The relations of the World and the Other in A. Nikolaenko's novel "To Kill Bobrykin. The story of a murder"

Nechaeva Anastasiia Leonidovna ORCID: 0000-0003-4690-2723 Postgraduate student, Department of History of Modern Russian Literature and Modern Literary Process, Moscow State University 119234, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Leninskie Gory str., 1 nasteknecha1@rambler.ru

Understanding in dialogue is an important sign of being "I". At the same time, it is possible only through the acceptance of the Other as not "I". Through an identical prism, there is an awareness of the world and the degree of its loyalty to the Other, and therefore to the "I" itself. J.-P. Sartre in the work "Being and Nothingness. The experience of phenomenological ontology" stated: "I need Another in order to fully comprehend all the structures of my being <...> the true being of the "I" is possible only as "being-with-Pierre" or "being-with-Anna", i.e. "being that in its being contains the being of another" ^[5].

Mikhail Bakhtin thought about the problem of dialogic understanding in the aspect of the image of the Other. For him, "I and the Other are the main value categories that make any valid assessment possible for the first time" ^[1]. Thus, "the value center of the artistic vision, and, consequently, the hero of the work can only be Another" ^[1]. 

The ability of communication participants to hear each other is also dialogical, according to Bakhtin. Hence arises the problem of communicative luck / failure in the ideological world of a text, that is, through a dialogue between the Other and the world, its features, the author translates the idea of the work.

A peculiar, partly distorted, and acquiring bizarre forms of dialogue between the Other and the world is reflected in Alexandra Nikolaenko's novel "To Kill Bobrykin. The story of a murder." The novel completed by the author in 2012 became the winner of the "Russian Booker" of 2017, and was also nominated for the "National Bestseller" award. 

The work, written in rhythmic prose, is overflowing with intertectual details and deliberately resembles symbolist novels, especially the "Small Demon" by Fyodor Sologub, where, according to Nikolaenko herself, "a real demon is described, real to such an extent that you hear the smell of rooms, streets, laughter, voices of pages, you see everything in words, you understand, how scary it all is" ^[8].

The novel "To Kill Bobrykin" turned out to be a work exploring the hidden sides of the creepy existence of a little man, a book written in a strange genre, "the name of which I do not know," the author admitted in an interview ^[8].

The artist Nikolaenko, who previously illustrated Pavel Sanaev's novel "Bury Me behind the Baseboard", also drew independently for her book. The black-and-white graphics echo the plot of the novel, where the little man's faith in love and happiness turns out to be a sick illusion, a dream.

The focus of the author's attention falls on Another, existing in a chaotic, chaos-filled world, where the boundaries of the real and unreal, dream and reality are blurred. Here he is represented not only as not "Me", but also as a stranger, other, marginal, mentally ill.

The peculiarities of the existence of the hero-Other in the artistic space work on the ideological component of the work, which clearly indicates the inconsistency and illusory reality, the loss of world harmony. The theme of the end, which has become a leitmotif in modern Russian literature, sounds especially clear in Nikolaenko's novel.

Coming to understanding in dialogue with the world becomes not an outlet to the light, but, on the contrary, an occasion for madness and oblivion – a tragedy. This is evidenced by the epigraph to the novel "To Kill Bobrykin" from the poem by Oleg Grigoriev: "What I don't understand, you don't need to understand, otherwise if you think about it and understand something, you will not only pull out the meat, but grab a knife." 

Consider the signs of the disintegration of the world order and dialogue in the novel, according to which the Other also comes to self-destruction.

The illusory nature and the breakdown of the basic concepts of human existence are reflected in the image of the main character of the novel Sasha Shishin – a small adult who lives with fantasies about his past childhood in a small Soviet apartment together with a religion-obsessed mother. The only joy is the love letters of Tanyusha, a childhood friend. She writes about memories, about how wonderful it would be to repeat everything. The beginning of the letters is fabulous, folded into a rhyming line: 

"Hello, my dear, good Sanya," Tanya wrote to Shishin" ^[4].  

In these letters, Shishin lives, wandering from the world of illusions and carefree childhood to a cramped apartment. Tanya writes to Sasha in a romantic manner, even obsessively beautiful: 

"I have no strength to tolerate the hated Bobrykin, and even if you, my dear, poisoned him with rat poison or something" ^[4].

The romantic message of the novel is refracted in reality. In the very first chapter, the reader meets Sasha's opponent "the hateful Bobrykin" – Tanya's husband, who needs to be killed because she asks. Bobrykin is bullied by Shishin, who is already preparing an assassination attempt.

However, the author immediately points out that all of Shishin's attempts to deal with the enemy are a dream: "It was scary for Shishin that he had such a dream" ^[4].  

When the reader gets acquainted with the personality of Shishin and the model of his existence, the question arises about the naturalness of the correspondence that the characters conduct. During a real meeting, Bobrykin remains faceless, the antithesis of what we see in Shishin's dream: "Shishin saw the hated Bobrykin on the landing <...> Shishin was quietly sneaking around, squeezing a bicycle camera with a loop <...> throwing a bicycle camera at Bobrykin" ^[4]. At this time, the hated enemy does not perform any actions.

So already at the beginning of the novel, the reader notices the illusory nature of Shishin's ideas about happiness, love, feat, and understands that the existence of the hero is a pile of illusory ideas about the world. According to the critic Konstantin Milchin, the world of the novel is "very gloomy, in which everything revolves not around love and romance, but around death, murder, illness, where the mother is cruel to her son, where loving hearts will never be together" ^[7].

A special chronotope is characteristic of "Kill Bobrykin". Space is narrow, stuffy, it is focused on illusions in Shishin's head, and time is massive. It covers a significant part of the hero's life from childhood to adulthood. The past, present and timeless coexist in the novel skillfully, creating their own artistic time. In one line, synthesized, several times are combined. In one of them everything is possible, in the other nothing: 

Moving in all sorts of time layers, the Other unsuccessfully escapes from reality. The confusion of Sasha Shishin's mind turns into a confusion of time and space, where they can safely coexist: an angry mother, Tanya from childhood, Shishin-a child and Shishin-an adult.

Critic Roman Borisov notes that "an important achievement of Nikolaenko is timelessness. The present is in the past. Perfect freedom of dealing with dreams-reality, dreams-the desired, where the past and the present are inseparable in the hero's world, interspersed in a complex web" ^[2]. 

The "complex web" indicates not only the destruction of the hero's personality, but also the disintegration of the world as a stable dimension.

The dialogue in the novel can be called "the conversation of the deaf", familiar from the theater of the absurd. At first glance, in Shishin's memories, Sasha and Tanya are happy Soviet children. They communicate, discuss long-distance joint trips to fairy-tale countries, but at the same time the author deceives the reader, setting aside Tanya with the illusion of the inflamed consciousness of the hero. Sasha's answers are often limited to staccato internal speech. He answers Tanya only in his head. In one of the letters, the girl remembers the school Christmas tree:

"Then I seemed so beautiful to myself, in this white gauze, in a straw and red hat...", "You were... you are now ... you are always" ^[4], – Shishin answers himself.

Sasha talks to his mother in monosyllables, jerkily, angrily. The Shishins' relationship is devoid of any mutual understanding, for this reason it is possible to talk about the destruction of the archetype of the family in the novel. 

Nikolaenko emphasizes the tragedy of total misunderstanding. The lack of a structured and well-coordinated dialogue between the characters increases the feeling of discord.

Apocalyptic motives also become important in the novel "To Kill Bobrykin". Critics associated them with the image of the end of the Soviet era, longing for the obsolete. The work is filled with biblical allusions, but they are present in the novel, having no semantic background: "No one is resurrected," Shishin thought. – And the cat will die, it will not rise again. The tail will peel off all!" ^[4]. 

Even the mother's conversation about the resurrection of Lazarus is interrupted by Sasha's thoughts about Tanyusha: "And for you <...> for the plague sinner <...> will Jesus Christ come? mother asked. He did not answer <...> but only Tanya... and Shishin was thinking again" ^[4].  

For Shishin, God is an incomprehensible symbol, he is dead and has never been born, religion does not exist – everything he believes in is concentrated in the illusory image of his beloved girlfriend, which becomes the foundation of existence for him. The concepts of faith are dead for Shishin's mother – her religion is as crazy as the illusions of the protagonist.

The reduction of the theme of the divine enhances the feeling of "the last time". Since Shishin's concept of supreme justice is blurred, the only way to overcome the world's problems for him is murder. 

The murder of a neighbor and suicide are the concepts in the language of which Shishin talks with a hostile reality. The list of candidates includes not only "hateful Bobrykin", whom "it's not the first time Shishin tried to strangle with a rope" ^[4], because he prevents the hero from finding eternal happiness in love. Sasha's own mother falls into this row:

"Mother, by the way, can also be strangled with a rope, she doesn't like it anyway", "Mother can also be strangled with a bicycle camera" ^[4].

The motive for killing a neighbor not only concretizes a number of images-enemies of the protagonist, but also emphasizes his dissatisfaction with the world "here". It cannot express itself except through the desire for the end.

Confusion in the number of candidates for murder is introduced by a policeman, whom Shishin wants to kill for no reason – just like that: "I'll take a rubber band and kill a policeman" ^[4].

It is noteworthy that Shishin's desire to kill others is joined by the need for his own death – suicide: "I'll strangle myself!", – Shishin thought, and went to the hardware store for a rope."

Lack of inner freedom, isolation generate anger in Shishin. Through a collision with the world, Shishin is inexorably moving towards awareness throughout the novel, which will become murderous for him. 

Answering the question about the climax of her novel, Nikolaenko said: "It [the climax] comes when childhood ends and the eyes open" ^[8]. At the same time, the author gives his hero the opportunity to feel real happiness before waking up. A holiday is born in Shishin's mind – a birthday, to which his father arrives, Tanya comes running with gifts, a young mother in a white dress. 

Leaving, the father says to his son: "But remember, Sanya, that I am proud of you. Grow up good, honest" ^[4]. Then the author instantly changes the background of the final chapter and takes us to the "real" reality, where an adult Sasha rises to an adult Tanya, who does not answer Shishin's questions: "She was silent." An image that exists in reality appears before the reader. She says to Sasha: "Just leave and that's it," "And that's it..." he thought. – Everything" ^[4].

Nikolaenko spoke about the denouement of her novel like this: "Sasha was killed. Killed childhood. The lights were turned off. And he opened his eyes in the dark <...> Alone and in the dark. Even the Hedgehog had a bear cub in the fog. Even the Baby had a dog <...> Sasha had the last match left, with Tanya's words: "Just leave. And all "she burned out" ^[8].

Tanya needed to save Shishin from the "hateful Bobrykin" exclusively in the illusory world. Therefore, the triumph of the little man is tragic, murderous for the hero. The opposition of the world "here" and "there" is decided in favor of the real one, where there is a crazy Shishin, a rope with which you can strangle yourself, a strict mother, a jelly made of rotten bones, a happily married Tanya and a very long day.

"There" remains the escape of two happy children to Australia, long summer walks, kind conversations and first love. However, the tragedy of the whole work is that there is no world "there". 

The circular composition of the novel echoes its entire atmosphere.

 "I'm going to strangle myself," Shishin thought, and went to the hardware store for a rope."^[8]

This is how the first chapter of the novel begins and the last one ends. Sasha Shishin's sick fantasies twist into a funnel, forming a system of rings – everything is in his head, no further and no more. Shishin's life is cyclical, repeatable, closed. Everything that has happened and will happen is not in reality, but somewhere in a deeply wounded consciousness.

Thus, the relations of the world and the Other in Nikolaenko's novel end at the point of misunderstanding and are built on the principle of the deployment of the motive of destruction.  The dialogue in the world of "there" is bizarre and illusory, in the world of "here" it is absent.  

The world itself, according to Nikolaenko, is destroyed, and with it consciousness and sustainable human values. The deconstruction of reality becomes evidence of a world disorder in which God is dead, and a small person is not able to become one. The happiness of non–awakening for Nikolaenko is the tragedy of the existence of a personality.

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