Rescue from the Gutter

He explained what starting meant very simply: the official language would then be functioning naturally throughout all layers of the societal cake. I think this is a kind of normal reaction to the nauseatingly sweet smell of mothballs and warmed-over ideas of the sublime which were broken in the West by the crowbar-like phallus of Henry Miller's brilliant style. In Ukraine, it is Andrukhovych, Andrusiak, and Vynnychuk who try to commit at least a pale semblance of this act. Their successes are not so impressive. What seems to be missing in their quest for triumph is a mere trifle - the specific linguistic material produced by skid row, the army, and prison camps. For this ample, colorful and far-from-stupid human stratum in Ukraine still uses Big Brother's language.

Also in this stratum is the dollar prostitute. The sweetness of contact with her should be ensured not by ethnographic pseudo-folk shows and finely-psychological hogwash, such as yellow and blue decorated rooms in soldiers' barracks (replacing "Leninist" recreation rooms?), but, above all, by the vigorous authority of the Ukrainian language which, starting from Parliament, should embrace not only all army and police personnel but also criminal godfathers. They should be worked with, they should be drawn into useful life, with adequate utilization of their extraordinary energy. One should not fear brute force, dirt, or anything else. Let us not forget that the cream of the beau monde often has its roots in beggars, if not pirates. Let us endeavor, at least like the rooster from a joke: "If I catch her," he was thinking about the hen, "I'll make her my bride, if not - I'll at least warm up."