A TRAP for a THOUGHT-FORM
is a mystical thriller
in the «PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY» series
It is a mystical fantasy thriller about finding Love and creating a Happy Reality. The ancient Mansion with a Portal to Other Worlds hosts book presentations and a 40-day workshop on Magic. Alice, unreflecting in the mirrors, tries to unravel the secret of the gloomy Guardian and finds in the Dungeon a theater, bloody props and a doll, exact replica of herself. Will she finish her own novel and get out to be happy? Awards: «The Looking Glass» after L. Carroll and «Master» after M.A. Bulgakov.
* VIDEO: https://youtu.be/N17IxbsGgKQ
Sound track: Picture for the book cover – under the license of Shutterstock
* Presentation of the book at Bulgakov House-Museum in Moscow
April 12, 2021: https://youtu.be/Jlet44APkAI
* Vladimir G. Boyarinov
Head of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia
about the book: https://youtu.be/gnlTa7lvJdA
*******ÊÍÈÃÀ / The BOOK:
RU: «ËÎÂÓØÊÀ äëÿ ÌÛÑËÅÔÎÐÌÛ», ISBN 978-5-0056-0905-2, Ì.: – Èçäàòåëüñêèå ðåøåíèÿ, 2023. – 302 ñ.
ENG: «A TRAP for a THOUGHT-FORM», ISBN 978-5-0056-6062-6, M.: - Èçäàòåëüñêèå ðåøåíèÿ, 2023. – 288 pages.
RU+ENG: «ËÎÂÓØÊÀ äëÿ ÌÛÑËÅÔÎÐÌÛ / A TRAP for a THOUGHT-FORM», ISBN 978-5-0059-2784-2, Ì.: – Èçäàòåëüñêèå ðåøåíèÿ, 2023. – 396 pages.
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***** AWARDS of the book *****
• “MASTER” 2020 after Ì. À. BULGAKOV
(Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia & “Literary Republic”)
• “The LOOKING GLASS” 2022 after Lewis CARROLL
(Open Literary Club “Response”, 2022)
***** See the SOURCES & REFERENCES *****
1. The newspaper “LITERARY NEWSPAPER” ¹17 (6782), 28.04.2021,
Vadim Shiltsyn, “To look beyond the Existence”.
https://lgz.ru/article/
17-6782-28-04-2021/zaglyanut-za-gran-bytiya/
2. The magazine “ZINZIVER” No.1 (127), 2022,
Magazines’ Hall “Gorky media”
Nina A. Abrashina, “Not Love Temptation, or a Trap by Lucifer”.
https://magazines.gorky.media/zin/2022/1/vzglyad-1.html
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30244
http://www.zinziver.ru/publication.php?id=30244
https://reading-hall.ru/contents.php?id=2900
http://www.zinziver.ru/contents.php?id=2900
https://reading-hall.ru/zinziver/1(127)2022.pdf
3. The magazine “ZINZIVER” No.1 (127), 2022,
Magazines’ Hall “Gorky media”
Tatyana Trubnikova, “An UnScary/Scary Fairy Tale”
https://magazines.gorky.media/zin/2022/1/vzglyad-2.html
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30244
http://www.zinziver.ru/publication.php?id=30244
http://www.zinziver.ru/contents.php?id=2900
https://reading-hall.ru/zinziver/1(127)2022.pdf
4. The newspaper “LITERARY NEWS” (“Literaturnye Izvestia”) No. 7 (193), 2021,
“The results of the literary awards 2019-2022”
by the press-secretary of Moscow State Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=29133
http://litiz.ru/nomer.php?id=29133
http://litiz.ru/archive/litiz_2021_7(193).pdf
http://www.litiz.ru/arch.html
5. The newspaper “LITERARY NEWS” (“Literaturnye Izvestia”) No. 7 (193), 2021,
Vadim Shiltzyn, “Alexandra Kryuchkova is the winner of the ‘Master’ award after M.A. Bulgakov 2020”
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=29136
http://litiz.ru/nomer.php?id=29136
http://litiz.ru/archive/litiz_2021_7(193).pdf
http://www.litiz.ru/arch.html
6. The newspaper “LITERARY NEWS” (“Literaturnye Izvestia”) No. 2 (200), 2022
“Serving Another Reality” by S. Bersenev.
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30458
http://litiz.ru/nomer.php?id=30458
https://reading-hall.ru/contents.php?id=2940
http://litiz.ru/nomer.php?id=30458
http://litiz.ru/arch.html
7. The newspaper “POETOGRAD” No. 1 (397), 2022
“The results of the Open Literary Club 2021” by L. Koroleva
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30303
http://www.poetograd.ru/nomer.php?id=30303
https://reading-hall.ru/contents.php?id=2908
http://poetograd.ru/archive/poetograd_2022_01(397).pdf
http://www.poetograd.ru/arch.html
8. The newspaper “POETOGRAD” No. 1 (397), 2022
G. Arshinov, “Phenomena of Alexandra Kryuchkova literary work is Labyrinth of mysteries!”
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30302
http://www.poetograd.ru/nomer.php?id=30302
https://reading-hall.ru/contents.php?id=2908
http://poetograd.ru/archive/poetograd_2022_01(397).pdf
http://www.poetograd.ru/arch.html
9. Magazine “LITERARY MOSCOW” / “Moskva literaturnaya” No. 2, 2022,
Irina A. Antonova, “Thought the Looking Glass 2022”
ISBN 978-5-7949-0970-8, Moscow, the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, NP “Literary Republic”, 2022. — 100 pages.
10. Magazine “FUTURUM ART” ¹1 (52), 2022
L.Ya. Reznik, “Poet & writer Alexandra Kryuchkova? Remember the name!”
https://futurum-art.ru/archiv/nomer.php?id_pub=31202
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=31202
https://reading-hall.ru/contents.php?id=3051
https://futurum-art.ru/contents.php?id=3051
11. Magazine “LITERARY MOSCOW” / “Moskva literaturnaya” No. 1, 2022,
“Names of the 21st century”, L. Reznik, “Poet and writer Alexandra Kryuchkova? Remember the name!” ISBN 978-5-7949-0936-4, Moscow, the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, NP “Literary Republic”, 2022. — 128 pages.
12. Encyclopedia “Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia. The beginning of the XXI century”, reference book about the members of the Union, ISBN 978-5-7949-0884-8, M.: — MGO SPR, 2021 — 198 p.
***********ABOUT THE BOOK in BRIEF***********
“Alchemical novel = Practicum of Secret Knowledge + Love in the mystical context of a puzzle plot on the verge of a detective story and even madness that keeps you in suspense until the last line…”
“Aren’t you the Magician yet? This book is for you! Forty wise and feasible tasks presented by Alice during the breaks of each chapter are a true wish-fulfillment marathon and a step-by-step guide to create your Happy Universe!”
“‘Is it bad to say what you feel?’ An amazing story of overcoming the fear of Love gives birth to the very Great Feeling, that prolongs life of both people and ghosts!”
“I was wandering inside a crystal with multifaceted mirrors, which reflected not so much the characters as myself. It’s an exciting feeling of touching Another Reality, an opportunity to look at life from unusual angles and to recode the future.”
“Does any creation have freedom of choice? Is the scenario rigidly fixed? Where do the glitches in the Matrix come from and how to surprise it? Does Love always defeat Death? In the mysterious interweaving of realities, the author, as usual, in an accessible and concise way talks about the complex, however, each reader will find in the book exactly what he is ready to discover.”
***********PREFACE by the author***********
This mystical story began when my great-grandfather, Viktor Ivanovich Glinsky-Safronov*, listed on Wikipedia for his contribution to musical literature and culture, met the already famous writer Mikhail Bulgakov** at the Bolshoi Theater, where they both served the arts.
In the evenings, they used to return home together and often visited each other, since they lived nearby. My great-grandfather’s apartment, where I was born and lived as a child, is located in a house on Sadovo-Triumfalnaya street, right next to Mayakovskaya metro station, practically on Tverskaya street, 3—5 minutes from the “bad flat” where Bulgakov lived.
I don’t know whether the mystique was passed on to me from my great-grandfather or his friend, the writer, or from my grandmother and her sisters with unambiguous names Margarita and Gella (yes, Gella, “whose beauty was spoiled only by a scar on her neck”***), because they repeatedly visited Bulgakov thanks to their father, but in my life, and, as a result, in the autobiographical poetry and novels about Another Reality, you can easily find brooms, star solitaire, spells to summon spirits and howling ghosts, Fridays the 13th, the Cat, and, in fact, Woland and Master.
However, my name was Alice, my Cat was Lunar, my Master was not a writer, but the Magician, and my Woland materialized not on the Patriarch’s Ponds, but in a cafe on Rublyovka. That period of my life now seems to be a vague past, which may never have happened, but…
…In September 2020, after going through the actually existing and functioning Portal (!) during a tour of the Bulgakov House Museum and Theater, the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia and the Non-commercial Partnership “Literary Republic”, represented by Olga Boyarinova, agreed with the director of the Bulgakov House, Natalia Sklyarova, to hold a series of literary parties, at which I had the honor to make presentations of books by members of the Union of Writers of Russia, as well as to hold the Open Microphone competitions.
Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, our parties were postponed until winter. We started finally, and our first night in the magical Mansion transferred the guests to Another Reality…
Do you think that the story I am going to tell you now is just a fairy tale, and no Portals really exist?
Well! Take a tour of Bulgakov House and wait for miracles!
Alexandra KRYUCHKOVA,
Honored Writer
of the Moscow Ñity Organization
of the Union of Writers of Russia,
laureate of international literary awards
http://cyclowiki.org/wiki/Êðþ÷êîâà_Àëåêñàíäðà_Àíäðååâíà
*https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ãëèíñêèé-Ñàôðîíîâ,_Âèêòîð_Èâàíîâè÷
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bulgakov
*As mentioned by M.A. Bulgakov in “The Master & Margarita”.
The magazine «Literary Moscow» / «Moskva literaturnaya» No.2, 2022
ISBN 978-5-7949-0970-8, the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, NP «Literary Republic», 2022 — 100 pages.
***********V. Shiltzyn, “BULGAKOV AWARD ‘MASTER’ 2020”***********
On June 15, 2021, the Great Hall of the Central House of Writers hosted the annual summing up and awarding ceremony for the winners of the literary competitions of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia together with the NP “Literary Republic”, although that time, due to the pandemic, the results were summed up for two years at once, 2019 and 2020. Of particular interest was the “Master” award after M.A. Bulgakov, since the competition had been announced in 2020 for the first time.
The winner of the competition “Master” after M. Bulgakov for 2020, awarded with a name plated statuette, became Alexandra Kryuchkova, poet and honored writer of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, host of a literary salon in the museum & theater Bulgakov House, author of the cycle of poems “To Woland” and the laconic novel “A Trap for a Thought-Form”.
The action of the novel takes place exactly in the Bulgakov House, where, judging by the intriguing annotation, during the breaks between presentations, Alice, the main character, who is not reflected in the mirrors, holds a magical workshop on the fulfillment of wishes and on the construction of one’s own Happy Reality.
Is the novel as simple as it seems at first glance?
Variations based on the ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion and the revived Galatea were born in world literature more than once. Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde, and Alexey Tolstoy, and Daniil Andreev took up the case. The latter explained in detail in his novel “Rose of the World” how Cervantes’ Don Quixote could acquire an independent consciousness in order to live and act in the Heaven Synclite not as a literary hero, but as a real person.
However, none of the famous authors has yet approached the idea of incarnating a character from the point of view of the literary hero himself. In this sense, Alexandra Kryuchkova’s book “A Trap for a Thought-Form” is absolutely innovative. This is a real breakthrough in the field of knowledge of the human spirit! Before the eyes of the reader, the character becomes a personality, independent of the script.
The enchanting brevity of the novel speaks of a rare talent — to fit a wise depth in a few words.
From the first lines you can see the author’s handwriting, which cannot be confused with any other. In fact, Alexandra Kryuchkova managed to create her own new language in prose, and this achievement is comparable to the new language that Joseph Brodsky painfully gave birth to in poetry. Alexandra uses textual possibilities in a peculiar way, thanks to which the narrative is saturated with symbols that carry a hidden meaning unknown to an unprepared reader. The most important for the author details of landscapes, significant figures and objects are invariably indicated with a capital letter.
“I’m catching stars at the Dark Tower. It looks like your Tower…”
The novel is built on dialogues, brief and unusually powerful, filled with a secret, mystical meaning.
“You remind me of that man, so…”
“The sorcerer?” Roman asked.
“The Magician,” I clarified, mentally staying in the Other Reality in search of my gloves. “We are going to give a performance on the 14th of February. I want you to play him.”
“Whatever you want,” Roman smiled… “What is the role?”
“You will come to me out of the Mirror every night. Until you take me away from here…”
The use of the author’s text in the review is inevitable, but I have to restrain myself so as not to quote the entire work.
For a thorough dive in the Universe of Alexandra Kryuchkova, one should read her other novels in the same “Playing Another Reality” series, much more voluminous, for example, “The Book of Secret Knowledge” and “Confession of a Ghost” about the Matrix of Time Space. Only then, having comprehended the depth of the author’s inner world, one will see that everything in the “Trap” is not just for fun, and some characters have a serious background, a literary fate, image, multiplied by hundreds of reflections in the mirrors of the author’s gaze, even if at first it’s not clear, what kind of people are these? Why are they designated as functions and often have no names at all?
Don’t rush, reader! All riddles will be solved when the puzzle is completed. Alexandra masterfully arranges intrigue!
The action of the novel is structurally planned and concentrated around the main character. In the museum, which at the same time is a gathering place for quite real, associated with literature, “impure souls”, the atmosphere of impending villainy is ripening more and more clearly, and the Blizzard invariably reigns around. Its endless whirling creates an atmosphere of frozen Time.
“Tell me, will this Blizzard ever end?” I asked devastated.
“So do you love spring after all?” he smiled with difficulty, remaining sad.
“Will it end, this Blizzard?!” I asked him again.
The Guardian hugged me and began to rock me slowly from side to side, whispering softly,
“The Blizzard will lull you, Alice, lull you like a mother, end and start again, end and start again, it will circle us endlessly, in its magical dance, because it is — yes, yes, it is the Blizzard! — that can help us survive Death…”
The vivid emotion of the novel resonates with the reader’s feelings when the situation becomes unresolvable. Alice experiences a natural fear of being unable to reach to people in order to get answers to those existential questions that are never answered by anyone, and if one tries to answer, the answers leave room for doubts and uncertainty.
“Everyone sees and gets what he wants, or what he is ready / expects / assumes from his experience / on the basis of acquired knowledge to see or receive, Alice!” Roman said sadly.
“Then how can we understand that we are not ghosts, if in the world of ghosts I can’t pass through the wall, since I consider both myself and the wall to be physically material, while the ghost who understands that he is a ghost will pass through the same wall?”
“Quite right,” said Roman. “For the same reason, in the material world, a true magician, being absolutely sure that a miracle will happen after pronouncing certain words of a spell, will perform a miracle, or rather, ALLOW THE MIRACLE TO HAPPEN. And a common man does not. He doesn’t anticipate, doesn’t expect, doesn’t want or is not ready to…”
“Everyone sees and gets what he… These adjacent worlds are the Kingdom of solid Crooked Mirrors, Roman. ‘There’ looks like ‘here’. And ‘here’ looks like ‘There’. But there must be, must be some difference between the Worlds!!! It can’t help existing!!!”
The throwing quest of the main character’s soul for self-determination and, consequently, for an answer to the question of her destiny, grow with terrible force in order to fall like a tsunami in the final on frozen Time, because:
“… everyone at a certain point in time needs to decide whether one is alive or dead, and what one really is…”
An unexpected outcome is accompanied by a wise message to the future:
“…Pass this book to someone who is not the Magician yet!”
And I wish you read this book!
Vadim SHILTZYN,
member of the Union of Writers of Russia,
laureate of literary awards
The newspaper “Literary News” (“Literaturnye Izvestia”) No. 7 (193), 2021
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=29136
http://litiz.ru/nomer.php?id=29136
http://litiz.ru/archive/litiz_2021_7(193).pdf
http://www.litiz.ru/arch.html
***********N.A. ABRASHINA, "NOT LOVE TEMPTATION, or a Trap by Lucifer"******
In 2021, the museum-theatre Bulgakov House in Moscow hosted the literary party “Another Reality” with the presentation of the novel “A Trap for a Thought-Form” by Alexandra Kryuchkova, poet and mystic writer, the manager of the literary salon of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, held exactly in the Bulgakov House during the literary season 2020—2021.
The “Trap” is non-standard reading! An amazing story of overcoming the fear of Love gives birth to the very Great Feeling, that prolongs life of both people and ghosts!
The place of action is the Bulgakov House in Moscow, and at the same time it is Another Reality, the Subtle World. The reader needs to follow the plot so carefully that the Blizzard of events, characters and their dialogues doesn’t overshadow the thread of the narrative, which is very delicate and requires serious reflection.
It’s no coincidence that Vladimir Georgievich Boyarinov, Chairman of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, congratulating the author on the release of the book and addressing readers, said,
“Of course, I won’t tell you the plot of this story, because it is wrapped very, very tightly! Only someone who is not afraid of this ‘Trap’ and will open the cover after all, and will not let it slam shut, as it could happen, unravel it. The book is in the ‘Playing Another Reality’ series, isn’t it? ‘Won’t we play too much?’ the reader asks, opening this guidebook… into the realm of the mysterious, into the realm of the unknown, into the realm of the puzzling plot, where the protagonist differs from the heroes of Oscar Wilde, Paolo Coelho, Alexey Tolstoy, Bernard Shaw, who were conjuring and shamanizing there, too, but calmed down. It’s too early for us to think about sad things, so everyone who, in general, is interested in something new, the unknown, and who wants to make discoveries, for God’s sake, read and extract for yourself some kind of love for the word, love of discovery, love of what we don’t know and will never know, without opening the first page and not having read to the last!”
Forty lessons of magic on creating a Happy Reality by Alice, the main character, is a real guide for the self-improvement of every soul, compiled in the spirit of Christian commandments concerning love for one’s neighbor, repentance and forgiveness, mutual assistance and humility.
“It’s important to wish good to your enemies absolutely sincerely, as to yourself.”
“Help at least one person a month… As much as you can, in whatever way you can. Free of charge. Don’t make it public.”
“Learn to see God in all you meet, even in a stone.”
“…Write a letter to the Creator about everything… being aware that He knows better in Heaven what will benefit a particular soul, and what will be harmful…”
It is really important for Alice to…
“ask everyone to forgive you… and forgive each of them”,
“move your ‘Self’ in the second place during conversation, having recognized that the other person’s ‘Self’ is no less important to God than yours”,
“reveal in each being, sent to you on the Path, something it can be praised for.”
And how life-affirming are the words of the main character, completely disappointed in life and decided to step into Death,
“Imagine that your life will continue after your leaving the physical body, because, having fulfilled your current mission on Earth, you will definitely take on the solution of some new tasks of the Universe.”
Yes, Alice is looking for the Portal to the Other Reality, where her friend, the Ghost, resides, because she “no longer had the strength to stay in our Reality”. She constantly wraps herself in furs, as if hiding from the surrounding reality, she feels uncomfortable in this world. Alice is tired of loneliness, she didn’t manage to meet “a strong male shoulder”,
“…I wanted so much to create my own little world with him and me, and a fireplace, and coffee, and a blanket, and the Moon Cat, and in that world I would read us bedtime tales, and no Blizzard outside the window would be able to keep us apart…”
At the same time, tired to death, Alice finds the strength to help an even weaker person, Pasha, who, overcoming his fear of refusal in reciprocity, told her “the most important words”, adding, “Is it bad to say what you feel?” To help Pasha, Alice asks directly the Creator.
The very fact that the only obstacle on the way to the Portal to the Other World (in fact, to Death, that is, to the early departure from Life) is its gloomy Guardian, “once a story happened to the Guardian that changed his Consciousness,” “the Guardian who imagined himself to be God…” (a direct reference to Lucifer), is overwhelming. Describing the Guardian, the author doesn’t hide his impure nature: he constantly hits the table with his fist, throws objects at the wall, barks, his eyes sparkle, “there were devilish lights in his eyes”. Finally, when a representative of “the Winged World” appears, the Guardian exclaims,
“What has their secret messenger to do in our vicious monastery?”
And finally, he admits,
“My Mansion was created for Impure Souls, not for divine gifts!”
Entering into verbal fights with the Guardian, similar to the struggle of a troubled soul with Devil the Tempter, Alice realizes they have something in common, and it’s the fear of Love, because “it’s easier and safer to remain at the level of a dream than trying to realize the dream”. And then Alice asks the Guardian the key question, as if mirroring it on herself,
“Tell me, honestly, what do you fear more: Death or Love?”
By the way, all the characters of this book “reflect” each other, like mirrors!
The Guardian denies Love (which means God, because God is Love), trying to offer Alice his artificially created immortality in exchange for her refusal to believe in Love (i.e., in God),
“The only real thing in the world is Death, Alice! Death conquers all, always!”
“Death defeated Love… It’s a pity that Koschey has already arrived, another singer of your dead Love, who pretends to be the Immortal.”
Alice doesn’t give up,
“Your phrase is mirrored, everyone finds the own meaning.”
However, does Love always defeat Death?
A non-standard chain of events puts Alice in front of a global question, “Who am I?” It is logical to assume that she is just the ghost of the real Alice killed by the Guardian, but at this turning point, reminding of V. Bryusov’s poem “Escape” about the main character’s awakening from sleep, the broken pattern provokes chaos from which a “New and definitely Happy Universe” is created.
The attitude of the author to her colleagues-writers is curious:
“…in fact, all writers are magicians”,
“All people are crazy in their own way, especially Creators, such as writers — they are engaged in real magic, the magic of the Word. The most talented are the craziest ones.”
“It was the destination: the soul descended to Earth in order to write about Solon.”
“A book is a separate world, too, isn’t it? And the author is its creator, such a little god, right?”
“After all, in the beginning was the Word.”
In conclusion, I’ll quote the most powerful, in my opinion, thought of this book. It’s about the meaning of… creativity? — no, the meaning of the true Creator’s life.
“Can true magicians create worlds? Yes, definitely. But these worlds are worthy absolutely nothing if there is neither Love inside, nor the one for whom you create them, with whom you wander there, discovering something new and wonderful — feelings, emotions, knowledge, with whom you share joys and sorrows…
If the Magician’s world belongs only to himself and doesn’t intersect at any point with the world of a kindred soul, it is doomed to destruction…”
Nina A. ABRASHINA,
member of the Union of Writers of Russia,
writer and doctor
The magazine “ZINZIVER” No.1 (127), 2022
Magazines’ Hall “Gorky media”
https://magazines.gorky.media/zin/2022/1/vzglyad-1.html
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30244
http://www.zinziver.ru/publication.php?id=30244
https://reading-hall.ru/contents.php?id=2900
http://www.zinziver.ru/contents.php?id=2900
https://reading-hall.ru/zinziver/1(127)2022.pdf
***********Tatyana TRUBNIKOVA, "AN UNSCARY/SCARY FAIRY TALE"*******
In January 2022, in honor of the 190th anniversary of the English writer Lewis Carroll (1832—1898), the head of the Open Literary Club (Moscow), Lyudmila Vyacheslavovna Koroleva, member of the Union of Writers of Russia, established the literary public award “The Looking-Glass”, the first winner of which became the book “A Trap for a Thought-Form” by Alexandra Kryuchkova.
The “Trap” is a real fairy tale for adults! Fearless scary! However, it’s known to everybody that adults need fairy tales more than children, and love them stronger. In general, people tend to strive for the unknown, mystery, secrets. Such aspiration is as archaic as stories after hunting, around the campfire in prehistoric times. The entire text of the “Trap” is riddled with mystery.
The main character Alice — a lady, but in fact still a girl, because all people are children — holds literary parties in M.A. Bulgakov’s “bad flat”, recreated in the museum-theater Bulgakov House (Moscow, B. Sadovaya street, 10, 302 Bis), where a Portal to the Other Reality is located. Next door to the studio of the artist Georges Yakulov, where Sergey Yesenin and the brilliant dancer Isadora Duncan got acquainted. A well courtyard, a slice of the Moscow sky above. Loud steps. That air preserved the voices of all those who lived there, and who simply passed by, because nothing disappears without a trace!
Alice associates writers, heroes of the parties, with fairy-tale characters and various “impure souls” (let’s quote the Guardian of the Portal, “the Impurities, are they from not pure writing or not pure hearing?”): Witch, Kikimora, Flower Fairy, Syrinx Bird, Waterman, Werewolf, Arachne; and some are named in accordance with the Tarot cards: the King of Swords, the Page of Cups. No wonder the last night in the Mansion is advertised as the Ball of Impurities. Or… of Death?
Death lives in all scary fairy tales. Alice tries to talk Death off, distract it, recode herself towards Life. It’s like the Last Dance, the Last Fight of the Master. Every Master is entitled to the final triumph. If the Master is real, he can prolong his last fight. Not forever, alas. Bulgakov continued it for more than ten years, Yesenin had been tearing the “Black Man” poem from himself for two and a half.
The literary parties in the book are strung one on top of the other, like beads of bloody and frozen — in the Blizzard! — rowan berries on a thread. Does the thread really break at the end by the inevitability of Death? Do the 40 literary nights end up in a passage to the Other Reality? The souls spend the same number of days after Death on Earth. Is it a sacred number? The author constantly refers to numbers. Everything around is permeated by them. But can you play with numbers? Why does Alice have 44 dresses? It would be logical to mirror 40, however, “In numerology 4 means ‘Death’, but 44 is 4 plus 4, or 8, and this is already a sign of infinity, that for me personally means ‘Love’…”
So if the parties are like beads, should the reader be bored? No! To the monotony of the Blizzard’s songs, lulling the mind, mysterious events occur both in the Mansion and in the reader’s soul.
We get to the School of Magicians for the seminar “How to become the Magician”. Forty wise and feasible tasks that Alice presents during the breaks of each chapter are a true wish-fulfillment marathon and a step-by-step guide to create your Happy Universe! The “breaking the pattern” technique seems to me very interesting! Therefore… aren’t you the Magician yet? This book is for you! In general, the whole “Trap” is Alchemy = Practicum of Secret Knowledge + Love in the mystical context of a puzzle plot on the verge of a detective story and even madness that keeps you in suspense until the last line…
Alice is reflecting, trying to understand: why does she seem not to live indeed? Isn’t she already dead? It is an interesting trick of the author to turn reality over, presenting the illusory one neither like a dream, nor like death, but vice versa…
Does any creation of the Creator have freedom of choice, or is the scenario rigidly fixed? Where do the glitches in the Matrix come from and how to surprise it? Does Love always defeat Death? And an almost rhetorical question with a reference to the World of Ideas of the philosopher Plato… Can a thought-form die? Can it be the Co-Creator of all things? Isn’t the independent life of a thought-form a heresy, a rebellion against the Creator?
In the mysterious interweaving of realities, Alexandra Kryuchkova, as usual, in an accessible and concise way talks about the complex, but each reader will find in the book exactly what he is ready to discover…
Any fairy tale pays tribute to reality. In the “Trap” there is a mysterious, quite thinking, huge talkative Cat, a kind of Bulgakov’s one. I saw him in the Bulgakov House, and I confirm, the Honorable Mister the Puss is really huge! And the Portal to the Other World, which is the fireplace, awakened in me the image of a Russian stove! Maybe the Guardian of the Portal is the Baba Yaga?
The final scene on the bridge of Eternity with the possibility of choosing the future is associated with a fork in the road, “If you go to the left, you will lose your horse; if you go to the right, you will lose your life; if you go straight, you will be alive and forget yourself.”
However, the scary fairy tale is actually non-scary — no matter how much I tried to get frightened in the course of the story, I couldn’t! And not just because the book is in the “Playing (!) Another Reality” series. The very flow of the narrative screamed with every letter in every line: everything is going to be okay!
There is also a smell of Cinderella: dresses, the anticipation of a miracle at the Ball, etc. However, Alice is in search not so much of a prince as of answers to everybody’s basic questions.
And yet, “A Trap for a Thought-Form” is closer to “Alice in Wonderland” by L. Carroll. Alice and the Cheshire Cat, also speaking and fabulous, like Bulgakov’s Cat, wise in his madness and uttering, “Life is serious. But not much…”
If to be very serious, the “Trap”, the winner of the competitions “Master” after M. Bulgakov (the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, 2020) and “The Looking Glass” after L. Carroll (Open Literary Club, 2022), is hunting for those who lack magic in their lives. It is light, kind, fabulous. Written by the Master of the Word. It’s so nice to spend time with this book over a cup of tea, wrapped in a cozy blanket and smiling at the Cat, that always smiles you back!
Tatyana TRUBNIKOVA,
member of the Union of Writers of Russia,
laureate of literary awards
The magazine “ZINZIVER” No.1 (127), 2022
Magazines’ Hall “Gorky media”
https://magazines.gorky.media/zin/2022/1/vzglyad-2.html
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30244
http://www.zinziver.ru/publication.php?id=30244
https://reading-hall.ru/contents.php?id=2900
http://www.zinziver.ru/contents.php?id=2900
https://reading-hall.ru/zinziver/1(127)2022.pdf
***********Ir. ANTONOVA, "The LOOKING-GLASS" 2022******
Unique book! I confess I’ve never read anything like that! An exciting plot of this amazing story, the end of which is unpredictable, reminded me of “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”. Alice, the main character of the “Trap”, being unreflected in the Giant Mirror of a mysterious Mansion, is looking for a Portal to Other Reality in order to find mutual love. However, instead of a rabbit, the “Trap” contains the Honorable Mister the Puss, because the action takes place in the museum-theater Bulgakov House (in Moscow), and the Cat in the “Trap” is precisely Bulgakov’s, not a Cheshire one. The funny and the scary are both in one bottle there, and that’s a joy! I was wandering inside a crystal with multifaceted mirrors, which reflected dreams and reality, good and evil, people and puppets, and, by the way, not so much the characters as myself. It’s an exciting feeling of touching Another Reality, an opportunity to look at life from unusual angles and to recode the future. The book is so concise and multifaceted! All the characters are perfectly visualizing by the reader, each has its own inimitable way of speaking. Just listen to the lovesick Pasha with his incorrigible accent! To recreate such a phantasmagoria requires great skill of a real Master, the hand of the Magician, and Alexandra once again brilliantly demonstrated her talent. The grateful reader fearlessly follows her into the Looking Glass — through the labyrinth of fantasy into the Other Reality.
Irina A. ANTONOVA,
member of the Union of Writers of Russia,
Vice Chief Editor of the “Istoki” almanac
The magazine «Literary Moscow» / «Moskva literaturnaya» No.2, 2022
ISBN 978-5-7949-0970-8, the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, NP «Literary Republic», 2022 — 100 pages.
***********G. ARSHINOV, "LABYRINTH of MYSTERIES"***********
The literary work of Alexandra Andreevna Kryuchkova is a separate phenomenon that will make itself known more than once and has long been waiting for a grateful researcher. I think that followers will certainly be found as well, and they will move along the already beaten path, some of them will discover their own Rabbit Hole, but not every Alice will have the courage to dive into it recklessly!
Tsvetaeva’s tragic intensity, Akhmatova’s Attic style and Alexandra’s inimitable handwriting are woven into one inseparable pattern of words, rhythms, reminiscent of a Labyrinth.
“Follow me, reader!” I want to exclaim after Mikhail Bulgakov. Enter the world of this book! Try to pass its Labyrinth! There, on the way, amazing secrets are hidden, which you still have to get to. However, it’s not as easy as it seems. A mystery, even the one, having slightly shown up to you, for some reason slips away again, but it irresistibly attracts you farther and deeper… Try to catch up and unravel it! Then, after the seemingly revealed secret, another one arises. New meanings and associations are woven into another intricate pattern. And your soul becomes involved in an amazing and exciting Game. You involuntarily become a part of the Game. And magical events begin to happen in your life…
Alexandra’s Moon Cat, which lives in her poetry (“The Moon Cat” book) and prose (the novel “Confession of a Ghost” and the thriller “A Trap for a Thought-Form” in the “Playing Another Reality” series), in my opinion, will take its place in the line and cavalcade of the famous mysterious cats of world literature! I am sure, the feline worlds of Hoffmann, Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe, Bulgakov, Natsume Soseki and the world of the aforementioned Moon Cat are by no means alien to each other. “You and I are so different,” but all the listed above literary cats are one warm bunch. And the charming Trickster with a browning and primus, and the mocking Cheshire, and the impudent Yamato, and the clever Pluto, and the philistine Murr, who has his own views on life, and “our one, our” the Moon Cat, according to Bulgakov’s apt statement, “will certainly make agreement with each other.”
And, perhaps, by prior agreement, they deign to “lift the curtain by the edge” (Vladimir Vysotsky, songs for the audio performance “Alice in Wonderland”), that is, lift the veil of Mystery, for you personally as well. Just turn the first page of Alexandra Kryuchkova’s book and… start reading.
You want your life to become an exciting Game, don’t you?
Gunnar ARSHINOV,
member of the Union of Writers of Russia,
laureate of literary awards
The newspaper “POETOGRAD” No. 1 (397), 2022, "Phenomena of Alexandra Kryuchkova’s literary work is Labyrinth of mysteries."
https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30302
http://www.poetograd.ru/nomer.php?id=30302
https://reading-hall.ru/contents.php?id=2908
http://poetograd.ru/archive/poetograd_2022_01(397).pdf
http://www.poetograd.ru/arch.html
***********THANKS!**********
The author expresses her great gratitude
to all the characters and prototypes of the novel,
including:
Alexander Lons,
Konstantin Bely,
Sergey Arshinov,
Boris Mikhin,
Ivan Borisov,
Grigory Samoilik,
Vitaly Volkov,
Boris Krasilnikov,
Natalya Sklyarova
Alexey Beklemishev,
Roman Tyapugin,
Vladimir Morozov,
Ekaterina Kordyukova,
Irina Antonova,
as well as:
Ray, Pasha, Wanderer,
my son Andrey, our cat Josephine
and everybody else!
***********DEDICATION***********
I dedicate my book to every reader!
As well as to:
my great-grandfather Viktor Glinsky-Safronov
and his friend, the writer Mikhail A. Bulgakov,
the Bulgakov House in Moscow and its inhabitants,
including the Honorable Mister the Puss
the Moscow City Organization
of the Union of Writers of Russia,
and all of my thought-forms’ prototypes!