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I believe that Ivan Efremov is a unique writer. Not all readers (among them are some of my friends)
hold with this view on his creative work however. What was the fresh material he introduced into the Soviet science fiction of the
middle of the 20th century? Let me present and explain my personal point of view.
Efremov's books are dedicated to people. The heroes of these books live either in our time or in the
grandiose worlds of future.
At first sight of an inattentive reader, the inhabitants of those worlds and their relationships seem to be quite common and typical
for the Soviet literature of the 1950-1960s. Like other heroes of then Soviet books, people in the
Efremov's tales and novels are beautiful, intelligent, kind, strong, honest, and so on. As for the
fantastic worlds themselves, described by the author in some of his books ( "Tumannost' Andromedy",
"Chas Byka"), they also seem not much different from the worlds represented in then Soviet
science fiction, where earthmen successfully build Communism. As usual, the earthmen have developed next planets, changed the
planet, and established contacts with space civilizations. So some readers may find Efremov's
literary works too similar to the ordinary stories about Utopia or Communism and, therefore, those readers may consider such
works not topical today.
However, in my personal opinion, it would be very stupid at least to equate the Efremov's Communism
with the official quite primitive Soviet Communism because they are not equivalent. Some of those readers, who read the author's
works carefully, might have noticed the following writer's idea - most of the beings from other stars should have human-like
appearance. In other words, the ways of evolution on different planets are alike and they lead, as a rule, to creating of the
harmonious, human-like body. This conclusion is not accidental because the author strongly believed that the human body is
a model of perfection and beauty. That's why his literary works are different from those of then Soviet literature. All Soviet writers
focused their attention on only moral make-up of people of future. In their works they discussed only the moral of "the builders of
Communism". And it must be said that those "builders" were often quite commonplace people.
Efremov discussed other ideas. Of course, his people of tomorrow also build Communism. But the
author often emphasized their physical beauty, not only their ethical make-up. Even in his early works
("Na Kray Oikumeny") he focused much attention on physical perfection of his characters, unlike most
of Soviet authors.
My conclusion is as follows. Efremov is unique because he was first among the Soviet writers of the
1950-1960s to appreciate physical or rather sexy beauty of the people described in his stories. To put it briefly, in
Efremov's works aesthetics is at least as much important as ethics. That was the
crowning Efremov's achievement I still appreciate deeply.
To learn more about my attitude to Ivan Efremov's creative work, one can also read my short comments on one of the great author's novels, "Chas Byka". Probably, this novel has never been translated into English so one can first look at the brief plot
of "Chas Byka" and/or read the Ivan Efremov interview
in which he told how the novel "Chas Byka" was created.
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