitry Kovalenin Polyandry, 351 pp., 592 rubles.
VOCATION
Mahogany Man by Andrey Rubanov
Collector of medieval statues killed. Wood carving master Antip Ilyin helps to investigate the case. He himself creates wooden sculptures, but hides his gift and his fantastic past: ancient relics may be of interest to various forces, up to aggressive religious cults.
But what’s the point of doing something that no one will ever know about? Antipas is torn apart by conflicting feelings: the desire to give up everything and the craving for the cause, which he feels as a destiny.
The action-packed narrative takes us through an investigation and a family drama so that we, together with the hero, are convinced that in creativity the process is more important than the result, and our own perception is more important than the opinions of others.
Edited by Elena Shubina, 512 p., 726 rubles.
JEALOUSY
“Love is a burden” by Elena Ferrante
This is an early novel, and in it Elena Ferrante explores the intimate side of the relationship between man and woman much more boldly than in the popular Neapolitan Quartet. Artist Delia tries to understand why her cheerful mother committed suicide.
She recalls her childhood, where everyone in their own way tried to subjugate a loved one. The father controlled his wife, suspecting treason. Her new boyfriend was also cruel in his own way.
After the divorce of her parents, Delia did not want someone else to get her mother’s attention, and she still tries on her image. How to cope with the desire to completely appropriate someone?
Per. from Italian by Olga Polyak. Corpus, 224 p., 581 rubles.
DEBUT
“Inversion of my Lord” by Vladislav Gorodetsky
Among the peers of twenty-seven-year-old Vladislav Gorodetsky, it is not very fashionable to be a prose writer. And he himself perceives literature without pathos, declaring that the writer’s business, first of all, is to brighten up leisure in an interesting and clever way.
But his debut compilation, Inversion of My Lord, can hardly be called entertaining. It is about how the digital era can change the spiritual sphere of society and the individual. What becomes good and what becomes evil? Who is asked about the meaning of life when the rest is asked from Google?
Spectacular experiments with form, where a story can look like a transcript of a video broadcast or a composition of a neural network, coexist with the depiction of the consequences of unresolved sociocultural issues.
Lonely infantile adults, bloody children, everyday life of webcam models and new sects – Vladislav Gorodetsky does not smooth out sharp corners in principle and admits that because of his naturalism, his stories were sometimes refused to be taken by magazines.
In four years there were rare publications, but they were noticed when there were already enough stories for a book. The collection, still in manuscript, was nominated for a National Bestseller and then published.
Fortunately, Vladislav Gorodetsky continues to experiment and does not strive to remain in the public eye thanks to one successful topic, which means that he has a chance to avoid the syndrome of high expectations.
Gorodets-Fluid, 192 p., 458 rubles.