What do we expect from the modern world, from life in it? Opening borders, general reconciliation, victory over the virus and insanity? We are, of course, waiting for all this, but, admittedly, somewhere in the distant future and on the periphery of our consciousness. We are already accustomed to the fact that the surrounding horror will last for a long time, we are accustomed to the fact that we need to save ourselves internally - each with his own psychotherapy. Someone, of course, with a literal psychotherapist on Skype, someone - in an embrace with a bottle of strong, and someone - acquiring new skills, education, broadening horizons, building intellectual muscle. At least, there are enough opportunities for all this even now.

So let's say, literary prizes are like something from the past prosperous time. From the time when we shared our photographs from Rome and Florence, from the time when people wore faces instead of masks and still knew how to talk about something, except that someone was unsuccessfully vaccinated again. The winner of the most interesting literary prize in Russia, the National Bestseller, will be announced this coming Saturday, and the books of the author who will become the laureate will most likely accompany us in the coming year on store shelves and in conversations about who has read what is new.

The book will be selected from a short list of finalists.

A short list of awards is formed by a grand jury based on ratings and reviews: everyone must write as many reviews as possible and give two ratings.

And then a small jury, which entirely consists of important and respected people, works on these books.

Grigory Ivliev is the head of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, actress Tatyana Drubich, Dmitry Morozov is the general director of the Sputnik V vaccine manufacturer, Mikhail Elizarov is a great Russian writer and laureate of the last season of the award.

This year's shortlisting is bizarre - there are, as usual, six books.

They can be characterized briefly, in a column, as follows:

Mikhail Gigolashvili, "Koka" - literary heavyweight and the main contender for the victory;

Alexander Pelevin, "Pokrov-17" - an unexpected favorite, young and lucky;

Vera Bogdanova, "Pavel Zhang and other river creatures" - alarmism and other trends that have replaced literature;

Mrshavko Shtapich, "Volunteer Playlist" - greyhound, but monotonous avtibiographical prose;

Daniel Orlov, "The Time of Risky Agriculture" - calm and acutely social prose about the countryside;

Ivan Shipnigov, "Stream" is the one who managed to make a network novel.

Mikhail Gigolashvili, a Russian philologist of Georgian origin, who teaches at the University of the German city of Saarbrücken, was already a laureate of another prize, the Big Book, when his novel The Ferris Wheel was published.

It was a narcotic brick that carried the reader into the world of the Tbilisi heroin criminals of the 80s.

Everyone loved that novel very much, re-read it and for many years hoped that Gigolashvili would write about something just as alive, understandable and close.

And so Gigolashvili wrote the ideological, factual and stylistic continuation of "The Devil's Wheel" - "Koku".

This is the story of a young but passionate gouge who, in search of drugs and adventure, travels through Europe, is treated in a German hospital, sits in a Pyatigorsk prison, finds himself in destroyed Georgia in 1993, where there is no water, no food, no money, no electricity, but there is a deprived grandmother, despair and reckoning.

This is undoubtedly the strongest novel of all that was nominated for the award this year - a ready-made classic with a Dante structure, varied and remarkable vocabulary, a plot in the spirit of either Guy Ritchie, or Hunter Thompson, and a humanistic idea: a person is more important than circumstances and whims.

The book by Alexander Pelevin (yes, it is inconvenient to be a writer with such a surname in Russia, but I am sure he is in the know) "Pokrov-17" shot unexpectedly and soared into the list on the thrust of universal approval. In general, a rather complex fantasy and phantasmagoric novel about a nightmare, full of references to cultural phenomena, which takes place in a closed city against the background of the current agenda of October 1993. Murders, murders, murders, dark personalities, a sinister research institute, swamp creatures, radiation that creates Egyptian darkness in an undefined territory.

Pelevin mixed irony with cynicism and mystery, added a very slender style, varied language, strong and recognizable heroes, and at the end he won the sympathy of the grand jury. There is a significant likelihood that these sympathies, like the darkness from his novel, will begin to emanate in his direction and from the small jury.

Vera Bogdanova's novel "Pavel Zhang and Other River Creatures" was written in a student-like manner and in full accordance with the expectations of those who would like to give awards for reflecting the current agenda. Firstly, there is China, which has captured everything and enslaved everyone, secondly, there is a digital concentration camp for which all controlled humanity works (and all humanity is controlled), and thirdly, there is a childhood trauma of the protagonist who grew up in an orphanage, and the headmistress rented it out to pedophiles. Now the hero's whole life is, to one degree or another, revenge to the world, but some kind of sluggish revenge. Tucked into alarmist futorology, but just a great piece as a result.

Ivan Shipnigov, as I have already mentioned, in his novel "Stream" created an image of network literature, which we seem to be familiar with, we seem to be recognizable, but at the same time looks fresh, interesting and funny.

This novel is a series of posts by the heroes of the urban bottom: managers in cheap shops, saleswomen, girls from the south of Russia.

They discuss the price of yogurt, the way from the subway, and the choice of cheap shoes. All this is so inexperienced and direct, as if the author had completely retired from the novel, but made it so that the text was able to withstand on the string of a single style throughout all 66 fragments of which it consists. We are well acquainted with the network prose written by the founders of the genre - Minaev, Bagirov and other people from well-known resources. But here we see as if a reflection of this prose, its other side - touching and pitiful at the same time, but embodying the very pulp of the deep Russian Internet for everyone. Postmodernism for postmodernism.

The collection of autobiographical essays "Diary of a Volunteer", published under the pseudonym Mrshavko Shtapich, would look appropriate as a series of essays in an online edition for young people who are at a crossroads and are thinking about whom to do their lives with.

In each of the 50 chapters, perhaps, the hero gets drunk, has sex, listens to music and is looking for someone missing as part of a detachment of volunteers.

This book, of course, captivates with the nobility of the subject - people devote their lives to helping others.

But in this case, this nobility completely overshadows literature.

If bookmakers accepted bets on the results of Russian literary awards, I would bet on Gigolashvili.

And I would not have won anything, because, firstly, no one here bets on literature, and secondly, everyone who bets would bet on it.

In any case, I recommend that everyone take a closer look at the intellectual baggage described here - it will ease your anxiety in the coming year.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.