What do the writers themselves read? What authors, plots and characters make a particularly strong impression on them? Every month, famous writers answer questions from Psychologies.
1 What are you reading now?
“Parasite. The Secret World» by Carl Zimmer (Alpina non-fiction, 2011), American journalist, popularizer of science. It tells about disgusting creatures that are inseparable from any living organism. They eat at the expense of the owner, sometimes living in it unnoticed by the owner. It is amazing that all living things owe their evolution to these invisible creatures. Getting into the body of the host — a crab, a shark, a person — they forced him to rebuild the immune system. Thus, the world developed thanks to the struggle against an invisible enemy, and at the same time, not only to be interested in this very enemy, but even to mention it in a decent society has always been considered the height of indecency.
2 An author to whom you keep coming back?
Dostoevsky and Thomas Mann. The novels «The Idiot» and «Joseph and His Brothers» are examples of impeccable formal construction and at the same time the depth of immersion in the inner world of a person (in «The Idiot») and in history (in «Joseph»). Absolutely unimaginable antiquity Mann brought closer to us so that it seems real, alive.
3 A book that made you laugh?
«Three Men in a Boat Not Counting the Dog» by Jerome K. Jerome and «Hounds of Bafut» by Gerald Durrell. But that was in childhood. In general, literature can be comical, but it still does not cause Homeric laughter.
4 Character that you are especially close to?
Nastasya Filippovna. There is an understatement in it, the ability to complete the image yourself. It seems to me that all world art is built on this, but the image of Nastasya Filippovna is one of the best examples of such a non fi nito. Due to the fact that it is presented in strokes, individual features, a voluminous and integral character is obtained. This is a difficult person, subject to passions and whims, but you can fully justify him, because it is these people that we usually meet in life. But, for example, Natasha Rostova is written so carefully that it seems one-sided.
5 What are your criteria for a good novel?
Precise language, solid architecture, thrust from the first page, like in a good oven. The plot should be like a funnel, where you are drawn into a powerful whirlpool. You fly and fly and do not notice how you find yourself on the last page. By the way, the language itself can be an engine, a motor. Proust’s language is the plot.