From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Erofeev religiosity and his influences
Date: 19 Nov 92 04:35:35 GMT
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1992Nov18.224316.17586@husc3.harvard.edu>
verbit@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:

> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

MV:
>	[ about notebooks as evidence of Erofeev's influences: ]

MZ:
>>Indeed they are.  As for questions of influence, they are not terribly
>>interesting in and of themselves; their import is mainly in their
>>utility for situating the author's own views as part of a certain
>>historical development.  For instance, should we become convinced by
>>internal clues, or even by extrinsic evidence, that a certain text by
>>Rozanov was a primary influence on a certain text by Erofeev, it
>>becomes sensible to ask just which of the classic's propositions were
>>accepted by his epigone, and which were reacted against.  In the
>>process, we are likely to get a clearer understanding of the motives
>>of the latter, as well as the potentialities implicit in the former.

MV:
>The importance of notebooks, essay and Leniniana is that these
>texts give us the scope of Erofeev's reading. We can try to find
>some hidden quote in M-P, but the explicit quote in the notebook
>from, say, Nabokov (which very often appears later in 
>Erofeev's original work) is more important. Ditto for the
>admitted importance of Rozanov for Erofeev: it is *explicit*,
>while other connections are as they are - tenuous.

As much as I cherish the notebooks of great writers, be it Camus,
Nietzsche, Erofeev, or Val\'ery, whose _Cahiers_ are in a class of
their own, I instist that a *finished* literary work must be accorded
the first priority in interpreting the writer's corpus.  Accordingly,
I base my interpretation first and foremost on internal textual
references.

MV:
>Well, my original thesis was that Erofeev does not belong to
>some particular cultural context (due to the nihilism),
>so by defending the importance of Russian literary influence
>I rather destroy it. Nevertheless, I'd not base the 
>existence of the unique true context (Roman) on some textual
>coincidences with some Roman authors, while there
>are much more Russian connotations. Basically, Erofeev's
>background was Russian, though he managed to free himself
>of it (following Rozanov). This explains why he is the
>only writer with outstanding international popularity in 
>the circle of his "conceptualist" peers (Evg. Popov etc.), 
>who are no less talented, but more deeply rooted into context.

I agree with every word, and emphasize that I do not intend to claim
the discovery of "the unique true context", but merely to approximate
it by a comparative contextual study.  Moreover, I want to go on
record as an admirer of Evgeny Popov and his studies of _taedium
vitae_; however I believe that the sheer literary talent manifested in
_Veselie Rusi_ in no way compensates for the prosaic fact that
everything therein remains mired in the particular, and thus fails to
attain the universality of _Moskva -- Petushki_.  In the end, the one
thing that distinguishes greatness of soul is readiness to transcend
the irremediable quagmire of boredom, brutality, and remorse.  Whether
this readiness is attained through religious faith, as in Beckett and
Blake, or its absolute negation, as in Sade, Baudelaire, and Camus,
does not matter in the least.

>Misha.

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"La fosse une fois recouverte, il sera seme' dessus des glands, afin
que par la suite le terrain de ladite fosse se trouvant regarni, et le
taillis se retrouvant fourre' comme il l'e'tait auparavant, les traces
de ma tombe disparaissent de dessus la surface de la terre comme je me
flatte que ma me'moire s'effacera de l'esprit des hommes, excepte'
ne'anmoins du petit nombre de ceux qui ont bien voulu m'aimer jusqu'au
dernier moment et dont j'emporte un bien doux souvenir au tombeau."
Xref: sparky soc.culture.soviet:9974 rec.arts.books:20215