Kapitolina Koksheneva’s book is the result of more than ten years of thinking about why it is boring for a normal person to read modern literature. Reflections that are valuable not so much for the analysis of some specific works and theatrical productions of the late twentieth century, but for their approach to serious ontological problems of the development of Russian culture. Koksheneva’s reflections are interesting both because they include a religious assessment of new literature and drama, and because this religiosity, even in the most indecent situations, sounds not like a sentence, but like sympathy. It’s not just “Russian”, it’s human to feel sorry for Viktyuk, who staged Radzinsky’s “Sports Scenes” back in the late 80s. To sympathize not with sin, but with a sinful person, with the squalor and ugliness of his inner world. And at the same time worry about the female images mutilated and dishonored by this man (article “About Woman”).