Ideal reader: myth or reality? Alexander Badak: Ideal reader Who can be considered an ideal reader.

The reader must see himself, his beloved. The reader wants to empathize. Therefore, the main character must be endowed with either those qualities that the reader himself has, or, what is much more effective, those that he would like to have. This is especially convenient in science fiction and fantasy. There

Dear reader! You want to live in comfort, prosperity and joy, without stress and its consequences. You've probably already studied a lot of literature that you've come across along your life's path, or received a lot of advice, and this has led you to the fact that now you are reading anyway

The perfect Martini? Each bartender has his own version of this cocktail (with olive, zest, shaken, mixed, etc.). I would say that there is nothing wrong with trying different options for the sake of studying them, of course. It's like a box of chocolates.

Today in our studio “There is no limit to perfection!” visiting dear researchers who will, I apologize for the tautology, explore the ideal reader! What he reads, what his genre preferences are, what reviews he leaves, and what kind of bird he is - you will find out in our program! Let's get to know our guests. On the left side we have world-famous British scientists, academicians and researchers who recently wrote the fundamental work “Nose Picking of Varying Degrees of Depth: Causes and Consequences”, and on the right side are the less famous experts of the Ren-TV channel, thanks to whose work our country has made significant progress in the study of paranormal phenomena, in particular, reptilians and other aliens. In the center, you, dear viewers, can see long-deceased figures of science and culture, such as the respected Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Blaise Pascal, Pavlov, Mendeleev and Marie Curie. Gender of the ideal reader Let's give the researchers a little consultation. British scientists are completely confident in their decisions, Ren-TV experts also look condescendingly at their rivals, but disagreements seem to have arisen on the couch of the great associate professors! Monsieur Pascal, don't destroy our studio! The equipment is very expensive! Let's listen to the opinions of our guests. British scientists have proven that the ideal gender of the ideal reader is female. The girl will write a more emotional comment, she will follow her favorite authors more passionately. Apparently, the author is not a girl. And respected Ren-TV experts believe that the ideal reader is a guy. A guy on Fikbook is a rarity, so this circumstance will undoubtedly add to his attractiveness. But the opinions of the classics were divided, but both forces still turned out to be equal. So we, like our predecessors who studied the ideal author, will conclude that the ideal reader is a hermaphrodite. Genre preferences Here respected British scientists, foaming at the mouth, shouted that the ideal reader should definitely read slash, because it is popular, and he will have time to illuminate more authors with his ideality. And Ren-TV experts believe that it is better to give preference to het and fem, since less is written in these genres, and the authors will be happy if at least someone writes reviews for them. they understood the hint. The classics took a neutral position, choosing genres with a bias towards certain genres. Based on this evidence, we concluded that the ideal reader can cover all genres in all areas, and this is not the last evidence of his ideality! So what should the ideal reader still read? Oddly enough, we were forced to continue the discussion by the classics. Blaise Pascal claims that the ideal reader should read his scientific works, because they are the ultimate truth. Albert Einstein became no less angry in response and declared that only he had the truth, and they argued like publishers of second-rate magazines. But we will still stick to our conclusion. Review length The first to express their opinion were the classics, who unanimously believe that the ideal reader will roll out long sheets of text, sometimes twice as long as the fanfic itself, in which there will be a hidden meaning in the work, even if initially there was none at all, indicate all the shortcomings and advantages, comment on everything and all the way down to the second button on the main character’s clothes. The remaining groups of researchers are categorically against such reviews and they, again, unanimously stated that such reviews will confuse the authors, who sometimes don’t even know how to respond to a simple review other than a banal “thank you,” but here it is! Based on this, we will conclude that the ideal reader will not write long rants from empty to empty, but also not short “I’m selling!”, but “marathon” reviews in five to seven Word lines. The secret of Blaise Pascal's hair is the latest invention of British scientists! What is Monsieur Pascal hiding? Find out in the next episode of the TV show! Criticism or admiration? And “There is no limit to perfection” is live again! And we continue our discussion of the ideal reader again. And we examine the question “Criticism or admiration?” The answers will be given to us by British scientists, experts from our Ren-TV channel and long-dead classics. The classics, wise by centuries of experience, and the not so sophisticated experts of the Ren-TV channel, believe that the sooner you point out mistakes to a person, the sooner he will correct them and will not repeat them. Criticism also improves the writer, and he will grow in his art, charming other, less ideal readers. But British scientists think differently, because there may also be very vulnerable individuals who, in the face of any, even the most constructive and polite criticism, are shaded and give up writing for six months, if not forever. And if such people constantly write devastating criticism, Fikbook may lose a very good author. The classics responded by saying that such individuals had nothing to do on Fikbook, and Pavlov and Mendeleev were hardly dragged away from the British researchers, whom they were trying to let into experiments. But this time the British scientists prevailed, speaking in a confident tone. Review writing style Only now the opinions of all three groups have completely agreed. And they are that the ideal reader must follow the rules of politeness, not swear, since he does not know what kind of person is sitting on the other side of the screen, if he knows the author personally, then he can allow himself friendly behavior, but if this if not, then no familiarity. In the meantime, we will retire to decide what kind of creature is the ideal reader. Scandals, intrigues, investigations! Why did Niels Bohr and Marie Curie isolate themselves from other classicists by Mendeleev? Is there something in between? Watch tomorrow at 20:00!

Thus, the concept of “text,” introduced by R. Barthes, shifts the emphasis in considering a work of art from the search for the personal meaning that the author put into it, to its super-personal content, which can even resist the “author’s meaning.” A text, as is known, is, first of all, a “materially fixed closed linguistic message” 24, which is therefore capable of existing completely independently of its author, and for this reason the text can be read in contexts that the author did not think about. Thus, the text is included in the big world of cultural life, in which it functions in accordance with the possibilities contained in it, the meanings that culture is able to discover in it, thanks to which it includes this text in the life of its meanings. The ability of a text to “respond” to the questions of a particular culture determines its ability to be included in the world of its meanings. This dialogue between text and culture takes place against the will of the author of this text; here it becomes possible for the text to live in several cultures, worlds and contexts of meaning at once, not intended by the creator of the text. This independent life of the text reveals the super-personal foundation of the consciousness of its author.

However, the content of a work of art still cannot be reduced to the laws of its impersonal functioning: this super-personal “dimension” of the existence of a literary work as a text is opposed by another “dimension”, another form of its life - as a work as a personal statement, the creation of a personal author. M. M. Girshman, analyzing different

ny aspects of the opposition between text and work, in particular, considering them in the light of the opposites of pluralism and monism, plurality and unity, which R. Barth insists on, says that “not only without denying plurality, but, on the contrary, taking it into account As a very essential characteristic of the text, the theory of the work as integrity correlates with it the idea of ​​the deep indivisibility of being - a single world living in these multitudes. The plurality of a literary text is, in a fundamentally different frame of reference, one life, united and in its depths indivisible, a single internally developing world and meaning. And the ontology of a work is not a ready-made, guaranteed, objective unity of everything and everyone, but an objectively presented and realized in the word direction towards the unification of everything that is actually shared, multiple and each time unique in its self-realization” 25.

M. M. Girshman considers the work both as an expression of the unity and integrity of the world, and as an expression of the individual transformation of the world in a unique, only “here and now only existing concrete person” 26 . A work of art is the world of culture in the individual consciousness of a person, it is a text of culture read by a person, the boundary between the text of culture and personality, the point of their meeting, which has become a personal statement in the language of culture, a personal reworking of a text of culture, or vice versa - a statement of culture through a person - the boundary of culture , identified in the event of a meeting with a person who allowed the cultural text to reveal some of its own orderliness. This becomes possible due to the fact that the work has its own structure, which does not coincide with the structure of the text, a form that organizes all the elements of the text, all its voices into a special unity. This structure, the principle of constructing artistic integrity, is an imprint-boundary of the author’s will, a personality that organizes, experiences, and comprehends this world in its own way. This is the form of a work of art that determines its existence, and its “constructive moment,” as M. M. Bakhtin shows, is the author-creator 27, its unity “is the unity of the active value position of the author-creator 28, meeting with the activity and “ self-legitimate" persistence of the text.

It is known that the presence of some ideal (in the sense of:

spiritual) content, objectified in form, introduces art into a number of sign systems. However, the peculiarity of art as a sign system is that the form here is by no means an intermediary between the content of art and the recipient. It is the content itself.

It is the artistic form that transforms the inherent ability of any person for figurative representations into a special one - intensified, enlarged, concentrated figurative being. Speaking about the image in the artistic context itself, one should proceed from the fact that “an artistic image is a specific relationship that has developed in a sensory-material and at the same time generalized emotional-cognitive spiritual form...” 29. But “a sensory-material form is, first of all, concreteness, manifested in an individual (individually unique) appearance. Cognition here does not constrain itself by the norms of logical-analytical obligatory nature; it adheres to these norms and departs from them, follows them and overcomes them. Since the process of cognition appears, as we have already agreed, in an “emotional-cognitive spiritual form,” the image “...uses all logical highways in approximately the same way as a person uses them in the city, that is, as auxiliary paths for his own purposes”: “ If necessary: ​​they are rebuilt and broken, introducing temporary disorganization; their own anarchists appear, dreaming of blowing them up completely; in a word, there is a living development, where the meaning is not united by a calculated law, but is concentrated in individuality, an independent person or their relationship” 30.

An artistic form is always concrete, sensual, individually unique, consists of images and, composed of them, carries a specific spiritual attitude. At the same time, it is systemic, however, not in the sense of static systematization, but as a dynamic (that is, moving) system of figurative components of greater or lesser complexity that impart certain boundaries to the text. The elements that make up an art form are called techniques. Being a spiritual expression and embodiment of reality, its spiritualized equivalent, the artistic form reveals and realizes its spiritual and meaningful capabilities through the media of its constituent images and techniques, each of which, however, represents “...not a material element... , and attitude" 31. In essence, an artistic

it is a reduced copy of an artistic form in general (as such): in both cases, the principle of a dynamically expressed relationship is constructively significant. But if an artistic form is the final result of the relationship between a person and reality, then an artistic technique is the path to the formation of a relationship between a person and reality, when the techniques are mutually coordinated, forming a system of internal boundaries of the text that give it a certainty of meaning.

M. M. Bakhtin wrote that “artistic form, correctly understood, does not formalize ready-made and found content, but for the first time allows it to be found and seen” 32. But this artistic form is revealed in the fullness of the found and perceived content as a result of the internally and externally coordinated action of artistic techniques. Thus, the artistic form, understood as systemsarelationships, reveals the fullness of the “meanings” contained in it. These individual “meanings,” subject to the structure-forming laws of artistic form, on the one hand, turn out to be associated with individual techniques and are embodied in them. On the other hand, interrelated and mutually organized, they go back to a single meaning, to that content, which is as much ideological-psychological (ideological) as it is artistic (artistic-psychological), “an artistic picture of the world” (V. Tyupa): artistic form is therefore at the same time a concept of reality.

Integrity is based on the life of imaginative consciousness, striving to be realized and become a complete phenomenon of art. Considering that a technique is, as already said, an image-relationship, one should constantly keep in mind the following: a separate image, even if it acts as a “small organism”, as a “microcosm”, is necessarily “...based on universal connection and dependence of phenomena" 33. As a result, each of the “elements” and “levels” “... passes into all the others, interacts, resonates together, responds to every voice, merges in unison with the others” 34. In a word, integrity is an integral part of the artistic form generated by imaginative consciousness. Therefore, the holistic phenomenon of art is not a fragment of existence, but its phenomenon, as Yu. V. Trifonov said 35. This phenomenon manifests itself both in a separate image and in their systemic interrelationship.

sti. Integrity, therefore, is as much the result of the movement as its starting point, that is, the process in its completeness and completeness. It is clear that the movement occurs not from fragmentation, fragmentation to integrity, but from integrity to integrity - similar to, say, the transition from an egg to a chick, and not from the individual components of the egg to the same chick. There is only a change of levels. The principle itself remains unchanged: “...The category of integrity refers not only to the whole aesthetic organism, but also to every significant part of it” 36.

One can, I think, argue that artistic integrity acts as a kind of spiritual, creatively active equivalent to the natural-biological unity that we observe in the existence of the organic world around us. The organics of being in its spiritually transformed form are revived in artistic integrity. This is, first of all, morally oriented artistic integrity, a sign of the presence of light. The point is that artistic integrity is first and foremost noted active spirituality - that is why artistic integrity carries within itself “...extremely ordered meaning” 37 (V.I. Tyupa). So, "extremely ordered meaning" lies in a “strongly organized form” 38 (M.K. Mamardashvili), and the life of this meaning and this form lies in integrity as the principle of the artistic existence of a “human phenomenon”. The source, the generating principle of artistic integrity is therefore the personality, because the spirit exists only as “a single active consciousness and self-awareness” and therefore “is necessary for single works of art contain a single spirit one individual" 39. M. M. Girshman, quoting these words of Hegel 40, emphasizes, again referring to the great philosopher: “It is the living person, the “speaking individual” that is the formative center of the work” 41: “... speech does not appear here... by itself himself, regardless of the artistic subject, but only himself living person, the speaking individual is the bearer of the sensory presence and the present reality of the poetic creation” 42. M. M. Girshman, the author of the main developments of the theory of the integrity of a work of art, in a number of works consistently defends the idea of ​​the personal nature of artistic integrity: “It is always personal integrity, which reveals its purpose in every moment.”

the presence of a creator in the creation, the presence of a subject creating a complete artistic world. Outside of the spiritual, personal exploration of the world, no artistic objectification is possible” 43 . When creating a work of art, there is “an interpenetrating reflection of man and the world in each other, which appears in aesthetic unity as personally mastered and humanly completed” 44 .

Thus, since a work of art is an integrity, it has a personal character, which means that the work, unlike the text, has its correlate in a very specific author, who appears as the form of this integrity, as the form of the work. The form reveals the personality, and the personality is an integral correlate of integrity - that which allows the text to be read as a work. This personality, whose existence is contained in the form of the work, in its internal organization and the conceptuality corresponding to this semantic organization, is defined by B. O. Corman using the concept of “conceptualized author.” The concept of a work as an integrity that has a personal meaning was correlated by the scientist with the concept of the reader, whose consciousness encounters this meaning is the “conceptualized reader.” This is the reader who sees the author behind the text - enters into dialogue with the author of the work as a person. This is the reader who is created by the form of integrity; in his consciousness, in his spiritual activity, the work is “assembled” as a system of a special type - integrity. But a literary text can be read precisely as a text, and in this case its reader should be understood differently - not “in Corman’s way,” but, so to speak, “in Bart’s way.” Thus, one and the same phenomenon of art appears simultaneously as a text and as a work, its author - as a cultural language and as a personality, its reader - as a reader of a cultural language, a reader of a text and as a conceptual reader. The concept of “ideal reader” could also be attached to the reader of the text, putting into the word “ideal” not only the idea of ​​a non-specific, non-biographical reader, not really, but ideally present in the text, but also as a reader capable of reading a work precisely as a text and it is precisely ideal, that is, completely, exhaustively, to read into it everything that is contained in the most super-personal language, in which

rom the author constructs his statement. Such a reader will see in a work not only his personal author, but a multitude of subjects, the consciousness of an entire era of culture to which a given author belongs, and, moreover, a large chorus of voices in the history of culture that created both a given era and a given work; The author of the work will thus be humanity with its conscious and unconscious aspirations, diverse forms of consciousness, ways of understanding life. This “ideal” reader enters the text, but not as a consciousness in which all elements, voices of the work are “gathered” into unity, but into an integral structure of a single meaning, but as a consciousness in which all these elements freely play with each other, forming the most diverse combinations and entering into ever new relationships and connections - replaying, reworking their meanings, discovering more and more new motivations, contexts and semantic moves that lead far beyond the boundaries of this phenomenon of art. This reader can also be qualified as “ideal” in the sense that he is included in the text as a consciousness that proceeds from the idea of ​​the content of absolutely all moments of the text and actualizes this entire semantic volume; it is not bound by a specific, fixed structure of an artistic form, but appears as precisely the universal possibility of updating the content of the text in all its conceivable dimensions, the potential infinity of its meanings, contained in the infinity of internal relations of its elements, inherent in every artistic text, not realized in a specific system of the work. the internal form of each word, the historical and actual content of every motive, plot device, intonation figure, one way or another, directly or indirectly, through many intermediaries connected with the world of all human culture. The ideal reader is a consciousness in which each meaning of the text is not only one of its many possible meanings, realizing in the game of internal relations in it, but also swept aside, denied its possibilities, which, however, exist in this game precisely as unrealized, maybe be missed. In this case, the ideal reader is the consciousness of the infinity of semantic movement, to which the consciousness of the conceptualized reader sets boundaries and gives personal certainty. The product is thus at the point

from the perspective of the conceptualized reader it turns out to be a “collected” and personally processed infinity - a personal statement in the language of infinity; infinity appears to a person in a kind of collapsed form, in the form of a boundary between what fits into human consciousness and what does not fit into it. We can now clarify the conclusion made at the beginning of this chapter: a work is the endless life of a text, which has taken the form of the personality creating the work; these are the boundaries of personal existence, allowing endless life to appear in certainty and concreteness, accessible to human consciousness. We should go even further and say more: a work is an integrity, the internal and external boundaries of which are determined by the choice made by the individual, as a result of which the formless chaos of endless life was overcome and transformed into a personal cosmos, where the endless chaos of meanings appears as infinite meaning. In this victory of personal integrity over the text, which, by the way, R. Barth not by chance characterized as “demonic texture,” one can discern the divine dignity of art, its religious meaning. But in this case, the essence of the work lies not in the fact that it is some kind of ready-made, static structure, but in that creative effort to overcome chaos, which constitutes its basis and nature.

It would be wrong, however, to mechanically contrast text and work: the author does not simply overcome the text, organizing it into an integrity determined by the nature of his personality. The very form of the work, which collects and personally closes the text, contains structures that are super-personal in relation to this activity - the author, and here, in this system of his activity, makes his personal statement in a language, the subject of which is the collective consciousness, producing numerous forms of literary creativity, ways of organizing a work, without which the author cannot be understood at all. In the era of traditionalism, the artist follows them as norms that allow him to speak “properly” and tell the truth. The difficulty of the artist of the era of reflective traditionalism lies in how to ensure that his understanding of the life problem, the task that he sets for himself in the work, would be “correct”, that is, find organic embodiment in the “true” forms of expression providing

movement towards higher, universally significant values. In the post-traditionalist era of individual creativity, the author does not follow any canons in his work, relying entirely on himself, however, the forms that he seemingly creates completely “arbitrarily” carry within them a universally significant experience contained in traditional and “eternal” literary motifs and their old contexts, in the ways of constructing an image, the unfolding of the plot in space and time, in genre forms and their fragments - compositional, rhythmic, stylistic, in speech style, etc. He does not reproduce ready-made, traditional models, but the very forms of his activity, thinking are conductors of super-personal experience in a work. The author of a literary work is a “literary personality.”

“The ideal reader is: a person who fully understands the book he has read and draws appropriate conclusions from it. It turns out that the more a person reads, the more educated he is and the better he can get out of any situation.
A true reader is one who knows how to learn from the mistakes of book heroes.
Nowadays people mostly like easy to read fiction or some kind of science fiction that is easy to understand. The easier a book is to understand, the more it is read, which is why children read little of Sergei Lukyanenko, but read a lot of Harry Potter."
“There are people who love to read, and there are people who don’t like to read, nevertheless they read both, but they all have something of their own... Some are books, and some are just magazines and labels... well, occasionally textbooks... I belong to the second group, although even I have a favorite book, or rather two: “Polyanna” and “Polyanna’s Youth”... True, I have nothing to compare with, besides them I read two or three books... .
Naturally, it depends only on me, I want to do everything to the minimum, no unnecessary stress...
This is my laziness... but I’m not the only one (many people don’t like to read), everyone has different reasons: some have vision problems, some can’t read, some don’t have money for books, and some do (don’t read or read) out of spite: parents (there are not many of them, but still there are) forbid reading, and children read out of spite, and some are forced, but they don’t read... I think that I will grow up and understand that this is not only necessary, but also interesting... In fact, few of today's youth are interested in books... TV, computer, etc. books have been replaced, now a person would rather watch a movie based on a book rather than read it... there are audio books: you put them in a tape recorder and listen... I can explain why this is bad, but I myself would rather listen than read! Let me explain: when you read a book, you create your own intonation, and the reader reads it the way he likes! Thus, you perceive the book differently (he seems to impose his perception of the book on you with intonation)
Over the past forty years, the attitude towards books has changed a lot, our parents don’t see this world without books, they are ashamed of their children, but we don’t understand this... It’s unlikely that this will change, except for the worse..."
The ideal reader is the reader who loves good books, but something is good for everyone, and something is bad for his unique individual psyche. A person reads to his own rhythm, forgetting about everything in the world and immersing himself in a fictitious or true world from his ears to the tip of his heels. It seems to him that he is the hero of the book and makes decisions himself, but still moves forward according to the planned scenario. The ideal reader not only breathes the air described in the book, he falls in love, cries, laughs, is disappointed and sincerely rejoices. The ideal reader not only lives the book when he reads, but also in real life, he copies something he liked in the hero, maybe clothes or character, behavior or just body movement. a person should not just mindlessly read the letters, but also think about the content and, understanding the essence, read between the lines. I don't really like to read, I like movies more. when I read, I get very concerned about meaning and reading and don’t notice humor, little things, details, and I immediately forget what I just read, but in the film it’s different. There is no need to worry too much and strain your eyes, looking for letters. I like fun and funny films, horror films (when you read a book, it's not so scary) and just good cinema."
“This must be a person who, first of all, loves to read and study. This, of course, largely depends on the person, on his willpower and perseverance, because in order to develop a love for books you cannot do without this.
Different people read different books. It depends on the person himself not only whether he will read or not, but also what kind of literature he will love. An ideal reader should not only read for pleasure, but also to learn something new.
In life, a person can choose his own future path, he can pave the way to knowledge, he can work in a low-paid job where he needs his hands, not his head, he can give bribes - this is all a personal matter for everyone. It is the choice of his future path that guides him when making decisions - to read or not, and what to read.
Reading really necessary books is a very difficult task - you need to be able to overcome laziness and boredom, be able not to read anyhow, but to read it and understand the meaning. It is difficult to want to read, but it is even more difficult to delve into books that are uninteresting to you and extract from them everything you need.
And finally, without which an ideal reader cannot be ideal, it is, undoubtedly, the DESIRE to read and learn something new."

A teacher cannot dream of an ideal student, because an ideal student is always better than a teacher, which is why he feels imperfection deep down in his soul. Just as a surgeon cannot dream of an ideal patient, since an ideal patient is, as we know, one who is terminally ill, and what surgeon is ready to admit his professional helplessness?

However, there are enough professions in the world whose representatives can dream of an ideal consumer for their talent.

I remember the cook from the Ashgabat “Brand Turkmen Hotel”, where I, a participant in the international book fair, had the opportunity to live for a whole week. I really liked the evening ilov, and I told the cook, who called himself Atamurad, that I would like my wife to recognize this taste, so would he tell me the recipe for its preparation.

But Atamurad shook his head:

This is Agurjali ash. To master all the secrets of its preparation, you need to be no closer than a fifth generation Turkmen. And to feel its real taste, you need to be born and grow up where the Sumbar flows into the Atrek.

Why there? I asked.

Because from there they bring me saffron and azhgon, which are added to the Agurjali ash. Because sheep graze there, the meat of which is used for Agurjali ash. Because I was born there. Every time I cook Agurjali ash, I remember my native places with tenderness and love, and this love and tenderness gives the dish a special flavor that can only be felt by those who, like me, were born and raised where Sumbar flows into the Atrek.

Atamurad dreamed of an ideal visitor to the Grand Turkmen Hotel restaurant, who could feel the taste of love and tenderness in his dishes, and I dream of my ideal reader.

Having written a few pages of a future book, I like to leave the apartment and in city parks and squares, on streets and avenues, in shops and coffee shops, on buses and subways, to watch people, trying to recognize by their faces the one for whom, first of all, this the book is being written. The one who can accurately determine which pages I struggled with the most, and in which places I paused while working to walk around the city.

The ideal reader recognizes only the original, and not the translation, which significantly narrows the space of my searches, and therefore increases the chances of finding it. On the other hand, this space today is already too small for an ideal reader to appear in it, and every year it narrows more and more.

Yes, I write in a language in which not too many people read poetry and prose.

I know what Atamurad would say to this: “The more often you see people with a hot dog in their hands, the more delicious I want to cook.”

I asked Atamurad, when we were sitting on a bench one day near the monument to the poet Karacaoglan, if he thought that he really didn’t have much of a chance of meeting in a restaurant someone who was born and raised where Sumbar flows into the Atrek , since the vast majority of guests of the Grand Turkmen Hotel are visitors from other countries. To which Atamurad replied:

The one who waits has four pairs of eyes, and he simultaneously looks into the four directions of the world. The one who stops waiting has no match. I rarely talk to restaurant patrons, so I can’t know for sure whether one of them was someone who was born and raised in the Atreka Valley. Perhaps he was there yesterday, but he was too hungry and in a bad mood. Hungry people, like those who sit down to dinner without the mood, cannot feel the real taste of food. Or maybe he is sitting in a restaurant now or will come tomorrow. Therefore, every time I prepare ash for the past, for the future and for today. Waiting helps you stay in shape. I'm afraid of losing my job not because I can't do anything else, but because then I'll stop waiting.

Atamurad paused, as if recalling one of the episodes of his life to the smallest detail, and then remembered how he met the outstanding, according to the narrator, Belarusian pianist Valentin, who never saw his fame on the big stage. He came to Ashgabat with his brother Andrei, who served as an officer here just before the collapse of the Soviet Union and whose daughter Marina remained here - she married a Turkmen. The apartments of Atamurad and Marina were separated by one wall, which let in sounds the way the foliage of trees lets in the sun's rays. Thanks to this, the piano lessons that seventy-year-old Vaziga gave her daughter on weekends (they said about her that she would put a penny in an empty wallet and take out a ruble from it) were given to his son for free.

Although Atamurad himself loved music so much that he never missed a single premiere at the opera house, he shunned reading music because he believed that a person could only have one calling. This is the work that you think about all the time, even in your sleep, and just as you can’t cook yshtykma and ash in the same cauldron at the same time, you can’t think about different jobs at the same time.

One evening Atamurad heard someone start playing the piano behind the wall. This was not a neighbor’s daughter or seventy-year-old Vaziga: they played not just professionally, but masterfully. Moreover, Ravel's piano concerto for the left hand sounded. The latter circumstance particularly intrigued Atamurad, since for someone with two hands and ten fingers to play music written for one hand is as bad a sign as for a healthy person to walk on crutches on both legs.

Atamurad picked himself up from his chair - and a minute later he was already standing in front of Valentin. When they met, Atamurad, without looking away, looked into his eyes, but the handshake revealed that Valentin was missing a ring finger on his right hand.

As a person who has a real calling, which he thinks about even when he is talking about something completely different, Valentin heard music in everything and looked at everything through the eyes of a musician. On the last day before returning to Minsk, he baked a large sponge cake and asked Marina to invite Atamurad to a farewell dinner. The cake looked like piano keys placed in a spiral - 52 keys were white and 36 were red. Above the last one - “up to” the fifth octave - rose a chocolate treble clef. Valentin said that each of the keys has its own taste, just as each key in reality has its own sound. To feel the real taste of the cake, you need to scoop from them with a spoon in the sequence in which the keys are pressed when playing a certain melody with one hand. Different melodies gave the cake its own flavor.

When Valentin told this to those present, silence fell at the table. Not only did no one, except Valentin and Marina’s daughter, know how to read music, but each of those present could not dare to take the first spoonful of the shared cake.

And then Marina jumped up from the table. She slashed the silent keys with a knife.

Atamurad saw Valentin’s right hand tremble.

And I propose...” Marina said loudly and fell silent without finishing the sentence: her daughter jumped up from the table and rushed to the door.

What's happened? - Marina shouted after her. - Uncle Valentin was joking! What notes, what melody?!

I asked Atamurad if he knew where Valentin was now and what he was doing.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure that he lives happily enough to ask Marina about him,” Atamurad said. - People themselves talk about their relatives when everything is good with them, and they try to avoid this topic when everything is bad. Valentin called himself a musician who has more past than present, so I don’t know where and with whom he works now, but if you ask me who Valentin from Belarus is, I will answer without hesitation: first of all, he is an outstanding pianist , and everything else doesn't matter much.

I looked at Atamurad’s hands, which resembled the hands of a twenty-year-old youth.

Maybe he became a good cook?

There’s too much music in his cake,” Atamurad shook his head with a smile. - And this is the same as if you add too much pepper to Agurjali ash.