Analysis of Aksenov’s story “Victory” (Essay on a free topic). Vasily Aksenov's story “Victory”: experience in analyzing semantic organization With a bow from Bulgakov
In the story “Victory,” Aksenov undoubtedly talks not only about how two characters, two temperaments collide, but about the struggle of intellect and strength, a doomed struggle. This completely ordinary game becomes an exposure of the laws of reality, quite symbolically reflecting the laws of real life. The game becomes life, and life becomes the game.
The issues concern questions about the clash of characters, about life principles, about dignity and honor, but most importantly - about the struggle of 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 collide in a chess match: the grandmaster and G.O. An outside observer, the narrator, outlines their character in some detail, focusing on specific details and patterns, such as the trademark on a chess player’s tie, or the constantly flashing fists of a “random companion.”
It is then that the reader understands how different the heroes are, how the humanistic life principles of “reason” contradict the meager “strength”. The problem of honor and dignity is also raised here. In this game, only one could win with dignity - and he wins - while the second, following an initially wrong goal, was doomed to win, if at all, then exclusively dirty and dishonest. However, the question is this: why is victory quiet and hidden an indicator of dignity? Probably because it does not exalt or cloud the mind, but is accepted as the “charm of the moment.” 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 strength. When the first one wins, it would seem that the story should come to a logical conclusion, but the laws of life dictate their own rules, destroying the mind, which so freely and easily hides its victory. And she goes to unbridled power, to what leads to chaos and destruction. This happens in reality, when for some reason force destroys the mind more often than the mind destroys power.
If we talk exclusively about the plot as a change of actions, we can say that Aksenov depicts a chess tournament between antagonistic people: the 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, comes before G.O., this is evidenced by the beginning of the story, when Aksenov notes 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” conceals a lot in itself, in contrast to the short G.O. “The grandmaster was the embodiment 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 to the brutal fists of “force.” He fights honestly, and his game is a reflection of a bright and rich life. He is either immersed in memories of his family, then philosophical thoughts take possession of his consciousness, then bright feelings awaken the beautiful in his soul. He lives to play fair and reasonable, but backs down at a key moment when G.O. suddenly comes with his defeated victory. Runs away from unbridled force. Internal weakness, some uncertainty and secrecy, of course, become the main impetus for retreat. His character is like the personification of the properties of “mind”, which, being a symbol of goodness and purity, does not have a strong inner core and firm confidence.
But 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. There is nothing remarkable about the hero’s appearance other than the “pink steep forehead” and massive fists. “he took two pawns, clenched them in his fists and showed his fists to the grandmaster.” The repetition used by the author allows for emphasis
the reader's attention to the features of the image of G.O. His actions are “an accumulation of externally logical, but internally absurd forces,” behind which there is only one thing: the desire for a quick victory. It blinds him, as evidenced by the climax of the story, when he does not even notice the quiet victory of his opponent. “He didn’t notice the checkmate to his king.” Behind all this lies a rather bad character. What is the disdainful “chess” thrown at him at the beginning of the game of life worth? It is also noteworthy that the inner world of G.O. seems to be completely empty, because apart from actions and strategic thoughts there is nothing sublime in it. “I’ll finish him off anyway, I’ll break him down anyway.” And “strength” cannot be considered sublime if it is expressed in two strong fists with an absurd tattoo of the vague name “G.O.”.
The peculiarity of the composition lies in the depiction of two completely different worlds: reason and power, between which there seems to be a constant tossing. Either the thoughts of the grandmaster speak, then G.O. And victory itself slides from one to another, finding shelter where it was before exhaustion, but senselessly desired. “Nothing has proven the meaninglessness and illusory nature of life.” Also in the story “Victory” the unity of time, place, and action is observed. This allows it to be considered logically complete, complete and holistic. And indeed, Aksenov pursues the idea of the struggle between reason and strength from its very inception to the resolution of the hidden conflict, when two opposing phenomena converge on the chessboard. And the location is quite iconic. Train. His movement is commensurate with the movement of life, and he is “quick” at the right time, which speaks of the swiftness of the passing life time.
Aksenov quite often uses repetitions, which often confirm the author’s mark “A story with exaggerations” and somewhat predetermine the completion of the story. So, for example, G.O. “fired with an unimaginable desire for an unthinkable victory,” which immediately indicates on whose side the victory will actually be. And then “the center immediately turned into a field of meaningless 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 more than once in the text. Artistic details are also important. These include not only the prominent fists of G.O., symbolizing strength, but also, for example, the signature “House of Dior” on a simple tie, which seems to anticipate 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 a dilapidated stone terrace” (repeat again). The color of the chess is also important. If a decent and deep grandmaster, “mind,” has a white color, as a symbol of the light of the soul, a pure heart, then G.O., “strength,” has black figures, like evil and dirt.
Reading time: 10 minVasily Aksenov and his mystery. Journalist Anastasia Belousova also explored how the story “Victory,” written “poorly,” became the parable of the generation of the sixties.
Riddle from Aksenov. Reading the terms and conditions
To be honest, Alexey, the topic of this issue left me a little confused. When I admitted that I was not an expert on the work of Vasily Aksenov, you suggested reading the story “Victory” as a landmark for the phenomenon of this writer.
It is small, readers can easily read it in a few minutes: . But I’m sure: readers who are not familiar with Aksenov’s work, like me, will be in a stupor. In the story, a certain grandmaster, who has traveled all over the world, loses to his companion under the name G.O. Although the game is rubbish, how poorly played, and he could have given checkmate, but for some reason he doesn’t... How could a Grandmaster lose to an amateur, and even so , dry?
Everything is not as it seems
writer Alexey Kurilko
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
“The giver of this won a game of chess with me. Grandmaster so-and-so.”
writer Alexey Kurilko
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
“It’s logical, like a Bach coda, that Black is checkmated. The matte situation glowed dimly and beautifully, finished 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 the checkmate to his king. The grandmaster was silent, afraid to break the charm of this moment. “Check,” said G.O. quietly and carefully, moving his horse...
Alexey, what is this? Maybe you can already explain, you are the smartest in our tandem!
Combination of incongruous things
writer Alexey Kurilko
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova"data-medium-file="https://i1.wp.com/liferead.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Nastya-site.jpg?fit=219%2C300&ssl=1" data-large- file="https://i1.wp.com/liferead.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Nastya-site.jpg?fit=727%2C998&ssl=1" class="alignleft wp-image-1217 " style="margin-right: 1em; float: left;" src="https://i1.wp.com/liferead.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D1 %8F-%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%82.jpg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1" alt="Anastasia Belousova" width="100" height="100" srcset="https://i1.wp.com/liferead.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Настя-сайт.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i1.wp.com/liferead.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Настя-сайт.jpg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1 200w, https://i1.wp.com/liferead.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Настя-сайт.jpg?resize=400%2C400&ssl=1 400w, https://i1.wp.com/liferead.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Настя-сайт.jpg?resize=60%2C60&ssl=1 60w, https://i1.wp.com/liferead.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Настя-сайт.jpg?resize=30%2C30&ssl=1 30w, https://i1.wp.com/liferead.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Настя-сайт.jpg?zoom=3&resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 300w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" data-recalc-dims="1">!}
Then... maybe this is some kind of oxymoron - a combination of incongruous things? Well, for example, that he is a grandmaster, a world celebrity, but at the same time terribly modest.
“The grandmaster was the embodiment of neatness, the embodiment of strictness of dress and manners, so characteristic of people who are insecure and easily vulnerable. He was young, dressed in a gray suit, light shirt and simple tie. No one except 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 his uncertainty and timidity from strangers. He complained about his lips, which tended to stretch into a pitiful smile or tremble. He would willingly close his lips from prying eyes, but, unfortunately, this has not yet been accepted in society."
And his opponent, an amateur, is a big man with fists, impudent, stupid, disgusting in places... Whereas in front of the grandmaster, all newcomers are “quieter than water.” Oxymoron?
Aksenov loved jazz
writer Alexey Kurilko
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
writer Alexey Kurilko
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Dissident Vasily Aksenov is considered one of the best writers of the generation of the sixties. (August 20, 1932, Kazan - July 6, 2009, Moscow) Photo TASS / Alexander Less
The struggle of intellect and strength
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
“If I do this to him, then he will do this to me...” thought G.O. “I’ll finish him off anyway, I’ll break him anyway.” Just think, grandmaster-blatmaster, you still have a thin vein against me.”
The only thing he couldn't understand was the golden token at the end of the story.
Aksenov was a believer
writer Alexey Kurilko
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
“I knew that I would meet you... This is absolutely pure gold,” said the grandmaster. “I have already ordered a lot of these tokens, and I will constantly replenish the stock.”
According to one version of the 14th century Christian mystic Gregory Palamas, gold symbolizes the light of Tabor (on Mount Tabor, Jesus was transformed and appeared to the disciples in His true radiance). But dad said that my version is generally doubtful...
Big Master
writer Alexey Kurilko
“The grandmaster looked carefully at the board, making small, insignificant moves. Several times possible matte tracks of the queen appeared before his lightning eyes, but he extinguished these flashes, slightly lowering his eyelids and obeying the boring, pitiful note humming faintly inside, similar to the buzzing of a mosquito.”
Just think about every word carefully! This G.O. - an arrogant and poorly educated brute - challenges the well-known master, because - I quote:
“This man immediately recognized the grandmaster when he entered the compartment, and immediately became eager for an unimaginable victory over the grandmaster.” “You never know,” he thought, casting sly, recognizing glances at the grandmaster, “you never know, he’s some kind of weakling.”
Anastasia, your interpretation of the story is almost perfect. And I am incredibly glad that you are right.
Grandmaster - generation of the sixties
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
writer Alexey Kurilko
The grandmaster is the entire young, intelligent and intelligent generation of the sixties. And the fellow traveler contains all the worst traits that prevail among the uncultured part of society: arrogance, rudeness, arrogance, hypocrisy, ignorance and rudeness...
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Vasily Aksenov. “Our people love the cause of peace, but they are never pacifists. As the popular joke goes: “Make us fight for peace, no stone will be left unturned.”
Whose version is truer?
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
writer Alexey Kurilko
Remember Pushkin, who was surprised to tell his friend about the heroine of his novel:
"Imagine this! And Tatyana pulled out a trick - she jumped out to get married.”
History written on the windowsill
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
writer Alexey Kurilko
On the very first evening, Voinovich read the first chapters of the novel about the soldier Chonkin. Sarnov and Rassadin, young literary critics, were so delighted that they involuntarily aroused in Aksenov something like professional jealousy. He even threatened everyone present: one of these days I’ll sit down on the windowsill and write something wonderful too.
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“A person is only as free as he is free inside” Vasily Aksenov. TASS / Valentin Mastyukov; Alexander Konkov
No one attached much importance to his words, and literally the next day Aksenov took from Rassadin a rare copy of one of Vasily Rozanov’s volumes, brought from Moscow. He leafed through the volume thoughtfully, stopping his attention first on one page and then on another. Then he slammed the book shut and said quite loudly:
“Lord, what a country they ruined, damn it!”
“Without leaving this state of reverie, he returned to his room and, “sitting down on the windowsill,” quickly, without blots, in one fell swoop wrote one of his best stories, “Victory.”
Note that Sarnov rightly considers this story one of the best. Sarnov, one of the greatest literary critics, would not consider the best story to be simply about how an amateur accidentally beat the pros!
Aksenov’s cunning exaggerations
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
writer Alexey Kurilko
In my opinion, the story is crammed with symbols. Nothing and no one is named specifically. One can only guess that the puny wimp has extraordinary intellectual and spiritual power, and the healthy and physically strong, self-confident G.O. is a convinced materialist, and even his figures smell bad.
“On the left flank, the figures crowded together in such a way that a tangle of charlatan cabalistic signs was formed, it looked like the tuning of a hacky brass band, yellow-gray compacted snow, blank fences, a cement factory. The entire left flank smelled of the latrine and bleach, the sour smell of the barracks, wet rags in the kitchen, and also reeked of castor oil and diarrhea from early childhood.”
Whereas the Grandmaster - Master figures are more pleasant:
“The grandmaster hid the queen in a secluded corner behind the terrace, behind a dilapidated stone terrace with carved, rotten columns, where in the fall there was a pungent smell of rotten maple leaves. You can sit here. It’s good here, at least my pride doesn’t suffer.”
Parable about saving the world
LifeRead journalist Anastasia Belousova
writer Alexey Kurilko
But the trouble is that G.O. does not see his defeat and continues to threaten the main white figure! Having hidden the queen and kept silent about his formal victory, the pro is forced to go on the defensive... And for the sake of saving the world, in order to capture the square of love and save it, for the sake of harmonizing the entire game, the Grandmaster continued the game with the already loser.
And it was the Grandmaster's mistake. Rules are rules. They exist to be followed or violated. Whites could not violate. The disaster began.
With a bow from Bulgakov
writer Alexey Kurilko
“Check,” said G.O. quietly and carefully, moving his horse. He could barely contain his internal roar... The Grandmaster screamed and started running. The owner of the dacha, the coachman Euripides and Nina Kuzminichna ran after him, stamping and whistling. Overtaking them, the unleashed dog Nochka overtook the grandmaster."
How does "Run" end? Emigration or what happened to the Grandmaster: he is escorted along the aisle among a quiet crowd. Then they put a stinking bag over his head and hanged him... Now tell me, Nastya, what is this if not the story of the victory of workers and peasants over the blue blood of the nation? The scary thing is not that Black won! It's scary that whites gave victory to the losers. This is why the intelligentsia has felt inexplicably guilty before the people for more than a century... I hope I was able to convey my message to you?
Essay text:
Aksenov's story Pobeda was written in the early sixties of the 20th century, at the height of the Khrushchev Thaw. At this time, society was slowly blossoming, recovering from thirty years of cruel totalitarianism. In literature, this flowering was marked by the arrival of a new wave of writers and poets who became the rulers of the thoughts of the younger generation. Some of them returned from the camps, others received the opportunity to publish previously prohibited works, and others (including Aksenov) were completely new people in literature. Inspired by the Thaw, they created works that were completely independent of the party line and nomenklatura instructions and expressed all the thoughts and hopes of young people. Aksenov became a leader among young prose writers in the 60s. Victory is one of his first stories. It is very small, but very interesting. So, in the compartment of a fast train, the young grandmaster meets a random fellow traveler. The little boy, immediately recognizing the grandmaster, is instantly charged with an unimaginable desire to defeat him. Simply because the sight of an awkward, intelligent grandmaster evokes ridicule and contempt in him: ...you never know, some weakling/Grandmaster easily agrees to the game, and the game begins... And then a very strange thing happens: having begun, The party takes on an unexpected character. From a simple sports competition it develops into a merciless struggle between two generations, completely different in spirit and beliefs. Not just white and black pieces came together on the chessboard, but two lives, two views on life. Constantly conflicting in real life, they converge openly on the chess field, and a life-or-death battle begins. The grandmaster in this game 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 little companion takes on frightening and almost mystical features. There is almost no external description of it; His physical appearance is unclear, faceless and humane, only his steep pink forehead and huge fists stand out clearly, on one of which (the left) the tattoo of G.O. is visible. But this is also a collective character. It contains all the worst traits 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 light that is in his soul. The field of biva comes to life for him: a secluded corner appears behind the stone terrace, where you can hide the queen; the h8 square, strategically important for the grandmaster, takes the form of a love field. In contrast to the black figures marching under the daring Khas-Bulat, the white ones go into battle to the piano pieces of Bach and the splash of sea waves.
The clear and clear thoughts of the grandmaster are contrasted with the cacophony and confusion in G.O.’s head and on the field. While the grandmaster is building beautiful and subtle plans for possible moves, G.O. thinks: If I am like this, then he is like this to me. If I shoot here, he will shoot there, then I go here, he answers like this... I’ll finish him off anyway, I’ll break him anyway. 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, completely unexpectedly... the grandmaster loses. G.O. announces checkmate, and the whole bright disposition of the grandmaster collapses, and he himself sees how he is led to execution by black people in greatcoats with SS lightning and how they put a stinking bag on his head to the distant sounds of Khas-Bulat... Well It happened? Are vulgarity and ignorance really the winners and are they really destined 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 chess game from me. Grandmaster so-and-so.
The main thing that this story expresses is the willingness of the younger generation to defend their views and beliefs, to fight for the very right to independent existence, no matter what force tries to crush and devour this generation. Although the grandmaster lost the game, he is not defeated morally and is ready for future battles. I conclude the story with his words that he has already ordered a lot of gold tokens for his future winners and will constantly replenish the supplies. The grandmaster, like his entire generation, has a long life ahead of him, like a big, exciting game.
The rights to the essay “Vasily Aksenov. “Victory” (a story with exaggerations)” belong to its author. When quoting material, you must provide a hyperlink to
Magazine "Literature", 2013, No. 4.
Dmitry Bykov
TWO VICTORIES
Thank God, the teacher is free to choose works for study 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 homework - two stories written and published almost simultaneously. These are “Victory” by Vasily Aksenov, which first appeared in “Youth” (1965), and “Winner” by Yuri Trifonov (“Znamya”, 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 for whom the melancholic “Victory” is closer, since the theme of death is always burningly interesting in adolescence, here it is brought to the fore. The situation itself is symptomatic when two grandees of urban prose simultaneously write stories about defeat disguised as victory, and about how to now live with this defeat. In a few words, you can explain in class 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 split in intellectual circles and circles, the feeling of a historical dead end. 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 of this stinking future. Aksyonov’s young grandmaster defeated G.O., but the winner turns out to be the stupid, cruel and deeply unhappy G.O. since childhood. - “He did not notice the checkmate to his king.” As a result, he is solemnly presented with a token - “So-and-so won the game against 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 “The Defense of Luzhin” - continues Nabokov’s literary game, blurring the boundaries between real and chess collisions. In general, there is a lot of Nabokov in “Victory” - his rapture for landscapes, 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 is said, much is said, the subtext is deep and branchy. There is also a completely Hemingway hero in this story, international journalist Basil, whose stormy life fits into five lines:
“Our Basil is an amazing character! At thirty-seven years old, he had already survived two heart attacks, one shipwreck, the siege of Leningrad, the death of his parents, he was almost killed somewhere in Indonesia, he jumped with a parachute in Africa, he was hungry, he was in poverty, he learned French self-taught, he swears masterfully swears, is friends with avant-garde artists, and more than anything else loves fishing in the summer on the Volga.”
True, in this vigorously and bravuraly living journalist one can guess Yulian Semyonov rather than Hemingway, but the prototype is also visible: all Soviet young prose, not excluding Semyonov, modeled itself on the Pope.
Trifonov and Aksyonov continue in the sixties the eternal dispute between Nab and Ham - two almost twins, snobs, athletes, who lived almost their entire 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 - “The Gift” (1938) and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1940), respectively. Both disliked (to tell the truth, hated) Germany and adored France. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine more opposite temperaments; It’s interesting, of course, to imagine how many rounds N. would withstand against H. - both were into boxing, Ham was denser, Nab was taller, thinner, but faster. Ham liked to chat among his friends about how many rounds he would have survived - in a hypothetical literary competition, he just used boxing terminology - against Flaubert, Maupassant... “Only against Leo Tolstoy I wouldn’t have lasted a round, oh no. Damn it, I simply would not have entered the ring” (Of course, he had not read Shklovsky’s “Hamburg Account”). They worshiped Tolstoy equally, they revered both Chekhov and Joyce, but otherwise... We practically don’t know Ham’s reviews of Neb; he didn’t notice the literary sensation called “Lolita” at all, and he didn’t care; What Nabokov said about Hemingway was devastatingly funny, offensive and inaccurate. “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 he worried about bells and bulls, not to mention eggs, is still about something else, and the scale of his problems is not inferior to the issues that worried Nabokov; Of course, it’s stupid to portray Nabokov as an esthete locked in a bone tower - there are few such powerful anti-fascist novels in the world as Bend Sinister - and yet Hemingway’s heroes and plots are more diverse, the geography is wider, narcissism is more naive and somehow more touching, or something . In short, by calling him, in the afterword to the Russian Lolita, a modern-day substitute for Main-Reid, Nabokov was expressing feelings not so much about his prose as about his 1954 Nobel Prize.
It is interesting that Hemingway was a rather nice old man, although he did not live to become a real old man, but one can imagine him approximately as the Old Man is in his last masterpiece: moderately self-ironic, moderately helpless, moderately invincible. Nabokov, what a paradox, was a rather nasty old man - arrogant, picky, capricious. Hemingway treats old age with horror and dignity - such a combination is possible; 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; He doesn’t just neglect real tragedies, but arrogantly, courageously, stubbornly denies them authenticity. He lived an extremely difficult life, he had a lot to complain about, but we will not find a trace of complaint in his writings; he was poor - but he was remembered as a gentleman, he worked with frantic intensity - but he was remembered not for working, but for playing. There is a special elegance in not revealing your head at a funeral - “Let death take off its hat first,” as Nabokov’s fictional philosopher Pierre Delalande said; but there is also a bitter, simple, American seriousness of life and death as they are, and Hemingway here is more touching in his own way, if not deeper. Nabokov has impeccable taste, and Ham has very questionable taste, although his European training has taken away from him the aplomb and coolness 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 cross-cutting plot, generally typical for their generation: “The winner gets nothing.” Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, on the eve of his first night with Zina, finds himself at a locked door without a key; Falter, who experienced a brilliant insight, cannot tell anyone about it; Humbert achieves Lolita - only to then lose her every day and hour. The winner gets only a moral victory - like the expelled, fired, 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, universal favorite, formally defeating him and taking his place, envies him. Perhaps, “Victory” copies (unconsciously, of course) not so much the plot of “Luzhin’s Defense,” with which it is only related by the chess theme, but rather the plot of “Pnin,” where a meek, loving, dreamy Russian professor finds himself in the role of a delicate grandmaster. And the triumphant vitality that drives him out of the university and out of life is personified, sadly, in the narrator, even though he is not at all like G. ABOUT.
Considering the classic plot of “Winner gets nothing,” as one of Hemingway’s best collections was called, Ham and Neb approached it differently. The consolation of the loser, according to Nabokov, is that in a real game he will always win, and crude 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 particularly major meanness,” by the fact that he is honest and pure with himself, by the fact that he has the music of Bach, 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 skeleton of a marlin, and this skeleton represents everything that the winner receives. It's completely useless, but it's VERY BIG. And it shows what great prose we would write if on the way to paper the great thought did not turn into its own skeleton. According to Hemingway, the main victory of a loser is the sheer scale of failure. Anyone who gets lucky is, by definition, shallow. If a hero does not die, he is not a hero.
Aksyonov’s conflict is precisely Nabokov’s: the secret joy of the winner is that the vanquished never realizes his own defeat; is that “The winner understands nothing.” Playing in a fast train compartment with a smug idiot incapable of appreciating the light, fleeting beauty of the world—with an idiot whose chess thought goes no further than the formula “If I am like this, then he is like this for me”—a grandmaster can console himself with the fact that he himself is building a magnificent batch, crystal, transparent, infinitely thin, like the cunning combinations of beads in Hesse’s novel. The defeat inflicted in Russia on freedom, thought, progress, in general everything good, everything that alone makes life life, is not final because G.O. no longer constitutes the overwhelming 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-constructed ironic self-defense - a golden token, which signifies not so much capitulation as a new level of mockery of the enemy.
Trifonov poses the question harder and more seriously - and his story appears not in the frivolous “Youth” (moreover, in the humorous section), but in the traditionalist “Banner”, which was then the stronghold of military prose. The defeat here is not so much historical and social as it is ontological (children, as we know, love clever words and readily remember them). Soviet journalists are heading to the only surviving participant in the second - Paris - Olympics. He was the last to arrive, but calls himself the winner. Why? Because everyone else, having found themselves in the monstrous twentieth century, left the race, but he still runs his ultramarathon. 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 follows him; he doesn’t remember anything and understands almost nothing, but the light of Methuselah’s pride smolders in his eyes - he’s 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 parents (the fate of the repressed parents was for him - as for Aksenov - an eternal trauma). These heroes believed that only a life filled with exploits, or, in extreme cases, intense labor, makes sense. But the generation of sons no longer knows what makes more sense - self-burning, self-waste, or survival at any cost; after all, there is nothing except life, and there is no meaning except to see, hear, absorb, feel - there is no one either. There is Basil, who does not want such a turtle immortality, who burns the candle at both ends - and Semyonov actually lived only 61 years, literally burned down, 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 his life - but he is alive, and there will be no other victory. You 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 already 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 identify without a feeling of shame: all the recipes for universal happiness were once again cracked.
Children usually discuss “Victory” with pleasure and almost always claim that the grandmaster won, regardless of the author’s assessment: checkmated? - enough. G.O. noticed, didn’t notice - what’s the difference? The result is important! The teacher's sobering remark that the result is a golden token falls on deaf ears. He won - and that’s enough, but whether the fools understood their defeat should not worry us. 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 he does not notice this and rules the world. This probably happens because the main value and main victory is still life - and not, say, truth or creativity. The one who runs the longest wins - no matter with what result. And horrified by this, like Aksyonov, in our hearts we are ready to quickly come to terms with this, like Trifonov. Burnt branches smell very good. - “Khas-Bulat is daring, your saklya is poor...” - G.O. drew on the same note. The Grandmaster was the embodiment of neatness, the embodiment of strictness of clothing and manners, so characteristic of people who are insecure and easily vulnerable. He was young, dressed in a gray suit, light shirt and simple tie. No one except 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 his uncertainty and timidity from strangers. He complained about his lips, which tended to stretch into a pitiful smile or tremble. He would willingly close his lips from prying eyes, but, unfortunately, this has not yet been accepted in society. Game G.O. amazed and upset the grandmaster. On the left flank, the figures crowded together in such a way that a tangle of charlatan cabalistic signs was formed, it looked like the tuning of a hacky brass band, yellow-gray compacted snow, blank fences, a cement factory. The entire left flank smelled of the latrine and bleach, the sour smell of the barracks, wet rags in the kitchen, and also reeked of castor oil and diarrhea from early childhood. “You’re 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 quickly thought in panic, then he guessed what was happening 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 knight hung over the board. “A fork in the ass,” the grandmaster thought. “That’s a fork!” Grandfather had his own fork, he did not allow anyone to use it. Property. Personal fork, spoon and knife, personal plates and a vial for sputum. I also remember the “lyre” fur coat, a heavy fur coat with “lyre” fur, it hung at the entrance, the grandfather almost never went out to see his grandparents. It’s a pity to lose the old people.” While the knight was hanging over the board, luminous lights flashed before the grandmaster’s eyes again. lines and points of possible pre-match raids and victims. Alas, the croup of the knight with the lagging dirty purple bike was so convincing that the grandmaster just shrugged his shoulders. “Are you giving up the rook?” - asked G.O. - What can you do. - Are you sacrificing a rook for the sake of an attack? Did you guess right? - asked G.O., still not daring to place the knight on the desired square. “I’m just saving the queen,” muttered the grandmaster. -Aren't you catching me? - asked G.O. - No, what are you talking about, you are a strong player. G.O. made my treasured "fork". The grandmaster hid the queen in a secluded corner behind the terrace, behind a dilapidated stone terrace with carved, rotten columns, where in the fall there was a sharp smell of rotten maple leaves. Here you can sit in a comfortable position, squatting. It’s good here, at least my pride doesn’t 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, his occupation of the square, his occupation of the "b4" square, in any case, already gave rise to thoughts. The grandmaster realized that in this variation, on this spring green evening, there were only youthful myths he won't have enough. All this is true, there are glorious fools roaming the world - cabin boys Billy, cowboys Harry, beauties Mary and Nellie, and the brigantine raises its sails, but there comes a moment when you feel the dangerous and real proximity of the black knight on square "b4". A struggle lay ahead, complex, subtle, fascinating, calculating. There was life ahead. The grandmaster won a pawn, took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. A few moments in complete solitude, with his lips and nose hidden by a scarf, put him in a banal philosophical mood. “This is how you achieve something,” he thought, “and what next? You spend your whole life achieving 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’m in “I’ve already been everywhere.” “In his place, Petrosyan would have given up,” thought the grandmaster. The loss of a pawn did not upset G.O. much: after all, 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 left in reserve. For example, the joy of long, along the entire diagonal, moves of the bishop. If you slightly drag an elephant along the board, then this will to some extent replace the rapid sliding on a skiff along the sunny, slightly blooming water of a pond near Moscow, from light to shadow, from shadow to light. The grandmaster felt an irresistible passionate desire to capture the square “h8”, for it was a field of love, a tubercle of love, above which hung transparent dragonflies. “You deftly won the rook back from me, and I clapped,” G.O. irritation. “Sorry,” 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 began, plunging into strategic thoughts. The stormy summer celebration of love on the h8 square delighted and at the same time worried the grandmaster. He felt that soon there would be an accumulation of externally logical, but internally absurd forces in the center. Again you will hear cacophony and smell bleach, like in those distant, damned memory corridors on the left flank. - It’s interesting: why are all chess players Jews? - asked G.O. - Why everything? - said the grandmaster. - For example, I’m not a Jew. - Really? - G.O. was surprised. and added: “Don’t think that I am like that.” I have no prejudices about this. Just curious. “Well, you, for example,” said the grandmaster, “after all, you are not a Jew.” “Where can I be?” - muttered G.O. and again plunged into his secret plans. “If I like him, then he likes me,” thought G.O. “If I shoot here, he’ll shoot there, then I go here, he answers like this... I still him I’ll finish it off, I’ll break it anyway. Just think, grandmaster-blatmaster, you still have a thin vein against me. I know your championships: you agree in advance. I’ll crush you anyway, even if it’s a bloody nose!” “Yes, I’ve lost my quality,” he said to the grandmaster, “but nothing, 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 not love, not a meeting, not hope, not hello, not life. Flu chills and yellow snow again, 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 tin bowl with a knife. Nothing more clearly proved the meaninglessness and illusory nature of life than this position in the center. It's time to end the game. “No,” thought the grandmaster, “there is something else besides this.” He put on a large reel of piano pieces by Bach, calmed his heart with pure and monotonous sounds, like the splashing of waves, then left the dacha and went to the sea. The pine trees rustled above him, and under his bare feet there was slippery and springy coniferous crust. Remembering the sea and imitating it, he began to understand the position and harmonize it. My soul suddenly felt clear and light. Logically, like a Bach coda, Black was checkmated. The matte situation glowed dimly and beautifully, finished 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 the checkmate to his king. The grandmaster was silent, afraid to break the charm of this moment. “Check,” said G.O. quietly and carefully, moving his knight. He could barely contain his internal roar.... The Grandmaster screamed and started running. The owner of the dacha, the coachman Euripides and Nina Kuzminichna ran after him, stamping and whistling. Overtaking them, the unleashed dog Nochka overtook the grandmaster. “Shah,” G.O. said again, moving his horse, and took a breath of air with painful lust.... The grandmaster was led along the aisle among the silent crowd. The person walking behind barely touched his back with some hard object. A man in a black overcoat with SS lightning on his buttonholes was waiting for him in front. One step - half a second, another step - a second, another step - one and a half, another step - two... Steps up. Why up? These things should be done in a pit. You need to be courageous. It is necessary? How long does it take to put a smelly gunny bag on your head? So, it became completely dark and it was difficult to breathe, and only somewhere very far away the orchestra bravuraly played “Khas-Bulat the Daring.” - Checkmate! - like a copper pipe, G.O. screamed. - Well, you see, - muttered the grandmaster, - congratulations! Incredibly, he checkmate the grandmaster! Unbelievable but true! - he laughed. - Oh yes I am! - He playfully stroked his head. “Eh, you are my grandmaster, grandmaster,” he buzzed, put his palms on the grandmaster’s shoulders and pressed in a friendly manner, “you are my dear young man... My nerves couldn’t stand it, right? Confess? “Yes, yes, I lost it,” the grandmaster hastily confirmed. O. swept the pieces off the board with a wide, free gesture. The board was old, chipped, in some places the surface polished layer had been torn off, yellow, worn-out 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 containing not only his own life, but an infinite number of lives, and this endless alternation of light and dark fields filled him with awe and quiet joy. “It seems,” he thought, “I haven’t 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 it?” What's incredible about this? “You are a strong, strong-willed player,” said the grandmaster. “Nobody will believe,” G.O. repeated, “they will say that I am making a mistake.” What evidence do I have? “Excuse me,” the grandmaster became slightly offended, looking at G.O.’s steep pink forehead, “I’ll give you convincing proof.” I knew that I would meet you. He opened his briefcase and took out a large, palm-sized gold token, on which was beautifully engraved: “The giver of this won a game of chess against me. Grandmaster so-and-so.” “All that remains is to put down the number,” he said, took engraving accessories from his briefcase and beautifully engraved the number in the corner of the token. “This is pure gold,” he said, handing over the token. “No deception?” asked G.O. “Absolutely pure gold,” said the grandmaster. “I have already ordered a lot of these tokens and will constantly replenish the stock.” February 1965
| HOW STORIES ARISE |
| The story "Victory" appeared in the magazine "Youth" in 1965. And it was written in Dubulti, on the Riga seaside, where in Soviet times the so-called House of Writers’ Creativity was located. So, Vasily Aksenov watched an amateur chess game of his friends, famous writers Boris Balter and Anatoly Gladilin. One of them suddenly lost his rook somewhere - it was not on the chessboard. A serious dispute arose about this between respected writers - in Vasily Pavlovich’s words, they were fighting. This served as a creative impulse for our author. In the evening in his room, he decided to describe the situation he had seen during the day in a humorous way, but, as often happens, the plot unfolded completely differently, and the story “Victory” turned out to be. Grandmaster Mark Taimanov highly appreciated the story, in which Vasily Aksenov very correctly captured the essence of the chess match as such. The author himself never felt any particular attraction to chess, preferring basketball, but during his school years he had a third grade in this ancient and beautiful game. |
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