Sins of contemporary Russian literature My new friend Nestor Pilawski formulated what the Russian literature lacks: elegance, he says. Sophistication ("izyashchestvo": grace? Refinement?). Beauty and clarity of style. Depths of human nature and alike nightmares are done all too well, but something both profound and perfect in form is a rarity. Another sin of Russian literature as defined by Nestor: loquaciousness. A writer keeps babbling away long after the rules of mastery demand him unambiguously to shut up, and thus he spoils (I write "he," because SHE does not do it, of course) even that fragile impression of a clear line or a successful phrase that he managed to achieve somehow, despite the marring quality of low meanings in which he's so engrossed, poor thing. Well, allow me to disagree, I'd say, if I was compelled to disagree. But since I am not compelled to disagree, I do not say so. Here is a law of poetry: it does not matter in the least how "true" this is, only how sad or funny, or preferably sad and funny (and in the end of the day I would maybe reluctantly utter the word "affective.") #poetry #Pilawski
