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Y AKSYONOV
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cussions over book production. It's high time to do so, if it's not too
late. Having a bird's-eye view on the American book landscape, one
might fall down lower than the level of tastes which dominates our pre–
sumably so refined society. One can argue, there is literature, and there is
literature. There is a tremendous world of commercial hack-work, and
there is a smaller world where dignity, independence and inspiration still
dictate their laws, that is, a world of genuine literature. That's true, but
unfortunately, these two world are not insulated from each other.
Commercial literature cannot help affecting the world of artistry,
meanwhile, the counter-traffic all but doesn't exist. Here lies the gist of
our problem:
I,
as an artist, and
they
as my potential readers. The mass
production of hack-work creates a new climate over the cultural fields.
In fact, we face an enormous pollution of the entire Western cultural
environment. A winged horse becomes a most endangered species.
Compared to other fields of art, literature is more susceptible to the
temptation of producing cheap stu£[ Unlike, say, painting, the final out–
come of the literary process sees the light in numerous cheap, affordable
copies. Under the conditions of the mass market, the cheapness of a sin–
gle copy covers the entire literary landscape with a thin fUm of general
cheapness. The cheapness and beastly seriousness of so-called "aggressive
marketing cannot but beget gloom and dullness in the book world. I
can't suppress a yawn at a display of the glossy, tacky jackets of the
weekly "new releases." The tradition of the superlative "blurbs" on the
back side of a jacket, all written in the same vein of gasping admiration
cannot be considered anything but a dreary disgrace.
The consequences of this rather innocent business can be more serious
than they may seem. The first thing which occurs to you is the literary
criticism. Sometimes, it seems to me that the critic in the Western book
world has almost completely lost his ability, as well as his desire to
express his subjective views on the literary process. It cannot be ruled out
that he reached the same level of, so to speak, "objectivity" which was
given to his colleague of Socialist Realism's epoch. With an insignificant
exception, literary criticism in America turns into an extension of that
notorious "aggressive marketing." The readers don't care about the
review's content, but they do care about its location in the pages of a
magazine. Once, I was receiving congratulations
all
day long, for a
review of my book was situated in an upper right corner of a page of
Publisher's Weekly.
With regards to the palatal sensations of the critics, I should say that
they are situated in a rather narrow spectrum from a sweet to a sour–
sweet; there is no room for tinges of bitterness. An impartial observer
would
be struck by the absence of polemics and clashes between various
literary groups. Then again, what literary groups am I talking about?
