Once again, I am convinced that books from the shortlist of literary awards are usually much more interesting (not only in terms of plot) than the winning novels. In any case, this is exactly how things have been with Booker for the last three years. "4321" ("Four, three, two, one") Paul Auster was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2017, the prize went to George Saunders and his "Lincoln in the Bardo", but they did not forget about Auster in Russia, and here is his thousand-page (!) (in electronic form of 2000 pages) the novel appeared in Russian in the translation of Maxim Nemtsov.
If you decide to take up "4321" (and why not, the New Year holidays are ahead - it's time to lie down on the couch with a longrid!), I immediately warn you that it's better to prepare a notebook and pencil so that you can make notes, and better a sign that makes life easier for you and reading. I didn't do this (no one warned me!), which at some point I really regretted, and I started writing something down in notes on my phone.
The fact is that the idea and composition of the novel are non-standard. These are four life stories of one person running in parallel. I think all of us have ever asked a question from the category of "what would have happened if I had not done this, but this?", but Oster also, apparently, asked himself such a question-he asked himself, and he wrote a novel.
Each plot branch has its own serial number-1,2, 3 or 4. When you see the chapter number, know that the first digit in it is the serial number of the plot fragment, that is, the chapter number itself, but the second is an indication of which of the four heroes with the same name it all happens.
The main character of the novel is Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the long-awaited child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, a sweet boy who loves baseball, movies and literature. From a certain point on, Oster divided his life into four "branches", each of which had its own Ferguson, its own Rose, its own Stanley (if there were any at all, alas, in some branches the events were more tragic than in others).
The four Fergusons had a lot in common, the women of their lives in all cases were their mother and Amy Schneiderman, relations with the latter developed very differently, Archie's student life also proceeded differently, different companies, different life vicissitudes, but... For Oster, the main thing is not events, but people, events are just a formative background in order to show that no matter how one turns it, wherever one throws heroes, a conditional good will not become a conditional bad, and a bad one will not become good. And I will immediately make a reservation that "4321" is not a work where there are bad guys and heroes-well done, everything is extremely realistic here.
You can agree with the concept of Oster, you can not, but I thought: and really, why do we suddenly think that we would be some fundamentally different if there was the same "if"? Archie Ferguson was born at a specific time in a specific family, Archie-1, Archie-2, Archie-3 and Archie-4 were loved by their parents, read the same books as a child, were surrounded by approximately the same people, then these four Archies encountered and somehow reacted to the same events on a global scale.
The Rosenbergs, the election of President Kennedy and his assassination, the march from Selma to Montgomery, Martin Luther King's speech, the Vietnam War, etc. Why would a boy brought up in the spirit of democratic ideals suddenly become, for example, a Republican who rejoices in the election of Nixon? And if a person is born with a clear talent in some field, sooner or later he will dig it out in himself: a writer will write, because he simply cannot do otherwise, it's another matter whether he will become a popular writer, whether he will create his own magnum opus. Yes, he may not live for some reason, he may turn into a crooked path, a lot of things can happen, but what is the probability? How many options out of a thousand will be fundamentally different, what is the percentage?
In a few reviews, readers compare "4321" with the novels of Leo Tolstoy. Obviously, this refers to the Tolstoy scope, the desire to create a real epic and sentences that can start on one page and end only at the end of the next (it is quite possible to read one sentence in a six - inch e-book of 3-4 pages). Well, if Tolstoy lived in our time, wrote with irony and was not a terrible moralizer, repeating the same thing several times, then yes, in this case it would be possible to compare, but after all, with these three "if" Leo Tolstoy would no longer be Leo Tolstoy. In any case, the same Tolstoy, whom we have in mind when pronouncing this surname, would be Tolstoy with some kind of different serial number.
For the time being, the novel was very easy to read, I already thought that here it is, the best book of 2018, now you don't need to think and sort through the list of what you read this year. But by about the middle, I was terribly tired: long sentences began to seem unnecessarily overloaded, abundant details were more distracting than pleasing, the lack of dialogues that could somehow unload the reader's brain also became a minus.
At some point, "4321" turned into a roller coaster altogether: you suddenly quickly read a flight of 30 pages, forgetting that you only wanted to finish reading the page and go about your business, then you seem to freeze in one place and waste ten pages for half an hour, on which, in general, nothing happens. Still, I would have this novel podsokratila and a little unloaded, this would only make it better. It was not interesting to read about student protests and generally near-political topics, but about the life of Ferguson - quite.
I want to say a few words about translation, because my relationship with the works of Maxim Nemtsov is not easy (and I know that I am not the only one), and I often encounter them, because we have the same literary tastes: he has both chic charming texts and pretentious show-off things in which he composes new words, uses strange turns, etc.
I liked the translation of "4321", with the exception of one "but": after all, I do not understand why, if I come across a name or a proper name in the text that is already known to readers, I should not leave it under the already familiar name, even if it is not quite correct in the opinion of the translator?
"Pride and prejudice" turned into "Pride and Pride", "Over the Catcher in the rye" is presented as "The Catcher in the rye" (by the way, the translation of this text by Nemtsov is called "The Catcher in the grain field" then why not use your own version), "A tree grows in Brooklyn " underwent an inversion and became" A tree grows in Brooklyn", the name Stanley became Stanley, Manhattan became Manhattan... I have the impression that Maxim Vladimirovich translates and sentences: "I'll show you how to do it right! you will learn from me!".
In general, if you have a love for what is commonly called a Great American Novel, do not pass by, do not miss the opportunity to wrap yourself in the text, as in a cozy duvet and live in it for a few days.
966.233 SRY