Have you ever come across encyclopedias of desires? No? Believe me, that’s a huge miss! After all, we humans want so many different things. We wish to be beautiful, kind, happy—that’s understandable… but someone, for example, wants to have a mustache! Or a beer belly. Or to be brainless—such things can also be desired. So here’s the thing: all these “wants” are the subject of a truly serious scientific study! The “Encyclopedia of Desires” articles are poems written easily and masterfully, and the explanations and notes to them—by their scientific seriousness and thoroughness—will amaze and delight even the most serious readers. And as always with Klyuev, words and meanings flow into one another and become a language game that happily involves readers of all ages.
And after many articles there are special encyclopedic footnotes that will surely not leave you without a smile. Evgeny Klyuev is one of the brightest writers of modern Russian literature—a poet, philologist, laureate of prestigious literary awards, Knight of the Order of Honorable Dodo, a recognized expert in the literature of the absurd, and author of a new—and closest to the original text—translation of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.” Also, Evgeny Vasilyevich is simply a good person with an excellent sense of humor and enormous imagination.
It’s worth noting that the “Encyclopedia of Desires” was read by Yuri Titov, an actor of the Theater Studio of Peter Fomenko. And he did it brilliantly! Yuri’s secret is his great love for Evgeny Klyuev’s work—impossible to resist the pleasure with which Yuri reads this book!