Dagestan State University
Faculty of Philology
Intertext and myth in Tatyana Tolstoy’s novel “Kys”
Work completed
5th year student RO OZO
Didkovskaya Ekaterina
Checked
Doctor of Philology, Prof. Mazanaev Sh. A.
Makhachkala-2012
Introduction……………………………………………………………3
The plot of T. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys”……………………………….4
I. Myth………………………………………………………………………………….5
II. Intertext
1) Intertextuality…………………………………...……6
2) The actual quote………………………………………………………...7
3) Allusions.…………………………………………….……10
4) Reminiscences (implicit quotes)………………...………12
5) Centone texts……………………………………..……13
Conclusion………………………………………………………...14
References……………………………………………………………………..16
Introduction
The abstract is devoted to the analysis of the features of Tatyana Tolstaya’s novel “Kys” from the point of view of intertextuality of poetics and mythologization of the events of the novel. Her work occupies a special position in modern literature, is ambiguously assessed by critics, sometimes causing heated controversy and controversy. Some note in the works of T. N. Tolstoy “a craving for eternal themes“, as the writer herself admits, but, nevertheless, all these themes vary and unfold against the backdrop of modern events [Pronina A.]. The release of the novel “Kys” marked T. N. Tolstoy’s appeal to a wider range of issues related to history and modernity. The novel touches on political, ideological, philosophical, social, ideological and other larger issues.
In an interview with the Literary Cafe, T.N. Tolstaya says: “...You need to write in such a way that the reader does not feel that he is considered an ignoramus. And besides, it’s advisable to make people laugh.”
About the creation of the novel in an interview with the Moscow News newspaper: “Trying to comprehend this [Russian] soul, which fears the INN and believes the MMM, you can observe it from a certain indifferent ethnographic position, so to speak, study nature from the balcony: “the rooks have arrived”; or you can try to become her: to squeeze into her skin, so to speak, and, cutting off, washing, wiping “the achievements of culture and civilization” from your consciousness, try to immerse yourself in “this.” […] And everything that is irrational, egoistic, infantile, primitively greedy, animal in you, you must inflate in yourself, feel. It's difficult. Brains, of course, are askew and twisted. But they grow compound eyes, like a bee’s.”
The novel is totally literary-centric […]. While working on the book, the writer, if not in her mind, then in her subconscious, kept, among countless others, the works of her grandfather A.N. Tolstoy (early), Andrei Bely, A.M. Remizov, F. Sologub and, of course, “The History of One city" by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. […]. The action of the novel takes place in the settlement of Fedor-Kuzmichsk (formerly Moscow); “The greatest Murza,” the creator of all things, in particular, of all previous Russian literature, is naturally called Fyodor Kuzmich. So, the brilliant poet and prose writer Fyodor Sologub in the world was Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov (in fact, Tyutyunnikov). It’s a stone’s throw from Sologubov’s “Nedotykomka” from the novel “The Little Demon” to the “kiss” creature. Shchedrin's "Foolovites", the inhabitants of the "city of Foolov", are very reminiscent of the inhabitants of T. Tolstoy's book, and the "Foolov chronicler", in particular, is the main character of the novel, Benedict, whose adventures he himself describes are plot-forming. “Kys” can be interpreted as a verbal and conceptual treasure, consisting of many caskets, each with secret compartments. [Prigodich V.]
The plot of T. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys”
The novel takes place after nuclear explosion, in a world of mutated plants, animals and people. Among the masses, the old culture has died out, and only those who lived before the explosion (the so-called “former”) preserve it. The main character of the novel, Benedict, is the son of the “former” woman Polina Mikhailovna. After her death, Benedict is taken in by another “former” - Nikita Ivanovich. He tries to accustom him to culture, but to no avail.
The image of Kysi - some kind of terrible creature - runs through the entire novel, periodically appearing in Benedict’s imagination and thoughts. Kys herself does not appear in the novel, probably being a figment of the characters’ imagination, the embodiment of fear of the unknown and incomprehensible, of the dark sides of her own soul. In the minds of the novel's heroes, Kys is invisible and lives in the dense northern forests:
“She sits on the dark branches and screams so wildly and pitifully: yay! Whoops! - and no one can see her. A man will go into the forest like this, and she will fall on his neck from behind: hop! and the backbone with your teeth: crunch! “And with his claw he will find the main vein and tear it, and all the mind will come out of the person.”
T. N. Tolstaya, like many other postmodern writers, pays great attention to the mythological side of the novel in her work. The novel "Kys" is the author's original mythological structure. This work contains not only a traditional myth, but also a modern one - “neo-myth”, which means “the conscious construction of works that are structurally and meaningfully identified with myth, as well as its ironic use” [Ponomareva O.].
In the novel “Kys” are presented different kinds myths:
1) Archetypal (about the creation of the world, explain its causality). Questions, eternal prerequisites of mythology, repeated in a circle: “What do we know about life? Come to think of it? Who told her to be, life? Why does the sun roll across the sky, why does a mouse rustle, trees stretch upward, a mermaid splashes in the river, the wind smells of flowers, a man hits a man on the head with a stick? That’s why sometimes you don’t feel like hitting, but you feel like going somewhere, in the summer, without roads, without paths, there, at sunrise, where the grass is light up to your shoulders, where blue rivers are playing, and above the rivers golden flies are milling about...”
2) Totemic myth. The mouse is like the cornerstone of a happy life. The era of the mouse fauna has arrived; “Mice are our support” is the slogan of the residents of the “city of the future.” “The mouse is a different matter, there it is, it’s plentiful everywhere, it’s fresh every day, catch it if you have time, and exchange it for your health, but for God’s sake, who will say a word to you? And they put it in the coffin with the deceased along with household belongings, and it is not forbidden to give a bundle to the bride.”
3) The myth of the cultural hero (characters who obtain or create cultural objects). Here such a character is Fyodor Kuzmich: “Fyodor Kuzmich brought fire to people, glory to him. He brought it down from the sky, stamped his foot - and in that place the earth lit up with a clear flame.” Fyodor Kuzmich is equated to Prometheus. “Who invented the sleigh? Fedor Kuzmich. Who thought of cutting a wheel out of wood? Fedor Kuzmich. He taught me how to hollow out stone balls, how to catch mice and how to cook soup. He taught me how to tear birch bark, how to sew books, how to make ink from swamp rust, how to split writing sticks..."
4) Eschatological myth (about the end of the world) - is the antithesis of the cosmogonic myth. This is a myth about the end, which is sure to be followed by a beginning, new life. So in the novel by T.N. Tolstoy: the world that emerged after the Explosion, having passed a given circle trajectory, approaching the point of closure, should reveal a sign of destruction, this myth is ambivalent: in it life and death merge.
“It’s as if there’s an azure sea in the south, and on that sea there’s an island, and on that island there’s a tower, and there’s a golden couch in it. There is a girl on the couch, one hair is gold, the other is silver, one is gold, the other is silver. Now she unravels her braid, unravels everything, and when she unravels it, the world will end.”
II. Intertext
T. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys”, written in the style of postmodern poetics, is a text that contains specific and explicit references to previous texts.
1) The intertextuality of the novel “Kys” is also manifested in its appeal to the genres of folk verbal creativity. T. Tolstoy’s novel is an “encyclopedia of folklore”: fairy tales, conspiracies, tales, songs. Fat creates a special fairy world. The text contains various types of folklore citation: figurative, direct quotation, alteration of folklore text.
The text of the novel retells the plots of several famous Russian folk tales: “Kolobok”, “Ryaba Hen”, “Turnip” with the aim of rethinking and applying to real life Fedor-Kuzmichska.
The main feature of this world is that the fantastic here smoothly turns into the natural, while, however, losing the symbol of “miracle”. The miracle here is what is natural for the reader. For example, in the novel, Anfisa Terentyevna’s “unusual” chickens were strangled by the residents of Fedoro-Kuzmichsk, although the reader understands that they were completely normal.
One of these legendary images is the terrible Kys, the story of which was created as a folk legend, for example, can be compared scary stories about goblin, water and other evil spirits, which abound in Russian folklore: “In those forests, old people say, a katy lives. She sits on the dark branches and screams so wildly and pitifully: yay! Whoops! - and no one can see her. A man will go into the forest like this, and she will fall on his neck from behind: hop! and the backbone with your teeth: crunch! “And with his claw he will find the main vein and tear it, and all the mind will come out of the person.”
If we talk about the meaning of this image, some researchers believe that Kys is a combination of all base instincts in human soul. Others say that Kys is a prototype of the Russian restless soul, which always poses questions to itself and always seeks answers to them. It is no coincidence that precisely at the moments when Benedict begins to think about the meaning of existence, it seems to him as if Kys is creeping up on him. Probably Kys is something between the prototype of eternal Russian melancholy (and Kys screams very sadly in the novel) and human ignorance.
Another, no less important image for the novel is the white Prince Bird Paulin:
“And that Pauline Bird’s eyes are half the size of her face, and her mouth is human, red. And she is such a beauty, the Prince’s Bird, that she has no peace from herself: her body is covered with a white carved feather, and her tail hangs seven arshins long, like a woven net, like lace goosebumps. The Pauline bird keeps turning its head, looking at itself, and kissing itself, its beloved one. And no harm has ever come to any of the people from that white bird, no, and never will. Amen".
Their images seem to remain outside the main plot narrative, but are mentioned so often that one can understand: Kys is the unmaterialized embodiment of unconscious human fears, and the Prince Bird Paulin is a reflection of their hopes and subconscious thirst for the beauty of life.
The novel “Kys” was partly created based on oral folk art. Traditional for fairy tale is the motive of the prohibition, its violation will certainly lead to punishment. In the novel, this is a ban on storing and reading printed books, supposedly contaminated with radiation and dangerous to life. The motive of a profitable marriage prevails in Russian folk tales - a princess and half a kingdom to boot. In our case, this is the beautiful Olenka - the daughter of the Chief Orderly, the “formidable Kudeyar Kudeyarych,” who has “claws on his feet,” which evokes an allusion to the images of monsters from Russian fairy tales.
Quoting a folklore text is an element of creating a special style of a novel. Author's rethinking folklore images, motives and plots helps to reveal the depth of the poetics of the work.
2) The actual quote
The artistic space in the novel “Kys” is a dense precedent text, including to a greater extent poetic unattributed quotes, allusions and centons from the works of A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, O. Mandelstam, A. Blok, M. Tsvetaeva, V. Mayakovsky, B. Pasternak, S. Yesenin, I. Annensky, B. Okudzhava, B Grebenshchikov and many others.
According to N.A. Fateeva, quote - “reproduction of two or more components of the donor text with its own predication. The quote actively targets the “bulging joy of recognition.”
Most often, intertextual interactions in the novel are updated in the form of quotes and other kinds of references to texts works of art. Several groups of quotations can be distinguished depending on the source:
From works of art
A.S. Pushkin:
“In all the elements, man -
Tyrant, traitor, or prisoner."
“Ah, brother Pushkin! Yeah! Also keep your essay away from rodents! He will write, and they will eat, he will write, and they will eat! That's why he was worried! That's why he drove back and forth through the snow, through the icy desert! Bell ding-ding-ding! He will harness the reborn to the steppe! I hid mine, looking for somewhere to keep it!
No fire, no dark house,
Wilderness and snow, towards me
Only miles are striped
They come across one!”
M.Yu. Lermontov (from I. Goethe):
“The other day Benedict whitewashed:
Mountain peaks
They sleep in the darkness of the night;
Quiet Valleys
Full of fresh darkness;
The road is not dusty,
The sheets don't tremble...
Wait a bit,
You too will have a rest.
Everything here is clear to a fool.”
Osip Mandelstam:
"Insomnia. Homer. Tight sails.
I read the list of ships halfway through:
This long brood, this crane train,
What once rose above Hellas...
Here you will only grunt and scratch your beard.”
Alexander Blok:
“Kuzmich composed:
Oh spring without end and without edge!
An endless and endless dream!
I recognize you, life, I accept you,
And I greet you with the ringing of the shield!
Just why “the ringing of a shield.” After all, the shield for decrees is made of wood.”
Marina Tsvetaeva:
“...the poems of Fyodor Kuzmich, glory to him, from the obscure ones, came to mind:
In the black sky - words are written -
And the beautiful eyes went blind...
And we are not afraid of the deathbed,
And the passionate bed is not sweet for us.
In sweat - one who writes, in sweat - one who plows!
We know a different kind of zeal:
A light fire dancing over the curls -
A breath of inspiration!
Yakov Polonsky:
"From the dawn there is a luxurious cold
Infiltrates the garden
Composed by Fedor Kuzmich. Of course, we don’t have gardens, maybe it’s some kind of Murza, and if it’s cold, that’s true... It penetrates.”
F.I. Tyutchev:
“It’s not for nothing that winter gets angry -
Her time has passed
Spring is knocking on the window
And he drives you out of the yard.”
Grigory Margovsky:
"After midnight the heart feasts,
Taking a silver mouse for a bite!”
Innokenty Annensky:
“Fyodor Kuzmich, glory to him, composed:
Not because it makes it light,
But because it doesn’t require light.
There is no need for any light with her, but on the contrary: when Benedict comes to her, he will immediately blow out the candle...”
K.D. Balmont:
"I want to be daring, I want to be brave,
I want to rip your clothes off!
If you want it, grab it, who’s stopping you?”
Dmitry Travin:
“...or the bile, and sadness, and grief, and emptiness will dry up the eyes, and also the words
looking for it, here they are:
But isn't the world the same
Throughout the centuries, now and always,
From the Kabbalah of the Chaldean signs
To the sky, where is the star burning?
All the same wisdom, the wisdom of the dust,
And in it is our same double:
Melancholy, powerlessness and fear
A face looking through centuries!”
Boris Pasternak:
“And they insert it, this day, in February, and the verse is like this:
February! Get some ink and cry!”
Nikolay Zabolotsky:
“Oh world, curl up in one block,
One broken pavement,
One spitting barn,
One mouse hole!
Maximilian Voloshin:
“There are a bunch of books laid out on the table. Well, that's it. Everything is his now. Carefully opened one:
All the thrill of life, of all ages and races,
Lives in you. Always. Now. Now.
Poetry. He slammed it shut and flipped through another one.”
Vladimir Solovyov:
“What kind of East do you want to be:
The East of Xerxes or Christ?
T. N. Tolstaya often uses a quote as “an exact reproduction of some other person’s fragment of text,” but in this case the meaning completely changes. Transformation and formation of the meanings of the author's text is the main function of a quotation. This function of the quote is realized primarily through its comic rethinking. In “Kysi” the author of the “alien” texts presented is Fyodor Kuzmich. Most of them are unattributed, as the true author of the lines is not mentioned.
Quotes from works of oral folk art
The texts of fairy tales, sayings and proverbs are mainly used:
· “If hiccups attack, say three times:
Hiccup, hiccup,
Go to Fedot,
From Fedot to Yakov,
From Jacob to everyone,
She will leave."
· “Benedict sat down at the table, straightened the candle, spat on the writing stick, raised his eyebrows, craned his neck and looked at the scroll: what had to be whitewashed today. And they got “Tales of Fyodor Kuzmich”.
“Once upon a time there lived a grandfather and a woman,” wrote Benedict, “and they had a chicken, Ryaba. A hen once laid an egg, not an ordinary one, but a golden one...” Yes, Consequences! Everyone has Consequences!”
· “Sat down to whitewash a new fairy tale: “Kolobok.” This is such a funny, scary story. This little bun left his grandmother, and his grandfather, and the bear, and the wolf. I was rolling around in the forest. He sang funny songs, with jokes: “I’m a little bun, sweeping the barn, scraping the bottom of the barrel, mixing it with sour cream, chilling the window!”
· “Come yourself. Let’s sit side by side, talk well... Let’s eat...”
· “But you read poorly! The grandfather pulls the turnip, but cannot pull it out. I called my grandmother. They pull and pull, but they can’t pull it out. Others were called. Uselessly. They called the mouse and pulled out a turnip. How to understand this? And so you understand that without a mouse you can’t go anywhere. The mouse is our support!”
· “And Benedict lay wrapped up, choking on broth and tears, and his father-in-law, lighting up the pages with his eyes, running his finger along the lines, read in an important, thick voice:
Ko-mar pi-shield,
Under it the oak shield is cracking,
Windadors, windadors,
My vindadorushki!”
Song Lyrics Quotes
· “Steppe and steppe all around,
The path is long!
In that steppe deaf
The coachman was dying!
(Russian folk song).
· “What a beauty of her hands!..
What - the heat of her feather beds!.. -
Come on, brother, let's give up
Come on, brother, let’s soar!”
(B. Okudzhava, “Song about a long journey”).
· “The flame burns, does not smoke,
How long will it last?
She doesn't spare me, -
He’s wasting me, he’s wasting me.”
(B. Okudzhava, “The flame burns, it does not smoke...”).
· “The heart of a beauty!
Prone to treason!
And to change!
Like the wind of May!!!"
(Giuseppe Verdi, Song of the Duke from the opera “Rigoletto”).
· “...then your legs won’t stand still, they’ll start dancing on their own. And there are still good ones. “Here come Ivan and Danila.” "Million Red roses G". “Because of the island on the rod.” “And I love a married man.” And much more."
(B. Grebenshchikov, song “Ivan and Danilo”, A. Pugacheva “A Million Scarlet Roses”, D. Sadovnikov “Because of the Island to the Rod”, M. Kolchanov and N. Dorizo “And I Love a Married Man”).
3) One of the most noticeable semantic devices in the work is the device of allusion.
T.N. Tolstaya: “I actually wanted to remove or minimize all political allusions. I changed and threw out the text in pieces so as not to give a reason for this cheap wink: I mean, they say, the name and his actions. But this is where the work stalled: whatever I come up with, within a week, it happens. You write a phrase or a scene, and then in the newspaper you read as if a quote from your text. For example, back in 1986, a relatively innocent year, I had the idea that main enemy my characters are Chechens. Just like that, because I knew only Lermontov’s Chechens: “an evil Chechen crawls to the shore, sharpens his dagger.” It was my nanny who sang us a lullaby. […] In short, at that time there were no Chechens in nature. Time is running, Khasbulatov appears... So, I think, he crawled... Then Dudayev... I see sharpening... And when the first one began Chechen War, then it was necessary to change the text, but I got angry: what kind of a slave am I to political correctness, and I left everything as it was. There are no hints here, pure mythology.”
Allusion (from Latin allusion - hint, joke) - in literature, oratory and colloquial speech reference to famous saying, a fact of literary, historical, and more often political life or to a work of art"
Allusions found in the text of the novel are most often unattributed. According to their internal structure of building an intertextual relationship, they best perform the function of discovering something new in the old. This is Nikita Ivanovich’s remark:
· “But the word inscribed in them is harder than copper and more durable than the pyramids.”
This line contains more than one pretext: the first part contains elements of M. Tsvetaeva’s poem “In the Black Sky - Words Are Inscribed” from the cycle “Marches II”, the second refers to several authors. In the poem by M.V. Lomonosov we find: “I erected a sign of immortality for myself / Higher than the pyramids and stronger than copper.”
In G. Derzhavin’s “Monument” there are the following lines: “I erected a wonderful, eternal monument to myself / It is harder than metals and higher than the pyramids.”
The list is completed by poets: V.V. Kapnist (“I erected a lasting monument to myself; It is higher than the pyramids and stronger than copper”), A.A. Fet (“I erected a monument more eternal than durable copper / And royal buildings above the pyramids”), Tuchkov (“I erected a monument to myself / Above the royal pyramids / I glorified my name with this. / Its magnificent appearance / Which appears harder than copper”) and others .
In T.N. Tolstoy there is a borrowing in which particles of the precedent text are dispersed over the entire page. This is a quote from the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Benedict learns about ancient printed books kept by people. Varvara Lukinishna’s “discovery” throws him into confusion and fills his mind with disordered thoughts:
· “They look at each other: maybe they have the same Old book hidden under the bed... Let's close the doors and get it out... Let's read it. And a candle, with... full of anxiety and deception!.. What fear!
The selected fragments send us to the pretext: “And the candle, by which she read a book full of anxiety, deception, grief and evil.” In this situation, the text is easily recognized, since there is a sign of attribution (a description of the appearance of the author of these lines).
T. N. Tolstaya pays great attention to nominative allusion, which carries information about literary, historical and political eras and characters. The word in a modern text cannot be understood separately, it is cut off from the entire previous cultural tradition; it itself carries a connection with previous texts. Allusions contained in the names of the characters and in common words serve as a means of connecting the novel with other texts, expand the scope of the work, and allow a deeper look at the problem.
Thus, an interesting allusion arises in the name of Benedict’s wife Olenka. This is a clear allusion to Pushkin's Olga in Eugene Onegin. Her features are her feminine nature, lack of interest in everything that goes beyond everyday life. She is beautiful, but stupid, lives in the interests of a man. In Benedict’s initial perception, Olenka deceives our expectations associated with her name: she is mysterious, enigmatic, but with marriage this entire halo is erased.
The allusion is also contained in the name of Nikita Ivanovich. His ability to make fire is a reference to Prometheus, and to fairy tale fire-breathing dragons.
There are allusions not only in proper names, but also in common nouns:
· “We have small Murzas, and Fyodor Kuzmich, - glory to him, is the Big Murza, for long years his life."
Thus, in the designation of bosses with the word “Murza” there is a literary allusion. In the dictionary, the meaning of this word is defined as follows: “Murza (Turkic, from the Persian “Mirza”) is the title of the feudal nobility in the Astrakhan, Kazan, Kasimov, Crimean and Siberian Khanates and in the Nogai Horde” (TSB, vol. 17).
The word "orderlies" is rich in allusions:
· “And in the sleigh there are orderlies, you won’t be remembered by night. They gallop in red overalls, with slits made where eyes should be, and you can’t see their faces, pah, pah, pah.”
This lexeme contains references to both historical and literary facts. In the reader's mind, orderlies are more associated with mental hospital employees. One can also draw a parallel with the employees of the GPU, who took away for “treatment” people who had somehow offended the authorities. There may also be an allusion to any punitive groups of people: executioners, the Inquisition, guardsmen, etc. The main theme of this word: “treating the disease,” therefore, to better understand the meaning of the word, you need to turn to the meaning of the word “Disease”:
· “A sore throat or aching head is not a Disease, God forbid, God forbid. A broken finger or a black eye is also not a Disease, God forbid, God forbid... But what is that Disease, and when it comes, and what will happen then - no one knows."
There are undoubtedly semantic discrepancies with the general linguistic meaning of the word “disease”. In the novel, the word “Disease” is close in its meaning to the dictionary figurative one, but has differences (except for being written with a capital letter). The disease in the novel is the storage of old printed books, and therefore free-thinking (those who have not seen these books will not know that everything written in the “little books” is real plagiarism, and not the work of the great Fedor-Kuzmich). All this undermines the authority of the authorities, which means that everyone who has seen these books needs to be taken away for “treatment.” The allusion in this word is historical - this is the 30s of the last century, when at night representatives of the KGB could arrive in their legendary black funnel (the novel analogy is a red sleigh) to almost any house, conduct a search (in the novel: “seizure”) and take away a person for interrogation (“treatment”), and, as in the novel, as a rule, no one returned home.
Ordinary townspeople inhabiting Fedor-Kuzmichsk are called “darlings”. This word contains a hint of the official address to the population of the USSR: “comrades.” Tolstaya is ironic about the formation of official words that convey the personal, warm attitude of the subject of speech.
In the word “Former” (“Probably from the Former, I sense it in the dialect”) a cultural and historical allusion arises, this is an allusion to those people to whose circle Tatyana Tolstaya belonged. This is an intelligentsia that has retained contact with Russian pre-revolutionary culture and reveres human values, not accepting the cruelty and inhumanity of Soviet power.
The name of another group of people who populate the novel is also of interest. "Reborns" occupy the lowest position in the social ladder, they are used instead of horses
· “And the reincarnation is harnessed to the sleigh, running, stamping his felt boots, pale, lathered, tongue out. He’ll run all the way to the workers’ hut and stand rooted to the spot on all four legs, only his shaggy sides are shaking: hey, hey, hey, hey.”
There is a reference to A. Solzhenitsyn’s novel “The Gulag Archipelago”: “the sleigh and cart are pulled not by horses, but by people - there is also the word vridlo (temporarily acting as a horse).” There is also an allusion to the now outdated meaning of this word: “one who has ideologically, politically, morally degenerated, betrayed the progressive views, the revolutionary worldview”; precisely such people ended up in the camps.
Of particular interest is the literary allusion contained in the word “dubelt”; it contains the author’s reflections on creativity and talent:
· “Benedict tapped the log with his felt boot. Rings; The wood is good and light. But dense. And dry. Good material. - Dubelt? - asked Benedict. - Who?!?! The old man swore, spat, his little eyes sparkled; Why he got angry - he didn’t explain. He turned red and puffed up like a beetroot: “It’s Pushkin!” Pushkin! Future!…".
Dubelt is the name of the censor Pushkin, who is known as a fierce persecutor of Russian literature: he demanded that the works of A.S. be prevented from being published. Pushkin. The fact that the statue of Pushkin is made from wood called “dubelt” emphasizes the connection in Russian culture between creativity and persecution and prohibitions. This is creativity “in spite of”.
4) Identification of quotations and reminiscences (implicit quotations) is necessary for the correct reading of the text; it reveals hidden depths in what seemed simple, allows you to “decipher” what seemed mysterious or even meaningless.
The narrator uses many types of reminiscences in his work. Of course, in the novel “Kys” they acquire a different semantic meaning, but one way or another they are designed for the memory and associative perception of the reader.
As for the heroes of the novel, an abundant number of reminiscences with its varieties prevails in the speech of the Former Population and begins to grow in Benedict after he reads the literary classics. The same can be said about the narrator: the increase in his cultural level can be traced by the frequency of use in his speech catch phrases and lines from famous works Russian literary classics (A.S. Pushkin, M. Bulgakov, M. Gorky, N.A. Ostrovsky). Among them are literal reminiscences: from prayers: “...From now on and unto ages of ages...” “...For the century of ages, Amen,” from the works of A.S. Pushkin: “...To burn people’s hearts with a verb...” “...What do you want, elder?” etc.
The presence in the narrator’s speech of numerous reminiscences of the works of A.S. Pushkin testifies to his erudition, poetic taste and romanticism. For example, the famous lines “Without deity, without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love” evoke a poem by A.S. Pushkin “I remember a wonderful moment...”
Such reminiscences make it clear to the reader that the narrator is clearly a contemporary, and he has a certain point of view on this matter. A wide variety of text elements are reproduced. Thus, the narrator quotes verbatim entire phrases from the works of various writers, for example, well-known lines from the poem by A.S. Pushkin “Without deity, without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love”, the first lines from a poem by N.A. Nekrasov’s “Troika” (“Why are you greedily looking at the road...”) and from B. Pasternak’s poem “Get Ink and Cry.” The smallest elements of the text also become reminiscences. The phrase “disease in the head” is reminiscent of Bulgakov’s quote. And the famous phrase of A. Grigoriev “Pushkin is our everything” takes on the following form from the narrator: “You are our everything, and we are yours.” A famous phrase from a poem by A.S. Pushkin’s “Monument” “The people’s path to it will not be overgrown” appears to the narrator in a different form: “I thought that the people’s path would not be overgrown, but if you don’t weed it, it will be overgrown.”
An example of reminiscences, as an involuntary reproduction by the author of a familiar phrasal or figurative structure from other literary works, the following phrase serves: “With tacit consent it is the indifferent ones who commit atrocities” (an allusion to the words of B. Yasensky “Fear the indifferent - they do not kill or betray, but it is with their tacit consent that betrayal and lies exist on earth”). Use of lexical repetition “thinks in thought”, “draws pictures”, etc. speaks, on the one hand, about the poverty of the narrator’s language, and on the other hand, leads to thoughts about the poetic character of the narrator, his linguistic flair and erudition.
5) Centonic texts represent a whole complex of allusions and quotations. For the most part they are unattributed. The text, composed of interrogative sentences, conveys the emotional state of the main character:
· "What's in a name? Why does the wind swirl in the ravine? What, what do you want, old man? Why are you looking greedily at the road? Why are you bothering me? Boring, Nina! Get some ink and cry! Open the prison for me! Or will a slow disabled person slam a barrier into my forehead? I'm here! I'm innocent! I'm with you! I'm with you!".
This centon text is a collection of recognizable lines from various poems by five famous authors (Pushkin, Nekrasov, Blok, Lermontov, Pasternak).
Conclusion
Intertextual dialogue is a determining factor in the formation of both the semantic field and the poetics of T. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys”. Being a postmodern work, the novel contains very specific and obvious references to previous texts. Intertextuality is one of the most important categories of a novel’s text, it determines the author’s artistic consciousness, acts as a universal way of constructing a postmodern text, shapes its structure and content, and has specific means of expression.
In structure, the novel “Kys” is a complex formation that combines elements of a parable, a fairy tale, an epic, an anecdote, a pamphlet, a feuilleton, a utopian legend, satirical work, poetic texts, which is distinctive feature dystopias.
In addition, the themes of “Kysi” are diverse: the social utopia of humanity, problems of moral destruction, cultural and national self-determination.
In the novel by T. N. Tolstoy, there is a combination of traditional myth (“the most ancient legend”) and the modern existence of myth (“neomyth”). “Kys” is the author’s interpretation of the Russian national myth, the components of which are public holidays, traditions of the Russian people, the literary heritage of the nation, and especially the name of Pushkin.
"Kys" is an "encyclopedia of folklore". The text of the novel contains various types of folklore citation: structural (the characters are divided into two groups: representatives of the real “anti-world” and the fantastic “world”), figurative (Kys is evil, Princely Bird Paulin is good), direct quotation folklore work, alteration of folklore text, its modernization and parody. The main functional property of folklore intertext is its comic rethinking. The main characters “speculate” fairy tales, give new interpretations in the context of their modernity, redefine the genre of works.
Intertextuality in the novel “Kys” is a technique for creating artistic structures and analysis tool. The functional role of intertextuality consists in the specific organization of text structure, form and style, in polyphony, in semantic openness and plurality, in orientation to cultural context. The artistic space of “Kysi” is a dense precedent text, including mostly poetic unattributed quotes, allusions and centons.
Minor changes are also observed in the punctuation of the quoted text, which adds special emotionality to the speech of the characters.
Allusions in the text of the novel are contained not only in text passages, but also in individual words. Nominative allusion carries information about literary, historical and political eras and characters. T.N. Tolstaya, paying great attention to semantics, plays with words, which is reflected in the rethinking of quotes and inventing new meanings.
Allusions contained in the names of the characters and in common words serve as a means of connecting the novel with other texts, expand the scope of the work, and allow a deeper look at the problem.
The comic re-interpretation of the quote plays an important role in revealing the image of a typical person from a new dystopian society that has access to ancient books. As a result of Benedict's interpretation of the texts fiction the following characteristics of the hero become obvious: primitiveness of thinking, unwillingness to think about the meaning of obvious statements, unsuccessful reading of a huge number of books.
The text of the work is deeply intertextual. Special role Quotes play a role in the novel. Tolstaya uses excerpts from the Bible, excerpts from song lyrics, and excerpts from Russian classics. With the help of quotes, the main problems in the novel are raised, and at the same time, the author ironizes and creates a parody, thereby showing the failure of attempts to destroy the word and literature.
Bibliography
- Erokhina M.V. Solovyova O.V. Semantic interpretations in T. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys” [Electronic resource] // Materials of the international scientific and practical conference “Modern Russian literature: problems of studying and teaching” // Access mode: http:www.pspu.ru / liter 2005_shtml.
- Kozitskaya E.A. Autocitation and intertextuality // Literary text. Problems and research methods. - Tver, 1998. - Issue. 4. - P.130-136.
- Ponomareva O.A. “Dialogism” of T. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys” // News of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after. A.I. Herzen. - St. Petersburg, 2007. - No. 20 - P. 160-165.
- Pronina A. Heritage of civilization. About T. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys” // Russian Literature, 2002. - No. 6. - P.30-33.
- Tolstaya T.N. Kys: Roman. - Reissue. - M.: Podkova, 2003. - 320 p.
- Fateeva N.A. Typology of intertextual elements and connections in artistic speech // Izv. AN Series of Literature and Language. - 1998. - No. 5. - P.25-38.
- Fomenko I.V. Quote // Russian literature. - 1998. - No. 1. - P.73-80.
- Makarova M.V. "Alien" word in literary text(based on the novel “Kys” by T. N. Tolstoy) // Siberian Federal University. - Krasnoyarsk, 2010.
- http://tanyant.livejournal.com/ Tatyana Tolstoy's blog.
- http://www.tema.ru/rrr/litcafe/tolstaya/ LITERARY CAFE ON THE INTERNET, interview with T.N. Tolstoy.
- http://prigodich.8m.com/html/notes/n042.html Vasily Prigodich “The “thin” book of Tatyana Tolstoy or “kys”, “scat”, “lynx”, “Rus”....”
- http://lib.rus.ec/b/56039/read “Myumziki and Nostradamus”, interview with the newspaper “Moscow News”.
- Zhilavskaya I.V. Rules for writing abstracts. Toolkit.
Reads in 9 minutes, original - 8 hours
Illustration by O. Pashchenko
Very briefly
A satirical tale about a peculiar Russian hut “paradise” that appeared after the Explosion in the twentieth century. The explosion destroyed the bonds of civilization and caused the mutation of the Russian language and the people themselves.
All chapters are named with letters of the Old Russian alphabet.
The action takes place in Moscow after the Explosion in the twentieth century. More than two hundred years have passed since then. The capital is called by the name of the main boss - the Greatest Murza, now Fedor-Kuzmichsk. The simple darlings have everything, thanks to Fyodor Kuzmich, glory to him: he invented letters, a wheel, to catch mice, a rocker. Behind him are the little murzas, above the little darlings.
Many who were born after the Explosion have Consequences: for example, one and a half faces, or ears all over the body, or cockscombs, or something else. The Former ones remained after the Explosion - those who were still there before it. They have already lived for three centuries and have not aged. Look, like Mother Benedicta: she lived for two hundred and thirty years, and was still young until she was poisoned. The main stoker, who brings fire to every house, Nikita Ivanovich, is also from the Former Ones. Before the Explosion, he was already quite an old man, he kept coughing. And now it breathes fire, and it will be warm in the houses: the whole of Fedor-Kuzmichsk depends on it. Benedict also wanted to become a Stoker, but his mother insisted that her son become a scribe: she had the ONEVERSET ABRASION, even if Benya knew how to read and write. The father almost pulls the mother by the hair, “and the neighbors don’t say a word: that’s right, the husband teaches his wife.”
Benedict sometimes asked his mother: why and why there was an explosion? Yes, she didn’t really know. It’s as if people were playing and finishing the game with ARGUY.
On the way to work, Benedict meets the degenerates: “They are scary, and you can’t understand whether they are people or not: their face looks like a person’s, their body is covered with fur, and they run on all fours. And on each foot there is a felt boot. They say they lived even before the Explosion, they were reincarnated.”
But the worst thing is Kys: “A man will go into the forest like this, and she will fall on the back of his neck: hop! and the backbone with your teeth: crunch! - and with his claw he will find the main vein and tear it, and all the mind will come out of the person. This one will come back, but he is not the same, and his eyes are not the same, and he walks without understanding the road, as happens, for example, when people walk in their sleep under the moon, with their arms outstretched, and move their fingers: they themselves are sleeping, but they themselves are walking.” True, Nikita Ivanovich says that there is no Kysi, they say it was invented out of ignorance.
They hit the mallet - the working day begins in the Izba. Benedict rewrites on birch bark the works of the Greatest Murza, Fyodor Kuzmich, glory to him. About Kolobok or Ryaba. Or some poetry. The drawings are drawn by Olenka, a beloved beauty, “dressed in a hare’s fur coat, she goes to work in a sleigh - it’s obvious that she’s a noble family.”
There are also old books that were printed in ancient times. In the dark they glow, as if from radiation. The disease, God forbid, God forbid, may come from them: when they find out that the darling is holding some old printed book, the Orderlies are following him on the Red Sleigh. Everyone is terribly afraid of the orderlies: after their treatment, no one returned home. Benya's mother had an old printed book, but her father burned it.
They hit the Mallet - lunch. Everyone goes to the Dining Hut to eat mouse soup. The employee is a scary little darling with cockscombs! - having lunch with Benedict at the table. She loves art and knows a lot of poetry. He asks about the “horse” that is mentioned in Fyodor Kuzmich’s poems - an unfamiliar word. It's probably a mouse, Benedict answers. She says that Fyodor Kuzmich, thank him, seems to have different voices in different poems.
Once Fyodor Kuzmich came to Rabochaya Izba, glory to him. The largest Murza Bene is knee-deep - small in stature. Jump on Olenka's knees! And everyone listens and is in awe. And in the Izba, as luck would have it, the fire went out - no longer there. They sent for the Chief Stoker. Fyodor Kuzmich, thank him, donated his painting to the Izba - it’s called “Demon”. Then Nikita Ivanovich appeared - he breathed fire to make it warm. He is not afraid of anyone, and the light is always with him. At least he can burn the whole damn thing on earth!
The Decree of the Greatest Murza is issued to celebrate the New Year on March 1. Benedict gets ready: he catches mice at home, then exchanges them at the market for various goodies. You can exchange mice for birch bark books. You can buy it for plaques. They stand in queues all night long to get plaques - they get paid for their work. If someone falls asleep, they will take him under the miki and drag him to the end of the line. And when they wake up, they don’t know anything. Well, there are screams, fights, all sorts of injuries. Then pay tax to the state from the received plaques, in another window.
But it’s impossible to enjoy the goodies: already in the hut Benya imagines that Kys is approaching. And just then Nikita Ivanovich is knocking on the door - saving, darling, from Kysya. Benedict spends the week in a fever and misses the New Year. Nikita Ivanovich is with him all the time - preparing food, caring for him. Eh, Ben needs a family, woman. So as not to be distracted by “philosophy”. True, he goes to the women to spin and somersault. But that's not it.
Here a new decree comes out: on March 8, congratulate all women and do not beat them up. Benedict congratulates all the women at work on this day, including Olenka, and asks for her hand in marriage. “I’ll take it,” the sweetheart answers with agreement.
The woman with scallops invites you to visit. In her hut, she shows Benya an old printed book. What they are rewriting was not written by Fyodor Kuzmich, but by various former people - Nikita Ivanovich said. And there is no disease from old books. The frightened Benedict runs away.
Nikita Ivanovich pins his hopes on Benya - they say, his mother was educated, and her son also has the makings. He asks him to hew some kind of Pushkin out of wood. Pushkin is our everything, he says. Benedict does not understand much - these Formers swear with unfamiliar words, or they don’t like jokes. And what wonderful games there are! Jumping ropes, for example. One in the dark jumps on others from the stove. He will break something for someone, and if he doesn’t jump on anyone, he will hurt himself:
If someone hurts my member or causes damage to my body... it’s not funny... But that’s if it’s for me. And if it’s different, then it’s funny.
Little by little Benya begins to work on Pushkin. It turns out that Benya has a ponytail: is this a consequence? U normal person it shouldn't exist. I have to agree to cut him off.
He meets Olenka's parents. It turns out that her father is the Chief Orderly. The whole family has claws, scratching under the table: The consequence is this.
After the wedding, he moves into a huge mansion with his wife’s parents. I stopped going to work: why? His father-in-law enlightens him: people burn printed books out of ignorance. Now Benedict uses a huge library of old books and reads everything avidly. “Iliad”, “Ass fool. Color it yourself,” “Electric Traction,” “Black Prince,” “Cipollino,” “Beekeeping,” “Red and Black,” “Blue and Green,” “Crimson Island” are at his disposal. Having read all the books, he is horrified: what to do now?! Finally he notices his wife: he plays tricks with Olenka for a week, and then starts to get bored again.
Benya and his father-in-law ride on a Sanitary Sleigh among people to confiscate books. Benedict accidentally kills one darling with a hook. Looking for everyone. Desperate, Benya comes to ask Nikita Ivanovich. But the Stoker doesn’t give the book: he says he hasn’t mastered the alphabet of life yet.
Father-in-law encourages Benedict to make a revolution. They kill Fyodor Kuzmich, glory to him, they overthrow the tyrant. The father-in-law becomes the boss - the General Orderly, writes the first decree: “I will live in the Red Terem with double security,” “Don’t come within a hundred arshins, whoever comes up will immediately take a detour without talking.” The city will henceforth be called by his name. Second decree on freedoms:
...freedom on the left...or again...I can’t tell.
We decided: there will be freedom of assembly - in groups of three, no more. Benedict at first wants to allow his darlings to read old printed books, but then changes his mind: probably, the pages will be torn out or the books will be thrown. Necha!
Olenka gives birth to triplets. One of the offspring is a lump, immediately falls and rolls into some kind of crevice. And so it disappears. Benedict and the father-in-law are quarreling, the son-in-law keeps moving away from the Chief Orderly: his breath smells bad. The father-in-law calls Benya Kysya in revenge. But it’s true: Benya even had a tail! And I found a vein in a man!
The General Orderly decides to execute Nikita Ivanovich; the Stoker is no longer needed. One reincarnation knows where gasoline can be obtained, the orderly will let a spark from the ray come out of his eyes - and there will be fire.
They tie the stoker to Pushkin and want to set him on fire. But he releases a flame and burns all of Fedor-Kuzmichsk. Benedict escapes from the fire in a pit and asks: “Why didn’t you get burned?” - “But I’m reluctant.” Nikita Ivanovich and a comrade from the Former Ones rise into the air.
Peculiarities of reading the image of Benedict in T. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys” Relevance - page No. 1/1
Peculiarities of reading the image of Benedict in T. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys”
Relevance: Currently, the problem of preserving culture and education is one of the most pressing. Using the example of T. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys” and the image of its main character Benedict, we can analyze global myths national culture, including core myth of literary centrism.
Target: consider the peculiarities of reading the image of the main character Benedict in the paradigm of the literary-centric myth of Russian culture.
T. Tolstoy’s novel “Kys” (2000) is a landmark work of the era of Russian postmodernism, in which the author raises those actual problems modern Russian society, which have not yet found their resolution. Criticism (D. Olshansky, B. Paramonov, L. Rubinstein) recognized the book as a real “encyclopedia of Russian life,” a kind of parody of the eternal desire of Russians to “live according to what is written.”
In the novel, an apocalyptic world opens before us after the Explosion, which is embodied as a “Russian rebellion,” revolution, nuclear disaster” (N.V. Kovtun “Rus' of the Post-Quadre Age”). New Muscovy is a parody of Russia, condensed in the image of Fedoro-Kuzmichsk, and, according to an article by N.V. Kovtun, there is a city “beyond the last line”, where “its own fauna and flora, history, geography, borders and neighbors, customs and customs of the population, songs, dances, games” (B. Paramonov). This is a world filled to overflowing with fabulous, outlandish objects (Terem, Warehouses, Workers' Huts) and plants (Okayan-tree, fireweed, horsetails, rust, jerk-grass), it is dense, colorful, and unpredictable.
The main character of the novel is “darling” Benedict, a copyist of books, a graphomaniac. His image is a stylization of the popular print image of a “good fellow”: he has “a clean face, a healthy complexion, a strong body, get married now,” “a golden beard, the hair on his head is darker and curly” (Tolstaya 2001, p. 37). Also of great interest is the name of the main character. Benedict is interpreted in the text as a “dog” name (“Why do you, Benedict, have a dog name?” (T. Tolstaya 2001)), this is a kind of reference to the image of the beast of the Apocalypse. The beast is main character novel, a symbol of that hell, rebirth, apocalyptic world that we encounter in the text. Moreover, on ancient icons of the Last Judgment, the wicked are depicted with dog heads. Researcher E. Khvorostyanova, referring to the authority of W. Eco (the novel “The Name of the Rose” is one of the pretexts of “Kysi”), quotes the soothsayer Ubertinus: “The number of the beast, if you count it from Greek letters, is Benedict” (Khvorostyanova 2002, p. 115). Here, in the inverted, utopian world of T. Tolstoy, all boundaries between the divine and the devil are erased and formalized. There is nothing genuine in an upside-down world.
Benedict is a child of a new society and at the same time an involuntary continuer of his former life, which, first of all, is manifested in his appearance: he has no Consequences, except for a tail, as a sign of the beast and carnal existence. Another connection of the hero with life before the Explosion is his origin, Benedict’s mother is from the Former, with the “ONEVERSET ABRAZATION”, it was she who told her son about his past life, its structure, although all these stories were just a fairy tale for the boy, interesting, but incredible and , most importantly, incomprehensible: “... mother said that there were mansions higher than that, there weren’t enough fingers to count the tiers; So what’s this: take off your felt boots and count your feet?” “[Mother] says, before the Explosion, everything was different. When you come, he says, to MOGOZIN, you take what you want, but you don’t like it, and you turn up your nose, not like today. This MOGOZIN was like a Warehouse, only there was more good there...” (T. Tolstaya 2001).
However, Benedict differs from the rest of the “darlings” population precisely in his inner restlessness; from time to time he thinks about philosophical questions, while the darlings only need to be warm and nourished: “In from, you think, woman: why is she, woman? Cheeks, stomach, blinks his eyes, says something to himself. She turns her head, slaps her lips, but what’s inside her?” (Tolstaya 2001).
In the article by N.V. Kovtun there is a mention that the chosenness of the character is marked by the same name: Benedict is a “good word”, his profession refers to the temple of wisdom - the library. At the same time, Benedict seems to be running away from all his thoughts: he is sure that this is not “PHELOSOPHY”, this is Kys, the most evil and dangerous enemy is looking at his back. Benedict is a graphomaniac student for whom rewriting books is the only way to exist. While rewriting, he does not understand the meaning of words, does not perceive metaphors and allegories, which is why his reading is only a mechanical process, nonsense. He belongs to the category of those who supposedly love art, but in fact, are deprived of a living feeling, a feeling of “brotherhood, love, beauty and justice”:
"From the dawn there is a luxurious cold
Penetrates into the garden -
composed by Fyodor Kuzmich.
Of course, we don’t have gardens, maybe it’s some kind of Murza, but it’s cold - yes. Penetrates. The felt boots are leaky, my feet can hear the snow.” (T. Tolstaya, 2001)
However, books are, of course, the main passion of our hero, which also sets him apart from the rest. He is literally obsessed with reading, he believes that thanks to books one can learn the true meaning of life and those same philosophical questions. All of Benedict’s efforts are a desire, albeit unconscious, to find his own voice, the right to the “privacy” of being outside of official myths, to self-identification: from Pinocchio to man.
In search of an individual word/person, the hero begins a journey through the labyrinths of the unconscious, the corridors of the Terem-library, marrying the daughter of the chief orderly Kudeyarov, Olenka. He sees a prophetic dream: “and he had a dream: he seemed to be walking through his father-in-law’s house, from gallery to gallery, from tier to tier, and the house seemed to be the same, but not the same: as if it had become longer, but sideways, everything was bent sideways . Here he goes, walking and wondering: why does this house never end? But he seems to need to find one door, so he pulls all the doors and opens them. And what he needs behind that door is unknown” (Tolstaya 2001, p. 206).
In the aspect of literary myth, Benedict's journey is a sentimental education of feelings, the admonition of a village worker, a child, his integration into the world of written, high culture. The most important figure of literary myth is A.S. Pushkin. The image of the main character of the novel is superimposed on the image of Pushkin-Pinocchio (meaning the idol-Pushkin, who, under the guidance of the Former Ones, is hewn out of wood by the darling Benedict), correlates with the statue-idol of the poet. Benedict even thinks in the lines of Pushkin’s lyric poetry, “Monument” is especially often quoted: “And the serf hired all this weight to drag home, but to tell the truth, it wasn’t so much that it was heavy, but that he wanted to show off his nobility to his heart’s content. They say, I [Benedict] ascended higher with a rebellious head alexandrian pillar, I won’t dirty my hands with the weight of the task.” (Tolstaya 2001)
In his father-in-law's library, the main character seems to be already close to the truth, he recognizes the true authors of the books stored there, but at the same time he completely inadequately understands the meaning, as if nothing has changed since his time as a simple copyist.
For Benedict, it is in Terem that a new stage of moral degradation begins. If earlier he was a simple “darling”, now, having read books and having been in the “spiritual” family of Kudeyarov, he becomes cruel, greedy, thirsting for only one thing - to get another book: “ You, Book, my pure, my bright, melodious gold, promise, dream, distant call...” (Tolstaya 2001).
The changes in Benedict's character and views are especially noticeable when he agrees to work as an orderly, which he had previously thought about only with shudder and horror.
The fate of the hero of “Kysi” is a parody of the ideals of Russian classical writers, who saw in the preaching word, high feeling the possibility of spiritual transformation of life. Benedict's ascent is absolutely imaginary: from the production of Pinocchio-Pushkin to the execution and burning of an idol as self-immolation. The hero, rushing to deal with the darlings who hid the ancient books, functionally and attributively coincides with Pilate (“The orderly must take care of himself, his hands must always be clean. On the hook there will certainly be dirt from the darling: ichor or vomit, you never know, but his hands must be clean. That’s why Benedict always washed his hands”), the Grand Inquisitor, the Twelve Blocks and Kysya herself: the father-in-law “threw Benedict’s robe; it enveloped Benedict, blinded him for a moment, but the slits themselves fell into his eyes, everything was visible as if through a crack, all human affairs, petty, cowardly, scurrilous; they would like soup and a bed, but the wind howls, the blizzard whistles, and the hawk is in flight; flies, triumphant, over the city - the red cavalry flies like a storm through the city” (Tolstaya 2001, p. 255). The inability to live according to what is written leads the hero to hatred, rebellion, and the destruction of the living world.
Throughout the entire novel, the reader hopes that Benedict is about to find his own path, to which Nikita Ivanovich and Varvara Lukinishna are constantly directing him. One gets the impression that after reading this great amount books, Benedict is about to understand the meaning of existence, he will be able to leave the booth world to the Other, like seeing the Light at the end of the Labyrinth Tower. But this doesn't happen. The focus of the author's attention throughout the entire novel is the process of formation of the protagonist's personality - from the moment of his first love and marriage to Olenka, to the moment of his complete separation from society, loneliness, in which he has to make a choice that later determined the fate of the entire theater city .
In the end, it becomes clear that Benedict is absolutely incapable of insight, despite all the books he has read. Pinocchio does not become a Man.
“Kys” is a dystopian novel, the specificity of which is the use of repetitions of supporting situations of classical plots, thereby creating a parodic image of dystopian literature itself. The fat woman seems to be mocking Russian way of life public and private life, turns to the absurd pages of the past and present, artistically dissecting our social existence (for example, the parodic image of the supreme ruler), consciousness, and culture. Benedict himself also appears before us as a parody of some educated person who strives to read, understand everything around him and is ultimately left with nothing. According to the article by M. Lipovetsky “Trace of Kysi”, The paradox of the novel lies in the fact that it is saturated, on the one hand, with the richest literary quotation (the books that Benedict reads, in the extreme, represent the entire world literature), and on the other hand, with luxurious folk tales, new primitive mythology and fabulousness - he, nevertheless, it turns out to be a brilliantly poignant book about cultural muteness and about the word born of muteness and oblivion.
Tatyana Tolstaya began her literary career as a short story writer. However, in 2000, the publication of her novel “Kys” was completely unexpected for many, which immediately caused a lot of controversy. A new style of writing, unlike early works author, unusual name, original plot - it’s easy to imagine what effect the novel had on readers. Some admired him, others criticized him every now and then, but one thing is clear - no one remained indifferent.
The novel “Kys” was created over the course of 14 years. As Tatyana herself says, the plot of the future work has been spinning in her head for a long time. Beginning in 1986, the author made some sketches, developed a system of images, and thought through the plot down to the smallest detail. And ultimately, all these efforts led to stunning success - in 2000, the novel “Kys” was published, immediately gaining recognition among wide range readers. Critics also paid attention to this work, noting its novelty and relevance. The novel was awarded famous award“Triumph”, plays were staged based on it and a literary series was filmed.
The plot of the work
The novel takes place in a small town called Fedor-Kuzmichsk, whose residents find themselves in very unusual circumstances. They seem to have been thrown back several centuries: there is no electricity in the houses, the forest is full mythical creatures, society is deteriorating. The fact is that the events take place several centuries after a nuclear disaster, which everyone calls the Explosion. This event completely changed life, turning it into a miserable existence. The explosion brought many Consequences that everyone experiences on themselves.
In the town, the Greatest Murza took over the management, whom everyone respects for the fact that he brought some conveniences and established order. On the streets you can meet the so-called Orderlies, prowling in search of a terrible Disease. This Disease is radiation, which affects not only people, but also animals. The inhabitants of the city are more like mutants: some have gills or tentacles, others have their entire body covered with cockscombs that even protrude from their eyes. Cats have a long nose, more like a trunk, and their tails have become bare. Chickens can now fly, and hares live in trees. People use rust as a mineral, which is suitable for lighting the stove, for drinking, and for smoking. There are also immortal people in the city - the Former ones. They were born before the Explosion and have practically no mutations. Although Nikita Ivanovich, one of the representatives of the Former, can breathe fire. For this he was nicknamed the Chief Stoker.
No one has been outside of Fedor-Kuzmichsk, so all the residents can do is make up various legends and be content with the stories of strangers who accidentally wandered into the city. And the darlings themselves (as the residents of the town are called) are terribly afraid of the dense forest that surrounds the city on all sides. After all, the terrible Kys lives there: “... she sits on the dark branches and screams so wildly and pitifully... but no one can see her. A man will go into the forest, and she will fall on his neck from behind: hop! And the spine with my teeth: crunch! - and with his claw he will find the main vein and tear it apart, and all the mind will come out of the person ... "
Genre originality
Reading the novel “Kys”, you imagine a wild, incomprehensible world inhabited by mutant people. We can say that the plot is far from new. Many writers turned to writing similar works about life after a disaster, including Ray Bradbury, Voinovich, Zamyatin, Haskley, etc. Therefore, most critics classify Tatyana Tolstaya’s novel “Kys” as a dystopia, citing the fact that the work contains a warning about death and dangers. Firstly, the work clearly contains an environmental warning. From the first page of the novel it immediately becomes clear that civilization is dying as a result of a nuclear explosion, which led to terrible and irreversible consequences. The time of writing the work coincides with the Chernobyl disaster (1986), which shocked the whole world. And if you think about the number nuclear weapons, which today is contained in different countries, then it becomes completely obvious what the author of the novel warns us about.
Secondly, we can talk about another warning, perhaps not so obvious, but very relevant for our time - about the death of culture and language. Tolstaya describes the inhabitants of her town using irony and satire. All of them are insignificant people who lack moral standards, values and common sense.
Genre originality
Thus, the novel “Kys” is rightfully classified as a dystopia. However, as N. Ivanova noted, the work contains fairy tale motifs and an appeal to folklore, which is not typical for this genre.
Features of poetics and style
The first thing that catches your eye when reading Tolstoy’s works is the fabulousness. The novel “Kys” was no exception, in which the writer created her own unreal world using folklore motifs. The inhabitants of the fictional town are completely surrounded by legends and fairy tales. They believe in various creatures: mermaids, mermen, goblin. The novel's syntax and writing style are also close to a folk tale: the author uses inversion and simple sentences.
Tatyana Tolstaya also pays great attention to myths. To at least somehow explain the structure of the world, which they know nothing about, the darlings turn to legends. One of the most striking examples of the use of myth in the novel is the famous myth of Prometheus, which the writer reinterprets in her own way. As Prometheus, she uses Fyodor Kuzmich - the same Greatest Murza, who not only brought fire to people, but also invented the wheel, sleigh, and taught residents how to sew books. Later it turns out that Fyodor Kuzmich’s merits are actually not so significant, but for now the heroes naively believe in a fairy tale, being in an atmosphere of miracle.
Another distinctive feature of the novel is intertextuality. Throughout the work there are excerpts from poems by Pushkin, Blok, Tsvetaeva, Lermontov, which the main character Benedict reads. The novel also contains arias from the opera “Carmen” and Grebenshchikov’s songs, excerpts of which are performed by blind people. All this is directly related to the problems of the novel.
The main problem of the work “Kys” is the search for lost spirituality and inner harmony. Tolstaya shows us a world in which complete chaos and confusion reigns. In this world, spiritual values have no meaning, culture is dying, and people do not understand basic things. The only source of knowledge is books, but they are also prohibited. And those who decide to keep old printed books will be punished. Therefore, the darlings have no choice but to blindly trust Fyodor Kuzmich, who arbitrarily took credit for all the credit.
In the text you can find words from various layers of language: from high style to vernacular. The novel also contains the author's neologisms, which reflect the negative processes occurring in culture and society. Changes in language are directly related to the main problem of the work - spiritual oblivion.
On the eve of the repeatedly predicted possible end of the world, many people became interested in the topic of post-apocalypse. After all, it is quite likely that the world will not disappear, but will be reborn in a new quality. What a post-apocalyptic world could be like is described in the novel “ Kys» Tatiana Tolstaya.
The action in the novel takes place a couple of centuries after a nuclear war in the town of Fedor-Kuzmichsk, before the nuclear disaster was called simply Moscow. After nuclear strike a lot has changed. People, animals, plants mutated, and the previous culture was forgotten. But only small group Everyone remembers the people who lived before the Explosion (“the former”). Having survived the Explosion, they live for centuries, but cannot change this new world in any way.
And the ordinary “reborn” people are simple people. They live in huts and eat mice, worms and swamp rust. They earn little by little for food and are afraid of the formidable kitty. Kys is an invisible monster that lives in dense forests. No one has ever seen her, but everyone knows that if you meet a kis, then you’re screwed. So they live quietly and peacefully, they are afraid of the cat and do not strive for anything special.
The main character of the novel "Kys" - Benedict. His mother is Polina Mikhailovna, one of the “former ones”. After her death (“the former”, although they live for centuries, can still die), Benedict is taken in by his mother’s friend, another “former” named Nikita Ivanovich. Benedict works as a copyist of old books. One day Benedikt gets lucky and marries Olenka, a census taker, the daughter of the local bigwig Kudeyar Kudeyarovich. Then Benedict’s measured life begins to change...
"Kys" is dystopian novel, a mutated world of total ignorance in the popular frame of a Russian folk tale. It is difficult to imagine how life is for the “former” people, who look at how everything became after the Explosion, and at the same time still remember how everything was. The entire novel is permeated with irony and even sarcasm. At times the world described by Tolstoy seems funny, at times frightening, but it certainly makes you think.
Worthy of attention and unusual language of the novel(which, however, is what repels many people). All of his characters speak an unusual dialect, a kind of “hodgepodge” of outdated and dialect words, as well as neologisms invented by Tolstoy herself. And only the “former” ones speak the familiar Russian language, which distinguishes them even more from the “degenerates”.
Quotes from the book
“In those forests, old people say, a lynx lives. She sits on the dark branches and screams so wildly and pitifully: yay! Whoops! - and no one can see her. A man will go into the forest like this, and she will fall on his neck from behind: hop! and the backbone with your teeth: crunch! “And with his claw he will find the main vein and tear it, and all the mind will come out of the person.”
“You, Book! You alone will not deceive, you will not hit, you will not offend, you will not leave! Quiet, but you laugh, scream, sing; submissive - you amaze, tease, lure; small - and in you there are nations without number; a handful of letters, that’s all, but if you want, you’ll turn your head, confuse, spin, cloud, tears will bubble, your breath will become stifled, your whole soul, like a canvas in the wind, will agitate, rise in waves, flap its wings!”
“- So I want to ask you everything, Benedict. Here I am, thank him, whitewashing Fyodor Kuzmich’s poems. And there everything is: horse, horse. What is a “horse”, don’t you know?
Benedict thought. I thought some more. He even blushed from the effort. How many times have I written this word myself, but somehow I haven’t thought about it.
- It must be a mouse.
- Why do you think so?
- Because: “either I don’t pamper you, or you don’t eat enough oats.” That's right, mouse.
- Well, what then: “the horse runs, the earth trembles”?
- So, a large mouse. After all, once they start fiddling around, you won’t be able to sleep another time.”