About the book: 1994 / The book of the famous writer and philosopher Georgy Gachev "Russian Eros" is a unique work in many respects. The subtitle of the book - “a novel of Thoughts with Life” - emphasizes the essential feature of its content: it is, firstly, a study of those aspects of human culture in general and Russian culture in particular that are associated with the concept of “eros”, and, secondly, - This is a diary of the author’s personal life, philosophically interpreted and thereby included in the circle of ideas of the book. It made, probably, the first attempt in our literature at a comprehensive cultural analysis of the problems of eros, towards the discussion of which and in general as such, we have been fostered for a long time with a persistent prejudice. “Eros” is considered by Gachev as a kind of independent “cosmos” in which a wide variety of forces and elements manifest themselves and interact and where there is nothing insignificant or insignificant. And where the uniqueness of national life, character and self-awareness plays a significant role. Coexistence, combination, interpenetration of two plans: “high”, theoretical - on the one hand, and everyday, “mundane” - on the other; a combination of almost novelistic situations with abstract, according to the author, speculation; The writer’s way of thinking, composition, style and vocabulary of the book form its original world, where each element, like a brick in a building, plays its constructive (semantic) role. “My wife, Svetlana, came in to pick up papers and carbon copies from me. “Oh, you are an eternal teenager: you keep peeking at the woman!” “Everything is true in the miracle of a woman, like Fellini’s teenagers in Amarcord, I look closely and never tire of marveling all my life!” - “So, you’re a normal boy. But now there are more and more homosexuals” - “That’s what I don’t understand at all!” - “That’s good, daddy” - “Eh, maybe you’re a lesbian by accident?” “Ha... “But it’s true - “Russian Eros”, this huge fresco, - in the optics of a teenager who first got hold of a woman, is written out. But even now, every time with Svetlana, it’s like for the first time and all over again. since then - as a continuation of “Russian Eros”» "