Gorenstein's Puzzle

«Gorenstein's Puzzle», compiled for us by Yuri Veksler, answers many questions about «Dostoevsky of the XX century» and leaves a painful desire to read more about Gorenstein and by Gorenstein. This book publishes for the first time in Russia documents... related to the creative relationship between Gorenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky, a debate with Grigory Pomerants, and several essays, articles by Efim Etkind and other authors, interviews with John Glad, Viktor Erofeev, etc. In addition, the book includes the memories of Gorenstein himself, as well as the memoirs of Andrei Konchalovsky, Mark Rozovsky, Paola Volkova, and many others.

…How can it be that such a person, who is almost not a person, but a paradox or a grimace of a person (I didn’t even perceive him literally as a person with whom I could sit and talk), has a soul – biblical?.. It shocked me that I saw in my life a person for whom daily existence was unbearably difficult, because the world lives in certain categories to which he cannot adapt, because he really has a soul, essence – a doppelganger. He is ancient, not even Jewish, but biblical. And he feels the world this way, lives by these laws and not by others. This is not a split, he is not crazy, but it is simply such a misfortune, such a sorrow, when he does not correspond to any civilization, to any time…
Paola Volkova