Аннотация: The Arthur Conan Doyle's session of spiritualism on the contemporary Russial Literature. The story of literary horror.
The Arthur Conan Doyle's session of spiritualism on the contemporary Russial Literature. The story of literary horror.
Arthur Conan Doyle reflected on his feelings. He read his biography, written in the bowels of Russial literature, and could not in any way to complete the reading.
At first, reading was unbearably boring. And even it was a some difficult, unpleasant process. Some later, the events went faster and more interesting.
At last, he is presented in the form of a happy father of a happy family, a man surrounded by his second wife (the first wife died) and energetic children. He is capable of wasting two hundred and fifty thousand pounds on the propaganda of spiritualism (this is a beginning of the 20th century). He is writing, when there is such a desire, a literary works, and when there is no such desire - he is not writing. The loss of relatives did not very negatively impress him. - With them, with most of them, he is communicating during the spiritualistic sessions (the channeling sessions).
In a more interesting, more energetic style the events in the biography went. In the right places, the author expressed properly, politically correct, sometimes slightly ironic, but, nevertheless, with an affectionate comments. Sometimes he defended Conan Doyle ... But, however, the whole presentation gave the impression of a glossy surface. The reading was going with boredom of different levels and volumes.
Did the author understand his hero?
For example, you can to compare Jack London and Arthur Conan Doyle.
It was very difficult for Jack London to build the Wolf House and the Snark yacht. The construction of the Wolf House was never completed. We also note that Alexander Dumas successfully built the house-castle, but this achievement practically led to the bankruptcy of the great French writer.
Arthur Conan Doyle built at least two houses (Undershaw and Windlesham) and he lived in both houses with pleasure (in addition, he purchased the other real estate).
His equipment manufacturing companies completed their activities without success, but this did not affect his position as a financially prosperous person.
Jack London had some problems with his wives. Conan Doyle had no problems with either his first or second wife - a problems of interpersonal relationships. Even the ten-year period when Conan Doyle loved his future second wife, and lived with the first, is not marked by any conflicts with either his first or second wife.
Why did the formally conscientious biography turn out to be (slightly) boring and even (slightly) (sometimes) repulsive?
Arthur Conan Doyle completed to read, already, most of his biography, but couldn't understand from this book - who he is, Arthur Conan Doyle, - either an unhappy boy, or an eccentric (weirdie), who, by a coincidence, came up with a golden character - Sherlock Holmes - and thanks to this (random) circumstance entered the world of well-being?
Arthur Conan Doyle called upon Sherlock Holmes, mentally, in imagination, and tried to ask him a question: who and how wrote his, Conan Doyle, a biography.
Sherlock Holmes was sitting on his favorite spot in the corner of the sofa and was blowing little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling. Dr. Watson stood aside and watched the reflection of Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes in the smooth surface of a a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot.
There was no comments from Sherlock Holmes regarding the biography.
Arthur Conan Doyle tried to solve the problem in another way.
At a seance, he aroused the spirit of Vitka [Victor] Kotov, a friend of Alexander Antipov from Yuri Trifonov's novel "Time and Place" [Юрий Трифонов 'Время и место']. Vitka Kotov may have the necessary information.
Vitka Kotov really knew.
According to him, in Moscow at the beginning of the 21st century, an energetic provincial young pretty woman was discovered with a great writing skills and a colossal creative energy.
In the conditions of the collapsing national book market, she was not able to make a living by literary work. But she was generating a quite decent literary content (works).
Her fanaticism attracted the attention of influential, solvent people. Being in a hopeless situation, she showed a tendency to reasonable compromises.
Such a person was useful. For a number of reasons, the release of various biographies was recognized as useful affair.
A team was formed of more or less educated people who, according to the developed scheme, prepared materials for writing biographies of a foreigners - figures of art.
A capable (talented) provincial woman was fulfilling a function of a processing, organizing and smoothing of material.
With such a scheme, it would be unfair to give her the opportunity to write under her own name.
This option was slightly dangerous.
And, besides, such a variant would put her in some sense at the end of the food chain. Such people are a means, a resource, but not a goal. So putting such a person at the end of the food chain is against the rules.
For the capable (talented) provincial woman (and for the entire creative team), a pseudonym was invented.
The team, under the creative control of the provincial woman, worked carefully, preparing book after book. But to name those books the result of literary creativity - this was possible only after a serious effort of imagination.
There were no specialists in foreign literature capable of writing biographies of foreign writers. It was not always advisable to translate biographies written by foreign authors. For some famous foreign writers there was no worthy biography works.
By virtue of the above circumstances, biographies written by the team under the creative management of a capable (talented) provincial woman may become an useful biographical reference books.
Something like an articles in the encyclopedia - but of a huge size and with a subjective author's bells and whistles, stuff (like the author's a manner of a familiarity attitude ["we are a creative figures of the equal level, the close people"] or an affectionate muttering - in relation to the described hero).
Arthur Conan Doyle listened to Vitka Kotov with an increasing horror.
Nevertheless, he politely thanked the specialist in contemporary Russial literature.
To return to his usual psychological balance, he summoned the spirits of his relatives ...
April 6, 2020 11:34
Translation from Russian into English: April 7, 2020 14:15.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Спиритический сеанс Артура Конан Дойла и современная российская литература. Литературный хоррор-стори'.