Four months ago, he and I were sitting in a cafe near the Sportivnaya metro station, he was drinking beer and scolding what he had read in the manuscript.
He had already undergone a serious operation, but was cheerful and calm. He was ready to die and looked straight into her yellow eyes.
He said: it’s a pity, my son is too young and won’t remember me.
I answered: your son will read your books and will know everything about you.
His finest hour happened in 2003. Writers Garros and Evdokimov received the National Bestseller Award for their novel “[Disruption].”
Then there were Good times for literature - as we now understand from today.
Books were inexpensive, and people willingly bought them. The Internet was not that developed. Quality magazines ruled fashion.
These two, Riga residents Garros and Evdokimov - both were not yet thirty - fit perfectly into those good new times. Beautiful, charismatic, relaxed. They were the heroes of magazines and were perceived by the public as real celestials.
“[Disruption]” and the subsequent three novels of the Garros-Evdokimov tandem turned out to be really very fresh and bold, curious, witty and charming.
The hole in space left after his departure will not heal immediately.
We really want to believe in the great future of our country and our people, but we know: there is a thin layer of real people, and no matter what field you go into - literature, politics, government, cinema, newspaper business - there are reliable professionals , honest and strong people either little or not enough.
Now there is one less.
Hurry to admire a person, because you will miss the joy.
Life always ends in death. This is how the world works. Whether there is anything after life, no one knows. No one has ever returned from there to talk about it. It can be especially bitter and offensive when a young, talented person leaves. full of life a man who didn't do even a tenth of what he could. Maybe it is nature (as the Strugatsky brothers believed) that removes people who come too close to unraveling its secrets and can disrupt homeostasis? So on April 6, 2017, journalist and writer Alexander Garros left us. He was 42 years old.
Life
Garros was born in Belarus in Novopolotsk in 1975. The family moved to Latvia when he was very young. In Riga he graduated from school and studied at the university. Alexander Garros, whose biography began in the Soviet Union, could only receive the status of “non-citizen” in Latvia. In the magazine "Snob", speaking to himself, Garros defined his nationality - "Soviet man."
In 2006, he moved to Moscow, where he entered the philological department of Moscow State University and began working as a journalist. He headed the cultural departments at Novaya Gazeta, at the Expert magazine, and was a columnist for the Snob magazine. Together with his longtime friend, classmate and work colleague in Riga, he wrote four novels. The novel (Headbreaker) received the National Bestseller Award in 2003.
Alexander was married to the writer Anna Starobinets. They raised a daughter and son.
Creation
Together with the writer Alexandre Garros, he composed four novels. These are “Juche”, “Grey Slime”, “(Head) Breaking”, “Wagon Factor”. These novels have been republished many times and arouse constant reader interest. The genre and meaning of these works, written in a unique language, can be interpreted differently. They can be considered social novels, and thrillers, and even literary provocations. Somewhere deep down there exists eternal theme Russian literature - "tragedy little man", which becomes scary. "Juche" is positioned by the author as a film story, where a lot of important things are said about post-Soviet life. The main thing for the average reader is that it is impossible to tear yourself away from these books. Maybe this is the effect of joint creativity of two, like the Strugatsky brothers. Twice as many ideas arise, a unique resonance of thoughts. Or, as Ilf and Petrov wrote, “the mysterious Slavic soul and the mysterious Jewish soul” are in eternal contradiction. By the way, Alexander Garros himself wrote about himself that he is of “three bloods - Latvian, Estonian and Georgian"
In 2016, Garros published the collection Untranslatable Wordplay.
The homeland is not for sale, this problem must be solved somehow
That's what it says on the cover. In the preface to the collection, the author writes that media speed has now increased to incredible levels. While in the days of the paper press it could last for several days, now it sometimes becomes obsolete before anyone has had time to publish it. Authors turn into literary zombies without even having time to say a word. The collection is dedicated to culture in these new realities, the articles of which are read in one breath.
Death
In 2015, Alexander was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Eldest daughter Garros was 11 years old at the time, his youngest son was only 5 months old. His wife Anna Starobinets then publicly appealed to everyone who could help. Charitable foundations practically nothing is given for adult patients, and treatment was urgent and expensive. She wrote how dear Sasha is to her, how he helped her in difficult moments of her life, how she loves him and now it’s her turn to help him. She wrote it simply, sincerely, very touchingly. Everyone who read it felt their misfortune. Anna said that they approached her strangers on the street and offered money: 100, 200 rubles, depending on how much was in your wallet.
We managed to collect money. Garros underwent treatment in Israel. He underwent surgery and chemotherapy. The treatment helped, and remission occurred. It would seem that the disease has been defeated! There is a long life ahead and many plans. But, alas, the improvement was short-lived. Sasha’s condition worsened day by day, he was tormented by shortness of breath and swelling, and the pain did not stop. Quite traumatic treatment did not help. The disease took its toll and on April 6, 2017, Alexander Garros passed away.
Sasha died. There is no God
Anna Starobinets wrote on her page in social network Facebook when Alexander stopped breathing. Her despair is understandable.
Life goes on
Alexander Garros was buried in Riga, at the Ivanovo cemetery.
Garros's Facebook page still exists online and is actively visited.
His friends and people who empathized with him and for whom he became dear write there. His articles and comments still exist online. Alexander Garros, whose books are read by thousands of people, continues to live.
“He lived, he wrote, he loved” - on Stendhal’s grave. These same words define Alexandre Garros.
FOREWORD BY ANNA STAROBINETS
Sasha Garros moved from Riga to Moscow - to live with me and our little daughter - at the end of 2005. Before that, he worked in collaboration with his friend Lekha Evdokimov (for their debut novel “Puzzle” they received the “National Best” award, at the presentation of which Sasha and I actually met). After moving, Sasha probably wrote hundreds of articles, reports and essays for various magazines. He and I wrote several film scripts together. He composed two stories and five or six amazing poems. But he never wrote a single full-length book. He didn't write his novel. Although there was an idea for the novel - and not just one.
He wrote brilliantly. He thought mathematically clearly. He could easily come up with a story that was harmonious, logical and proportionate, like a crystal. He could easily write this story in his signature script, fabulously beautiful and lacy, like an icy pattern on a winter window. But he never did this during the 12 years he lived in Moscow. Something really prevented him from writing a novel.
Maybe I was in the way. Well, like me - me and my daughter, me and the cat, me and the poodle, me and my son, me and the books that I was just writing, me and the dirty dishes, me and the everyday life that he took upon himself.
Maybe my main job got in the way. It was necessary to write something all the time - articles, columns, scripts - and Sasha was not (unlike me) so multitasking that he could work on one story for money in the morning, and on another for fun in the evening, walking the dog in between. and roasting the turkey.
Perhaps the long-term habit of writing with a co-author got in the way. A solo literary hike was as frightening as a solo climb to a height of eight thousand meters. Who will pull you back up on a rope if you accidentally fall into vulgarity and mess up? Who will you sit down with, have a smoke and drink, and discuss the route you have taken today and the route planned for tomorrow?
Maybe it was the inability to write without a deadline that got in the way. This is what happens with journalists and screenwriters - you write only when you feel compelled to, you don’t sleep for days, you hand in your text at the last moment.
Sasha did not have time to submit his text.
He began writing the novel “Will” - conceived long ago, back in 2012 - only in the fall of 2015, when he received a diagnosis, and with it a deadline. Literally. When the line of death loomed ahead.
Somehow I immediately found this free time. Between radiation and chemistry, his favorite diagrams appeared in multi-colored pens on large sheets A3 format: intertwined storylines, character systems, circles, dashes, chicken handwritings.
He initially conceived “Will” as a film story. Like a scenario that never happened, according to which - Sasha’s words - “a film cannot and will not be made in modern Russia" Sasha got the shape right. Script recording - without internal monologues and emotions, without reasoning, everything only through poses, remarks, actions - turned out to be the ideal choice for talking about “here” and “now”, to make a slice of life, to touch its living, real fabric, to catch by the tail that very Zeitgeist, which, as fellow writers complain, is elusive today.
The plot centers on a charismatic history teacher who was kicked out of a good Moscow school with a wolf ticket ( dark story with the seduction of a high school girl, who either was there or not, but, be that as it may, the schoolgirl eventually died; Note that this was all invented long before the scandal at school 57). And who, as a result, left for a provincial Russian town, got a job as a teacher at a local school, organized there something like an optional historical re-enactors’ club called “Volya” (not that he even organized it - the children themselves came to him, charismatic, strong and interesting teacher). Then the children began to play revolution and Socialist Revolutionaries - and began to play. We got to the point of a serious case, to the point of being accused of preparing a terrorist attack, thanks to the provocateur from the FSB.
Doesn't remind you of anything? The “New Greatness” case had not yet happened when he came up with it. Sasha died a year and a half before this case.
Just logic. Mathematical verification of the idea. Crystalline harmony of historical, literary and life parallels. Well, of course, a journalistic approach and good intuition. While deciphering Sasha’s clumsy notes on A3 sheets, I found a “synchronization” sign. Sasha paralleled the events in the text with those that were happening at the same time in reality. “October - the death of Motorola, December - the death of TU-154 with the ensemble and Doctor Lisa, January - Trump, early February - Zhdun.”
The synchronization of Sasha’s idea with reality - take the work of “New Greatness” for example - continued without him: harmoniously arranged history tells itself, the snow pattern crystallizes on the window, even if the owner has left the house. He wrote his first “solo” novel, “Will,” until the end of February 2017. He managed about a third of the time - and gave me what he had written to read. At the beginning of March, swelling appeared, and he said:
I turned into Zhdun. Not only externally. I sit and wait for death.
He could no longer write.
I asked him many times to tell me how the novel ends. I tried as best I could to put these questions into a correct form (you stopped writing, and I’m wondering what’s next), but we both understood: I’m asking because I want to finish what he started. Only later. Without him.
He did not want. His solo unfinished text paralleled, synchronized for him with his unlived life:
If I feel better, I'll finish it myself. If I die, let my text die too. Let no one ever read it.
I argued with him. Yes, I knew that he was terminally ill, that he was loved, strong, clever man is dying. But I couldn’t accept the death of his text - also strong, beloved, smart. I said that since the story has already been invented, it must be written. I said that he couldn't do that to the characters - just abandon them on the road. I told him he couldn't do this to me. He answered: I do as I want.
In mid-March he called me and said that he had decided to tell me how it would all end. I opened the laptop and wrote everything down, and I even managed not to cry. He spoke to the hum of an oxygen concentrator, in a quiet voice, but with some kind of boyish enthusiasm. He used the word “will”, which shocked me: Anh, this character will do this and that, but this line will be such and such, but here I haven’t decided yet whether it will be this way or that way.
I asked if he would allow me - later - to finish the novel for him. He grinned:
You can't write my book for me. Nobody can do this.
I really couldn't. I could not and will never be able to write like him. I write (in a good way) simply. He wrote (in a good way) complexly, stringing snowflakes of metaphors onto a thin logical needle:
“A wide knife rips open the whitish belly of a fish. A hand in a rubber glove reaches into the purple crevice, rips out a tangled skein of tripe, covered in streaks, and throws it into a cardboard box. The knife flies up, falls, and again - the popped fish head with plastic eye buttons also flies into the box. A hippopotamus woman in a filthy cellophane apron over her robe passes the gutted fish to her companions, takes a new one from the box, and plops it onto the cutting table - covered in stains of blood and mucus.
Having spoiled, across the aisle, a saggy, heavily drinking butcher chops stubborn frostbitten lamb.
Yellowish broilers in gynecological poses. Eggs in a billiard triangular clutch. Groceries, smoking, sanction. And in the vegetable and fruit rows there are grenades in shades of gore, pyramids of beet kernels, eggplant shells, squash mines, pumpkin torpedoes. Pickles in a bucket are like Oerlikon cartridges, spices in trays are like gunpowder and saltpeter in bulk. The Greek fire of honey and butter, the napalm of adjika, tkemali, satsebeli, smolders in jars and jars. The floor tiles are chipped, auxiliary workers are rolling carts, traders are yelling, beckoning and adhering (there are a lot of southerners and Asians of both sexes), hundreds of limbs are shuffling in a class-based and visually diverse manner - from provincial hipsters to shabby pensioners, from model-class chicks to large rednecks of petty criminals rocks, - a crowd...”
...No, I can't write like that. I asked him to explain how he does it. Laughed:
You do not need. You write so well too.
No, well anyway.
That's just how I see it. That's just how I think.
Sash, what if Lekha finishes your book? According to your story? He also seems to see and think, right? You wrote together.
No. First of all, this is my solo book. Secondly...why did Lekha give up? He has enough to do.
A few days later he said that I might be right. That history should not be abandoned on the road.
I would like what I managed to write to come out someday. Just what I wrote. And nothing else.
San, but where can the unfinished text appear?
Well I do not know. In the journal. In a thick magazine.
I said I don't believe it. Thick magazines don’t need an unfinished script with a lot of swearing. Sasha nodded.
Three days before his death - when I had already left him behind with the novel - he said that he had changed his will.
I give you permission to do whatever you want with my novel. If you consider it necessary to complete it, complete it. If you can publish it, publish it. I don't mind anymore. I won't be able to finish it.
I said “thank you” and realized that he was dying. All the nightmares that happened to his body were apparently not enough for me to understand. But its resolution meant a lost battle - for the text and for life.
An hour before my death, I said that I promise: everything he wrote will be read. He shook his head negatively: you’re saying the wrong thing.
Isn’t that what I’m saying? And what to say? I love you.
He nodded: now it’s correct.
Sasha was an orderly, thorough person. Found in the computer detailed descriptions all lines, synopses of most of the remaining chapters, outlines of future dialogues. In the backpack there were sheets of A3 format folded into four with character arches. I deciphered all the recordings, collected all the scattered information into a single episode-by-episode plan and sent it to Lekha Evdokimov. He agreed to finish the novel without hesitation (now he is already at the finish line). And he agreed to put only Sasha’s name on the cover. I am very grateful to him for this.
I am also grateful to the publisher Elena Shubina and her editor Alexei Portnov for their willingness to publish the novel when it is finished.
I am grateful to Alexander Snegirev and the Friendship of Peoples magazine for this publication. Everything that Sasha managed to write is published here. Exactly the way he himself wanted: “in some thick magazine.”
I love this book. And she will.
WILL (fragment)
Alexander Zhitinsky, Vladislav Krapivin,
the Strugatsky brothers - and other teachers;
Nikita Sokolov, Dmitry Bykov,
Alexey Ivanov - and other high school students.
I burst into the Russian cultural field 15 years ago somehow completely suddenly; such ups, it seemed, did not happen anymore. Nevertheless, the first novel by Garros and his fiction co-author Alexei Evdokimov, “(Heaven) Breaking,” instantly became a hit with critics and then with readers.
With the very first book, Garros and Evdokimov also won the “National Bestseller” against the novel “Spelling,” but the quality of the literature was such that even Dmitry Lvovich himself seemed to have no complaints.
Having slightly come to their senses, the public began to study the biography of the strange duo Garros-Evdokimov, which, thanks to its first part, sounded like a foppish pseudonym. Actually, Garros never hid his moderately adventurous biography. Born in the Belarusian Novopolotsk, then lived in Tartu. Regarding the combination of blood (Latvian, Estonian and Georgian), he joked that by nationality he was a real “ Soviet man" Actually, the place of life (and the action of the first novels) - Riga in the early 2000s - bore the imprint of a past era, which, consciously or not, the author reflected.
The chronicle of madness that was the story of a bank clerk in "Puzzle" was followed by the less successful "Grey Goo" about a Riga documentary director who was forced to retrain as a detective because the police suspected a serial killer in himself, a collection of stories "Juche" and “The Truck Factor.” More or less noticeable, however, it only became last novel, balancing between a detective story and a genre conventionally called “adventures of Russians in Europe.”
The main trump card of Garros-Evdokimov was the ability to use any material - be it crime novel or sketches of the plastic life of the Russian intelligentsia - melted down in an amicable way genre literature, which exists at the intersection of anecdote and thriller (a trait that is generally unusual for Russian writers).
In 2006, Garros moved to Moscow, where he once tried to study at the journalism department (both unfinished higher education he explained that “there was too much work”), and took up journalism - just as actively and successfully as he had previously done with literature. He published in, “Seance” and “GQ”, headed the “Society” department in the magazine “Around the World”... At the same time, he never became part of any establishment - neither writers nor journalists. At one time, critics dubbed the hero of “Inside Out” a “Latvian psychopath,” and the novel itself a “Russian Fight Club.” Unlike his colleague Chuck Palahniuk, Garros was never publicly aggressive, but his organic hatred of redneck really made the writer akin to the countercultural classics.
Garros's last book was the collection "Untranslatable Wordplay" - three dozen scathing essays over the past five years, revealing in him not only a strong publicist, but an attentive screenwriter who transfers cinematic techniques into prose.
The topics are varied - from the status of a non-citizen with a Latvian residence permit to songs. Some of them are structured as a conversation that the author had or could have had with his heroes - writer Zakhar Prilepin, conductor, director. Some of them are like elegant vignettes in which he hid seemingly insignificant things for “ great literature" experience. However, under the pen of Garros, even momentary events and experiences turned into that very literature - with its own large plots and melody.