Russian tragi-comic novel in verse. The history of Russian as well as and world literature obviously has not too much works written in the genre of the novel in verse. It is not a poem, a novel in verse, with all its distinctive features: a wise philosophical thinking, breadth and depth of coverage of the events, the variety of images, and the depth of symphonic ideas. It means, of course, that this novel tends to be one of the best in both genres, poem and novel in verse. Despite the general spirit and nature of the poem and novel in verse are different, heartbeat line is presented ... The sensitive reader will feel it accurately. Despite, I did not familiar with all works of Vladimir Lazarev, I know him as a poet, novelist, philosopher, essayist, literary critic. Since August 1999, he is living in the United States. I was greatly impressed with his book of verses and poems "on the exchange of flow times," published in 2006 in New - York (publisher of "New History - "The New Review") under header "Modern literature abroad." At the same time, I read the Lazarev's deep and passionate article "The tragedy of society, and the impulse to cultivate spiritual soil" in volume "Russian asceticism," devoted to 90 - anniversary of academic Dmitry Likhachev (Moscow, ed., "Nauka," 1996). Sympathetically and attentively, agreeing with many statements, I read the dialogue of Lazarev with Doctor in Historical Sciences Olga Tuganova in "Self-Renewal of Eternal Values. Does the Essence of Homo Sapiens may be Confirmed?\ " in the book "American Character "(Moscow," Science," 1998), and their joint socio - philosophical book "Circle of Concepts. For the Comfort and Amusement of Himself and his Contemporaries "(Moscow," Humanitarian Fund "1998 2 nd Edition), with the comments of the poet and his thoughts about the new form of highly developed thinking matter, as well as his philosophical treatises at the end of the book. By the way, "American character" is in many US university libraries. From time to time, selectively returning to the "Circle of Ideas," I had prepared myself to the reading of "Bun" tragi - comic novel in verse, because both of these works belong to different genres, tragedy and comedy, which go hand in hand. "Tragicomic," is usually written in one word, but Lazarev hyphenated it: tragi - comic, probably to emphasize that this work is not a separate element of the tragic and the comic, as is commonly believed, and especially characteristic of the literary currents, called Mannerism, a comic scene - against the overall tragedy. Let us follow the author.