Orthodox positivism"
(on V.V. rozanov)It is only superficial people who do not judge by appearances.-Oscar Wilde winter 2008-9 79 from his treatise," that "he writes in a heavy style, . . . moves solely within the field of scholastics, and indulges in endless vague verbiage." 2 But, of course, the most stunning "review" was that of a colleague of Rozanov at the Yeletsk gymnasium, who at a teachers' party, being under the influence of drink, took the host's gift copy of the treatise down from a shelf and excreted a small piece of shit onto it, accompanying this action with indecent utterances. Can we blame this "advanced" act solely on stupefying provincial boredom, and the conspiracy of silence solely on general lack of culture? Or is writing in a boring manner, perhaps, also indecent behavior, a sign of disrespect for the reader, the theft of days and hours of his not so long life without offering anything worthwhile in exchange?Although I know and love Rozanov, chase after his every printed word, and expend efforts in archives deciphering the cursive script of his letters, even today I lack the strength to fight my way through the debris of his soporific 700-page treatise. And while it is right to acknowledge that the intimate thoughts of the late Rozanov are not so far removed from the ideas of his early treatise, the form in which his thoughts are presented, the way in which he communicates with the reader has undergone striking changes.The lesson was well learnt. Starting from this moment of shock, with each passing year Rozanov became more refined, talented, and respectful of the reader, more adept at combining profundity of thought with an entertaining exposition. In the small masterpieces of his later years, he attained such perfection that his thoughts are absorbed instantaneously into the blood like medicine with cognac. And the minutes spent on their assimilation are no longer taken out of the reader's life, but, on the contrary, intensify and-as it were-prolong it, for the measure of a person's life is not the number of swings of a pendulum but the number of moments that his memory retains until his dying hour.What good fortune that a cold shower should have cooled down the overheated imagination of Rozanov, who buoyed by his hoped-for success already dreamed of giving the reader another treatise that would "encompass both the angels and trade" in a single glance, thereby disposing of all previous and possible future philosophical systems as unneeded. Had the first treatise received even a barely tolerable press, Rozanov would have right away set about completing the elaboration of his theory of "potentiality"-on the basis, undoubtedly, of the Aristotelian category of "entelechy," which had captured his imagination at the time of his joint work with Pervov on the translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Echoes of his early Aristotelianism can still be heard in the historical naturalism of the parts of the apocalypse of our time [Apokalipsis nashego vremeni], which appeared shortly before his death. ...
