We asked Sergei Gandlevsky how writing helps him cope with negative emotions. In response, he wrote an exquisite essay on the game of frankness.
“From my school years, I have known trust in a clean page. At the Literature Olympiad, before submitting my essay, I pushed it to a classmate, my desk mate, for verification. “Why did you write all this to them?” my comrade asked me in bewilderment, referring to the excessive, diary-personal and, in his opinion, inappropriate content of my opus. So my literary frankness has a long record. I singled out the epithet “literary”, because in life I am a rather closed person. But both in a column and in a line, I involuntarily embroider according to an autobiographical canvas; how to be – everyone has their own habits. For me, it is in this vein that gratifying side emotions are connected with work: the illusion that my writings come into the world by themselves – as if life experience precipitates and crystallizes, and I am only in the wings. And occasionally – a precious feeling of good luck, a happy occasion. Gamblers probably know this luck hop.
From the outside, it may seem commendable that the author does not hesitate to artlessly lay out everything as it is before the public – frankly. Strange, it turns out, artlessness – with a whole convoy of tricks, craft skills and game rules! The correction for the game gives the author the freedom to indulge in frankness. After all, sharing our cherished experiences with someone in a crowded meeting, we lower our voice, and from the “stage” of art, the same thing can be said publicly.
As for the therapeutic effect of confessional lyrics… One of the most perceptive Russian poets, Baratynsky, wrote: “The aching spirit heals the song. Harmony mysterious power Heavy will atone for delusion And tame the rebellious passion. The soul of the singer, poured out in accordance, Is resolved from all his sorrows; And the purity of holy poetry And the world will give to its communicant. Based on my experience, I understand this beautiful poem quite prosaically. If for someone poetry has become an all-consuming passion, writing poetry can muffle painful experiences for some time, act as a sedative, bringing its own harmonic structure to the confusion of the author’s feelings. However, poetry is by no means the only panacea for black thoughts, otherwise the poets, as one, would be red-cheeked sanguine people, and not crybabies. For example, the French thinker Emile Cioran believed that the best way to overcome the urge to commit suicide was to learn a foreign language. But in the lyrics, emotional trauma easily goes into action, becomes the subject of conversation – and this is confusing. As if we expected the doctor to be ill in some special way, since he is short-lived with ill health.
And finally. One clever old man quoted in my presence the words of a long-dead man, a great celebrity in his time: “Poetry consoles without deceiving.” Even that smart old man is no longer alive, and I am growing old uncontrollably, and these words still seem wonderful to me – it will be a pity if they are forgotten.