What to read: list of Sergei Dovlatov Bashny.Net

Sergei Dovlatov: what books I likeIn a letter to Tamara Urzhumova, actress of the Leningrad youth theatre, written 1 July 1963, Sergei Dovlatov (at the time he served in the protection of the camps near Leningrad) leads to "a list of 30-40 books that I think should read". "Most of them You are obviously familiar, but it's not terrible, writes Dovlatov girl. — You'll at least know what books I like". The list is very interesting, especially when you consider that his compiler at that time was only 21 years old.

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Startwith compatriots :

1. If you have not read, certainly take Herzen, "Past and thoughts". Will be surprised how Herzen was "a", and clear the earth of man, as far as was wise and noble. Fiction to read is not necessary. Very frustrating.
 

2. Read "The Possessed" By Dostoevsky. The best novelist of all times and peoples. Read more excellent story "another man's wife and husband under the bed". Very scary similar.
 

3. "Sevastopol stories" and "Cossacks" of Leo Tolstoy.
 

4. Every year re-read Kuprin. Bunin and Andreyev, after him, can not read, although they are both masters.

Soviet prose does not exist. But there are some great books. They should be read.

1. The Whole Alexei Tolstoy. Especially the early stories. They seem to call a "long cycle".

2. Yevgeny Zamyatin. It is very difficult to get. Shot was in ' 37. Writer crafty, shallow and very bright. If you get read, but carefully. All Zamyatin made on the waste from Dostoevsky.

3. Elena Guro. Favorite writer Mac. Too hard to get. Pretty boring aunt.

4. Essays Larisa Reisner. Recently there was a re-release. Thick red book. You will love it. Wonderful essays about the Decembrists. For example, Kakhovka. Reisner, by the way, was the lover of Trotsky.

5. Read "Envy" Olesha. I don't like this book, but everyone else likes it.

6. Lev Slavin "Heir".

7. Boris Pilnyak. All I'd get. Most likely, you will not get anything. Is also shot. (!)

8. Read tendryakova "For a running day." Favorite writer Grobina. This book is in any of the factory library.

9. Arkady Averchenko. The best Soviet humorist. Get almost impossible. Emigrated in the year 18(?).

10. M. Zoshchenko. One greatly undermined the Soviet power. Sometimes vulgar, but very funny.

11. Victor Konetsky. Pretty young Leningrad. There are in all the libraries(?).

12. Yuri Kazakov. Too young. The stories of his graceful, a little Cutesy and Flirty. There is a very good.

13. Find the story of Alexander green "the commandant of the port."

(Tamara, I'm missing a textbook such books as "the Quiet don", for example.)

Now touch dry English prose. In England, no artists, no composers, no poets, but there is great prose. Simple, long-winded, I would say the business prose. For example, a typical English phrase. From Chesterton. Here is the memory, of course, inaccurate:
 

"Cut gray suit, Mr. monk carried a healthy and cheerful spirit of the English social compromise, all the English bad weather with its rain and fog, although this time Mr. monk walked through the sun-drenched hills of California."

So:

1. Chesterton.

2. R. Aldington. Stories and "death of a hero."

3. John Wayne. "Hurry down."

4. Read the stories of Hg wells. For example, a "Magic shop".

Literature of France is as beautiful as France itself. French prose sometimes fanciful, almost feminine. But the French were superb stylists.

1. Reread "Dear friend."

2. Jules Renard. «Ryzhikov.» A wonderful book. Renard called "pocket Maupassant".

3. Paul Guimard. The modern Frenchman. A yachtsman and a boxer. Wrote "Le Havre street."

4. Exupery. I didn't like, but everyone likes.

5. Jacques Cocteau. Great plays. "Bull on the roof", etc.

6. marcel proust. It will seem difficult. Also waste from Dostoevsky.

7. Re-Read Balzac. Unconditionally favorite writer. Genius, simply put. Read the "Shagreen skin".

The Germans I do miss, but one that is not similar to German. The Germans are all philosophers, and the fat burghers.
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I once had to read Mann. I almost died of boredom and hatred.

Zweig was a good German. Probably even the French, not German. And there is a lovely modern West German writer Heinrich Boll. "... And not said a single word", "House without a master". There is a "Billiards at half past nine". But in this book, Belle is a bore and a Catholic. All in dogmas and sermons. It is not worth reading.

Then the Americans. In America there is no literary traditions. And household traditions is almost there. The British, for example, all bad habits turned into a tradition. Call England a country of traditions. But the forerunners of a great American Hemingway can be considered anything from Aeschylus to Stendhal, from the Bible to Japanese treastise. The Americans not only established in the literature, the cult of gangsterism and female infernal, invented not only the "Golden boy", the kind of violinist and boxer at the same time, such a bully and yet aesthetic. They told about what the true courage, true honesty, what is simplicity, taught to believe in luck, in luck, believe in the road and myself.

Hemingway, the writer, whom I believed. His code was "Fair game". Always and everywhere should be fair game.A man should be simple and strong. Cold-blooded and sensible women he didn't love. Everything should be as nature commanded. Children should be childish, obedient dog, etc. He loved light and warm clothes are smart and clean animals, gray-eyed, weak women, and he was broad-shouldered man, with a round cat's chin. I will write a special letter. He was a real writer. Re-read everything they have written. Especially "Fiesta", "death in the afternoon", "White elephants" "the Killers," "In our time", "where pure, light".
 

2. Was Stephen crane. Read "the Blue hotel". Favorite Hemingway story.
 

3. Read Steinbeck. "Pearl" and "Winter of our discontent".
 

4. Faulkner. There is a collection of "Seven stories". That's it and read.
 

5. There is another Saroyan. William Saroyan, an American Armenian. Very nice, but the texture is not the same. Read the "Human Comedy".
 

6. John DOS Passos "Manhattan". A very worthwhile book.

See, Tamara, got a stupid letter directory. Just You'll probably understand (according to the latest rules probably can not commas) that is my favorite thing. Once loved Boxing, but injured his foot and left. If you don't watch yourself, you begin to limp. Do you like lame? published 

 

P. S. And remember, just changing your mind — together we change the world! © econet

Source: izbrannoe.com/news/otdykh/chto-pochitat-spisok-dovlatova/