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A Conversation with Andrei Bitov
By Dmitry Bavilsky Friday, November 07, 2003
DMITRY BAVILSKY: What are you currently working on? ANDREI
BITOV: Once, during a phone conversation, I came up with a good answer
for this question—on myself. Actually I have been trying to combine my
own projects with those assigned to me, and so I have been focusing
more on short non-fiction, mostly essays. What I usually do when I have
good material to work with—is delay the writing until the very last
minute of the “deadline,” and then when I’m out of time, I set myself
in front of my old computer. I pace my writing from one sitting to
another. I am not ready for big, serious projects—it’s become
harder and harder to realize such ambitions. I have many unfinished
works, among which is Prepodavatel’ simetrii [The Instructor of
Symmetry]; I keep returning to it time after time, hoping it will turn
into a good book in which I try to reveal the inner association of
plots that appear at first glance as odd and incomplete. By the way,
this is the only book from which I have decided not to publish any
parts separately—I’m hoping to complete it. I don’t want to have yet
another unfinished novel and this is why I am holding off. Like Chekhov, I suffer from graphophobia, but when I’m inspired—I can write very quickly. DB: Why do you delay the writing process? AB:
For me, the writing of the initial word is the most elusive part in the
process. It can be any word. For instance, in a piece titled “Bitva”
[The Battle] I talk about word formation: the first word can be
anything, but once there, it becomes idiosyncratic—then, irreplaceable. This
is how it works for me—the narrative is the thread that ties all the
words together. You can’t have the connection among the words if you
are in a conflicted state of mind in regard to the narrative. In my
work I depend on the ancient concept of “inspiration,” I have to be
entranced, a state where I no longer reason and write without stopping.
Without getting up from the chair . . . DB: How long can such a state last? AB: The longest was forty days, when I was writing Pushkin House.
I had two breakdowns though. Nevertheless, I am quite content with the
result. I write fast, whereas it takes me much longer conceptualizing
the text—it’s torturous. There is always some sort of work going on
every day. DB: Do you take notes? Or do all those observations and aphorisms just come to you? AB:
Everything happens during the writing process. If you try to insert
things—it won’t work. You can do that in an interview—remember
something post factum and add a thought or a phrase in the middle of a
conversation. But in the written text it will stand out like a red flag. In
1971, when I was new at the [M. Gorky] Institute of Literature, I
taught an experimental class. We were analyzing “anonymous” texts. The
auditorium was filled with a mix of cerebral and non-academic
kinds—just perfect for the purpose. I alternately read them excerpts
from Nabokov and Sasha Sokolov. Then one day I decided to read from
Chekhov. I ought to tell you that our audience turned out to have
a sharp aesthetic impulse, but otherwise, well—it was a bit more
complicated. I read to them from “The Student,” a brilliant story and
Chekhov’s own favorite piece. At first they had to figure out who
wrote the story. Then they had to guess what it was about, why the
author chose the title, and at what point in the text the plot was
conceived. The next step was asking them which phrase the author would
edit out if he had had a chance to go over it one more time. And
finally—how the author ever came up with such a line. DB: That is the most interesting part. AB:
Yes. The Russian students’ response regarding the unwanted phrase was:
“somebody droned pitifully with a sound like blowing into an empty
bottle.” They all had the sense to realize that this line was inserted
from a notebook. Nothing else seemed as dubious. I did a similar
experiment with American students, and it turned out into a rather
interesting study, of course, having in mind that they perceived the
story in translation. Here, that very same bottle had been drowned
without a trace, thus losing its capacity of being discovered. The
Americans just reacted to the “over-exaggerated pathos in the end.” Interpreting
fiction is an entirely subjective matter, but in any case, that
“bottle” in the text looks like a pop-art object—it’s inserted,
appended, and therefore is separate and hanging out of the text. For me
all of this is connected with “exhalation”: all the genres in which I
have written were calculated according to the length of my “breath.” A
story, a chapter, an essay—all can be written in one sitting. It is
completely irrelevant how long you have been conceptualizing them;
what’s important is the non-stop writing process—lump-writing, if you
like. It’s when you sit down and don’t get up. A longer story, on the
other hand, is the time and ability of maintaining yourself in a
certain single state. Say, within the limits of a week. DB: What about the novel? AB:
You can’t have a novel written in one state, because the novel is the
aging of the author with the text. There always exists a breaking point
in novel writing. And somehow, it’s those breaking points, the gaps,
that bear the novel. Nobody has really reflected upon the fact how the
course of your own life affects the text, eventually evolving into one.
Dostoevsky wrote The Gambler in one sitting . . . While
we’re on the subject, Dostoevsky is a good example for delving into
this hypothesis because evidently, and according to his own
contemporaries, he wrote in a sloppy manner, and for some reason it was
ingenious. Because he wrote in one breath! Or let’s take Pushkin
for example; my weakness ever since my beginnings. I am completely
puzzled by his cycles of creativity. He would mold his texts from
various genres, and then it would all come to a rapid end—whenever he’d
get up from his chair. Pushkin has a profuse collection of draft books,
which now I happen to like even more than some of his finished works.
Here you can find his origins of conception. The poems need trimming,
the prose needs a gulp of breath—a sprinter’s long, deep exhalation. But this is strictly my own approach to the matter and doesn’t apply universally. I recall the period when writing Penelope.
For some reason the critics today like it the best. I wrote it at a
time when nothing was being published. Finished it overnight. A young
man’s energy, perhaps! Even though it was practically impossible to
write back then—we just had the baby, I was working as a mining
technician . . . Then I used to write at nighttime, in the kitchen, one
printed sheet per sitting. DB: Did you handwrite? AB: I
used a typewriter. I started typing a long time ago—if you write by
hand you will start re-writing everything while transferring the text
onto the typewriter. It’s agonizing. There are painters who apply the
paint on canvas by layers, never finishing any single painting. One can
paint such a painting all of his life, and never finish it. But you
shouldn’t turn literature into a continuous process—some day it has to
be finished and handed over. DB: You mean you are not a perfectionist? AB:
I have the most careless manner of writing as can be. When the critics
describe me as “an outstanding stylist,” they are grossly mistaken—it’s
hard to find a sloppier writer than me. I have proofs (if they haven’t
been tossed out while I was moving)—manuscripts full of flaws; I’ve
always used a carbon copy while typing the text (in case I lose the
original), which shows that everything I have written so far was
unedited. And that’s what I believe in—the condition, where
nothing else matters or exists. But for that, one needs to create an
artificial environment, which is inexistent in real life. DB: What do you mean by that? AB:
Retreat to a quiet place, drive yourself to a complete desperation or
desolation, and quickly make use of those circumstances. In the
village, the backwoods . . . DB: What about bringing the text to an “intermediate” end? Isn’t it like a release, and allows you to move on? AB:
The book should contain those various endings in itself. I repeat—this
is my own method, which perhaps originates from my own inadequacies,
the consequence of writing during a time when no other social
engagements existed. I wrote without inhibitions because the publisher
wasn’t interested in any of it. I was in charge of setting a problem in
front of me and resolving it myself. DB: Like inventing a bicycle? AB:
Sometimes I did and sometimes—not. One must stay true to the self,
because in literature originality is very rare. But the energy that
brings forth something new and its right to exist belongs to the
people. The reaction to reality, which is expressed synchronously and
spontaneously, is a rare valor. Not in the narrative, but in reality,
whatever is happening right at this moment. Those authors, who manage
to write in such a way, are without a doubt the true writers of the
contemporary. There are not too many of this kind. The “belletrists”
prevail. However, we really didn’t have any professional
“belletrists” in Russia—our literature was either ingenious, or simply
didn’t exist. There have been recent attempts in bestseller genre
writing—they write detective stories and dabble in other “professional
styles.” Western literature has evolved a bit differently—they too had
brilliant writers, but alongside their works they also created
so-called products. DB: Is it good or bad? AB: I really
don’t know. We have always had a uniquely “native” literature, which is
capable of reaching unimaginable heights and set models that never
existed before. The Golden Age—Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol—each
experimented in different genres, but it took them only one try.
Literally. They would go out “into the field” and determine for
themselves—which genre. Then, it was quickly exhausted. That’s
how I came to the concept of “inborn text”—not in the sense that the
texts have been initially inscribed in the author’s mind, but the bulk
of energy, its completeness—it must exist in the psyche from the very
start. The existentially ephemeral quality of Russian writers cannot be
ascribed solely to the phenomenon of autocracy or Cheka [the Soviet
Secret Police], but also to the fact that making textual decisions has
always been connected to taking great risks. Combined with expurgation,
the process of production is always associated with a dramatic
experience—when they tell you from somewhere out there that for some
reason you cannot create this certain piece. The next step simply
becomes impossible—in relation to yourself, toward your own
development. And that seems to be closer to what’s called a poetic way
of experiencing reality. DB: There are many versions of reality, how can one be sure? Perhaps there really is nothing beyond the margins of language? AB:
We process reality through language, otherwise it slips away from us.
People live in a defined world—they live in the present. Most of the
literature is being written to replicate past lives or realities, if
you will. And then there is another kind of literature, which is
created because of a lack of reality—it thrives only through the act of
writing. This kind of literature is retained in the memory and becomes
part of literary history, creating the potential for imitation. I
like Russian literature because it does not create imitable “products.”
It has always produced unique works. The Russian novel of the Golden
Age . . . It has nothing in common with the conventional novel: Dead Souls is an epic, Eugeny Onegin is a novel in verse, A Hero of Our Time is a collection of novellas within a novel. Their authors were free,
and therefore the text was born with the subject—it was not composed,
or narrated. Those were exemplary times! Everything was done during the
eighty years between Pushkin and Blok. The Soviet era was the era of
adolescent literature—after which everything went absolutely berserk
and that’s why writers keep emerging in literature as if from the void.
Our literature still remains untamed and wild. There are a plethora of
“bicycle inventions,” but they can never replace the energy. You can’t
replace youth, desire and love with anything else. The written text
must be exhaled—no mastery can ever replace inspiration. You need to
“hoard” the feelings within yourself in order to exhale them on paper.
You must write reality so that no one will believe it, and then
juxtapose it with fantasy that’s perfectly believable—that’s what I
call literature. DB: Can one write fiction with a concrete plot,
by using pure poetic devices? Not lyrical prose, or prose-poetry, but
say—a novel? AB: Well, there is the epic. Although Pushkin exhausted all of its possibilities. The Bronze Horseman is an ideally condensed narrative described by its author as “a novel.” The Queen of Spades and The Bronze Horseman project two kinds of madness, whereas the main psychological battle
takes place in the transition from verse to prose. Poetry, especially
modern poetry, is completely indebted to psychological prose. Recently
someone wrote an essay about why Akhmatova didn’t like Chekhov. I’ll
tell you why—because she emerged from Chekhov and is completely
indebted to him! This is a topic that needs to be researched further. And then, there is a human born every second who hasn’t read anything, right? That, right there, is a prospective reader. Text is always associated with an event. DB: The written text on its own, or the process? AB:
A writer who gets pleasure out of writing is naturally a graphomaniac.
A lot of times this process becomes an experience only for yourself—the
writer. But sometimes another person is also entranced by this
experience . . . and when that other person is completely transformed
by it—the process becomes an event. There are no other criteria for this. DB: So what happens next? AB:
I have been reading a lot lately, since I was elected as member of jury
for the Russian Decameron. Ideally these works should fall under the
category of erotic literature. I am very interested in this. It’s
really hard to overcome something that generates interest—it’s either
good literature or a narrative about something very interesting. But
the most intriguing part is that there is hardly any erotica in any of
these works. They keep circling around it. None of these writers tackle
obscenity directly—they all try to embellish it—and some are good at
it, some are bad. But I did get pleasure out of one thing. We have a
brand-new energy for the word—it lives and palpitates in the flow. It
will be exhausted very soon—it won’t last too long, but I began reading
it because so far it has been captivating. Any person can sit
down and write a book. Only it needs to be done in a rather simple way.
But nowadays everyone is writing “literature.” They thrive in it, and
then everything is lost. People obsess about being writers and that’s
why there is no literature. The original interview in the Russian language appeared in Topos From |
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