On June 15, 2021, the Great Hall of the Central House of Writers hosted the annual summing up and awarding ceremony for the winners of the literary competitions of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia together with the NP “Literary Republic”, although that time, due to the pandemic, the results were summed up for two years at once, 2019 and 2020. Of particular interest was the “Master” award after M.A. Bulgakov, since the competition had been announced in 2020 for the first time.
The winner of the competition “Master” after M. Bulgakov for 2020, awarded with a name plated statuette, became Alexandra Kryuchkova, poet and honored writer of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, host of a literary salon in the museum & theater Bulgakov House, author of the cycle of poems “To Woland6” and the laconic novel “A Trap for a Thought-Form”.7
The action of the novel takes place exactly in the Bulgakov House, where, judging by the intriguing annotation, during the breaks between presentations, Alice, the main character, who is not reflected in the mirrors, holds a magical workshop on the fulfillment of wishes and on the construction of one’s own Happy Reality.
Is the novel as simple as it seems at first glance?
Variations based on the ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion and the revived Galatea were born in world literature more than once. Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde, and Alexey Tolstoy, and Daniil Andreev took up the case. The latter explained in detail in his novel “Rose of the World” how Cervantes’ Don Quixote could acquire an independent consciousness in order to live and act in the Heaven Synclite not as a literary hero, but as a real person.
However, none of the famous authors has yet approached the idea of incarnating a character from the point of view of the literary hero himself. In this sense, Alexandra Kryuchkova’s book “A Trap for a Thought-Form” is absolutely innovative. This is a real breakthrough in the field of knowledge of the human spirit! Before the eyes of the reader, the character becomes a personality, independent of the script.
The enchanting brevity of the novel speaks of a rare talent – to fit a wise depth in a few words.
From the first lines you can see the author’s handwriting, which cannot be confused with any other. In fact, Alexandra Kryuchkova managed to create her own new language in prose, and this achievement is comparable to the new language that Joseph Brodsky painfully gave birth to in poetry. Alexandra uses textual possibilities in a peculiar way, thanks to which the narrative is saturated with symbols that carry a hidden meaning unknown to an unprepared reader. The most important for the author details of landscapes, significant figures and objects are invariably indicated with a capital letter.
“I’m catching stars at the Dark Tower. It looks like your Tower…”
The novel is built on dialogues, brief and unusually powerful, filled with a secret, mystical meaning.
“You remind me of that man, so…”
“The sorcerer?” Roman asked.
“The Magician,” I clarified, mentally staying in the Other Reality in search of my gloves. “We are going to give a performance on the 14th of February. I want you to play him.”
“Whatever you want,” Roman smiled… “What is the role?”
“You will come to me out of the Mirror every night. Until you take me away from here…”
The use of the author’s text in the review is inevitable, but I have to restrain myself so as not to quote the entire work.
For a thorough dive in the Universe of Alexandra Kryuchkova, one should read her other novels in the same “Playing Another Reality” series, much more voluminous, for example, “The Book of Secret Knowledge” and “Confession of a Ghost” about the Matrix of Time Space. Only then, having comprehended the depth of the author’s inner world, one will see that everything in the “Trap” is not just for fun, and some characters have a serious background, a literary fate, image, multiplied by hundreds of reflections in the mirrors of the author’s gaze, even if at first it’s not clear, what kind of people are these? Why are they designated as functions and often have no names at all?
Don’t rush, reader! All riddles will be solved when the puzzle is completed. Alexandra masterfully arranges intrigue!
The action of the novel is structurally planned and concentrated around the main character. In the museum, which at the same time is a gathering place for quite real, associated with literature, “impure souls”, the atmosphere of impending villainy is ripening more and more clearly, and the Blizzard invariably reigns around. Its endless whirling creates an atmosphere of frozen Time.
“Tell me, will this Blizzard ever end?” I asked devastated.
“So do you love spring after all?” he smiled with difficulty, remaining sad.
“Will it end, this Blizzard?!” I asked him again.
The Guardian hugged me and began to rock me slowly from side to side, whispering softly,
“The Blizzard will lull you, Alice, lull you like a mother, end and start again, end and start again, it will circle us endlessly, in its magical dance, because it is – yes, yes, it is the Blizzard! – that can help us survive Death…”
The vivid emotion of the novel resonates with the reader’s feelings when the situation becomes unresolvable. Alice experiences a natural fear of being unable to reach to people in order to get answers to those existential questions that are never answered by anyone, and if one tries to answer, the answers leave room for doubts and uncertainty.
“Everyone sees and gets what he wants, or what he is ready / expects / assumes from his experience / on the basis of acquired knowledge to see or receive, Alice!” Roman said sadly.
“Then how can we understand that we are not ghosts, if in the world of ghosts I can’t pass through the wall, since I consider both myself and the wall to be physically material, while the ghost who understands that he is a ghost will pass through the same wall?”
“Quite right,” said Roman. “For the same reason, in the material world, a true magician, being absolutely sure that a miracle will happen after pronouncing certain words of a spell, will perform a miracle, or rather, ALLOW THE MIRACLE TO HAPPEN. And a common man does not. He doesn’t anticipate, doesn’t expect, doesn’t want or is not ready to…”
“Everyone sees and gets what he… These adjacent worlds are the Kingdom of solid Crooked Mirrors, Roman. ‘There’ looks like ‘here’. And ‘here’ looks like ‘There’. But there must be, must be some difference between the Worlds!!! It can’t help existing!!!”
The throwing quest of the main character’s soul for self-determination and, consequently, for an answer to the question of her destiny, grow with terrible force in order to fall like a tsunami in the final on frozen Time, because:
“… everyone at a certain point in time needs to decide whether one is alive or dead, and what one really is…”
An unexpected outcome is accompanied by a wise message to the future:
“…Pass