Razor Blade (novel, 1963)

The plot of the novel consists of several intersecting lines: the story of the doctor and psychophysiologist Ivan Rodionovich Girin, studying the hidden possibilities of the human brain; the story of Italians who went to Africa for diamonds; The story of an Indian artist. All these characters are united by the secret of the black crown , which played an important role in the life of Alexander the Great .

The novel was published in 1963 in the Neva magazine, and the next year in the Young Guard publishing house ^[1] .

Prototypes of some characters are known ^[2] .
The main character, the doctor, Girin Efremov, was given the character of his friend Professor Alexei Petrovich Bystrov (by the time the deceased), and his appearance was given to the Italian actor Amedeo Nazzari ( Italian: Amedeo Nazzari ).
The prototypes of Sima Metalina, the beloved of Girin, were the Polish actress Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass and the first wife of Efremov - Ksenia Nikolaevna Svitalskaya, the granddaughter of the 2nd-rank captain I. Matusevich (destroyer commander “Impeccable”). In Sim, there are traits of Taisiya Iosifovna Efremova - the wife of the writer ^[3] .

“Razor Blade” is a novel about the spiritual power of man, about the triumph of reason, about the search for beauty, love and justice. The title of the work contains the essence of Ephraim philosophy: everything great and beautiful in the world exists between two extremes - on the razor's edge. In an interview given before the release of the novel, Efremov said:

The very temperature of the human body - 37 ° - is only five steps (degrees) from death - the temperature is 42 °, when protein coagulation occurs. At the same time, the temperature of 37 ° is the most favorable for active life. This is what a razor blade is. And there are thousands of such examples ... ^[4]

The novel provides such examples. In a lecture on beauty, the protagonist says:

... beauty is the right line in the unity and struggle of opposites, the very middle between the two sides of every phenomenon, every thing that the ancient Greeks saw and called ariston - the best, considering measure as synonymous with this word, or rather - a sense of proportion. I imagine this measure with something extremely thin - a razor blade ...

Another hero declares his love:

The happiness of meeting you, it’s like a knife’s blade is terribly sharp and very narrow. And nearby, on both sides, are two dark depths.

The novel talks about gene memory ^[5] , which the main character is trying to awaken with the help of LSD , about yoga , hypnosis, telepathy. But Efremov considers these phenomena not from the point of view of mysticism, but trying to give everything a scientific, rational explanation.

The novel caused a stream of readership. Efremov himself was unhappy that readers perceived him as a guru ^[6] .

Sergey Korolev spoke well of the book: “There is something to think about here” ^[7] .

The famous Soviet heart surgeon and cyberneticist Nikolai Amosov mentions the novel “Razor Blade” in his own book “ Thoughts and Heart ” ^[8] .

• Allegories of Denisov-Uralsky - figurines described at the beginning of the novel.

• Geller L. M. Chapter 5. Structures of the genre: literary hero // The Universe Beyond Dogma. Reflections on Soviet science fiction. - London : OPI, 1985 .-- S. 165-167. - 446 p. - ISBN 0-903868-58-X .

• The novel "Razor Blade" in the library "Russian Science Fiction".
• Color illustrations for the novel by artist N. I. Grishin. Ed. The Young Guard , 1964.
• Khajuraho temples described in the novel.