Max Nemtsov's Blog, page 363

by popular demand

мы возвращаемся к родному языку. он не виноват, что нам на нем разговаривают всякие уроды



продолжается сбор средств на нашу охуительную книжку, если вы еще не заметили. повторю, деньги не нам, а первопечатникам иванам федоровым, которые печатают все как в первый раз (хотя можно уже было понять, что такие охуительные книжки они должны печатать не просто бесплатно, а их создателям доплачивать). в общем, давайте денег - не пожалеете. пожалеете, если не дадите. там очень маленький тираж.

собрана почти половина. участвуют Додо, Плиний и Читалка, а также, по данным на сегодняшнее утро, возможно, и еще кое-кто-то присоединится, но это будет уместное (сиречь сезонное) пасхальное яйцо (сиречь сюрприз)



меж тем, народ начал ебошить луки производить селфи на фоне кадров из грядущего "Внутреннего порока". всемирная забава "Spot the Pynchon" продолжается и несколько мутирует

тем временем, поем песни Пинчона на last.fm. теперь все вместе

Сиднейское книжное обозрение обозрело Кромку Навылет. в Сиднее, вестимо

а что же в россии, на родине что же? - может задать вопрос пытливый пинчоновед. и получит прямой ответ - а ни хуя. отзывы на выходящее - по-прежнему в диапазоне от "я очень умный - я не врубаюсь, что означают все эти американские реалии в тексте, но знаю, что перевод плохой" до "я такая дура, что это же все просто ужас"


а не менее странное издание "причудь" отбирает для нас лучшие книги сэнсэя. "о чем я говорю, когда говорю о БеГе", несомненно, в их число входит.

ну и да - новость дня в том, что читатели начали писать свое творчество по мотивам горменгаста. у Мервина Пика в переводе Александры Глебовской, надо сказать, получалось лучше. а пол стакана - мужской, очевидно, нет?

а что-читатели продолжают обсуждать "Книжного вора". попадаются нормальные

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поскольку сегодня мы "всем рекомендуем газ", в завершение хочется заметить, что вся музыка на русском языке будет слушаться лучше на китайском. начало уже положено известно кем - вот истинные провидцы

our night watch

The Mind Parasites by Colin Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


it starts like a jolly h.p.lovecraft fan fic yet the further it goes, the more topical it gets. the principal action takes place, er, right now, and to read about those "brain slugs" in the climes of rabid russian jingoism is mildly educational, to say the least. it all reads like a newscast, actually.

however. the best part ends with the studies of human component (human empowerment, the necessity of awakening and awareness), and i wish the author could stay in this philosophical vein. yet the novel dissolves into a bright but shallow carnival of dated sf, including moon theories, bodiless aliens, and space police a la Space Odyssey, and you feel betrayed by him: he seems to not have thought it through, and played possum from some really good revelation about this rather revolting human condition that only poets have courage and power to transcend, for very brief periods of time.

the soviet edition is supplemented with idiotically thoughtful afterword where our "plainclothed literary critics" pretend that the novel is a great specimen of progressive and anti-bourgeois current british literature (although it was published 20 years later than the original), and no less idiotic comments on names and language remarks for those who wish to perfect their english. those diversionary tactics are pardonable, however, for publishing a novel with mind-bending drugs in it, only two years after brezhnev kicked the bucket, well, that was a feat in itself. and i wonder if they guessed at the time that this work was actually undermining the regime itself.


The Black Room by Colin Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's as much a "spy novel" as, say, "17 Moments of Spring," with a different premise, of course. The general theme, again, is raising human awareness, by whatever it takes, and, again, there is next to none humanitarian belief in the success of the enterprise. No supermen either. Generally, it's more of a masturbation fantasy about Very Dangerous Intellectuals. But entertaining, especially when the novel characters mention "Konsomol" mafia in the soviet Politburo, and hint that Suslov was a Nazi mole.


Боги Атлантиды. В поисках утраченных знаний by Colin Wilson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


amazing that he never really lets go of the idea of human improvement by awakening consciousness, and raising it above the mundane, yet pathetic that he has to stoop to this level of regurgitated knowledge and "popular pseudo-science". i'm not talking about speculative history. in itself, it may be as good an instrument of raising curiosity as anything, however it is a spectacularly easy way of showing signs of senile dementia. it's been a long time since i've heard this intensely hysterical voice of a truly dedicated reader of popular trash, retelling bits and pieces of it without any resemblance of disciplined thought. he piles "horses and people" together, mixing stars, holy grails, ancient technologies, etc., and astute conjectures about, say, over-conscious or "concrete-mixer-less advanced science of the ancients" with trivia, like nice dinners on board of Nile boats or chance meetings with insignificant people and "great discoveries' made while reading second-rate pop science. does he really think those discoveries are great? an excellent mind gone to seed.

the russian translation is good however, with nice easter eggs from the translator iykwim. the russian title is nevertheless as stupid as it can get


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now, the dance party today is a bunch of protest songs, some better (and even more prophetic) than others, but here they are, funny as hell

our pet projects

so, this is the one we did for the heck of it. out of love, really:



we need the money for the production, not for ourselves. go there and give it to us. you won't be sorry. you'll be sorry if you don't



another one is different but, hopefully, is for the betterment of everyone:



now, this one is sad. yesterday, our far-flung friends held Old Vladivostok's Wake:



- Vita's report
- Alex Khitrov's report
- vl.ru's report



it's not my thing with the place i was born in. this is officially the end of hope.

on the lighter note. old friend Nick Rock'N'Roll has the video single released today:



two more songs, live:





and the end of our little dance party is provided by Alejandro Zhadov, another old friend:

material world

the watchlist is kinda boring but for this, "the unsung classic" "available only to wise and tenacious buyers". russian publishers are being fucking morons as usual clearly not them





all things Pynchonesque on Etsy, old and new



Josh Brolin still talks about Inherent Vice. "I just did a movie for P T Anderson that I didn't understand," he says of the experience. "The writing of Thomas Pynchon is so Shakespearean. It was crazy, chaotic but really, really gratifying. We took it I think in a direction that the book doesn't necessarily go, hoping it will work." truly terrifying. the film is out on December 12

some nice and (a)cute things people apparently have to say on Goodreads:
- about Vineland
- about Vineland again
- about Sacre Bleu
- about Sacre Bleu in Ukrainian
- about Zen and the AMM

walking through the city that is no more: Startsev's Mansion

our friends' familiar features:



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pleasant tomorrow

Josh Brolin on Inherent Vice the Movie: Trying to bring any Pynchon work to the screen probably demands some adaptation. sounds very creepy



Pynchon na miarę XXI wieku

[image error]

How Many Martinis Can You Fit Inside a V-2 Missile?

Orient porn: Western geishas in Japan

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readers o readers

they're so different. they may read BE in Phuket, of all places, and they may be alternatively gifted like this one. but he's an "author," "too confused to continue"

yet he is aware of his own deficiences. sort of. this one isn't: Одно время мне очень нравилась идея, что Сэлинджер теперь пишет под псевдонимом Томас Пинчон, который тоже весь такой загадочный и нигде не появляется. Меня не разубеждало даже то, что проза Пинчона на прозу корнишского затворника совсем не похожа: если начинаешь новую жизнь, можно и манеру сменить. Но в 2013 году Пинчон опубликовал новый роман «Bleeding Edge», вполне в своей манере, а главное — появилось свидетельство Салмана Рушди, который однажды с ним ужинал. Да и другие люди время от времени с ним видятся, он вроде как в последнее время стал открытее. Правда, я прочел его самый толстый роман «Against The Day», он мне сильно понравился, и поскольку главными его героями, связывающими все линии, являются как раз подростки — команда удивительного дирижабля, странствующего по миру на рубеже прошлого и позапрошлого веков, — это вполне мог быть Сэлинджер: но по ряду примет это вполне себе Пинчон, и самая красивая версия, увы, рухнула. guess who is this unselfconscious genius

another piece of Vineland for your reading pleasure

Latvian film critic Dmitry Rantsev seems to enjoy Inherent Vice but it's his job to be prepared for the movie

cinema news, btw: The movie to which Paltrow referred is "Mortdecai," an action-comedy caper directed by David Koepp and based on Kyril Bonfiglioli's anthology book "The Mortdecai Trilogy," about a roguish art dealer racing to recover a stolen painting rumored to be linked to a lost bank account filled with Nazi gold.

Darker Magazine (of Sochi horror community, no joke here) publishes an excellent paean to Gormenghast, by someone named Vladislav Zhenevsky (of Geneve, that is)

now, back to the Far East that is no more. here is the total harmony for you, in pre-everything Japan



and the glad news is that another void in the RFE history is being filled with this book by this researcher. although they bungled the author's name and left all those intuitive translation glitches, seems like

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moving beauty etc.

the last one we honestly tried but it turned out to be utter dreck

and I surprised myself by finding I have something to say to this world:



on new Viy (the old one was bad enough)



on this piece of something



and King Lear

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there's a place

the complete trilogy in the preferred store

and here's a little light music for you:



vk public "humanitarians" reprints the beginning of "vineland," unexpectedly

what-to-readers struggle with "blindness" by saramago

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some news from the city that was:
- here are the results of the one-year struggle for Dom Smith. i.e. there are none, as predicted, for the thieving and whoring city authorities have already decided everything
- and here is an outline of what they do citywide - how to murder history in a specific location
- walking around in the city that is no more: Catholic Church

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Kuaizuokai by WuMeiGui:

whatever happened to our dream

on March 31, they hold the event in memoriam Eleanor Prey's dream of Vladivostok
there has been much talk of loving your "motherland" recently, of being "patriotic," and whatnot. this bloody circus that's been going on in this country doesn't have anything to do with the place you've been born and love, by default or otherwise. here's what the government and the state do to the country, and to everything that we still love. i don't have a motherland anymore. i don't have anything to love in this fucking russia anymore



the eternal actress. this is a plot for a nice occult novel

our siberian readers get their humanitarian aid in the form of books. Pynchon will get you throught the night alright

was run down by a horsehyppogriph. my participation in the project is blatantly exaggerated. thanks for the honorary mention though

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my dear subjects

i see tomatoes. nah, seriously, this has been going on for too long. now, in the spirit of the times, i really see no point in continuing this blog in russian. let's see if anyone cares. the end of the informational announcement. now, back to the business of news reporting.



no more than a year has passed (more, actually), and phantom-press finally decides to unveil the book. which, i believe, is better than the previous "kiddie" one by john boyne. more chamber-like, of sorts, like music



meet florence, the star of the mortdecai movie, along with johnny, gwynneth, and ewan
in the meantime, russian publishers are still "snapping their beaks"



now, here's a hardcore fan of GR. or, the extreme form of space travel

a really stupid poll on what people read in subway. we have women by hank, the book thief (natch), and GR by TRP

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and here's to us, national traitors: