At first, the publisher didn’t want to enter into a contract about the anthology at all; then it did but for some reason revolted against the novel Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel; then it seemed to agree to replace Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel with the previously approved novel Hard to Be a God, but then it categorically revolted against the Picnic. … It’s impossible here to even give a brief account of this battle; it turns out to be too long—it was eight years, after all. There were unexpected repudiations of the publisher’s own demands (suddenly, for no reason at all, down with Hard to Be a God!) and five or six renewals of the contract, and even sudden attempts to break off the relationship entirely (all the way up to court!). But mainly, and the whole time, and obstinately and invariably, from one year to the next, from one conversation to the next, from one letter to the next: take the reanimated corpses out of the Picnic; change Redrick Schuhart’s language; insert the word “Soviet” when talking about Kirill Panov; get rid of the bleakness, hopelessness, coarseness, savageness…
I’ve preserved a remarkable document: the page-by-page comments on the novel Roadside Picnic by the language editors. The comments span eighteen (!) pages and are divided into sections: “Comments Concerning the Immoral Behavior of the Heroes,” “Comments Concerning Physical Violence,” and “Comments About Vulgarisms and Slang Expressions.” I can’t allow myself not to produce a couple of excerpts. And keep in mind: I am in no way selecting quotes, not looking for idiocies on purpose; I’m presenting the comments in order, beginning with a paragraph from the explanatory letter that accompanied the pages:
Of course, we [the editors] only copied out those expressions and words that, in our opinion, require either removal or substitution. These comments are first and foremost dictated by the fact that your book is intended for teenagers and young people, for members of the Young Communist League who see Soviet literature as a textbook on morals, a guidebook to life.
[there are 93 comments in all; the first 10 are presented]
must stick your fat ass—p. 21
I’ll walk on my teeth, never mind my hands—p. 21
crawling on all fours—p. 32
take out the flask, unscrew it, and attach myself to it like a leech—p. 35
suck the flask dry—p. 35
I need just one more sip—p. 35
I’ll get plastered tonight. I gotta beat Richard, that’s the thing! The bastard sure knows how to play—p. 38
And I need a drink—I just can’t wait—p. 42
I would have been happy to drink with you to that—p. 42
…without saying a word pours me a shot of vodka. I clamber up onto the stool, take a sip, grimace, shake my head, and take another sip—p. 43…
[there are 36 comments in all; the last 9 are presented]
grabbed a heavy beer stein from the bar and smashed it with all his might into the nearest roaring mug—p. 179
Redrick felt in his pocket, picked out a nut that weighed about an ounce, and, taking aim, flung it at Arthur. It hit him right in the back of the head. The boy gasped [etc.]—p. 182
Next time I’ll knock a couple of teeth out—p. 182
kicked Redrick in the face with his free leg, and wriggled and flopped around [etc.]—p. 185
convulsively kneading the head of this damned kid with his chest, couldn’t take it anymore and screamed as hard as he could—p. 185
Now that cute little face appeared to be a black-and-gray mask made of ashes and coagulated blood [etc.]—p. 185
Redrick threw him facedown into the largest puddle—p. 186
may those bastards suffer, let them eat shit like I did—p. 202
He hit himself hard in the face with a half-open fist—p. 202
[there are 251 comments in all, an arbitrary 10 from the middle are presented]
he suddenly began to curse, impotently and spitefully, using vile, dirty words, showering Redrick with spittle…—p. 72
Put in your teeth and let’s go—p. 72
the Butcher cursed—p. 74
You’re scum…. A vulture—p. 74
asshole—p. 76
I’m dying of hunger!—p. 77
The Monkey was dozing peacefully—p. 77
he was dirty as hell—p. 78
To hell with this!—p. 82
beeped at some African—p. 85…
I remember that upon receipt of this amazing document, I rushed straight to my bookshelves and joyously brought forth our beloved and unsurpassed Jaroslav Hašek. With what unutterable delight did I read:
Life is no finishing school for young ladies. Everyone speaks the way he is made. The protocol chief, Dr. Guth, speaks differently from Palivec, the landlord of The Chalice, and this novel is neither a handbook of drawing-room refinement nor a teaching manual of expressions to be used in polite society….
It was once said, and very rightly, that a man who is well brought-up may read anything. The only people who boggle at what is perfectly natural are those who are the worst swine and the finest experts in filth. In their utterly contemptible pseudo-morality they ignore the contents and madly attack individual words.
Years ago I read a criticism of a novelette, in which the critic was furious because the author had written: “He blew his nose and wiped it.” He said that it went against everything beautiful and exalted which literature should give the nation.
This is only a small illustration of what bloody fools are born under the sun.
Oh, how sweet it would be to quote all this to the gentlemen from Young Guard! And to add something from myself in the same vein. But, alas, this would be completely pointless and maybe even tactically wrong. Besides, as it became clear to us many, many years later, we had completely misunderstood the motivations and psychology of these people.
You see, we had then sincerely assumed that our editors were simply afraid of the higher-ups and didn’t want to make themselves vulnerable by publishing yet another dubious work by extremely dubious authors. And the entire time, in all our letters and applications, we took great pains to emphasize that which to us seemed completely obvious: the novel contained nothing criminal; it was quite ideologically appropriate and certainly not dangerous in that sense. And the fact that the world depicted in it was coarse, cruel, and hopeless, well, that was how it had to be—it was the world of “decaying capitalism and triumphant bourgeois ideology.”
It didn’t even cross our minds that the issue had nothing to do with ideology. They, those quintessential “bloody fools,” actually did think this way: that language must be as colorless, smooth, and glossy as possible and certainly shouldn’t be at all coarse; that science fiction necessarily has to be fantastic and on no account should have anything to do with crude, observable, and brutal reality; that the reader must in general be protected from reality—let him live by daydreams, reveries, and beautiful incorporeal ideas. The heroes of a novel shouldn’t “walk,” they should “advance”; not talk but “utter”; on no account “yell” but only “exclaim.” This was a certain peculiar aesthetic, a reasonably self-contained notion of literature in general and of science fiction in particular—a peculiar worldview, if you like. One that’s rather widespread, by the way, and relatively harmless, but only under the condition that the holder of this worldview isn’t given the chance to influence the literary process.