Monument to Admiral Kopeikin – Newspaper Kommersant No. 180 (7381) of 09/29/2022

The winner of various awards for numerous children’s and teenage books, as well as the author of several adult novels, including the sensational “Sakhalin Islands” four years ago, Eduard Verkin interrupted an unusually long pause for himself by publishing “Snark Snark” – a novel in two volumes about a small provincial town where strange things happen. Considers it the main literary event of the year so far Mikhail Prokov.

“I did not hope that this would end well, and I regretted that I left the bed. I could lie and think about the future. But I left her. And Chaginsk closed in around,” the narrator will lament towards the end of the first book. But everything starts well.

Two friends, a writer and a photographer, quickly harp the book “Chaginsk: through work and accomplishments.” The photographer’s name is Khazin, the writer’s name is Victor, Vitya, Vitenka. As a child, he visited this very Chaginsk every summer, and some people still remember him. However, this does not have any effect on his creative plans: an order turned up, Chaginsk is so Chaginsk, his hand is full, the procedure is known. There is a ready-made template, and, in general, a ready-made text: the book “Hills. City-worker, city-warrior” remained unredeemed, and if we replace “Hills” with “Chaginsk” and tweak the texture a little…

Before becoming the author of lockfiction – that’s how Victor calls his work on perpetuating all kinds of flycatchers – he was the author of two novels, one good and one about zombies. Victor does not like to remember this. In general, he doesn’t really like to remember, preferring to live in the present, but there are too many things in Chaginsk that evoke memories in him. They once found this milestone standing in the museum with friends, they walked across this bridge along the fishing road, he was once in love with this girl – already a woman, the mother of a teenager.

Partly to drown out the voice of memory, partly out of boredom, he fantasizes in a race with Khazin – earlier they would have said “drives”. Gets everyone you meet: this one, most likely, killed her husband, this one probably has a brother – a dwarf; but the main object of fantasy is the local Admiral Chichagin. Not only is he bluntly declared the founder of the city (he just lived nearby, and the date of foundation of Chaginsk is unknown), he was also distinguished by extraordinary strength, killed a bear with his bare hands, and also promoted lightning rods and conscious sobriety. The locals do not remember this great man very well, but they are imbued with reverence and are even ready to erect a monument to him.

Khazin in one of the dialogues remembers Chichikov not without reason: both heroes not weakly look like him, then Khlestakov, and Khazin is still completely like Nozdryov. They trade not in dead souls and not stories about super connections in the capital, but in creative, but creative is also sold very well. The dashing nineties have just ended, the scar on Victor’s chin from failure with the book “Patron of the Non-Black Earth Region” has just healed, and in Chaginsk they have a table and a house under every bush, the attention of the mayor, almost friendship with the head of NEKSTRAN Alexei Stepanovich Svetlov, who is going to do good the city with a paper mill, mobile communications, and, well, return graylings to the river. Heroes eat a lot and willingly, often drink, Khazin tries to glue all more or less pretty townswomen. Then Roman, a performer of Cossack dances, will join them, amusing them with his innocence, and they will begin to drink and eat three of them.

Then two teenagers will disappear in the forest, Khazin will be bitten by a mouse, Svetlov will ask Victor to write a Bible, and the local policeman, childhood friend Fyodor Svatov, will leave the city as quickly as possible. The laptop and floppy disks with all the texts will disappear under unclear circumstances. After 17 years, Victor and Roman will return to Chaginsk to try to understand where the boys have gone and what happened to them in general then. This is how the second book begins.

Verkin again – following Sakhalin Island, but in a completely different way – wrote a novel about how the future grows through the present, in especially dense areas, simply burning through it. About how, turning to the past, a person sees that the sprouts of this formidable future were already breaking through when everything was fine and calm, and does not want to see this, and in order not to see this, he invents the past for everything – himself, those around him, the city, admiral. When there is no strength to invent and lie, alcohol, food or moronic video blogs come to the rescue: all means are good to avoid meeting with yourself. At the same time, there is neither moralization, nor obvious mysticism, nor zealous psychologism in the book. There is a detective component, but it is also better not to rely on it. And there are – well, besides wit, observation, verbal and plot ingenuity, other undoubted, but not so rare virtues – three qualities that you can find anyway, but in combination they practically do not occur: honesty, chastity and ruthlessness.

Of course, the book also has flaws, and the main one reveals itself even before the purchase: the two volumes together make up one and a half thousand pages in small print. Nevertheless, “snark snark” should at least try to read. There will be something to remember.

Verkin Edward. snark snark. Book 1. Chaginsk. Book 2. Snow of Enceladus. Moscow: Eksmo, 2022