Today, a fairly large number of readers know who Alexander Karasev is. His unusual work attracts increased attention and finds a response in the hearts of many. What makes this author stand out? We’ll talk about this today.
Alexander Karasev: biography
A. Karasev came to literature relatively late. He published his first story when he was already over 30 years old. At that time, he had two higher educations, historical and legal, work experience in fields not related to literature (worked as a mechanic, engineer, security guard), and several years of military service.
Karasev knows about the war firsthand. He was a participant in the hostilities in the Chechen conflict. War cripples someone, if not physically, then morally, emotionally, but gives someone a new understanding of life, a creative impulse to throw out all the accumulated impressions, to express views on life. Alexander Karasev belongs to the second category.
In an interview, Karasev admitted that not only did he not dream of a writing career as a child, but he didn’t believe others when they talk about their childhood passion for writing. After all, a child, especially a boy, is bored of displaying letters on paper; he wants activity. To become a driver of a large car, a policeman catching criminals, or an athlete setting records - this is interesting, it looks like a childhood dream. And in order to want to become a writer, you need to accumulate life, worldly experience.
The first literary experiments
Although Karasev Alexander always liked to read and fluent in the word (he was especially good at explanatory, by his own ironic admission), however, the desire to write something artistic did not arise up to 25-26 years. At this age, he was captured by the idea of ​​writing a novel. This is a mistake of all novice authors. Attempts to write a large-scale work without fulfilling its style and style in small genres are almost always doomed to failure. Nothing came of Karasev either. There was an idea, there was intrigue, a love line, detective elements, but the novel died out after several inconclusive pages.
A few years later, having almost forgotten about his first literary experiments, Karasev felt an urgent need to describe what is happening around. This happened when he came to Chechnya. In his hands was the diary of a deceased colleague, where he began to enter official notes mixed up with abstract thoughts and a description of typical scenes of military life. So the material for his future military stories began to be collected.
Literary debut
Having amassed a rather impressive array of stories and everyday sketches, Alexander Vladimirovich Karasev himself began to send them out to thick literary magazines. In 2003, the magazine “October” published the story “Natasha” about a provincial girl, ready for any humiliation for the sake of “love”. A simple plot, realistic characters and a complex cocktail of emotions as an aftertaste from reading - all this attracted attention to the beginning author. Followed by publications in the magazines "Friendship of Peoples", "Ural", "New World", "Neva" and others.
Currently, many are familiar with the name Alexander Karasev. The writer has over 2 dozens of publications in famous literary magazines and 2 printed books. This is not only and not so much military prose. These are stories about the lives of ordinary people in our difficult time.
Alexander Karasev - author of short stories
Each author finds for himself the best way to express himself. Someone is better at succeeding in poetry, someone feels confident, unfolding huge canvases in front of the reader with many characters, events, plans for a story, and someone with a short enough, succinct text to express a very deep thought.
Karasev himself explains his commitment to the story genre with a special type of energy. It is easier for him to take the height with one jerk, in one breath, than for a long time and systematically build the fabric of the story, weaving together the scattered threads of the plot. His style is the maximum concentration of meaning, the rejection of an infinite number of details and lyrical digressions for the same purpose - to be honest and simple with the reader.
Karasev's stories are distinguished by their brightness, dynamics, they feel a clear authorial position, based on life experience and an unshakable system of values, the main of which is life. In terms of technology, Alexander Karasev is close to impressionism. They are driven by the desire to capture life in its smallest manifestations. But behind the apparent simplicity and emphasized realism hides a large semantic load.
Heroes of Karasev
Every story of Alexander Karasev has his own hero. As a rule, these are military personnel, but there are ordinary guys who are not related to military affairs. A hero for Karasev is not an idealized image without a single flaw, but a living person with his victories and defeats, weaknesses and strengths, he may have his own “cockroaches” in his head, he may at times be mistaken, but he is a person and acts like that as life tells him.
Remember, for example, the hero of the story "Starfall". Victor does not immediately deserve reading approval. He is too gloomy, sarcastic, unsociable. Despite his small stature, he is trying to look down on everyone. But his appearance, as often happens, is deceiving. When someone needs help, he without hesitation rises to his defense.
The hero of the story “The Queen” - Captain Fryazin - is shown to the reader in completely different circumstances. But amid the whistle of bullets and the chaos of an unexpected attack, we see in Fryazin the same features as in Viktor: courage, honesty and loyalty to his duty. This is exactly what Alexander Karasev sees the real hero.
Chechen stories
Alexander Karasev has a cycle “Chechen Stories” and there is a book with the same title, which in addition to the cycle of the same name includes a collection of short essays “The First Snow”. The title of the collection, evoking involuntary association with the famous Tolstoy's Sevastopol Tales, and still vivid memories of the hostilities in the Chechen Republic in each of us compel the reader to attribute these works to the genre of military prose.
However, a closer look reveals that this book goes beyond the boundaries of the battle genre. It has few bloody skirmishes, abstract speculations about patriotism and war. The focus of the author’s attention is not war, but a man placed in cruel, sometimes inhuman conditions. This book is more like documentary chronicles, which, however, does not deprive of its artistic expressiveness.
Creativity of Alexander Karasev in the assessment of critics
All critics, describing the work of Karasev, highlight the same distinctive features, call it "concentrated", "impressionistic" and at the same time very simple and even mundane, devoid of any artistic details. However, in assessing these features, critics cannot come to the same opinion.
Some see in this conciseness and restraint a special author's style, which has its roots in Chekhov, Babel, Zoshchenko. They notice depth for simplicity, for ordinary - “something very important”. So, for Jan Schenkman, the laconicism of Karasev is a special talent. According to the apt expression of the critic, a few phrases are enough for him to express what others would need a novel for. Oleg Ermakov attributes Karasev's stories to the genre of “minimalist” and at the same time “psychological” prose. Elena Kryukova was captivated by “living thought” and “living heart”, hiding behind simplicity.
Other critics lack artistic expression, generalizing thoughts. Valeria Pustovaya is inclined to attribute the works of Karasev to the genre of journalism, and not prose. She notes that there is “little secret” in them, but only a dry series of events. Andrei Nemzer, too, Karasev’s prose seems too simple, understandable without any effort from the reader, which significantly reduces its value.
Awards
While critics argue about genres and styles, Alexander Karasev himself has already found his reader. This is evidenced by numerous publications in thick literary magazines and collections, and copyright books, and prestigious literary awards. He is the winner of the Bunin Prize (2008), the O'Henry Prize (2010), as well as several other prizes and awards.