Not saying goodbye

In an interview preceding the publication of the book, Akunin reported that he had only one left to write, the latest novel about Fandorin. On October 8, 2017, Akunin reported that he had finished work on a series of works on Erast Fandorin. About this he wrote in his Facebook.

“I inform all interested people that this 8th of the tenth month of the 29th year of the Heisei epoch finished the last book of the series“ The Adventures of Erast Fandorin ”... The novel is to be released on February 8, 2018, on the 20th anniversary of the publication of the first Fandorin book, the novel Azazel.” .

On January 1, 2018, a month before the book was published, Boris Akunin published a first chapter of the novel on his Facebook page as a New Year's gift to readers. From this chapter it becomes known about what happened to Fandorin after the events described in the “ Black City ” ^[2] .

The novel “I Do Not Forgive” was released on February 8, 2018, on the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the first book of the Fandorin cycle, the novel Azazel ^[1] .

Journalist Denis Korsakov reports that the talk about the creation of this book has been going on for a long time, “at the end of the last century. Lev Danilkin , now the winner of the Big Book, and then a young and enthusiastic literary critic, the author of one of the first reviews of Akunin's texts, said that the novel will be a remake of his Excellency's Adjutant. At about the same time, the original name “All is well” ” ^{[3] has} emerged.

Characters from the series “Death to Brothershaft” appear in the book, and heroes of other books from the series “The Adventures of Erast Petrovich Fandorin” are mentioned. In particular, Alexey Romanov-Oktyabrsky is a full-fledged second protagonist of the novel, occupying about half of the text. His storyline is about how, being ideologically red, he takes root to the white.

1918 The first chapter describes that Fandorin survived after an injury received in Baku in 1914 (the “ Black City ”), but fell into a coma for 3 years 8 months and 28 days. Masa, who had been courting him for several years, had to leave the lord from Samara. On the train on the way to Moscow, Masa ran into an attempt to rob the passengers. Unsuccessful shot of the robber fell on Fandorin, passing on a tangent, thereby pulling him out of the coma.

Upon arrival in Moscow, 62-year-old Erast Petrovich learns from Masa about the events that he “missed” ( World War I , the fall of the autocracy and the October Revolution , the beginning of the civil war ), re-learns to walk and tries to get comfortable in the changed world. At this time, his brand-name trait disappears completely - a slight stutter. For a while he drives around the city in a specially designed Masa wheelchair, meets anarchists, then during a fight with another villain, the “Ki energy” repeatedly mentioned by Akunin awakens from him, and with it strength and skills return Eastern martial arts, thanks to which he easily cracks down on a villain unexpectedly for the latter. The first part ends with Fandorin's flight from the house, where the victorious Bolsheviks besieged the anarchists who had taken refuge in it, and which Erast Petrovich leaves the jump from a height, enjoying the return of his usual Japanese skills.

1919 After spending a whole year in a distant monastery in the north of the Vologda province, where Erast Petrovich had vainly hoped to “sit out” the distemper, Fandorin sneaks into Sevastopol , away from red Russia. In Sevastopol, he is already waiting for Mas. On the way, he meets the girl-sculptor Mona - the daughter of a Petersburg psychiatrist Elizabeth Anatolyevna Turusova (who, because of the mysteriousness of the smile, reminiscent of Mona Lisa, nicknamed her Mother Monoy, Varvara Andreevna Turusova, who is the virginity of Suvorov, the main heroine of the novel “ Turkish Gambit ”). Mona, having learned that her casual companion is the very Fandorin, according to which her mother “dried her whole life”, seduces him and becomes pregnant, and then, choosing a moment, tells him that she is the daughter of the “same” Barbara Andreevna. Thus, it turns out who will be the mother of Alexander Fandorin and the grandmother of his son Nicholas - our contemporary and hero of another Akuninsky cycle “The Adventures of the Master”.

At the same time, they meet Alexei Romanov, the hero of the Death to Brothershaft cycle, who, along with the nephew of the White Guard general, also makes his way to the white to the south with the aim of introducing the White Guards into the headquarters (for which he organized the rescue of a comrade from the hands of the Red Army men). In Kharkov , in the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, Erast Petrovich has to, in particular, take part in the investigation of the unsuccessful attempt on the commander of the White Guard troops of the south, Anton Ivanovich (his name is not named, but Denikin is implied), which killed innocent orphans. Fandorin also has to find a red spy in the headquarters of the white army (the prototype is Koltsov from the movie “ Adjutant of His Excellency ”, which acts under the name Makoltsev). The sabotage of the conspirators is completed by the explosion of a railcar in which Fandorin left Kharkov.

1921 Masa and Mona, the mother of a two-year-old boy, live in Switzerland and find out who is to blame for the death of Fandorin. Masa punishes the villain, but whether Fandorin really died or was able to save himself again remains unknown.

The review of the magazine “Afisha” has the subtitle “what is wrong with the latest novel about Erast Fandorin”. According to the reviewer, “the main trouble of the new Akuninsky detective story is that the detective story failed. This claim Akunin made more than once, but in "I do not say goodbye," everything is very sad. The investigation either turns out to be trivial (missing a bag with sewing needles - this is true for an elderly detective), or is interrupted by another deus ex machina , or is drowning in a myriad of historical details that Akunin succeeds much better. Actually, if you look at "I do not say goodbye" as an unassuming historical novel, then everything is quite good (...) Akunin takes all his stamps and twists them all the way. The first victims are taste and a sense of proportion. ” The critic notes the presence of numerous references to the author's other works: “But what Akunin unexpectedly succeeds in is a fan service, winking with fans. (...) The main goal of the new novel is not to tell a good story, but to tie all the main cycles of Akunin stronger. “Do not say goodbye” completes (but not very convincingly) the story about Erast Petrovich, throws the bridge to “Master's Adventures”, becomes a crossover with “Genres” and the same “Death to Brothershaft”. And if the novel itself failed, then the role of another puzzle piece works surprisingly well. For twenty years, Akunin managed not only to write a few good, a dozen passable and a couple of useless novels, but also to create a real book universe in the style of Marvel comics ” ^[4] .

Galina Yuzefovich titled her review “The Unreal Detective”. According to her, the novel was clearly written not for the sake of detective intrigue: “This time the main subject of Akunin is the customs of Russia during the Civil War. Moving from Samara to Moscow, then to a remote northern monastery, and from there to Kharkov and Taganrog, Erast Petrovich conducts a consistent revision of the “black” (anarchist), “green” (Makhnovskaya), “white”, “red” and even “brown” (colors of shit) the truth, tearing the country apart, and all of them are equally unfit and harmful. ” In her opinion, a huge material is squeezed into the book by merciless compaction and compression: “As a result, all the bushes in the novel are replete with pianos, passionate and durable love originates in the hearts of the heroes like a lightning strike, without the slightest foreplay, promising threads break in shameless fashion, and bright characters (...) are forced to be content with just a cameo. ” She also notes “fan service”: the novel “is clearly intended primarily for a fan audience and contains several pleasant curtsies to her side” ^[5] . In her personal rating of the novels about Fandorin, the book is placed on the 13th place out of 17: “Not that a good detective story, but quite a good historical novel about the civil war (much better than those published by Akunin in recent years in the series“ The History of the Russian State “)” ^[6] .

Konstantin Milchin writes: “a bummer. We were promised that there will be a farewell book about Fandorin, and this, it turns out, is also an intermediate novel about Alexey Romanov, the hero of a part of the books in the series “Brotherhood” and it seems like the “Spy novel”. Once there was a joke that the film “Rambo V” would be at the same time the film “Rocky VI” and Sylvester Stallone would act there in two roles at once - the special forces and the boxer. It was a joke, and here Akunin realized something comparable in scale, an example of a crossover that is rare in Russian literature - the characters from the seemingly incompatible series appeared under one cover. First, Fandorin and Romanov do not intersect at all, but closer to the middle of the book they will begin to interact and even resist each other. ” According to Milchin, the book does not look like classic detectives, but like historical prose, which Akunin likes so much to do in recent years. The book includes “fantasy on the topic of revolution and the Civil War, a small argument about why the Reds won and whether there was a chance for other parties, including the anarchists (...). As a result, the heroes wander from one camp to another, and everywhere it is interesting, everywhere it is good and bad at the same time, everywhere long pathetic speeches. The latter, alas, replace the action, which is sad to the extreme. ” The novel, according to the critic, breaks up into separate episodes, “there’s only one intrigue - how Fandorin will die.” “But what is especially sad is that Fandorin is no longer Fandorin. He almost doesn’t investigate, almost doesn’t think, he is in a coma, then he keeps quiet, then makes children, sometimes he wanders around ” ^[7] .

According to the reviewer of Rossiyskaya Gazeta, “the prudent author left himself a loophole, theoretically allowing the hero to be resurrected once again,” however, Fandorin feels like this book will be the last of a cycle, because “material fatigue” is felt. its author, disillusioned with the country ^[8] . Rosbalt writes the same thing, developing in detail the idea that “ending a 20-year epic, a writer who no longer lives in Russia draws a line under an attempt to merge liberal and protective feelings into one ideology” ^[9] . “Komsomolskaya Pravda” believes that this is the saddest novel about Fandorin, also points to his weakness: “In general, someone will surely say right away that the composition“ I don’t say goodbye ”is falling apart before our eyes - but on the other hand, absolutely everything is falling apart Russia, and the rebel organizations, and individual fates, and the main Akuninsky literary project, so in this sense everything is completely harmonious ” ^[3] .

The publication is equipped with signed photographic portraits of prototypes, which immediately reveals their identity.

• Victor Savvin ( Boris Savinkov )
• Aron Volya ( Vsevolod Volin )
• Zaenko ( Stepan Saenko )
• Gai-Gayevsky ( Vladimir May-Mayevsky )
• Pavel Makoltsev (Pavel Koltsov, the protagonist of the film “The Adjutant of His Excellency ”, based on the autobiography of Pavel Makarov )
• Actor-anarchist Gromov-Nevsky ( Mammoth Dalsky )
• Jew-hussar Lev Mirkin ( Alexander Vilenkin )

• Adjutant his Excellency