In the first issue of the journal "Technics for Youth" in 1957, the publication of the socio-philosophical science fiction novel "The Andromeda Nebula" by Ivan Antonovich Efremov, written by him in 1955-1956, began. Even opponents of communist ideology called this work "a successful utopia of the future." And Soviet readers - "an unprecedented novel"

However, why is it a utopia? Some scientific and technical predictions of Ivan Efremov from this and other books have become reality. For example, the discovery of a diamond deposit in Yakutia, mercury ore in the Southern Altai, an e-book, three-dimensional television, etc. However, the basis of Ivan Efremov's creativity was reasoning about the moral and ethical development of society, human values. It is no coincidence that the main science of the future in his books is history, and the ratio of grief and joy is a measure of the level of development of civilization.

Ivan Efremov's society of the future does not exist within the framework of only one planet. Therefore, it makes sense to quote from a Soviet science fiction film that was released 16 years after the publication of The Andromeda Nebula. We are talking about the painting by Budimir Metalnikov "The Silence of Dr. Ivens". "What is the first law of the Earth"? - asks the terrestrial scientist a member of the alien crew. And having heard that there are no such laws, and the earthlings are separated by borders, social and ethnic barriers, he states with bitterness that the Earth is not yet ripe for contacts with other civilizations. Ivan Efremov saw the Earth as a common home. And, it seems, he knew the way to this. It is no coincidence that the Andromeda Nebula is set in the era of the Great Ring. Next comes the Era of Meeting Hands. In the terminology of Ivan Efremov, we remained in the Era of a disunited world.

We have to admit that so far the worst version of the social structure described in the novel "Hour of the Bull" has become reality of all the social forecasts of Ivan Efremov. Someone saw in her a caricature of Soviet reality. In fact, Efremov was not writing about this. This novel - a warning came out in the late 60s of the last century. It is about a social and moral catastrophe on the planet Tormans, in which inferno reigns, destroying and burning souls in hell during life. The writer himself spoke of an "explosion of immorality" that would be followed by "the greatest catastrophe in history in the form of a widespread technical monoculture." The oligarchy reigns on Tormans, the people are left with the struggle for survival and vulgar Mass culture... This picture seems to have long since lost its boundaries.

As for "The Andromeda Nebula", this work, which for many years was not just a fantastic novel for readers in the USSR, and then in Russia, but a moral guideline showing what a person can be with a reasonable structure of society, self-discipline, the desire for development, now seems to have been forgotten or "boring and incomprehensible" to many.

Niza Crete - Tatiana Voloshina

At one of the public forums in 2011, a well-known Russian journalist claiming literacy and arbitration, hearing the expression “the ideology of the Andromeda Nebula,” could not calm down for a long time. And he publicly accused the speaker of inadequacy. And not because he does not love Ivan Efremov. But because he did not read it. And the "Andromeda Nebula" in his understanding is something from the Cosmos. Somewhere far away. And he obviously never heard of the novel.

Read on the forums on the Internet reviews of young people about other works by Ivan Efremov. Their souls are often deaf, and their needs are akin to those of insects. Isn't this the "Hour of the Bull"? But the trouble is not even that, but that they consider the whole world to be like themselves. “At Efremov’s two students at“ Razor's Blade ”discuss architectural monuments during their trip to the Mediterranean. This Efremov, he doesn't know what the students are talking about among themselves ”? - a quote from the forum on the site dedicated to the work of Ivan Efremov. No, he did not know such students. And if he did, he did not consider this pathology to be the norm.

Mven Mas - Lado Tskhvariashvili

It is possible that Efremov himself never met people in his contemporary society who were exactly like the heroes of the Andromeda Nebula, such as Dar Veter, Mven Mas, Veda Kong or Evda Nal. But many of their features to the people of my generation were understandable, close, distinguishable in the crowd and forced them to improve themselves and the world around them. By the way, Ivan Efremov never varnished Soviet reality. Themes of repression, crime, moral vices are heard in books dedicated to his contemporary period.

And as echoes - in the future. It is no coincidence that in "The Andromeda Nebula" one of the tasks of education in schools is to counteract this. The fate of the scientist Mven Mas ("Andromeda Nebula"), who, for the sake of an ethically dubious but striking scientific discovery, put the lives of those who helped him at risk is an example of how similar problems will be solved in the future. Mven Mas repents of his deed, voluntarily retires into exile on the Island of Oblivion - a refuge for those who wish to hide from society or live guided only by personal desires and passions. He is saved from further degradation by love and a sense of responsibility towards the people who have trusted him.

There are several storylines in The Andromeda Nebula. A fan of science fiction will be interested in space travel of heroes, those who are interested in history will find in the book a lot of new from this area of ​​knowledge. The book contains descriptions of the pedagogy of the future, which caused Soviet time there are many discussions, as well as the topic of family and relationships between men and women. For Efremov, the entire system of life and work of mankind in the future will be arranged exactly so that a person can receive joy and pleasure. A dangerous mental symptom in the understanding of Ivan Efremov is the loss of interest in life. Indifference according to Efremov is also a symptom of the disease.

Ivan Efremov himself recalled the time of work on the Andromeda Nebula: “So the period of work on the Andromeda Nebula remained in my memory as a time of complete solitude, silence, a time when in front of me there was only a desk and a starry sky, like would move closer to me. "

And among us, those who were called Soviet youth in the 1980s, Ivan Efremov's novels - "The Andromeda Nebula", "Hour of the Bull", "Razor Blade" were a breath of air, instilling the belief that life could and should be different ...

As for the author of the work, Ivan Antonovich Efremov, a paleontologist, the creator of a new scientific direction - taphonomy, a writer and a philosopher, his personality and life still remain a mystery. The ideas of Ivan Efremov were so ahead of the time in which he lived that persistent rumors appeared during his lifetime that Efremov was an alien, an Indian yogi, etc. In any case, a person with extraordinary abilities.

The book is amazingly multifaceted, saturated with a mass of non-trivial ideas closely linked to one another. Just briefly mentioning these ideas is already material for a long article.

One of the main distinguishing features of the novel is fundamentally different social relations. Efremov, in fact, and not in words, was a staunch communist, for which he was persecuted by the inhabitants, some colleagues of the Academy of Sciences, and many party officials. Now there is the term "noospheric communism", which, of course, more accurately reflects what Ivan Antonovich wrote about. Someone prefers to simply say "the highest form of society." But let's remember: the word "communism" was the defining one for the writer. At the same time, even under strong pressure, he did not go to mention in the book about the monuments to Marx and Lenin. So it's not about the conjuncture.

An amazing invention of the writer: the Academy of Grief and Joy.

The ability to lead is the most essential in such a society, because power in it is not based on fear or blind faith, but solely on competence and rational trust in a leader who has proven his worth. Therefore, there are no convinced conservatives or supporters of reckless progress in Efremov's future. The very principles of decision-making are different here. Each specific proposal is analyzed from the point of view of increasing human happiness and the general ascent of mankind. As a rule, more or less averaged solutions are chosen. At the Astronomical Council, Thunder Orme utters the coined phrase: "The wisdom of a leader is to timely realize the highest level for the present moment, to stop and wait or change the path."

And so they do. They deliberately delay the development of the parapsychic sphere, because psychophysiological perfection is not fully honed and the risk of losing control over the psyche is dangerous. They refuse to populate planets with a higher thinking life, even if it has not reached a high level, because then misunderstanding and violence are inevitable. The Gift of the Wind, personifying the wisdom of earthly leadership, does not give the go-ahead for the Tibetan experience, for several decades of preparation by the standards of all mankind do not matter. But all the same: they justify the heroes of the Tibetan experience and recognize its enormous importance for science. An astonishingly audacious expedition is sent to Achernar - to establish the first colony in deep space. They proclaim the romance of scientific research as the spiritual basis for the excess strength of society.

Naturally, such a society can only be made up by people who are ready to make well-thought-out decisions and implement them, sensitively reacting to what is happening. People who have the greatest possible breadth of views and that excess of understanding and generosity, which does not allow ignoring the interests of other people and the entire society, narrowly confined to personal desires and inevitably related personal problems.

The trust of the people of the future to each other is really great. This is a rule, not an accidental insight in a world of delusion, whims and hasty decisions. Therefore, the will of the other person is respected. It goes without saying that the person made a deliberate decision, and to persuade him to change this decision is to show disrespect. So Thunder Orm leaves the post of responsibility.

The most complete, capacious expression of a deep understanding of life has always been called wisdom. Efremov's heroes define wisdom as a combination of knowledge and feelings. This combination does not apply to all knowledge and not all feelings. Felt knowledge of true human nature is an understanding of the need for certain actions. Efremov's people have knowledge of their nature, therefore their altruism is balanced and natural.

Happiness in the novel is defined as a constant change of creative work and rest in the struggle for the new, in the exploration of the unknown.

Efremov's people are laconic and sensitive, busy with hard work, understanding the need and importance of romance. These are people saturated, as if with electricity, with a joyful readiness for unexpected trials and impressions. Their conversations are full of meaning, they learn to understand each other without words. These are people who have been taught dialectical philosophy since childhood and therefore deeply feel such a concept as a measure. Therefore, they are wary of euphoric raptures and, on the contrary, emotional stiffness, constraint of certain manifestations. Friendly, physically strong and beautiful people who know how to enjoy art and work hard.

Of course, the foundations of relations in society are laid from an early age. School in Efremov's society has a huge role in the development of a person. Huge also from the fact that there is no family in the modern sense of the word in his society. Schools are scattered in small towns all over the planet, and students and their mentors live there permanently. The role of the teacher in such a situation increases many times over.

Young people are by no means left to their own devices. The tremendous energy that from time immemorial generates conflicts between "fathers and children" must be directed in a positive direction. Perhaps this is only when young people are fully employed in creative, socially useful work and adults comply with the proclaimed ideals. Only then do young people not form a closed subculture that is aggressive towards strangers. Informal youth movements have always been a form of protest against the adult world, against their lies and hypocrisy. In Efremov's society, such a protest is meaningless, because living conditions meet the most important human needs and cannot be completely rejected by a mentally healthy individual.

The richness of the novel with pedagogical ideas is extremely high, it is not without reason that the remarkable teacher V. A. Sukhomlinsky has repeatedly re-read it and wrote to the author in one of his letters: “I am a longtime admirer of your work. I read The Andromeda Nebula four times. This is not an addiction to science fiction, but a desire to experience again and again, to feel the depth of thoughts that you have an abundance of both in the lines and between the lines ... Your science fiction delights with its truthfulness. I am in love with your people of the future. "

The school space is open and non-linear. This is clearly expressed even in small details: classes, it turns out, usually take place in the garden under the trees, and classes are unusual, if only because they lack doors.

The training is divided into four cycles of four years, and each cycle the school moves to another place to preserve the sharpness and freshness of perception, the cycles learn in isolation from each other, so as not to annoy children with a clash of too different ages. However, at the same time, older children necessarily have a younger ward to facilitate the work of teachers and form a sense of responsibility.

Classes in each cycle of the school alternate with labor lessons. What are these lessons? - we read about two activities - polishing optical glasses (can you imagine what it is like to participate in the construction of a telescope!) And the construction of a wooden ship using old technologies, followed by an expedition to Carthage.

Efremov believes that the main thing is the study of history - not as our school subject, representing, in fact, the history of wars and economic reforms, but global history, in the sense of studying the causal relationships that led to the current situation.

Rhea talks to her mother. How does she talk to her? - free and open. It has built up a basic trust in the world. The world accepts her, she has nothing to fear in the world, she does not know what a stupid misunderstanding or a deliberate offense is. Efremov, grasping and understanding the importance of such nuances, anticipates the development of humane pedagogy in our time, for which the best teacher of our time, Shalva Aleksandrovich Amonashvili, stands up.

Boys and girls, in addition to direct mentors, also have a mentor - one of the respected adults who help determine their preferences and solve difficult issues of self-realization.

Seventeen-year-old young people who graduated from school do not immediately begin to receive higher education - for three years they have been experiencing a time of testing, called the Exploits of Hercules. Some of the exploits are appointed by the elders, some are chosen independently. These feats are serious and responsible work, initiation.

An adult is a knowledgeable person interested in the fruits of his work. Absolute physical health leads to increased energy of existence, as a result of which the life of such a person cannot be limited by the narrow framework of personal existence. Anyone can put forward any proposal, even on a global scale, and it will be discussed if really well thought out.

Love for nature is of great psychological importance. Efremov writes: “Veda Kong thought about the mobile peace of nature and how well places are always chosen for the construction of schools. The most important aspect of upbringing is the development of a keen perception of nature and subtle communication with it. Dulling attention to nature is, in fact, a cessation of human development, since, forgetting how to observe, a person loses the ability to generalize. "

Attitude towards things. To go through the complication of material culture in order to arrive at its simplicity ... Again we can see dialectical logic in action. The conclusions reflect not a private opinion, but the whole force of objective laws. The diminution of feelings and their artificiality, surrounded by a mass of small unnecessary things, obscure the manifestation of the most important thing in a person - what makes him different from the animal - the creative spiritual principle.

"Raising a new person is a delicate work with individual analysis and a very careful approach."

The artist Kart San is concerned with creating images of beauty that match the main racial types. His searches lead to the deepest research of anthropological and ethnocultural material. In fact, he is trying to recreate in its purest form those peaks of beauty that were created in a series of hundreds of generations of natural life in different geographic conditions of the planet. In his work, he is the same scientist as Ren Bose, only the area of ​​his work is more difficult to verbalize (verbal description), acting directly on the senses.

We are not talking about the private tastes and preferences of a particular era; beauty - as the highest measure of purposefulness - is objective, and it is necessary and must to cognize its laws. But each individual system has its own intermediate ideals, which, in turn, will merge in the future into a shining crown of the highest harmony.

The famous dancer Chara Nandi, who inspired Kart Sana to create "The Daughter of Tethys", demonstrates at the Celebration of the Fiery Cups an outstanding skill, far from simple technical perfection. It is the spirituality of the body “capable of expressing the deepest shades of feelings, fantasy, passion, pleas for joy with its movements, subtle changes in beautiful forms,” is defined in the novel as a sign of truly great skill.

The ability to understand and appreciate beauty at its true worth, a constant readiness to admire genuine art - all this is combined in the heroes by a clear understanding of the nature of such art. Intuition associated with clear thought; combination of knowledge and feelings - we involuntarily return to the definition of wisdom as the basis of a harmonious life and the right attitude to it.

Efremov did not seek to amaze the imagination of readers with the scale of the cosmic conquests of mankind. Each stellar expedition is a huge event. There are no fabulous spaceports with hundreds of spaceships flying towards the stars like modern airplanes.

Life of people cannot be called high-tech. On the other hand, its simplicity and secondary importance in comparison with the social component of life does not imply complex technical adaptations for personal use. Transport is generally available, but here, too, the writer's logic is evident: "a structure cannot rise without end." The speed of trains on the Spiral Road is limited to 200 km / h, and this has its own special meaning: there is no nervous desire to reach the destination as soon as possible, and at high speed it is not easy to admire the surrounding landscapes. Thus, the Spiral Road indirectly serves the contemplative meditations of people who love nature and know how to admire it, distracting from performing difficult and responsible work.

The Great Ring is Efremov's dream and providence. There are no more authors who with such force would affirm the enormous importance of the cosmic brotherhood of intelligent beings and would describe it so completely. The writer himself well understood the conventionality of depicting the Ring, defining himself as a person taking the first step in this direction. But with what inspiration and burning passion he does it. You need to be a completely callous person so that, after reading the scene of receiving the message from Epsilon Toucan, you do not sound the melody of delight, participation in space and thirst for knowledge!

Efremov emphasized the difference between the people of the future and you and me. Their joys and sorrows will not be similar to ours, he said. Now that history is taking the first steps towards a true understanding of the peculiarities of historical psychology, we can confidently say that this is how it should be. At the same time, the fundamental difference between people of the future and people of all previous eras is that they will be as close as possible to the true reality - as opposed to the changing ideologies and aesthetics of the past. Even now, despite the dramatically increased technical perfection over the past decades, informationally uniting the entire planet, we are immersed in myths, which is well understood by the creators of films such as The Terminator or The Matrix.

Many truths are simple and clear, but they are rejected or hushed up, for an open recognition of all the fragility of our life would mean a mandatory restructuring of consciousness. Such a restructuring, when people will not hide their true feelings, fearing ridicule. On the contrary, friendly help will always be at the ready, because great nervous sensitivity based on general goodwill will lead to the ability of instant recognition, and in a person's life there will be no minutes of weak-willed inactivity, apathy, or, on the contrary, hysterical impressionability that destroys the interests of the case.

Self-awareness is necessarily interconnected with general discernment. The smallest nuances of behavior do not go unnoticed. But Efremov's people are not only perceptive, they are also tactful.

In the future, Efremov's life is built in accordance with the constantly refined laws of social and psychological development. Correspondingly are the relations between people, which are created on the basis of universal balance, striving for beauty and knowledge. We, who live in the most difficult era, find it difficult to achieve the perfection of people like Gift of the Wind and Veda Kong. But to have in front of the inner gaze a sample of the purity and sincerity of relations between people of this distant future means bringing closer its triumph already here and now.

A lot could be said about the relationships of all the heroes - they are written out like a diamond cutter, and accusations of "posterity" are anecdotal when you understand the deepest truth of these relationships. I will cite only one brightest episode:

“Thunder Orm noticed a red light on Evda Nahl's seat.

For the attention of the Council! Evda Nahl wants to add to the post about Ren Bose.

I ask to speak in his place.

What are the reasons?

I love him!

You will speak after Mven Mas.

Evda Nahl turned off the red signal and sat down.

How should this episode be interpreted? The great Evda lost her nerves, and is she ready to rush to babble incoherently at the Astronautical Council about her personal experiences? No! - and this is a very indicative moment. Her argument is taken into account primarily because the people of Efremov's future love the person himself, and not a fictional image. Then love is the highest degree of understanding and penetration into the inner world of a person. Empathy, as psychologists say. Declaring her love, Evda Nahl declared her special involvement in Ren Bose's motives, on which, except for her, no one else can shed light. Evda Nahl's love is sufficient reason to conclude that these motives were noble.

People of the future know for sure that serious relationships must have deep foundations. Love “in spite of” is a fairy tale in which either a powerful “pro” is hidden and not understood by ignorant people, or a romantic dream that brings nothing but serious disappointments. A real life partner can only be one who is ready to walk the path of life together, being a companion; share with your soul all the difficulties of the path and understand them with your mind. True love is not when two are looking at each other, but when two are looking in the same direction. Under this thought of the wise Saint-Exupery, Ivan Efremov could subscribe without hesitation.

Love, stars and knowledge!

Score: 10

4. The physics of space flights is not realistic. Many fantastic works suffer from this. Neither the launch time window nor the gravitational corridor: I wanted to land on some planet - I rushed to it directly and sat down, why be smart? It's still excusable.

But why waste fuel just to keep flying? Spaceship is not a car. It does not experience aerodynamic resistance, its movement is not resisted by friction in the wheels and all mechanical components. Fuel in space is only needed to accelerate or decelerate. Having started moving, the ship will no longer stop by itself.

5. A huge space satellite 57 orbiting the Earth, performing only the functions of an information relay for the transmission of the Great Ring. Why is he? Yes, and with people on duty on it? Is it really impossible to do with miniature specialized repeaters that work almost autonomously?

6. The whole novel is about a small group of people. These people are known and respected by the whole planet. The novel, in fact, does not describe the people of the future, it describes only the best people of the future. What the rest of humanity is doing is not clear. It seems to exist only for the background. Well, someone has to graze whales for meat, grow algae for greenery, clean roads (or not?), Repair buildings, design toilets. The heroes of the work live in some incomprehensible world, divorced from everyday life. This, in my opinion, is perhaps the most significant disadvantage of the entire work.

7. Spiral road with a maximum speed limit of 200 kilometers per hour. Moreover, the author himself cannot withstand the invented restriction and sends his heroes on long trips by airplane without special need. What is it? This means all people are equal, but someone is more equal or what? Let either all people fly by air if they are in a hurry, or travel by trains with a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour.

8. A short, chaotic story about Mven Mas on the island. The chapter does not describe the life of the island. The island here is not a destination, but some kind of station, past which the train passes without stopping. The entire island chapter was made for the sake of meeting the mathematician Beth Lone, whose persona does not play a significant role in the further development of the narrative. What was this chapter for? To show that there is still a place on Earth where those who have not justified public trust are exiled? A kind of analogue of a prison, analogue of Australia, where Britain exiled its criminals.

9. General dryness of presentation - people of the future are deprived of understandable to us emotional feelings, they look like pretentious robots, whose inner experiences are very simple. The over-emphasis in the novel is often given to things that have little impact on the development of the plot. Long descriptions of dances and settings often create melancholy, which forces you to put the book aside.

Score: 6

Actually, I should have left my first review about this book, but succumbed to the mood of the moment ... Even when I was in the second or third grade, I ran to school past the poster with the announcement of the film, and the main desire was to see the space man as soon as possible. as on the poster. Alas, there was still no film, the poster disappeared (later they said that the film had burned out), and I was terribly worried that life would pass, but I would not be able to read this book (neither in the library, nor in the store - no ... ). The mood with which I picked up the first volume of the BSF after a few years is understandable. I relished every page, every word ... I gave the book to a classmate friend - and he returned it to me a few days later in a shaken state of mind ... for us it was a revelation that determined the view of the world. Not people-animals, snatching a piece of each other's daily bread, but people-creators, with every movement striving to comprehend the world - this is the ideal of the future society. Frozen world? But why is it frozen, if each of its inhabitants is in search? I don’t know, there’s some kind of logical inconsistency. The ability to do what you love, to do the work that others need and which is interesting to oneself, while having an almost unlimited set of tools, not to suffer from boredom - is this not an approximation to the ideal, an endlessly flying upward arc of function? Or scuffle - that zest, without which - in any way?

Score: 10

Hence, its main drawback (or rather a feature) follows - the difficulty of reading. The novel is written in a difficult language, requiring thoughtfulness and deliberation. Don't expect to read it in one go. But in reality, the complexity is not even in the language or style. The essence of the novel is the philosophical idea of ​​the development of society not through the improvement of the means of production, but through the development of the human personality, its aspirations and motivations. If you are not interested in this topic, then it is generally better not to tackle the "Andromeda Nebula".

Personally, I believe that this novel is truly epoch-making, since the idea embedded in it carries a philosophical power comparable to the works of the classics of philosophy.

This is my personal opinion, but I am convinced that humanity will need to work out new forms of development and ultimately abandon the dominant philosophy of consumption today. Otherwise, our species will simply die. What this form will be called - communism, noosphere, meritocracy or something else - does not matter. Its essence is important - the improvement of the human personality, not human life. If people form the correct ideas about goals in life, then society itself will determine the necessary level of production of material goods and comfort in everyday life and will achieve its achievement. And, in my opinion, Efremov brilliantly formulates these goals in one single phrase: "a person is born for heroism, love and knowledge." Having filled his life with achievements in these great principles, a person will be truly happy.

It is significant that the heroes of Efremov think in categories that are generally similar to the thinking of a modern person. They also look for themselves, strive for excellence in the business that interests them, love, fight. And they experience similar problems - disappointment, unhappiness in love, inability to achieve their goals for one reason or another. They are the same as we - only rationally organized their time, freed themselves from false motivations and became a little kinder to each other. That's all.

I totally disagree with those who call the Andromeda Nebula a utopia. The heroes of the novel are constantly faced with various problems that they are not able to solve and suffer severely from this. Let me remind you that in the world of "nebula" there is even the Academy of Grief and Joy, which analyzes how happiness and unhappiness correlate in people's lives. Efremov directly writes that there are such misfortunes that no society will win, no matter how perfect it may be - unrequited love, lack of talent for art, and others.

In general, the novel paints a large-scale and exciting picture of the world in which a person is completely free. Free not only from some kind of external pressure, but primarily from their own dark qualities. And, most importantly, in the words of Nietzsche, is free not so much from something as FOR something. Namely - for heroism, love and knowledge. What could be better and higher?

Score: 10

It's amazing how many laudatory reviews there are for this frankly gray piece!

Well, let us state the impressions in turn. Efremov's novel is a social fantasy, therefore we will appreciate the society that Efremov depicts.

1. It is not said directly anywhere, but there is birth control in society. One hero tells the other that he was born on a spaceship at a time when the pills that suppress this business were not given. And in fact: the flights last for 20-30 years, why should astronauts engage in this lewdness? Better to let them sit and carry out complex calculations, how they managed to get to the iron star and how to get out of its iron embrace!

Birth control on Earth is carried out not so much with medication as with education. Let people be engaged in complex mathematical calculations, and not the process of making children - this is more useful to society. main character the novel is a direct confirmation of this. In the course of the novel, it turns out that this frivolous girl is only thinking about having children (one child, apparently), but even for that, right down to the last pages, she does not have enough courage. And this despite the fact that children are taken away immediately after birth and are not threatened with diapers during sleepless nights.

The obvious primacy of, if not gerontocracy, then the attitude towards youth as a consumable. Young people are directly pushed into life-threatening experiments and experiences. Well, if all these Soviet-communist praises are in the novel, that everything is for the sake of young people - it is true, send the old people to the dangerous experience! No, no and no: upbringing is such that young people themselves seek to risk their lives, and not defending their homeland, but for approbation dangerous experiment physics with morbid conceit.

It is indicative how painfully Efremov wants that children, all their childhood brought up far from their parents by strangers, experienced feelings of deep respect, devotion and obedience to their parents! One heroine visits her over-grown daughter in a pretentious boarding school, and her daughter, in the best traditions of the "girls" of the 60s, modestly takes her mother by the hand! Are you going to take the hand of a person unfamiliar to you? And vice versa? Do you need, if you are a parent, that a child whom you have not actually seen would be drawn to you? Here is the question!

In general, the strict subordination of young people to mature (not old, but mature, old people Efremov prudently does not show in his novel) is one of the most important achievements of society, which Efremov describes.

2. The main achievement of this society is space exploration. There are two points. Firstly, the technical side of the issue, and secondly, communication along the Great Ring.

I will not evaluate how much the TA technique corresponds to the laws of physics. Let, at least 100. It is important that people serve cars, and not vice versa. No, the machine would not take over the functions of a man, and the astronaut would relax! No, where there! We got out of suspended animation, circled in a dance - and for several hours for manual calculations! It's the same in a mine on Earth. Well, what a fig for Daru Vetru to climb into this dangerous slaughter! If you care about people like that, build robots, let the machine work, not the person! But in TA the way the Soviet leaders needed in the 60-70s. 20th century.

The second is communication on the Great Ring. Efremov cowardly did not show the society of those other star systems. The data is very sketchy and hazy. This is the most important nebula in TA. Is communism everywhere identical to the earthly one? And if not, does this mean that the main achievement of communism - going out into space - is possible with other social projects as well?

3. The relationship between men and women. Situation: two, in a romantic steppe, evening. All night they talk about science, physics, stars. Even thoughts - no, no. And with this the novel is permeated entirely and completely. This is not chastity, but banal frigidity, social impotence.

Looking at their atrophied gender feelings, it becomes extremely clear why, over 2000 years from the 20th century, mankind has moved so miserably into Space: there is no healthy attitude to love between a man and a woman - there is no technical progress either.

4. Emptiness and wretchedness of life. Personal things - a minimum: people, they say, overcame all this. A whole page (or even several) has been highlighted about personal cars, on which it is written that this is a dead-end branch of development, and the future belongs to buses (where they are named differently, I don’t remember exactly how). I would like to say: well, this is fantastic! What's stopping you (if personal cars are disgusting to you), coming up with another means of transportation - like in "Guest from the Future", for example, by air!

There is a separate story about gold. In the course of the novel, researchers find an ancient statue of a horse made entirely of gold. But although gold, as Efremov assures us, and as the heroes of the novel laugh, does not mean anything for a long time and has lost its monetary function, the statue is sent to be melted down so that gold will serve in very complex and very important spacecraft.

There are two important things here: first, if the gold is as insignificant as we are assured, then why melt the statue? You would not melt the statue of this horse, whether it was made of copper or aluminum? Secondly, why send him to serve humanity inside instruments and machines? Has not mankind invented a replacement for gold over the past 2000 years? An expensive replacement, a cheap one - it doesn't matter, but if gold doesn't mean anything, why put it into the hearts of machines?

This proves that in fact, social functions although gold has changed, it has remained the same: gold is still of paramount importance.

5. At every step, the greatest achievements of culture, art and literature are mentioned as an incantatory mantra, but nowhere, never is it indicated what they consist of and what is in them that they are truly "the greatest." It makes us assume that there is some kind of art, some kind of literature and some kind of culture, which are simply named, declared as the greatest, but in reality they are just dullness.

However, no: one art is described in great detail and with such parameters, according to which it is unambiguously clear that it really has gone much far. This is a dance. Everyone dances - both on a spaceship after suspended animation, and on Earth during a holiday. A dance that has merged with artistic gymnastics is truly an achievement. But is it worth - the only one - 2000 years of development from the 20th century?

Dance, as the only one of the "greatest achievements of sciences, arts and literature" described by Efremov, is very indicative. In the societies of primitive communism, where even personal belongings are absent (in "The Nebula" it is said that humanity has overcome this addiction, but this is like in the Soviet joke: Communism has come. It was announced on the radio that the people will not need oil today), And so - in such societies of the Spartan type, the only art form flourishes - in fact, dance. In this regard, Efremov is very accurate: apart from dance, there can be no other arts in such a fertile society.

Enjoying the visual part of the attractiveness of the human body (in dance) without the act itself is voaverism, right?

For a long time he was angry with himself that he spent money (Eksmo, Giants of Fantasy) on this Mr., until he said that he was to blame: he saw that all the heroes have monosyllabic, simple, like chopped-off names. EVERYONE HAS! And a society in which proper names are primitive simply cannot be a complex, diverse society, since proper names are a reflection of the beauty of the language and the development on which society is real, and not by a declaration from above. You should have been smarter.

IMHO: a primitivized presentation of the social ideas of Plato's "State", but placed in the distant future and equipped with space technology.

I put "1", because "0" is simply impossible to put.

Rating: 1

Reading The Andromeda Nebula, for me, is not quite reading a book. It is more likely to visit a museum filled with monumental paintings and sculptures. In one picture, a crew of brave people is getting out under the beams of searchlights from a spaceship to the vastness of the "planet of darkness". Here are the road junctions surrounding the entire earth. Here is a group of engineers deep in thought, discussing the preparation for an unprecedented experiment in Tibet. And here a majestic and beautiful woman is captured while dancing. In the next picture, a woman and a man dive from a high ledge into a transparent sea at the bottom of which a monument of antiquity is hidden. Next to it is a picture of a man in a spacesuit working in outer space on the construction of a space station. And here is a large picture in the center of the hall, where a group of people in a large room is watching an image of a distant planet obtained from the Great Ring. And the people in all the paintings are solid individual, carved from granite. What is not a man is a flint, who is not a flint is a diamond, who is not a diamond is an emerald, etc. All are unique and valuable. It is not for nothing that there are sculptures of the majestic Dar Vetra and Erg Nora in this museum. And everything is subject to the depicted people, and everything is up to them, and they cause one continuous admiration.

However, this museum should be visited being as attentive and concentrated as possible. In other words, it was not easy for me to read a book somewhere in the subway. the author's language is cold, while rich in details, missing which instantly lose the thread of the narrative or lose interest in reading. There is no incredible "action" and intrigue in the novel, but there is a monumental description of the possible greatness of human civilization. Well, for me the World of the Great Ring, as I read it, has become almost a guiding star, an unattainable horizon, when moving towards which, I do not want to stop.

Score: 9

"We are all different. Tall, low, thick, thin. Unclean, unclean ... "(Babylon 5)

There was one episode in a wonderful science fiction series, from which I took the epigraph for this review, telling about the vicissitudes of inflated ideals. Created a certain race of biorobots for their own protection and laid in them the parameters of an ideal citizen, whom these defenders should not touch in any way. Biomachines killed first enemies, and then their own. Because no one came up to the idealized parameters. Generally. All turned out to be "unclean". Sometimes it seems to me that such biorobots inhabited the utopias of some Soviet writers and, behind the scenes, cut out of them all who did not fit high standards demiurges.

When I read this book at school, the world drawn by Efremov seemed boring to me. Now, if you think about it, he scares me to a stupor.

An ideal society as understood by the author seems to me to be the nightmare of a victorious technocracy. It’s hard to believe that the vast majority of people came to this voluntarily. This is some kind of "Mechanical Piano" Vonnegut, where techies fought all dissenting and dissimilar completely, etched them at the genetic level. Children are immediately taken away from their parents and brainwashed from the cradle. Almost identical young people grow out of them, equally beautiful and athletic, obsessed only with work, science and dancing, who have long made everything they touch boring and sterile. Even on dates, they only talk about physics and math. For all those who disagree, who will still remain, no matter how you expel all human vices and quirks from them, we left a couple of tiny reservations. And at the same time, those who are at the head of society as true technocrats still apparently laid the younger generation's attitude "normal cars are expensive, people are cheap," something of the distant future. Some even board ships and fly away on century-old expeditions without a chance to return. Maybe this is another way to get rid of those who at least began to doubt? Out of sight, out of mind…

In general, if I lived in such a "utopia", then, probably, they would have taken me, an old retrograde and obscurantist, under white ruchens, packed on a boat and moored on the road without returning to any Alpha Centauri. To benefit society and not morally corrupt the youth of a bright future. It's better for everyone that way. I still don't want to live in such a sterile and boiled world.

Rating: 3

A wonderful piece! So bright, bright and ennobling that, involuntarily, almost physically, you feel how the author believed in his dream of such a future ... bull ", carries a more pronounced flavor of that era, and the time of writing the work is clearly felt ... Nevertheless, I did not see in the characters of the novel that inanimate" posterity "about which so much has been said. On the contrary - Efremov, as if between the lines, made readers understand that even in the distant future, in a perfect and well-ordered society, having got rid of many prejudices and remnants of the past, people will always remain human! And in the main characters you can see these invisible threads.

Veda Kong knows that she is beautiful, and, as befits a real woman, skillfully uses her charms, the "victim" of which (with a plus sign) is the Gift of the Wind. The head of external stations, who is not alien to anything human, whose inner world and experiences are very widely revealed in the novel (up to the stunning, absolutely "mundane" and "human" episode, when he, in a conversation with Mven Mas and Ren Bose, says that he understands people , encouraging themselves with alcohol, smoking and drugs in difficult hours of uncertainty, anxiety and loneliness), alone with Veda feels like a strong man, a defender with almost valiant prowess!

Fragile and boyishly dreamy Niza Crete, sincerely, selflessly in love with Erg Noor, a fearless but very vulnerable man, much older (as the author lets us understand) herself. A very modern and relevant topic of true love with a significant age difference!

Ren Boz, modest and shy, being confident in his righteousness before our eyes, transforms into a real fan of his work, whose eyes are burning, who is not afraid to seem ridiculous and demonstrates a fair amount of wit in conversations! It is with this that he wins the heart of Evda Nahl.

Of course, Mven Mas ... Probably my favorite character. Educated and intelligent, a little more sophisticated than Gift of the Wind, but at the same time an ardent and passionate nature, thirsty for knowledge, storms of feelings and emotions! And he, as well as many great "rebels" of spirit, art and thought of all past eras on our planet, was inspired to a desperate step ... of course, the power of female beauty! The first impulse is a message from the Epsilon Toucan star system, after which the image of a beautiful red-skinned woman from a distant planet rises in front of Mven Mas as a guiding star, and the second is a sincere, inviting and passionate dance of Chara Nandi at the festival of Flame Cups! After that, he no longer has any doubts about the need for the fateful Tibetan Experience! Even on the Island of Oblivion, the power of feminine beauty and compassion awakens in Mven Mase a lost sense of self-righteousness ...

And, finally, the immensely sad scene of the departure of the starship "Swan" ... where all the words of the world were unable to convey the longing of eternal separation from friends and family ... And pride in their desperate feat!

Score: 10

Getting tired of the fantasy saga of Sapkowski and other modern and not very handicrafts, I wanted to read something serious, smart and fascinating, I was drawn to the stars :). The choice fell on TA, the name itself is already inspiring, all the more so - one of the pillars of Soviet fiction (this, by the way, was alarming), which at one time did not get to me (or maybe it’s good that I didn’t get it ...).

In assessing this work, you can consider 2 equal components: artistic and ideological.

From an artistic point of view, I did not find anything impressive and extraordinary in the novel that could be noted in a positive way. One-sided descriptions similar to one another, be it people, nature or space. The author tries to impress the reader with the gigantism and scale of what is described, with the superlatives of everything that he describes. The dialogues are flat, lifeless, boring; the reflections of the heroes are long and spatial, often abstracted from the problems of a modern person, roughly imposed by the author on his reader in an attempt to ideological suggestion to the person of the present, not the future. The storyline is also completely and completely sacrificed in order to make room for the ideological component - I think it will be difficult to argue that such a literary device, often in a literary sense, does not paint a book, so here. The only splash in the plot - a space expedition and landing on a dark planet, takes up barely a third of the book and it is he who is mentioned in almost half of the reviews as aroused interest and justifies the high score of the book. It's funny, but some of the reviews honestly admit that the rest of the chapters were simply skipped or read across :). The aforementioned artistic characteristics led to the fact that reading was hard and boring (well, excluding the many times mentioned torch and a breakthrough in Soviet science fiction - the episode with the landing at a dark star, which, as is well known, is a fish in the absence of fish, and from modern positions - also looks already pale and with interrupted plot possibilities - the alien ship has remained to conceal its secrets). And how it could be read in the lower grades, as some admit, I sincerely sympathize. There were clearly not enough fairy tales in the USSR: I remember how a fairy tale about the Emerald City or about Mossy Beard with a company fell into my hands, and how everything else paled in comparison ...

But we must give the author his due: from a technical point of view, the author prepared thoroughly, and although he could not foresee the era of computers, the technical nuances described by him mostly still look modern and do not cause condescending smiles. So I cannot accept the appeal of other laboratory assistants to take into account the year of writing and not judge strictly. Moreover, having before me examples of successful authors of the "era of decayed capitalism", the same Heinlein or even Wells - who worked 50 years earlier (!), And, excuse me, I cannot help but conclude that here (I have not read another ) the author is far from them, precisely from an artistic point of view.

Many laboratory assistants in their reviews say, "Well, what if utopia, that communism, the author still described a worthy future, whatever you name it, but it is bright and they say you need to strive for it and want to live in such a future!" This point of view, honestly, causes me sincere surprise, and in order not to enter into a direct dispute, I will just give a few quotes from the future author:

- "But who will stop work for the sake of extra years of life?" (by the way, about half) - the author asks sincerely, and really, who? - where to find such an idiot :)), because work is eternal, and then you can get life again;

- “All workers went into the interior of the island to destroy ticks found on forest rodents” - this quote well illustrates the scale of the problems solved in the century of victorious communism; I just see how people who have spent more than 20 years on education, scientists, astronauts, doctors of the future, having changed many professions in their multifaceted and eventful life, people who have gazed at the stars, armed with blasters, lasers, hung with electromagnetic mines and infrared traps, on the modern powerful technique they go into the depths of a non-virgin forest to exterminate bedbugs! :)))) Here for some reason Lem comes to mind with his artificial companion from a steak and a ladle for stirring in an atomic boiler ...

- "One of the * greatest * tasks of mankind is the victory over the blind maternal instinct ...". - I don't even know what else to add here :)

As for communism itself, despite several common features (for example, unjustified gigantism or joyful sacrifice of oneself for the sake of some incomprehensible ideas, and always at the first call) and the word mentioned several times, I think that this is not the era of victorious communism ... The author honestly admits in one of his interviews that he had read the dark prophecies of Western literature and wanted to create his own version of the future, only bright and kind, it turns out where there is a lot of intelligence in the universe, the whole mind is only humanoid and with development it becomes only sublime and peaceful. Even if the author wanted to call it communism for the sake of the situation at the time, I still cannot agree with him, he also ended up with a utopia, but different. And the era of victorious communism is very convincingly depicted by Ouerel in his novel "1984", whoever is interested - let them familiarize themselves.

Nevertheless, the resulting result (our answer to the author's Chamberlain, namely to create a picture of a wonderful and bright future), also scares and repels me a little. Despite good intentions, don't take the author's idea, if not the idea itself, then its result, basically, how to put it mildly .. in general, I hope they never come. For example:

Unity with nature is declared, in return the author falls into communist gigantism and seeks to destroy a good part of flora and fauna species in a separate commission, deciding which of them are considered harmful and which are useful. Instead of unity, he rushes into the struggle with nature and is not satisfied with the classic reversal of rivers - it shifts the axis of the planet, drowns the ice caps, moves climatic zones, encircles the planet with a giant network of roads.

The institution of the family is being destroyed at the root, with the organization of a planetary orphanage and it is not clear what else. Gender equality is declared, but every woman must fulfill her duty (to whom?) And give birth to at least two children. I wonder if a man is obliged to participate in this 2 times too, or some can be hero fathers (inseminators?), While others just enjoy themselves without hope for offspring? How, then, is morality regulated? Family trampled, religion thrown away, what keeps the people of the future in line? (I mean not to create a planetary brothel instead of a planetary communism :)).

The text constantly shows the author's admiration for female beauty (here I do not blame him :)), the author seeks to undress the women of the future: short dresses, breasts are barely covered ... and the like. At the same time, the men go and talk about the stars, philosophy and the like crap, wait for years until they are celebrated and deigned. In a long-term stellar expedition for 6 years, the commander staunchly resists the young astronavigator who literally hangs around his neck and provokes him, including to physical contact. He staunchly does not even resist this, but waits until he returns and receives a blessing from Evda Nal, who remained on Earth, who has been spinning shura-muras all this time and cannot wait to receive a similar blessing from him. At the same time, all their relations are reduced only to numerous squeezing of her hands in her hands and applying them to her cheek, well, or she will once again accidentally rub her nose against his cheek. Nonsense. These are mannequins, not some people.

Equality has been declared, no one is in a hurry, everyone travels the same road, but our heroes repeatedly, if they please, break this way of life, become smoother than others and get not in a common carriage, but an order of magnitude faster than others, using the necessary connections.

What one can agree with is the idea of ​​overcoming the passion of mankind for acquisitiveness, destroying the power of the material in favor of the spiritual. But even here people turn out to be some kind of puppets, robots. They have nothing, no home, no family, of goals - only striving for the stars. What for? For what? The main happiness is in work for the sake of work, the more difficult work, the more popular it is. Instead of having narrow, but powerful specialists in their field, humanity is wasting time and money on their repeated and multi-purpose retraining. And each individual changes his profession many times and radically. Here, instead of Lem, the Strugatskys come to mind with their grotesque "Doomed City", only they did not try to present the change of professions there as a blessing :). Maybe the author should have thrown Love on the same altar (where personal, family, motherhood, etc.) in order to send another stellar expedition a couple of years earlier, but already for 80 years, with no hope of returning, then the refusal to spend on love and economy or the generation of energy on this basis on a global scale would allow, probably, not yet such expeditions to launch !!! :)).

As a result, I do not want such a future and I feel sorry for these people - the heroes of the book - they are zombies! And the author, having not yet built his communism on a single planet, is already striving and dreaming in the future to spread it throughout the universe ...

And the last feature is more literary. All heroes are equal with the rest of the people of the planet, but for some reason they are endowed with special influence, children in schools admire them, they achieve excellent achievements in relation to others, and the like. For many years the commander of the expedition has been an active member of one of the highest planetary councils, and the entire council is waiting for him to return to consult with him. I have one question, but what are the rest of the declared equal in all hypostases billions of the world's population doing - the people of the future - at this time? Something in the process of reading them was completely invisible.

Finally, the last page is turned and I turn to myself in search of an aftertaste: I feel a desire to read something from a similar era to counterbalance, for example, the Strugatskys, and for some reason Asmolov sounds in my ears, by analogy with colored music, and especially obsessively from Trofimov “There, there , there, the Lord will give everyone a candy ... and lead to his communism ... ". And what are these obsequious, monosyllabic names of the future worth? Deprived of connection with the past, devoid of poetics and individuality .. The author was just right to take a pseudonym like Van Frem.

All the main ideas of this "utopia" contradict the entire modern society. Is everyone afraid of global warming and other environmental impacts? Efremov detonated atomic bombs at the poles, turned the axis of the Earth and caused his own global warming. Is everyone trying to preserve cultural heritage and monuments? Efremov flooded half of Europe with water, and he didn't care. Maybe someone is complaining about excessive industrialization? Efremov built a cyclopean railroad, an orbital bridge, a Himalayan radio dish the size of the Himalayas, and other cyclopean bullshit. If someone thinks that the institution of the family is in crisis and this is bad for society? Efremov banned the family altogether, dotted the planet with orphanages, and communication between parents and children is considered at least strange.

Oh yes, Efremov's people are simply perfect: beautiful, athletic, healthy and smart. But I am tormented by the thought that Nazi eugenics could not have done, and I would not be surprised that ugly, frail, sick and stupid children, somewhere in the place of flooded Greece and Sparta, are thrown off a cliff or directly into the sea. If someone is dissatisfied, go to the reservation, all the "Huxley Islands" are flooded, so the reservation is a whole continent full of Australia of the dissatisfied, I am sure the Jews settled there, Israel was flooded and Moses did not help.

From the point of view of psychoanalysis, the entire active population of the Earth simply hates itself. Everyone is straining for the common good, contrary to the principle of pleasure, and the hardest work is the most demanded, and it can only be obtained through pull. In the absence of marriage and the concept of jealousy, it would seem that orgies or overt polygamy should be arranged at every corner, but earthlings are not up to this, here the common good is at stake, work must be done, and those who have such an idea of ​​how to fall in love must overcome the call of public duty , and stubbornly suppress guilt. Even in the future of the USSR, sex is not expected, you have to sublimate and go to work in a vicious circle. And of course, children are taught from childhood to hate, despise and ridicule their historical past, even all achievements are perceived with a slight irony of significance.

I do not and cannot believe that a man of science, archaeologist and historian, Efremov, believed in all this nonsense. And I would like to think that the Soviet culture, blinded by ideology, misunderstood this novel as a utopia. I want to think that Efremov wrote The Andromeda Nebula as a warning of the obsession with the ideas of communism — just around the corner.

Http://anlazz.livejournal.com/60570.html

I was, if I'm not mistaken, 13 years old. Friends of my parents gave me the Library of Contemporary Science Fiction for my birthday. These 24 volumes settled on the bookshelves in the hallway. My parents repeatedly explained to me in an undertone what a great event had happened. I went to thank generous acquaintances, but I did not read these books.

At that time I read and reread Dumas mostly.

Antipathy to these volumes arose from persistent advice to read what was given.

Before that, I had not read anything from science fiction, although I read a lot.

The Andromeda Nebula was the first volume. After about a year, I decided to read it. Did not work out. On the third attempt, even after another six months, I finally got a grasp of it. What can I say? There was no particular emotion other than complete acceptance. Acceptance of the genre - forever, acceptance of His concept of the future - unconditionally.

At that time I was at the age about which they say that if You are not a communist in it, then You do not have a heart.

The variety of styles and depth of thought of Efremov, as well as his ability to create a work that amazes me with its power, impresses me. I am not ready to take and re-read this book again. Maybe because I don't want to destroy something crystal, which is part of my dream of the future and was formed just then.

Here I read a lot of interesting reviews. It was with the Strugatskys that I always found echoes of Efremov's work. They can think big and, projecting reality and the future, they are unrestrainedly courageous.

Efremov, it seems to me, wanted to visualize where we were all going then.

The dream of the light and the lofty was to be realized, so the majority of idealists of that time thought. Efremov did not describe the utopian future, I think so. He wrote a fantasy novel, and his characters were supposed to act in the distant future, which we saw through his eyes.

Why not be like the world? It is fantastic. This world is insanely interesting and not only has the right to life - it has existed for a long time on these pages and it also exists in a certain coordinate system of the ideal future.

The heroes are interesting, they are unusual, as if people had thrown away everything superfluous, and became different, the way they will be then.

The name seems to me very symbolic. And the word Nebula plays with glare of ambiguity.

The novel "Andromeda Nebula" (1957) is a classic of Russian science fiction, a book about the wonderful world of the distant future, "The World of the Great Ring", inhabited by brave, brave people who make risky scientific experiments and dangerous interplanetary travels.

Despite the ideality of the world created by the writer's imagination, where people live happily ever after, work enthusiastically, where sciences and arts flourish, where no one hides their feelings, and in this perfect world there are flaws. It turns out that happiness is not only about living without worries, happiness is about searching, mistakes, doubts, dreams.

The novel "Andromeda Nebula" was written more than 60 years ago, many of the writer's scientific predictions have come true, others may still come true, and although the idea of ​​a bright communist future has sunk into oblivion, this book is still relevant both in Russia and around the world.

Read online Andromeda Nebula

Excerpt

In the dim light bouncing off the ceiling, the instrument scales looked like a gallery of portraits. The round ones were sly, the cross-oval ones blurred in impudent complacency, the square ones froze in dull confidence. Blue, blue, orange, green lights flickering inside them emphasized the impression.

In the center of the curved console stood out a wide and crimson dial. A girl bent over him in an uncomfortable position. She forgot about the chair next to her and brought her head to the glass. The red glow made the youthful face older and sterner, outlined harsh shadows around the protruding plump lips, and pointed a slightly upturned nose. The wide, furrowed brows turned deep black, giving the eyes a somber, doomed expression.

The subtle singing of the counters was interrupted by a soft metallic clang. The girl shuddered, straightened up and twisted her slender arms, arching her tired back.

A door clicked behind her, a large shadow appeared, turned into a man with abrupt and precise movements. A golden light flashed, and the girl's thick auburn hair seemed to sparkle. Her eyes also lit up, turning with alarm and love to the newcomer.

- Didn't you fall asleep? One hundred hours without sleep! ..

- Bad example? - not smiling, but cheerfully asked the newcomer. There were high metallic notes in his voice, as if riveting speech.

“All the others are asleep,” the girl said timidly, “and… they don’t know anything,” she added in an undertone.

- Don't be afraid to speak. Comrades are asleep, and now there are only two of us awake in space, and to the Earth fifty billion kilometers - only one and a half parsecs!

- And anameson for only one acceleration! - Horror and delight sounded in the exclamation of the girl.

With two swift strides, the chief of the thirty-seventh stellar expedition, Erg Hoop, reached the crimson dial.

- Fifth circle!

- Yes, we entered the fifth. And nothing. - The girl threw an eloquent glance at the sound horn of the automatic receiver.

- You see, you can't sleep. We need to think over all the options, all the possibilities. By the end of the fifth round, there should be a solution.

- But it's still one hundred and ten hours ...

“Okay, I'll sleep here in the chair when the effect of sporamin is over. I took it a day ago.

The girl was concentrating on something and finally decided:

- Maybe reduce the radius of the circle? What if they have a transmitter failure?

- It is forbidden! Reducing the radius without slowing down - instant destruction of the ship. Reduce the speed and ... then without anameson ... one and a half parsecs with the speed of the oldest lunar rockets? In a hundred thousand years, we will approach our solar system.

- I understand ... But they could not ...

- Could not. In time immemorial, people could be negligent or deceive each other and themselves. But not now!

- I'm not talking about that, - the insult sounded in the girl's sharp answer. “I wanted to say that the Algrab, perhaps, is also looking for us, deviating from the course.

“He couldn’t dodge that much. I could not help leaving at the calculated and appointed time. If the incredible happened and both transmitters went out of order, then the starship would undoubtedly begin to cross the circle diametrically, and we would hear it at the planetary reception. You can't make a mistake - here it is, a conventional planet!

Erg Hoop pointed to mirrored screens in deep recesses on all four sides of the helm. Countless stars burned in the deepest blackness. On the left front screen, a small gray disk flew quickly, barely illuminated by its luminary, very far from here, from the edge of the B ‑ 7336 ‑ C + 87 ‑ A system.

“Our bomb beacons are working well, although we dropped them four independent years ago. Erg Hoop pointed to a clear line of light along the long glass on the left wall. “The Algrab should have been here three months ago. This means - Hoop hesitated, as if hesitating to pronounce the verdict - "Algrab" is dead!

- And if he did not die, but was damaged by a meteorite and cannot develop speed? .. - objected the red-haired girl.

- Can't develop speed! Erg Hoop repeated. “Isn't it the same if thousands of years of journey stand between the ship and the target? Only worse - death will not come immediately, years of doomed hopelessness will pass. Maybe they will call - then we will find out ... in six years ... on Earth.

With a swift movement, Erg Hoop pulled the folding chair out from under the table of the electronic payment machine. It was a small model MNU-11. Until now, due to its high weight, size and fragility, it was impossible to install an electronic brain machine of the ITU type on starships for all-round operations and completely entrust it with the control of the starship. The presence of a navigator on duty was required in the control room, especially since the exact orientation of the ship's course over such long distances was impossible.

The socio-philosophical novel "The Andromeda Nebula" is recognized as one of the most significant works of Russian and world science fiction literature of the twentieth century. Combining scientific, technical and socio-historical foresight in it, I. Efremov paints pictures of the distant future on an epic scale: interstellar flights, grandiose scientific experiments, the beautiful Earth transformed by the common labor of mankind, which entered the Great Ring of the inhabited worlds of the Galaxy. In the center of the novel are several main characters, whose images are designed to artistically embody and reveal the ideal of a person asserted by the author in a perfect communist society.

Reviews

The book is amazingly multifaceted, saturated with a mass of non-trivial ideas closely linked to one another. Just briefly mentioning these ideas is already material for a long article.
One of the main distinguishing features of the novel is fundamentally different social relations. Efremov, in fact, and not in words, was a staunch communist, for which he was persecuted by the inhabitants, some colleagues of the Academy of Sciences, and many party officials. Now there is the term "noospheric communism", which, of course, more accurately reflects what Ivan Antonovich wrote about. Someone prefers to simply say "the highest form of society." But let's remember: the word "communism" was the defining one for the writer. At the same time, even under strong pressure, he did not go to mention in the book about the monuments to Marx and Lenin. So it's not about the conjuncture.
An amazing invention of the writer: the Academy of Grief and Joy.
The ability to lead is the most essential in such a society, because power in it is not based on fear or blind faith, but solely on competence and rational trust in a leader who has proven his worth. Therefore, there are no convinced conservatives or supporters of reckless progress in Efremov's future. The very principles of decision-making are different here. Each specific proposal is analyzed from the point of view of increasing human happiness and the general ascent of mankind. As a rule, more or less averaged solutions are chosen. At the Astronomical Council, Thunder Orme utters the coined phrase: "The wisdom of a leader is to timely realize the highest level for the present moment, to stop and wait or change the path."
And so they do. They deliberately delay the development of the parapsychic sphere, because psychophysiological perfection is not fully honed and the risk of losing control over the psyche is dangerous. They refuse to populate planets with a higher thinking life, even if it has not reached a high level, because then misunderstanding and violence are inevitable. The Gift of the Wind, personifying the wisdom of earthly leadership, does not give the go-ahead for the Tibetan experience, for several decades of preparation by the standards of all mankind do not matter. But all the same: they justify the heroes of the Tibetan experience and recognize its enormous importance for science. An astonishingly audacious expedition is sent to Achernar - to establish the first colony in deep space. They proclaim the romance of scientific research as the spiritual basis for the excess strength of society.
Naturally, such a society can only be made up by people who are ready to make well-thought-out decisions and implement them, sensitively reacting to what is happening. People who have the greatest possible breadth of views and that excess of understanding and generosity, which does not allow ignoring the interests of other people and the entire society, narrowly confined to personal desires and inevitably related personal problems.
The trust of the people of the future to each other is really great. This is a rule, not an accidental insight in a world of delusion, whims and hasty decisions. Therefore, the will of the other person is respected. It goes without saying that the person made a deliberate decision, and to persuade him to change this decision is to show disrespect. So Thunder Orm leaves the post of responsibility.
The most complete, capacious expression of a deep understanding of life has always been called wisdom. Efremov's heroes define wisdom as a combination of knowledge and feelings. This combination does not apply to all knowledge and not all feelings. Felt knowledge of true human nature is an understanding of the need for certain actions. Efremov's people have knowledge of their nature, therefore their altruism is balanced and natural.
Happiness in the novel is defined as a constant change of creative work and rest in the struggle for the new, in the exploration of the unknown.
Efremov's people are laconic and sensitive, busy with hard work, understanding the need and importance of romance. These are people saturated, as if with electricity, with a joyful readiness for unexpected trials and impressions. Their conversations are full of meaning, they learn to understand each other without words. These are people who have been taught dialectical philosophy since childhood and therefore deeply feel such a concept as a measure. Therefore, they are wary of euphoric raptures and, on the contrary, emotional stiffness, constraint of certain manifestations. Friendly, physically strong and beautiful people who know how to enjoy art and work hard.
Of course, the foundations of relations in society are laid from an early age. School in Efremov's society has a huge role in the development of a person. Huge also from the fact that there is no family in the modern sense of the word in his society. Schools are scattered in small towns all over the planet, and students and their mentors live there permanently. The role of the teacher in such a situation increases many times over.
Young people are by no means left to their own devices. The tremendous energy that from time immemorial generates conflicts between "fathers and children" must be directed in a positive direction. Perhaps this is only when young people are fully employed in creative, socially useful work and adults comply with the proclaimed ideals. Only then do young people not form a closed subculture that is aggressive towards strangers. Informal youth movements have always been a form of protest against the adult world, against their lies and hypocrisy. In Efremov's society, such a protest is meaningless, because living conditions meet the most important human needs and cannot be completely rejected by a mentally healthy individual.
The richness of the novel with pedagogical ideas is extremely high, it is not without reason that the remarkable teacher V. A. Sukhomlinsky has repeatedly re-read it and wrote to the author in one of his letters: “I am a longtime admirer of your work. I read The Andromeda Nebula four times. This is not an addiction to science fiction, but a desire to experience again and again, to feel the depth of thoughts that you have an abundance of both in the lines and between the lines ... Your science fiction delights with its truthfulness. I am in love with your people of the future. "
The school space is open and non-linear. This is clearly expressed even in small details: classes, it turns out, usually take place in the garden under the trees, and classes are unusual, if only because they lack doors.
The training is divided into four cycles of four years, and each cycle the school moves to another place to preserve the sharpness and freshness of perception, the cycles learn in isolation from each other, so as not to annoy children with a clash of too different ages. However, at the same time, older children necessarily have a younger ward to facilitate the work of teachers and form a sense of responsibility.
Classes in each cycle of the school alternate with labor lessons. What are these lessons? - we read about two activities - polishing optical glasses (can you imagine what it is like to participate in the construction of a telescope!) And the construction of a wooden ship using old technologies, followed by an expedition to Carthage.
Efremov believes that the main thing is the study of history - not as our school subject, representing, in fact, the history of wars and economic reforms, but global history, in the sense of studying the cause-and-effect relationships that led to the current situation.
Rhea talks to her mother. How does she talk to her? - free and open. It has built up a basic trust in the world. The world accepts her, she has nothing to fear in the world, she does not know what a stupid misunderstanding or a deliberate offense is. Efremov, grasping and understanding the importance of such nuances, anticipates the development of humane pedagogy in our time, for which the best teacher of our time, Shalva Aleksandrovich Amonashvili, stands up.
Boys and girls, in addition to direct mentors, also have a mentor - one of the respected adults who help determine their preferences and solve difficult issues of self-realization.
Seventeen-year-old young people who graduated from school do not immediately begin to receive higher education - for three years they have been experiencing a time of testing, called the Exploits of Hercules. Some of the exploits are appointed by the elders, some are chosen independently. These feats are serious and responsible work, initiation.
An adult is a knowledgeable person interested in the fruits of his work. Absolute physical health leads to increased energy of existence, as a result of which the life of such a person cannot be limited by the narrow framework of personal existence. Anyone can put forward any proposal, even on a global scale, and it will be discussed if really well thought out.
Love for nature is of great psychological importance. Efremov writes: “Veda Kong thought about the mobile peace of nature and how well places are always chosen for the construction of schools. The most important aspect of upbringing is the development of a keen perception of nature and subtle communication with it. Dulling attention to nature is, in fact, a cessation of human development, since, forgetting how to observe, a person loses the ability to generalize. "
Attitude towards things. To go through the complication of material culture in order to arrive at its simplicity ... Again we can see dialectical logic in action. The conclusions reflect not a private opinion, but the whole force of objective laws. The diminution of feelings and their artificiality, surrounded by a mass of small unnecessary things, obscure the manifestation of the most important thing in a person - what makes him different from the animal - the creative spiritual principle.
"Raising a new person is a delicate work with individual analysis and a very careful approach."
... The artist Kart San is concerned with creating images of beauty that correspond to the main racial types. His searches lead to the deepest research of anthropological and ethnocultural material. In fact, he is trying to recreate in its purest form those peaks of beauty that were created in a series of hundreds of generations of natural life in different geographic conditions of the planet. In his work, he is the same scientist as Ren Bose, only the area of ​​his work is more difficult to verbalize (verbal description), acting directly on the senses.
We are not talking about the private tastes and preferences of a particular era; beauty - as the highest measure of purposefulness - is objective, and it is necessary and must to cognize its laws. But each individual system has its own intermediate ideals, which, in turn, will merge in the future into a shining crown of the highest harmony.
The famous dancer Chara Nandi, who inspired Kart Sana to create "The Daughter of Tethys", demonstrates at the Celebration of the Fiery Cups an outstanding skill, far from simple technical perfection. It is the spirituality of the body “capable of expressing the deepest shades of feelings, fantasy, passion, pleas for joy with its movements, subtle changes in beautiful forms,” is defined in the novel as a sign of truly great skill.
The ability to understand and appreciate beauty at its true worth, a constant readiness to admire genuine art - all this is combined in the heroes by a clear understanding of the nature of such art. Intuition associated with clear thought; combination of knowledge and feelings - we involuntarily return to the definition of wisdom as the basis of a harmonious life and the right attitude to it.
Efremov did not seek to amaze the imagination of readers with the scale of the cosmic conquests of mankind. Each stellar expedition is a huge event. There are no fabulous spaceports with hundreds of spaceships flying towards the stars like modern airplanes.
Life of people cannot be called high-tech. On the other hand, its simplicity and secondary importance in comparison with the social component of life does not imply complex technical adaptations for personal use. Transport is generally available, but here, too, the writer's logic is evident: "a structure cannot rise without end." The speed of trains on the Spiral Road is limited to 200 km / h, and this has its own special meaning: there is no nervous desire to reach the destination as soon as possible, and at high speed it is not easy to admire the surrounding landscapes. Thus, the Spiral Road indirectly serves the contemplative meditations of people who love nature and know how to admire it, distracting from performing difficult and responsible work.
The Great Ring is Efremov's dream and providence. There are no more authors who with such force would affirm the enormous importance of the cosmic brotherhood of intelligent beings and would describe it so completely. The writer himself well understood the conventionality of depicting the Ring, defining himself as a person taking the first step in this direction. But with what inspiration and burning passion he does it. You need to be a completely callous person so that, after reading the scene of receiving the message from Epsilon Toucan, you do not sound the melody of delight, participation in space and thirst for knowledge!
Efremov emphasized the difference between the people of the future and you and me. Their joys and sorrows will not be similar to ours, he said. Now that history is taking the first steps towards a true understanding of the peculiarities of historical psychology, we can confidently say that this is how it should be. At the same time, the fundamental difference between people of the future and people of all previous eras is that they will be as close as possible to the true reality - as opposed to the changing ideologies and aesthetics of the past. Even now, despite the dramatically increased technical perfection over the past decades, informationally uniting the entire planet, we are immersed in myths, which is well understood by the creators of films such as The Terminator or The Matrix.
Many truths are simple and clear, but they are rejected or hushed up, for an open recognition of all the fragility of our life would mean a mandatory restructuring of consciousness. Such a restructuring, when people will not hide their true feelings, fearing ridicule. On the contrary, friendly help will always be at the ready, because great nervous sensitivity based on general goodwill will lead to the ability of instant recognition, and in a person's life there will be no minutes of weak-willed inactivity, apathy, or, on the contrary, hysterical impressionability that destroys the interests of the case.
Self-awareness is necessarily interconnected with general discernment. The smallest nuances of behavior do not go unnoticed. But Efremov's people are not only perceptive, they are also tactful.
In the future, Efremov's life is built in accordance with the constantly refined laws of social and psychological development. Correspondingly are the relations between people, which are created on the basis of universal balance, striving for beauty and knowledge. We, who live in the most difficult era, find it difficult to achieve the perfection of people like Gift of the Wind and Veda Kong. But to have in front of the inner gaze a sample of the purity and sincerity of relations between people of this distant future means bringing closer its triumph already here and now.
A lot could be said about the relationships of all the heroes - they are written out like a diamond cutter, and accusations of "posterity" are anecdotal when you understand the deepest truth of these relationships. I will cite only one brightest episode:
“Thunder Orm noticed a red light on Evda Nahl's seat.
- For the attention of the Council! Evda Nahl wants to add to the post about Ren Bose.
- I ask to speak instead of him.
- For what reasons?
- I love him!
- You will speak after Mven Mas.
Evda Nahl turned off the red signal and sat down.
How should this episode be interpreted? The great Evda lost her nerves, and is she ready to rush to babble incoherently at the Astronautical Council about her personal experiences? No! - and this is a very indicative moment. Her argument is taken into account primarily because the people of Efremov's future love the person himself, and not a fictional image. Then love is the highest degree of understanding and penetration into the inner world of a person. Empathy, as psychologists say. Declaring her love, Evda Nahl declared her special involvement in Ren Bose's motives, on which, except for her, no one else can shed light. Evda Nahl's love is sufficient reason to conclude that these motives were noble.
People of the future know for sure that serious relationships must have deep foundations. Love “in spite of” is a fairy tale in which either a powerful “pro” is hidden and not understood by ignorant people, or a romantic dream that brings nothing but serious disappointments. A real life partner can only be one who is ready to walk the path of life together, being a companion; share with your soul all the difficulties of the path and understand them with your mind. True love is not when two are looking at each other, but when two are looking in the same direction. Under this thought of the wise Saint-Exupery, Ivan Efremov could subscribe without hesitation.
Love, stars and knowledge!

If I wrote an essay on this topic, I would probably have titled it like this: "My Nebula" (reflections on the theme of IA Efremov's books). And the epigraph: “I am the Sail. I am the Sail. I have been walking from Vega for twenty-six years ... ".
H.L. Borges said: "Some are proud of the books they have written, but I am proud of the books they have read." So I feel a certain "pride" every time I refer to the Andromeda Nebula (TA). Probably, this always happens when you come into contact with something really significant. I want to say a lot about TA, but that is why it is not so easy to do it. I would like to make a few comments.
Now, first of all, the significant polarity of the assessments of this work is striking, which in itself speaks volumes (recall the polar assessments that earthlings, members of the expedition to Tormans, give a deceptive staging arranged by Fay Rodis for the rulers of the planet ("Hour of the Bull") ). Many years have passed since the first publication of the TA novel, but it continues to arouse great interest (or rejection), continues to be published regularly even after the "successful completion of perestroika", "liberalization", "democratization", etc. - in a word, in other eras, translated into many foreign languages, and this, as they say, is a medical fact. To talk and argue about TA is to talk and argue about a whole (holistic) worldview. And this worldview is original and by no means primitive, ideologically tendentious, as other categorical critics have tried and are trying to present.
Some readers write: "Belief in the moral progress of mankind is naive." In my opinion, it is just difficult to come up with something more naive than such statements. I do not want to polemize here on the merits of the issue, but only draw your attention to the fact that the author of TA is an accomplished prominent scientist with a very broad outlook (unlike, probably, many critics), in general, a person who has seen a lot in life. Efremov worked on his novel, no matter how trite it sounds, long and hard. (“The Nebula was painfully given to me,” recalled Ivan Antonovich.) His thoughts are not the fruit of idle fiction, but the result of a deep analysis of reality, heterogeneous scientific data, and the historical past. And the author of TA already had writing experience. (Although in his early stories it is quite difficult to find clear traces of literary apprenticeship.) And therefore, it is easy and natural to call the main, fundamental ideas of TA naivety, at least strange. As if some freshman calls the works of Aristotle or Kant childish babble and nonsense. Today, they say, all this has become a commonplace and is generally not true. And the point, as far as I understand, is that a society with a flawed morality reproduces, so to speak, for its own needs, morally flawed people. Naturally, they are not capable of believing in any kind of moral progress (considerations of this kind were expressed, for example, by the Soviet philosopher E.V. Ilyenkov). A kind of vicious circle ("inferno") arises, and it is extremely difficult to get out of it. Everyone, of course, should have their own opinion, but not everyone will be able to express it so reasonably, conclusively, convincingly, visibly, as Efremov did.
Other readers are annoyed by the fact that the heroes of the novel call each other "you". It seems to me that in fact, in the language of future earthlings, not our usual pronoun "You" and not the familiar "You" are used, but something like the English "you", which the heroes unmistakably understand depending on the situation: the conversation of lovers, the conversation of the teacher with a student, etc. In this address, conveyed to us by Efremov as "you", there is endless respect for the interlocutor and an equally unshakable sense of self-worth, which are possible only in a perfect ("communist") society. However, “Hour of the Bull” speaks of the increased richness of the language of the people of the future. Here, and in other similar moments, the writer gives food to the reader's imagination. And this is one of the many facets of his literary skill.
It happens that they are looking for technical "flaws" and "mistakes" of TA. Such an activity can probably be interesting and in some ways even instructive, but, obviously, this is not a method of analyzing a science fiction novel as a work of literature in general. Efremov himself wrote about this in the article “Science and science fiction". Such an approach to "Aelita", for example, or to "The First People on the Moon" would be absurd. In TA, "technology" plays, if not a secondary, then, in any case, a subordinate role. The famous dictum of Protagoras "Man is the measure of all things" is also Ephraim's credo, multidimensionally revealed in his work. (By the way, Efremov's interest in antiquity is a separate big topic.)
Who would I recommend TA? Probably, those who seriously think about the meaning of life, and see it not in religion and not in achieving material well-being and personal success (the only one). I just cannot believe that the development of civilization will always (!) Take place on the basis of commodity-money relations. Indeed, how do people who agree to a forty-five-year imprisonment in a starship see it (this meaning) in order to visit Vega? Or those who went on a flight without returning to Achernar for the sake of future generations? Apparently not in the same way as those who build unprecedented seagoing vessels for personal use and buy football clubs. Such reading, in my opinion, is much more entertaining even if talented fantasy and not very fictions, where it is often all about the same struggle with one or another semblance of a club for a female, dominant position, personal success, salvation of another "middle earth", etc. ... (I intend to exaggerate a little here and do not want to equate all the authors of fantasy.) Some part of humanity is always in search of great goals, and it is this part that ultimately ensures its progress. In the future, according to Efremov, this striving should cover all people. Yes, you probably need to make an effort to get closer to such an understanding of life. But, as I see it, it's worth it ... (The absence, for example, of truly worthy goals in Russia as a state, threatens, in my opinion, with its collapse.).
The Tibetan experience of Ren Boza and Mven Mas, which is the semantic culmination of the novel, clearly demonstrates that the earthly community in TA is by no means a pastoral or any other idyll, but a world full of serious contradictions. These contradictions are of a qualitatively and large-scale different plan than those that we know from history and those that we have the opportunity to observe now. But it is precisely these contradictions that are the source of all movement and progress; this is the essence of TA dialectics. Speaking about countless past generations, Efremov writes that they “demand to reveal the riddle of time, to enter into a struggle with it! The victory over space is the victory over time. " This is the largest, truly great scientific, philosophical and humanistic idea of ​​the novel. It is this scale of ideas that distinguishes the best works of SF and literature in general.
No amount of analysis can replace personal impressions of the text you read. It is difficult to convey the feelings experienced at the moments when you realize and understand the grandeur of the author's intention, thoughts and doubts of the heroes. Someone also talks about tears of delight ... Honestly, I absolutely do not see the "stilt" characters, which are often talked about. They are different, not like us, residents of the ERM. Particularly impressive is their calmness, poise, which many readers seem to perceive as unnatural. This calmness, discipline characterizes not only the external, communicative side of the heroes' life, but also their inner world, personal experiences. This is exactly what the author intended. Here I would like to quote from an article by the Bulgarian science fiction writer A.P. Slavova "Psychological and value mechanisms of rejection of Efremov's heroes by some types of intelligentsia": "Efremov allows himself what is practically not forgiven in our society - the bright individual freedom of his heroes is combined with deep moral certainty. For a modern skeptical, ironic person, distrustful of everything harmonious, living in a world where “everything is for sale” and “everyone has their own price,” the overwhelming majority doom him to the perception of Efremov's characters as a tantalizing accusation of immorality. And also (beyond the conscious border) envy, which he would never admit, because a mature, experienced, modern man cannot envy some fictional handsome men and beauties who manage to be simultaneously intellectual and sensual, humane and decisive, suffering and happy! And then (imagine!) In a world without dullness and insignificance, because everyone grew up in the “force field” of individualized artistic pedagogy, which charged his convictions, natural as breathing, - if he has not yet realized himself, has not found that task, that a case in which he is unique and unrepeatable, he can again and again renew attempts, without the risk of being branded a failure in the eyes of society. " This, in my opinion, is excellent and extremely accurate.
It seems to me that in the case of TA, something happened that happens infrequently - the creation in a sense "surpassed" its creator. And the creator did not stand still - the "Hour of the Bull" appeared, but there is a special conversation about it. Like any good work of fiction, TA is not decomposable into separate ideological and other "points", not reducible to any one aphoristic quintessence. Obviously, interest in her is not only the reader's love, but also the desire to share his ideas with the author.
A bit of a "joke". I, perhaps, could criticize Efremov for too frequent use of the word "monstrous". Of course, in the text it is everywhere appropriate, but in our "great and mighty" one can find worthy synonyms to avoid repetition. Some other features of the language, too, if desired, can be ranked as disadvantages. But these are still trifles. Any linguistic beauty and "famously twisted plot" will not hide the lack of content worthy of the reader's attention, and vice versa - the flaws of the language do not detract from the essence of the work. Efremov himself wrote that he realizes that he is not Tolstoy and not Chekhov, but he also clearly realizes that neither Tolstoy nor Chekhov could ever write what he is trying to write about. In general, to understand TA and other things, it is useful to read articles and interviews by Efremov.
I also liked the TA audiobook. Listening to the text from the side in combination with a good musical accompaniment, you perceive it a little differently, in a new way. This is especially true of the chapters on the flight of "Tantra". The cosmos is so large that, strictly speaking, its size is IMPOSSIBLE to imagine (although it can be expressed numerically). But, a grain of sand of a starship begins to overcome space, mind with incredible efforts, but triumphs over inert matter. This really "plunges into awe of admiration", one can feel the "horror and delight" of Niza Crete. By the way, even in the Soviet film of 1968, which can in no way be called a successful screen adaptation, one can catch echoes of the grandiose intention of the author of the novel. Efremov is talking about real space, and not about the "space" of space operas. Overcoming the difficulties of space flights to interstellar distances is shown in TA so reliably, so brightly emotionally, that when later, in the Hour of the Bull, Efremov came up with the starships of the Direct Ray, this author's innovation began to be perceived (I caught myself on this idea several times) as a real achievement of the earthly mind. This effect is due to the internal logic of development embedded in the author's concept of the future.
And finally, some serious "adult" criticism. For readers interested in such, I would recommend reading the very informative chapter "The Great Ring" from the fundamental work of A.F. Britikov's "Russian Soviet Science Fiction Novel" (available online). Here I will allow myself to cite the most interesting and meaningful, in my opinion, quotations from this work.
“The meaning of the Great Ring is not in negotiations, but in the fact that the expansion of the scale of the development of the world inevitably grows into a higher association of people, into a higher morality and humanism. And, conversely, just as the encapsulation of civilization on its own planet is fraught with involution (Shklovsky), the community of intelligent beings cannot remain a community without spreading to all intelligent worlds. A more developed civilization cannot but take care of a less developed one, at least as its own reserve. The technological factor of the diffusion of reason into space is inseparable from the ideological one. The Andromeda Nebula suggests exactly this idea. "
“The physical convergence of the worlds is, of course, only part of the great goal. Even the immense power over nature, which will give the mind interplanetary unity, is also not the whole goal. The most important thing is the desire of the mind for immortality, or more precisely, for practically arbitrarily long life. The biogenic era of a separate planet, even expanded through the development of its own solar system, has a beginning and an end. Entering near space may delay, but does not exclude, the end of planetary intelligence. Only in an avalanche-like spread across the Universe can the mind resist its infinity, which just as inevitably extinguishes life at one end, as it naturally ignites it at the other. That is why our supposed brothers in reason should be no less interested in unification than we are. "
“Efremov does not at all try, as is often the case, to reduce polysyllabic social phenomena to the elementary laws of nature. But he gropes for analogies and a dialectical transition between the most general laws of social life and the most general laws of biological life. The strength of Efremov's fiction lies in the fact that this integration brings certainty to his concept, both “above” and “below”. There can be no "other" thinking, absolutely inaccessible to our logic, because any consciousness everywhere reflects the laws of nature. But if so, then at the highest level, any mind that differs from us cannot but be humane, otherwise it will destroy itself. "
“People are in dire need of optimism. But mankind today knows too much to be satisfied with a beautiful-hearted, voluntaristic optimism, he needs to affirm his optimism with conviction, objective knowledge of the contradictory tendencies of our era. This is the only acceptable point of view. "
“Efremov envisions a whole epoch of the Simplification of Things. And to decorate women, precious stones are brought from him even from Venus. The item of wasteful luxury has become a symbol of a subtle sense of grace. The need for beauty began to mean too much for people, therefore it is cultivated along with the opposite - modesty in housing, in everyday life. In some utopian novels of the 1920s, the physical and mental leveling of men and women was assumed. The precious faants around the neck of the beautiful Veda Kong are one of the many details that emphasize the opposite idea in The Andromeda Nebula: true equality with a man in business and work does not in the least prevent being a woman even more. "
“We are committed to improving this world for humans. Of course, no ingenious imagination is able to guess exactly how it will actually be. But a dialectically thinking science fiction writer can and should make one feel the inevitability of the evolution of the ideal. This sensation is extremely important in The Andromeda Nebula. It already morally sets you up for the fact that the world does not go in a circle ... but rises in a spiral. The spiral of dialectical development is spoken of in Oliger's Spring Festival. Efremov's idea of ​​the development and elevation of life is realized in the concept of man. And this concept is completely devoid of idyllic splendor, the shadow of which can be seen in other utopian pages of the Strugatsky brothers, writers in general, little sentimental. In "The Andromeda Nebula" appeared - for the first time, probably in Soviet social fiction - a harsh ascetic intonation, and it is, in a sense, programmatic. "
“Time will pass, and Efremov's concept of a man of the future will become obsolete. But time will not cancel the main thing - the idea conveyed in the novel about the movement, the development of the ideal of man. It is this movement that infuses vitality into Efremov's "schemes."
Everyone knows the textbook phrase: “I owe everything good in me to books” (M. Gorky). Of course, this does not apply to all books without exception, but only to those that shape the worldview and, even more so, the personality of a person. And there cannot be many such books. If it is possible to speak, in a sense, about the "main" books in life, then for me "Andromeda Nebula" is in one of the first places, if not in the very first.

“The deepest darkness of space came along with the intensifying cold. The stars shone violently with bright blue needles. The invisible and inaudible flight of meteorites at night seemed especially frightening. On the surface of the dark ball, below in the currents of the atmosphere, multicolored clouds of electric radiance flashed, spark discharges of gigantic length or stripes of diffused glow with a length of thousands of kilometers. Hurricane winds, stronger than any earthly storm, swept there, below, in the upper layers of the air envelope. "
Have you ever dreamed of space? About this vast space, so boundless that the human brain cannot realize even a small part of its greatness. I dreamed. And I still dream. Therefore, while reading this book, I experienced sincere admiration and slight envy.
I also want to visit a planet very similar in characteristics to Earth, but illuminated by an emerald sun. I want to see aquamarine snow and malachite rivers heading towards the sea, which looks like a sheet of green iron. I want to admire the sight of unfamiliar galaxies and the light of blue, white, red, yellow, orange stars ...
Our home planet appears in this book as a magnificent utopia. A happy society, free from conflicts and petty manifestations of human egoism, eternal reserves of all the necessary substances, space exploration by leaps and bounds, and, finally, the person himself is a healthy, physically developed and mentally stable being with a life expectancy of about one hundred and seventy years. Ideal world, ideal people, ideal aspirations. But the book was written in 1955-1956, which could not but reflect on her philosophy. "The development of the need to create new ideas about the world and social relations, duty, rights and human happiness, from which the mighty tree of the communist society has grown and blossomed on the entire planet" - words from a message transmitted to the planet KRZ 664456 + BSh 3252 (oh yes, similar names are often found). Even aliens did not escape the imposition of communist ideology :)
There are so many miracles on the pages of this story ... There is also a "vector of friendship" - a connection between people bound by a feeling of deep affection, allowing you to communicate at any time, and stunning grandiose scenes of communication with distant planets, which use the world's energy reserves. But the strongest impression from the book is the awareness of the time. An eternal struggle that does not stop for a second from the moment when a person realizes that he is not eternal. When is the frailty and insignificance of our existence still felt so strongly, if not when thinking about traveling to planets, which are hundreds of years away? When will the human mind be able to overcome all known and unknown laws and rise above time and space? We can only strive for this and hope that our descendants will reach these limits. So, on a summer night, I will gaze into the distant starry sky, dream of unattainable worlds and repeat to myself the words of the Maya people: “You, who will later show your face here! If your mind understands, you ask: who are we? Who are we? Ask the dawn, ask the forest, ask the wave, ask the storm, ask the love. Ask the land, the land of suffering and the land of your beloved. Who are we? We are the earth! "
The review was written as part of a book flash mob, thanks to Aka-llabet for the recommendation!

"To go out into Space clean, perfect, having established oneself on the Earth, but not escaping from it either in flight, or in search of what was not possible to do on the home planet." I. A. Efremov
If an agent of some cryogenic bureau rang at my door and offered me to “freeze” like that for a thousand years, I would sell everything I have and risk it. I would do this because I am sure: if in a thousand years our civilization will exist, then everything should be approximately the same as in this novel by Ivan Efremov. I want to live in such a world! Yes, this is utopia, who would argue! This is a place that does not exist, but it is an incredibly beautiful utopia, a great dream of a powerful and harmonious person in a perfect society. The author, an academic scientist, a recognized authority in the scientific world, the creator of a new scientific discipline - tofonomy, with his socio-philosophical science fiction novels, infected many, perhaps more than one generation, with the dream of space, of a perfect man. Many astronauts have read this book. The world of the Andromeda Nebula is beautiful! Chronologically, it is removed from us by about 3-4 thousand years, when humanity of the Earth stepped into the Era of the Great Ring (“ring” means a set of other worlds inhabited by intelligent beings, between these worlds there is a constant exchange of information and friendly cooperation). People live much longer than we do, are freed from the suffering of physical weakness, disease and remain in a healthy body until old age. Hunger is forever defeated, the planet's climate has been improved in such a way that gigantic pastures, orchards and fields fully cover the needs of people in food, besides, food factories are operating in the world's oceans. Man has ceased to be a slave to things, freed from them, things are just things! State borders - archaism, religious and ethnic conflicts are forever a thing of the past, human prejudices and superstitions went there, the man of the future was born from a mixture of all the nations and races of the planet, while deeply knowing his ancestry is the norm for him. In general, to KNOW, to constantly acquire knowledge, is characteristic of people of the future, they are constantly driven by an insatiable thirst for search and creativity. The main occupation of earthlings is a researcher, of all profiles and directions. Prestigious - non-prestigious professions do not exist, after working for a couple of years in the ocean, a person easily moves to the other end of the planet, to some underground mines, to archaeological excavations or to Earth's orbit, dangerous and unknown areas are the most desirable jobs, especially for young people ... For the sake of finding the truth, even a grain of it, thousands of young people are ready to rush into the "war with the unknown", they participate in risky experiments and someone dies. There is no housing issue, comfortable housing and life can be arranged in any place where a person wants to go to work. Inquisitive and sophisticated people of the Era of the Ring are sensitive and attentive to each other, their relationship is built on mutual trust and cooperation, they practically do not commit negligence, they are honest with others, and most importantly with themselves. Decisions are made by the group of people who perform the work, no one bears sole decisions and responsibility. Efremov was a staunch Marxist, he wrote directly that his world was a communist world. Someone today is struck by the very word "communism", but one must understand that such a system has never existed anywhere, one cannot consider the experiments carried out in the USSR, Cuba, the PRC or the DPRK to be communism. Apparently, we are trembling creatures, and have not yet grown to a just, harmoniously organized society! Many of Efremov's ideas were expressed earlier. Back in the 19th century, the philosophical movement “Russian Cosmism” was born in Russia, the representative of which can be considered the author of “Nebula ...” himself. But no one succeeded in blooming the hypothetical constructs of the cosmists so vividly and invitingly, as Ivan Efremov did, because the fact that this novel was translated into several dozen languages ​​speaks for something, I even heard the number 70!
By our standards, the Andromeda Nebula is an ideal world, but it is not some kind of frozen in place system that has nowhere else to move. As before, the emotional sphere of a person remains poorly studied, here it is still clear to people only that their desires, thoughts, will must be subject to discipline and constantly educated. Efremov believed that each individual is the whole Universe, and the people of the Era of the Ring have just begun to seriously study both the cosmos and the human psyche. Aircraft crashes occur on the Earth of the future, and every tenth starship perishes in the depths of space from meteorites. Occasionally someone gets sick, it also happens, especially in the tropics, where young people work selflessly: they maintain the populations of predators at the same level, and exterminate the superfluous. The 37th star expedition, returning to Earth (this is where the novel begins), collides with hostile living matter on one of the planets, the people of the future are also not ready for this, and the young girl astronavigator Niza Crete, saving the crew commander Erg Noor, receives severe injury. On the same planet, they find an aircraft of an unknown civilization that has gone in its development from earthlings for millennia ahead, Efremov constantly leaves markers of the eternal dynamics of intelligent life, obviously, so as not to perceive his world as a terminal station on the path of Man. After 5 years, the recovered Nisa Crete and Erg Noor, as part of the crew of a new stellar expedition, go to distant worlds, knowing that they will never return from there to Earth (this is how the novel ends). Proper names in the future - any consonances they like, as a rule, people strive to preserve the memory of their ancestors in their names, for sure, someone will not like it, but don't we choose such consonances on social networks today? And traditional names, did they objectively exist sometime and somewhere in nature? Some ancient Hellene looked at a crying newborn and thought: “Be you, baby, brave, courageous”, here's your name - Andrew. (Andrew - Greek brave, courageous). Most of all I thought about the educational system according to Efremov. Its most controversial feature, which one of my friends pointed out to me, is the separate life of children and parents (although, of course, it is not forbidden to see them, and there is even an island of Mothers where parents and children who did not want to part live). The main idea here is the responsibility of the whole society for upbringing and education, children go through three training cycles, the elders, while still studying, begin to look for themselves in some field. It is cruel to tear the child away from the mother, this is true, but by the time of the described events, evolution should “dampen” parental instincts, and haven't our institutions of socialization and upbringing quietly separated children from their parents until now? The heroine of the novel, psychiatrist Evda Nahl, at a lecture for schoolchildren says: “Raising a new person is a delicate work with individual analysis and a very careful approach. The time has irrevocably passed when society was content with somehow educated people, whose shortcomings were justified by heredity, the innate nature of man. Now every badly educated person is a reproach for the whole society, a painful mistake of a large group of people. " What seems unnatural and strange to us may be the norm for the people of the future. Some people do not like the abundance of terms and concepts in the novel, but, apparently, these people just skipped physics at school and simply do not understand anything.
The descriptions in the novel of means of communication, storage and transmission of information look a little naive, our modern technologies already more futuristic and more perfect, only to the point of this ...
I liked this book as a beautiful humane dream about the power and perfection of a person fighting for the truth, about a world without violence, disease and war. Since this is the first part of a trilogy, I think my acquaintance with Efremov has just begun.

Endless space and such different galaxies with the light of blue, white, red, yellow, orange stars ... Our future, which may not be oppressively sad, but bright, aimed at the development and transformation of not only humans, but the planet as a whole. The Great Ring as a form of planetary connection for universal development. A humanely and intelligently arranged world around the world with erased racial differences. The active love of its inhabitants for their planet - so in the name of the stellar expedition, the entire population of the Earth - absolutely voluntarily - saved energy throughout the year ... And even if this is only a utopia, but what is all the same tempting!

Of course, in this period of time, one can accuse this novel of being too politicized, childish naivete (just do not forget that the novel was written in the 50s of the last century) - only everyone wants a bright future !!!

The future - it always seems distant, that it is simply impossible to imagine what will happen next. But when it comes, it still seems that nothing has changed.

This is the future that many imagine. Earth - our planet Earth is in tranquility and peace, therefore everything is good and harmonious. Space ships fly into space itself - distant and mysterious. Although in the future he is no longer as mysterious as when it seemed to us children. Once, the unexpected happened. The spacecraft disappeared, so it did not return on time, and even lost contact with the world on Earth.

That is why scientists and professors, as well as pilots, became worried. That is why a new ship is sent to Space on a hitherto unknown planet, which is delayed for some time to find the missing ships there. Everything is mysterious and foggy until the ship descends to the ground of that planet. It is there that everything becomes clear. The history of an unknown planet turns out to be very interesting and mysterious.

And an ordinary person lives on Earth, but not an ordinary person. He is an archaeologist by profession. His character also suits his profession. So this young man loves to delve into the past.

Picture or drawing of the Andromeda nebula

Other retellings for the reader's diary

• Summary Bulgakov Zoykina apartment

  There was no devilry in this play. It is enough that the characters themselves create.

• Summary of Andersen's Snow Queen

  Kai and Gerda became close friends. But, into their cloudless world, I made my way The Snow Queen who kidnapped the boy and left him to live in the kingdom of cold and ice. Kai is bewitched

• Summary of Leskov Odnodum

  The protagonist of Leskov's story "Odnodum", Alexander Afanasyevich Ryzhov, was born into a poor bourgeois family. The boy's father died almost immediately after the birth of his son.

• Summary of Gorky Konovalov

  Maxim, on whose behalf the story is being told, once read in a newspaper an article about a man who committed suicide in a prison cell. Maxim talks about meeting this man.

• Summary of Leskov Cadet Monastery

  The narrator writes that he intends to prove the existence of the righteous in Russia. Moreover, in his opinion, such people are found even in places that are not conducive to honesty and adherence to principles.