Выпуск 1. Петербургские авторы конца тысячелетия

STANISLAV SHULYAK, The play «The Job’s book»

Stanislav Shulyak was born in 1960. He started with small aphoristic forms when he was 18 and gradually getting over to big prosaic works. These works traditional (at first sight) stories and plays do not contain global catastrophies. There is only one theme in all of them: horror of simple human existence.

The main character of the play «The Job’s book» Aphanasy Kudesov says: «Stunned with the uselessness of colourless existence I sometimes experienced doubts in life itself». And «doubts in life» one way or another influence all his activities or better to sayinactivities. He is a writer and he works on a topic very far from «mass culture». While he faces obstacleshe works a lot. When nothing inferferes with his work Kudasov immediately stops. Nothing special in that: the creative crisis also belongs to the creative process. When he, the author, is alienated from the results of his work, he stays indifferent. When he is expected to be outspoken he is evasive. Being alone he writes a pathetic and slightly helpless appeal «to all who are still alive», traditional mythology, habitual moral values are no longer guiding lines for the character of the play (may be, for modern cousciousness on the whole) and their existence can be likened to the march of the blind in the Bible.

What has it all to do with Job? Of course, Job is just a pretext. He is an archetype, he is the standard of righteousness (so unattainble that righteousness itself seems to be very close to heresy). And he was one of those first who managed to cheat the Creator.