"Labor requires a certain amount of violence against oneself": Alexey Salnikov on creativity, criticism and the film "The Petrovs in the Flu"

- Have you ever received offers to film your novel "The Petrovs in the Flu and Around It"?

- No.

- What interested you in Kirill Serebrennikov's proposal?

- The director interested me.

And just the film adaptation itself - it was very interesting.

I immediately agreed.

- Did you have the opportunity to take part in the work on the film, express any wishes?

- There was an opportunity, but I didn’t do it.

- Why?

- Because I'm not a filmmaker.

Moreover, I am not even a photographer, I cannot decide anything in the frame and in the script.

I just write books, that's all.

This is none of my business.

- And there were no fears that your story will somehow be presented on the screen in a wrong way?

- Well, how "not so".

Most of the adaptations are good.

Therefore, here, purely statistically, a successful film adaptation should have taken place.

It seems to me that it took place.

- Does the result meet your expectations?

- I didn't have any expectations, maybe that's partly why I really liked the film adaptation.

It was done at the highest level - with attention to detail, with imagination, with love.

Therefore, I cannot say anything bad.

I absolutely love it.

- Are there any episodes that you would like to include in the film, but for some reason they were not included in it?

- It was then necessary to move from the film format to the serial, so that everything would fit.

How it happened - there is nothing to complain about!

As I wrote it, the way it lay, in fact.

What could enter, what could not ... I do not know.

In theory, 

the childhood of Petrov, with his friend Sergei, could be covered in more detail.

This has become a kind of figure of silence.

Well, God bless him, it turned out quite well.

- How do you like the leading actors?

Earlier you told what you represented to Chulpan Khamatova when you described Petrova.

What about the rest?

- Something like Chulpan Khamatova, yes.

Still, it was unexpected, but great.

The director and casting staff know how to choose people exactly the way it requires it.

So I was just glad.

For some reason Timofey Tribuntsev made me happy more than anyone, he plays several episodic roles.

In general, I just saw and was happy.

• Shot from the film "The Petrovs in the Flu"

• © kinopoisk.ru

- The film has already been shown at the Cannes Film Festival, and it became known that it will be released in more than 30 countries.

After such success, have you noticed the increased attention of foreign audiences to your work?

- I can't track it in any way.

I noticed an increased attention from the Russian audience, mainly journalists.

I think I had a more or less calm day yesterday.

And all the rest for two weeks I did nothing but give interviews.

- How do you like this regime?

- It used to be more difficult.

Once at the Moscow Book Fair there were several interviews, and then more were added.

Then the coronavirus was not raging, but I arrived with a cold.

When I came out, literally, I think: somewhere I would fall already and lie.

And the current situation is quite comfortable.

Now it's great that videoconferences are taking place, when you don't have to move much anywhere.

You just turn on your phone, not even your computer.

As far as all this has become convenient, it does not bother in any way.

Unless there is a certain expectation of an interview, then it flows - all this is a little tiring.

But no more difficult than going to the store.

- Your novel was translated into several languages ​​even before the adaptation.

Are there any new adaptations planned after the premiere of the film?

- It seems that they are going to translate into Chinese.

- Do you think the book will be accepted by an audience with a different mentality?

- I can't even imagine - this is such a distant culture.

On the one hand, seemingly close, ancient, we interpenetrate each other.

But at the same time, it seems to me that in China they know less about us than we do about them.

There is a Chinese calendar, horoscopes, Chinese medicine, kung fu.

And we are like territory for them.

Maybe the Russian classics are a little known, some cartoons that are now appearing ... I never have any special expectations.

Let everything go as it goes.

Nothing will change from my expectations.

- Have you always had this attitude or were you more worried about how the readers will accept the book before?

- It was just wondering where to put it all.

That is, I wrote something and think about where to publish it.

And there were no special expectations.

Of course, you want people to read your books.

But you still can't influence it in any way, even kill yourself.

You can invest money (I don't know, in marketing, in whatever), and still it will be useless.

Art is such a thing ... People just suddenly choose, light up with something - a movie, a picture, a song, or a book.

There are, of course, professional marketers who know how to promote a lot.

But, in my opinion, no amount of money can make you remember a song.

- How do you feel about criticism?

So calm?

- I would not say.

Of course, I like positive criticism more than negative criticism.

I try to protect myself from getting angry with people who write something purely negative.

I try to protect my nerves, I don't read either to myself or about others, in this regard - so as not to get angry once again.

- Are you interested in what readers write?

- There used to be a chasm between the reader and the writer.

The reader sent a letter to the writer, and he could simply not read it.

Now these letters are online, they are public, which is great.

The distance between the work and the response to it is now the smallest distance in the entire history of mankind.

Except for those times when theater actors could throw tomatoes.

• Shot from the film "The Petrovs in the Flu"

• © kinopoisk.ru

- All film adaptations are inevitably compared with the original sources, and they often win, and the films are criticized.

What do you think is the reason for this?

What do filmmakers lack to successfully transfer this or that work to the screen?

- It's not even that the filmmakers are lacking.

Sometimes the author does not have the patience or understanding to accept what the director is doing.

Stanislav Lem, however, did not receive Tarkovsky's Solaris very well.

But in vain, it turns out.

Although it seems that his novel is, and he has the right to react as he wants, but in the historical perspective he turned out to be wrong.

It is not clear how this works.

As a result, history will judge everyone.

- How do you feel not about direct film adaptations, but about films in which the original source undergoes colossal changes?

- If it works in the interest of the viewer and is well done, then great.

But sometimes some things are altered to please I don't even know why.

I just felt like it, or something.

That is, those who do it do not have some kind of inner vision, an integral picture.

They are trying, perhaps for the sake of fashion, to change something in the original source.

If it turns out well, why not.

Take the film adaptation of Game of Thrones.

Hello please.

Thanks a lot to the creators.

They, in my opinion, stabbed themselves, and even the author, in part, because they did it all before.

And how to react to this?

- Do you have any favorite adaptations that, in your opinion, are perfectly filmed?

- There are funny Soviet film adaptations.

I recently watched Govorukhin's TV series “In Search of Captain Grant”.

It was filmed so well, you forget that it is not at all in the Andes, not in America, not in Australia - all this is Bulgaria or the Crimea.

That the Indians are not Indians, but some gypsies with Bulgarians.

You just forget about it.

So great done.

Also "Seryozha" by Vera Panova, the adaptation of Danelia and Talankin are also great done.

I read how it was filmed - they got very confused.

And there Bondarchuk is wonderful, so ... humane, or something.

There are many good examples.

- You have not received any proposals for the adaptation of your other works yet?

- We did.

Some work is already underway there, but it is too early to talk about it.

- In your opinion, what books by other authors would be interesting to film?

“I don’t understand why they don’t make a TV series based on Harry Garrison.

According to "Steel Rat", for example.

What's in the way?

The original source is humorous, pacifist, or whatever.

Classics ... I am for any adaptation of the classics.

- Are you an active spectator, follow the latest cinematography?

- Now my wife and I are watching the series "Survivors."

It throws us in different directions.

We are also watching the first-channel "Cipher".

He has a very funny screenwriter.

Such a funny tendency can be traced - there are almost all female characters, except for the four main characters - they are so bad, horror-horror is simple.

You hate them more than the criminals who kill people.

They are so played with such pleasure ... Everything is bad for the main characters with other women.

Sometimes it even comes out sporadically - and distinguishes itself.

Very funny.

• © Press Service of AST Publishing House

- How did you decide to become a writer?

Have you always thought about it?

- As a child I thought.

This thought hooked me and dragged me through my whole life.

I was a writer, they just didn't read me at first, but now they do.

- Tell us how your work on the next work is being organized.

Are you planning your daily routine, planning some material to write, or is it all a matter of inspiration?

- Yes, I plan.

Now my health has slightly adjusted my work, but basically I am a person of a tough plan.

- Do you work every day?

- Yes, I set a certain standard for myself. 

- Does it happen that it is not written?

- I do not know.

In my opinion, the worse the approach to the next page begins, the more successful it is to come up with it further.

Some find appears to budge everything.

And it happens that it is easy to write, but then you have to throw it away.

Also an unpredictable thing.

Sometimes an hour and a half of work - and the daily norm is completed, and sometimes you torment yourself all day in order to write a couple of pages.

But I still write a couple of pages a day.

There are no special ways, you just need to sit until you write.

- Do you sometimes have to commit violence against yourself?

- There is violence sometimes, yes.

Any work requires a certain amount of violence against oneself.

- There are authors who treat this differently.

The same George Martin has been promising to finish The Winds of Winter for several years now ...

- It's just that he is already elderly, I think it is not so easy for him.

- But he is simultaneously connected to other projects.

- A familiar story.

I am also happy to turn on when asked to write something.

Then I curse myself.

But in the end I do it, as a rule.

- In one interview you said that when you wrote "Petrovs", you spied the plot in the novel "Until I Find You" by Irving.

What other works do you focus on in your work?

- I look a lot where something.

Reading is, in fact, writing too.

It is important to see what you like, how it is written, why.

Analyze why you like it.

Or, for example, if you come across some kind of unsuccessful work - understand why you did not like it, and not repeat the mistake.

- Can you remember something you read recently that gave you some positive or, conversely, negative example that you used?

- Chekhov's story "Small fry" amazed me.

And I also realized that our humorous prose is somehow not very funny.

All humorous stories of Chekhov, if you remember, are lined with bitterness.

And take Zoshchenko - the same thing.

There is no pure humor like O'Henry has.

On the one hand, we seem to have something to laugh at.

On the other hand, I want to cry.

Even the program "Gorodok", which aired in the late 1990s, in the early 2000s.

I then decided to take a look, in retrospect, and realized that she was very sad.

- What kind of humor is close to you, like this or more unambiguous?

- Apparently, such, because I re-read it all.

And Zoshchenko, and Chekhov, Ilf and Petrova, or some kind of Bulgakov's stories and feuilletons.

- In "Petrovs" you have a lot of different small details, which, perhaps, do not affect the main plot, but very accurately create an atmosphere, help to immerse oneself in it.

How do you work with these details?

Do you go out and watch and record?

Or is it all already experienced experience and a play of imagination?

- Both.

I no longer use a notebook, I just walk down the street sometimes, thinking: this is something to remember, an interesting thought.

A good thought, a good comparison will not be forgotten.

You come up with a setting, or a landscape, and you want to add something more interesting there.

Because if it’s boring to describe a landscape, as a rule, they just look further, until the next dialogue.

- There are also more sensual moments.

For example, the sounds during the rain, which are amplified when the hero is wearing a raincoat.

Are these some of your personal childhood memories?

- I had a yellow raincoat, yes.

We went to the forest to pick strawberries, and there I accidentally crushed a berry on my sleeve.

This stain was so ingrained ... And then this raincoat disappeared somewhere.

Later, when they were taking things apart, he was found.

I wore it as a child and was surprised that it was so small.

Yes, something from life, but something is invented.

On the one hand, it is impossible to draw everything from reality, but on the other - where else to draw from?

- There is an opinion that the work of a writer is more about editing.

Do you agree with this?

- Yes.

- How many times do you need to rewrite the text to make you happy?

- I rewrite every sentence.

It's good that Word now allows you to do this endlessly.

Then there is editing with a publishing house, or with a magazine, and this is the most tedious part.

It just seems that everything has already been passed, the text has passed, but no, it is necessary to return, re-read again.

It takes a lot of time - about half.

- Do you think it is necessary to have a specialized education in order to become a successful writer?

Or is it just a matter of personal qualities - such as observation, for example?

- Self-criticism, to a greater extent.

And it is important not to be a completely stupid person, you must at least read something in your life, be able to compare it with what you wanted to write and what happened.

You need to be able to critically look at the plot, at the heroes, how it all looks from the outside.

Many young authors send in manuscripts, and they have ... It looks like modern influencers.

They expose themselves in the texts, the hero is not drawn in the way he will be interesting.

It's like their alter-ego, with their thoughts, very combed, as a rule, and very well-combed life, which does not look very interesting.

It's about the same as photographing near a flower bed with an attempt to pass it off as some kind of trip.

- What do you think the hero should be in order to interest the reader?

- It doesn't have to be specific.

You just have to see what kind of hero you have.

And for this you need to read a lot to compare with how well other people have done. 

Reading is one of the great ways to start writing better.

Profile education also helps someone very much, as well as non-core education.

- Are there books that all writers need to read?

- No.

- Even the classics? ..

- Yes, you don't need to read it.

There are many classics.

You won't reread it in your entire life.

Only some Dumas can be read for half your life.