One Should Grow Wiser Unnoticed

Aphorisms for a bright day

Aphorists are an amazing people! While many writers throughout the history of literature seek (and sometimes not without success) recognition from humanity by creating huge novels, epics, and poems, aphorists try to reach the same goal through tiny sentences—sentences they call either aphorisms, phrases, or concisionisms—believing (and again, not without reason) that the thread-running idea of those other, bulky works can very well fit into the size of such a sentence. The funniest thing is that aphorists may indeed be right.

Really, in how many tomes, life stories, or even in people’s own lives, have exactly such sentences been in demand? “After us, even the flood,” “The state is me,” “Money doesn’t stink,” “Man is a sound of proud,” “If you can’t, but you really want to, then you can,” “If you want to live longer, die laughing.” This is—or almost all that remains—from emperors, drifters, novels, songs, and poems. But if out of all the empty material people create, only the gold grains of aphoristic thought found within it become demanded, then why spend your mind, honor, conscience, and—above all—time on creating that raw material itself? Wouldn’t the creative process be far more productive if the creator created only those precious gold grains that are truly needed by everyone!

Of course, since “brevity is the sister of talent, but the stepmother of fees,” the aphorist can go to the cash desk without a big money bag—yet he clearly wins in recognition: a grateful reader who doesn’t have to read multi-pud tomes in order to experience—beautifully speaking—a catharsis loves the aphorist, values him, and remembers concise, easy-to-remember works.

To achieve perfection in creativity, “you need to cut off everything unnecessary.” This common truth aphorists have learned better than other creators—prose writers and painters—even better than poets, who traditionally lean toward aphoristic qualities. “In my death, ask to blame my life,” “No one leaves life alive,” “Surroundings of pawns create the illusion that you are the king,” “In honest struggle, a crook loses,” “Love is the fall upward”—take a closer look, listen to these phrases. Not a single unnecessary word! Not a single unnecessary sound! Not a single unnecessary brushstroke!

All of this was written with the brush of Gennady Malkin, a wonderful artist of aphoristic thought, a member of the Writers’ Union of Moscow, a laureate of “The Golden Calf,” “The Club of 12 Chairs” of the “Literary Gazette,” and in general an excellent person. Isn’t there less philosophy, journalism, intelligence, skill, and even poetry in these gems than in the most voluminous works? No, not less! And all in one bottle!

By introducing each new book of Gennady Malkin with these idle but, as I think, not unnecessary reflections, I foresee the pleasure that the reader will experience while traveling through its wise, cheerful, and sarcastic pages. Such a journey is one of those you remember! On the road, reader! From this book, you won’t be able to leave indifferent.