Writer Dmitry Glukhovsky – about his immortality in the "Future"
Rhino Horn Powder
Anastasia Skorondaeva, Rossiyskaya GazetaAs part of the program of the International Book Fair, the capital is waiting for a "literary weekend".
The 57th Pavilion at the VVC, the Bookmarket multimedia festival and Readers Boulevard are waiting for readers. Writers are in great demand.
Dmitry Glukhovsky, for example, will present his new novel "The Future", published in AST, and will discuss the future of fiction at the Bookmarket together with Englishman Joe Abercrombie. The day before, we talked with him about the writer's sense of power, about the film adaptation in Hollywood and about eternal youth.
– Dmitry, what kind of "tomorrow" does your new book "The Future" promise humanity?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: "The Future" is about how, with the help of genetic engineering, people managed to block the mechanisms of aging of the body – reprogram them, and stop aging, become eternally young and practically immortal. After some time, the Earth is overpopulated by these non-aging, non-ill, happy people. A real utopia. However, any utopia has backyards: the resources of the planet are almost exhausted, humanity cannot continue to multiply. If a couple wants a child, one of the two must die before their child becomes a teenager. Make room for your child. Of course, this is an almost childless world: everyone prefers to live for their own sake. At the same time – did a person dream so passionately about anything other than immortality and eternal youth?!
– Do you think eternal youth is happiness?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: Happiness is the absence of unhappiness: at least, as the happiest, we usually remember cloudless, unclouded years – childhood, youth. Death, of course, is the greatest of misfortunes, and the only thing for which there is no cure yet. So we will be happier. But we will become completely different without death. It will no longer be homo sapiens, but another person.
– And how soon can we expect such changes?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: Yes, very soon, in fifty or a hundred years. Our grandchildren, I think, will never die, and maybe even children. But what kind of people will we be? We won't need a soul – the bodies will be eternal, we won't use paradise, the church will probably go back to the catacombs. Because of overpopulation, together with the children, we will also give up the family – why is it if the children are under embargo? And the whole development of civilization may stop. After all, it is death that drives us, makes us move, create, invent, create. Death puts our life in the framework, it defines us. My "Future" is an attempt to model society as it will become in this century.
– Do you think that immortality is the main thing that people lack?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: You know, when my 87-year-old grandmother felt bad, she used to wail: "God, I wish I could die already!" But as soon as she let go a little, she immediately began to pray that she would live at least a little longer. If there is no old age, suffering, disease – who will give up eternal life? The most powerful rulers at all times have tried to achieve immortality with the help of alchemists, court mystics. At least prolong life by consuming powder from rhinoceros horn, crushed emeralds, hearts of enemies or exotic spices with supposedly miraculous properties. And if you don't stay forever young – at least to seem like this: braces, creams, Botox... And no one could outwit death: neither the Egyptian pharaohs, nor the Chinese emperors, nor Comrade Stalin.
– Would you like to outwit?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: I would like to, of course – and everyone would, I'm sure. I want to live forever. And stay young forever. I look at my photos from five years ago and see: I'm getting old. I write books, take casts from my soul; sometimes I reread what I used to write, and I see: I'm getting old. Isn't it scary? Not only to die yourself: when we are, there is no death, and when there is death, we are not... Wouldn't you like your parents to always be like they were in childhood: young, healthy, cheerful?
– You have not pleased fans with new novels for four years (the novel "Metro 2034" was released in 2009). Have you been working on a new book for so long?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: "The future" actually required even more – all 15 years: the idea first came when I was nineteen. But... how to write until you start getting old yourself, until you have children, until you babysit your child? 15 years ago I would have had a formulaic, inanimate novel. And now it's all woven out of my own life. Very tough, but also authentic. I shared my soul with the hero, and my life with the novel.
– Why did you need online surveys about the new book?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: "The Future" is not at all like my previous books. Formally, its genre is utopia, but the main character is one of those responsible for limiting the population. One of those who forces people to make a choice between eternal life and the possibility of having a child. Stormtrooper. The language, the plot – everything matches the hero: very tough. The book on the cover is marked "18+", and for good reason: readers feel like licking a high–voltage cable from it. I haven't written like this before, and I needed to understand if those who know me from Metro or Stories about the Motherland are ready for such texts? Therefore, surveys. But I wouldn't give up on the idea anyway. We must remember that the passion for interactive is entertaining, but it can break the novel, corrode its integrity. "The future" turned out the way I originally conceived it. I risk a lot. But come what may.
– Does your active communication with readers on the Internet mean that you write "for readers", focus on them?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: You need to write for yourself, not for an imaginary reader. To put life into a book, then it will find its own reader – now or in three hundred years. And the fabricated products on the shelf with the inscription "Bestseller" go out and spoil.
– I read on your page: "It would be nice to demand back all the time spent on VKontakte at the end of life under a guarantee. And rrraz – live for yourself for another ten years!" Don't you feel sorry for the time spent on social networks?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: I publish in social networks, I draw energy from them, I live in them. Just got back from a book fair in Beijing. And in China, as you know, Facebook is banned. I rushed to check the received messages immediately after returning to my homeland. I am a product of the era, an Internet-addicted person. I owe everything to the Network, I left the Internet and will leave the Internet. "Metro 2033" was first published online, 11 years ago. The group of a fresh book, "The Future", in VKontakte has gained 150,000 people. But you have to pay for everything. My neurons are intertwined with fiber optic cables, the air without 3G seems stale to me. Without the Network, I am incomplete.
– There is a lot of talk about the anti-piracy law now. Do you not support him – if you post an unpublished novel on a social network? And publishers are not offended that they lose money on this?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: Publishers have resigned themselves. "Metro" has been in the public domain for all these years – and this did not prevent the book from becoming a bestseller. Publishers themselves don't understand a damn thing about how the Internet works. I tell them: believe me, I know what's best. They close their eyes and believe.
– The rights to translate "The Future" were bought by Germans, Italians, Poles. Why are you so popular abroad?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: Probably because I'm writing about the universal. With the exception of "Stories about the Motherland," there are not so many national and cultural specifics in my books that they are incomprehensible in the West – or in the East. I'm not being too clever, I'm worried about the same issues as other living people: my place in life, fate, the meaning of meaningless existence, faith and disbelief, aging and hope for eternity. This is understandable both in China and in Germany.
– Last year, MGM acquired the rights to the film adaptation of the novel "Metro 2033". At what stage is the project now?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: A script is being developed. At the end of September I will fly to Los Angeles to communicate with producers and representatives of the film studio, and there I will find out when to wait for the film. The script is not written by me, but by an American screenwriter: it was decided to move the action of the future movie to Washington. Well, then, let them destroy Washington...
– This year you entered the jury of the "Debut" award. They didn't notice you there at the time, now they call you. Not offended?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: On the contrary, it's a triumph of the offended. Although, to be honest, I didn't think to win then. I just sent it, just in case.
– Why is it interesting to sit on the jury of the competition?
Dmitry Glukhovsky: Enjoy the feeling of your power over human destinies, of course. Do they go to the jury for something else?
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru06.09.2013