The hero of the story is Simeonov. We only know about him that he is a bachelor and earns money by translating, he is an anchorite, communicating with one person - the old singer Vera Vasilievna, whose image was created in detail by his imagination. He may even love her. He yearns for her, never seeing her. Tolstaya poses a problem for us " little man', who is alone. But this loneliness is not a burden to him, because it is thanks to him that the hero can go to his ideal "illusory world". For T. Tolstoy, metaphor is a means of an ephemeral and illusory world in which such ridiculous, timid, heroes live - eternal children, this is Simeonov. They are kind and merciful, but at the same time doomed to loneliness. But his myth and dreams are shattered when he learns that the ideal of his dreams is not at all an ideal, but already an old woman hosting the same admirers as him. This is an almost anecdotal situation. However, Mikhail Zolotonosov in his article “Dreams and Phantoms” believes that those who do not feel in this longing for the fulfilled and the desire for the unfulfilled are mistaken. The self-disclosure of the dreamer affirms the dream as the highest value, but the fulfillment of the dream is interpreted as the self-exhaustion of a person, his end, and the desire for love becomes a source of tragedies. Thus, a feature of the comic in Tatyana Tolstaya's short prose is its opposition and simultaneous inseparability with the tragic and sublime.
As we know, intertext in the art of postmodernism is the main way of constructing a text, this is noted by many researchers. The story "The Okkervil River" is no exception. Intertextuality in Tolstoy's stories reveals itself everywhere and at various levels ("reworking" the theme of the pra-text, using elements of a "known" plot, explicit and hidden quotation, allusion, borrowing, parody, etc.). To identify the functionality of literary allusions in the texts of T. Tolstoy devoted the article Alexander Konstantinovich Zholkovsky "In the minus first and minus second mirror: T. Tolstaya, V. Erofeev - Akhmatovian and archetypes."
A. Zholkovsky notes that Simeonov is a typical image of the "little man" of Russian literature, deliberately sewn from Pushkin's Evgeny, whom the river separates from Parasha ("The Bronze Horseman" by Pushkin); Gogol's Piskarev ("Nevsky Prospekt"), whose fantasies are shattered by the brothel prose of the life of a beauty he likes; and the helpless dreamer from Dostoyevsky's White Nights.
From the very first lines, the “Petersburg text”, created by many writers of Russian literature (from Pushkin to Bely), reveals itself. This dark fantasy city forces its inhabitants to exist according to the laws of fictional life. In the context of these manifestations of the “Petersburg myth”, the name of the hero, Simeonov, plays a significant role. On the one hand, going back to the Hebrew name of the Apostle Peter, it puts its bearer, the “little man,” in relation to its duality with its demonic antagonist, Emperor Peter, who appears in the very first paragraph:
"The city ... seemed ... to be the evil intent of Peter, the revenge of a huge, goggle-eyed, gaping-mouthed, toothy tsar-carpenter ..."
This duplicity receives plot development in an episode of Simeonov's imaginary building on the banks of the Okkervil River: On the other hand, the gospel etymology makes Simeonov, so to speak, an apostle of the “faith” he professes in Vera Vasilievna. The very image of Vera Vasilievna includes another series of intertexts, among them: " Queen of Spades"and" Ruslan and Lyudmila ", which interpret the common motif of a meeting with an old woman who replaces a young heroine in different ways; Flaubert's "Education of the Senses", where the same motif includes the image of gray hair, etc. Among the possible intertexts are also "Invitation to execution" Nabokov, where in the finale the fake scenery, in which the whole plot was going on, collapses.
But the story has more modern literary sources. In the image of a St. Petersburg artist who has outlived her ancient glory, has grown unrecognizably fat, buried several life partners, is surrounded by a narrow ring of admirers who have distributed the tasks of her practical service among themselves, and enjoys such a life cheerfully, Zholkovsky recognizes Anna Akhmatova and lists a number of similarities between the heroines in his article . The name of the patronymic of the singer resembles Akhmatov's - with an alliterative beginning with one letter (V.V. - A.A.). However, Akhmatova is not the only female voice, heard behind the text "Okkervil River". The words about "exquisite eccentrics" who collect "the incorporeal ... copy her [Vera Vasilievna's] ... voice on tape recorders", and in general the whole conflict of the story - starting with an elderly admirer, in his wretched home enjoying a voice torn from his body and the personality of its owner, and up to the motifs of angel wings, fog, depth, lips, kiss, etc. - seems to be borrowed from Bella Akhmadulina (the poem "Tape Recorder"). Akhmadulina's involvement in the intertextual orchestration of the story is in no way discordant with his Akhmatovian dominant. Akhmadulina was a kind of new, sixties reincarnation of Akhmatova.
In addition, the story contains quotations and reminiscences from Lermontov (words from Vera Vasilievna's romance) and Nabokov with his "Lolita" (Nabokov's contrast of young Lolita with her mother who once looked like her, but now overripe, and against its background - the image of a common bath in their house).
Elena Nevzglyadova, analyzing the story, draws attention to a large number of details of the objective world, which force the space between Simeonov and the gramophone, but this is not accidental. Since mental states are too connected with the material world, they cannot be from visual and sound images.
Thus, summing up the report, we can say that the main invariant factor for the discourse of Tatyana Tolstaya should be recognized as the conflict of dreams and reality. Exists beautiful world dreams, where everything is harmonious and there is not the slightest shortage of beauty, spirituality, mutual love and food. This wonderful paradise is opposed by a rough and vulgar empirical reality. Nonna Petrovna Benevolenskaya notes that the characters of Tatyana Tolstaya are most often dreamers living in the space between reality and the world of their unrealizable dreams, while author's position as a rule, it combines a malicious mockery of such romanticism with sincere sympathy for it. The specificity of Tolstoy's discourse is largely determined by the paradoxical interaction of two trends: a utopian impulse towards a beautiful ideal. The thought of the writer and her characters is sometimes carried away into the world of an ephemeral dream, then again returns to the sinful earth. In her best works, Tolstaya, skillfully manipulating these "registers", maintains a dynamic balance between them. Before us is a typically postmodern "debunking apology".
In the center of T. Tolstoy's stories - modern man with his emotional experiences, life experiences, peculiarities of everyday life. The story "The Okkervil River", written in 1987, raises the topic "Man and Art", the influence of art on man, the relationship of people in modern world, this is a reflection on the relationship between dreams and reality.
The story is built on the principle of "linking associations", "stringing images". Already at the beginning of the work, a picture of a natural disaster - a flood in St. Petersburg - and a story about a lonely, aging Simeonov and his life are combined. The hero enjoys the freedom of solitude, reading and listening to rare gramophone records of the once famous, but today completely forgotten singer Vera Vasilievna.
The story can be divided into three time layers: present, past and future. Moreover, the present is inseparable from the past. The author recalls that time is cyclical and eternal: “When the sign of the zodiac changed to Scorpio, it became very windy, dark and rainy.”
Petersburg is animated, its image is woven from metaphors, an abundance of epithets, romantic and realistic details, where the creative, but terrible Peter the Great and his weak, frightened subjects became central: “the wind-beating city behind the defenseless, uncurtained bachelor’s window seemed then to be an evil Peter’s intent. The rivers, having reached the swollen, frightening sea, rushed back, raised their water backs in the museum cellars, licking the fragile collections, crumbling with wet sand, shaman masks made of cock feathers. Crooked foreign swords, sinewy legs of evil employees awakened in the middle of the night. Petersburg is a special place. Time and space keep the masterpieces of music, architecture, painting. The city, the elements of nature, art are merged into one. Nature in the story is personified, it lives its own life - the wind bends the glass, the rivers overflow their banks and flow back.
Simeonov's bachelor life is brightened up by reading, enjoying the sounds of an old romance. T. Tolstaya masterfully conveys the sound of the old, “anthracite cast circle”:
No, not you! so fervent! I love! - jumping, crackling and hissing, Vera Vasilyevna quickly spun under the needle; from the scalloped orchid rushed a divine, dark, low, at first lacy and dusty, then swelling with underwater pressure, swaying with lights on the water, - psh - psh - psh, puffy voice - no, Vera Vassilyevna did not love him so passionately, but still, in essence, only him alone, and this was mutual with them. H-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh. The singer's voice is associated with a caravel rushing through the “night water splashing with lights, radiance blooming in the night sky. And the details of a modest life fade into the background: “processed cheese or ham scraps fished out of the windows”, a feast on a spread newspaper, dust on the desktop.
The inconsistency present in the hero’s life is emphasized by the details of the hero’s portrait: “On such days, Simeonov installed the gramophone, feeling especially nosy, balding, especially feeling his young years around his face.”
Simeonov, like the hero of T. Tolstoy's story "The Clean Sheet" Ignatiev, rests his soul in a different, associative world. Creating in his mind the image of a young, beautiful and enigmatic singer Vera Vasilievna, in a Blok style, Simeonov is trying to distance himself from reality. modern life, waving away the caring Tamara. The real world and the invented one are intertwined, and he wants to be only with the object of his dreams, imagining that Vera Vasilievna will give her love only to him.
The title of the story is symbolic. “The Okkervil River” is the name of the final tram stop, a place unknown to Simeonov, but occupying his imagination. It may turn out to be beautiful, where there is a “greenish stream” with a “green sun”, silvery willows”, “humpbacked wooden bridges”, or maybe there “some nasty factory throws out mother-of-pearl-poisonous waste, or something else, hopeless , marginal, vulgar. The river, symbolizing time, changes its color - at first it seems to Simeonov a "muddy-green stream", later - "already blooming poisonous greens."
Having heard from the seller of gramophone records that Vera Vasilievna is alive, Simeonov decides to find her. This decision is not easy for him - two demons are fighting in his soul - a romantic and a realist: “one insisted on throwing the old woman out of my head, locking the doors tightly, living as before, loving in moderation, languishing in moderation, listening in solitude to the pure sound of a silver trumpet , another demon - a crazy young man with a mind clouded by the translation of bad books - demanded to go, run, look for Vera Vasilyevna - a blind, poor old woman, shout to her through years and hardships that she is a marvelous peri, destroyed and raised him - Simeonov, faithful knight, - and, crushed by her silver voice, all the frailty of the world fell down,
The details accompanying the preparation of the meeting with Vera Vasilievna predict failure. Yellow chrysanthemums, bought by Simeonov, mean some kind of disharmony, some kind of sick beginning. This, in my opinion, is evidenced by the transformation of the green color of the river into poisonous green.
Another trouble awaits Simeonov - someone's fingerprint imprinted on the jelly surface of the cake. The following detail speaks of the disharmony of the upcoming meeting: "The sides (of the cake) were sprinkled with fine confectionery dandruff."
The meeting with the dream, with the living but different Vera Vasilievna, completely crushed Simeonov. When he got to the singer's birthday, he saw the routine, lack of poetry and even vulgarity in the person of one of the singer's many guests - Kisses. Despite the romantic surname, this character stands firmly on the ground, is purely businesslike and enterprising. A feature of T. Tolstoy's style is the use of sentences of complex construction, an abundance of tropes in describing the stream of consciousness of the characters, their experiences. Simeonov's conversation with Potseluev written in short sentences. Potseluev's efficiency and earthiness are conveyed in jerky phrases, reduced vocabulary: “U, muzzle. Golosin is still like a deacon's. His search for a rare recording of the romance "Dark Green Emerald" is combined with his search for an opportunity to get smoked sausage.
At the end of the story, Simeonov, along with other fans, helps brighten up the singer's life. This is humanly very noble. But poetry and charm have disappeared, the author emphasizes this with realistic details: “Bent in his lifelong obedience,” Simeonov rinses the bath after Vera Vasilievna, washing off “gray pellets from the dried walls, picking out gray hair from the drain hole.”
A distinctive feature of T. Tolstoy's prose is that the author empathizes with his heroes, pities them. She also sympathizes with Simeonov, who is looking for true beauty and does not want to accept reality. Vera Vasilievna, who so early lost the main thing in life - her son, her job, which does not have basic household amenities for old age, Tamara, who brings her beloved cutlets in a jar and is forced to “forget” either hairpins or a handkerchief.
The story ends, as it began, with the image of a river. “The gramophone started kissing, a wondrous, growing thunderous voice was heard soaring over the steamed body of Verunchik, drinking tea from a saucer, over everything that cannot be helped, over the approaching sunset, over nameless rivers, flowing backwards, overflowing their banks, raging and flooding the city, like only rivers can make.
Kletkina Maria, 9th grade student
Usenitsa explores the content of T.N. Tolstoy "The Okkervil River", trying to answer the questions: What is life? What is the meaning of life?
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MBOU "Secondary School No. 15 with in-depth study of individual subjects"
the city of Gus-Khrustalny, Vladimir Region
Creative research on literature of a student of grade 9 "A"
Kletnina Maria
Research topic: "A gift is life?" (according to the story of T.N. Tolstoy "The Okkervil River").
Purpose of the study:
Through the study of the text of the story by T.N. Tolstoy "The Okkervil River" to find the answer to the questions:
What is life?
What is a sense of life?
Research objectives:
- Highlight dreams and reality in the life of the protagonist in the text of the story.
- Determine the attitude of the author to his hero.
- My attitude to the problem raised in the story.
Hypothesis:
Every person's life is unique and unrepeatable.
Every person should have a dream, but it should not lead away from real life. A dream should help each of us become better, achieve certain goals, treat other people with understanding, accept them as they are.
Research progress:
As a child, I read a book about a funny wooden man many times. I knew many episodes of the protagonist's adventures by heart. "Golden Key" is the name of this book. She introduced me to the world, to life fairy tale characters. I can confidently say: "This is my first book." The author of this wonderful adventure is Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy. In our literature, there were three authors who bore the surname Tolstoy: Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, and Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy.
When we met Tatyana Tolstaya at a literature lesson. I wondered if she was a relative of one of the well-known in world literature. And I found out that Tatyana Tolstaya is the granddaughter of Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, the very one who gave us"Golden Key".This means that a fourth author with a famous surname creates in Russian literature.
I saw her several times on the show"Moment of glory" she was a member of the jury. She judged strictly, even harshly, but, probably, objectively. The participants in the program were afraid of her, and the jury members treated her with respect and reverence.
Tatyana Tolstaya entered literature ineightiesand immediately became famous for her stories.
She combines them drawing accuracy
flying fantasies, psychologism with the grotesque,
Comprehension of spiritual secrets with sophisticated writing technique.
In the literature lesson, we read and analyzedT. Tolstoy's story "The Okkervil River".
It is on this story that I base my research.
Here is what the author says about herself:“I am interested in people “out of the way”; those. to whom we, as a rule, are deaf, whom we perceive as ridiculous, unable to hear their speeches, unable to discern their pain. They leave life, having understood little, often missing something important, and, leaving, they are perplexed, like children: the holiday is over, but where are the gifts? And life was a gift, and they themselves were a gift, but no one explained this to them.
Okkervil - a river in the east of St. Petersburg,
the left tributary of the Okhta River, which flows into it 1.8 km above the mouth.It flows from the swamps south of the Koltush Heights.It flows through the Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad region and the Krasnogvardeisky district of St. Petersburg.
What is the river Okkervil for the hero?
He invented this river, he knows where it is, but he has never been there. For him, it is a symbol of beauty!
The real world surrounding the main character Simeonov was gray, gloomy, in it"windy, rainy"uncomfortable and lonely. But as soon as it was heard in his uncomfortable little room"divine, lacy"the voice from the record, the voice of Vera Vasilievna, he found himself in another world where he felt happy. This world closed him from reality, from the real world, which he did not want, was afraid of. Hiding from him.
Therefore, in his dreams, he settles the invented Beloved on the river Okkervil invented in his imagination and enjoys life in this invented world.
Who is Vera Vasilievna?
A singer with a "divine" voice that took Simeonov away from this frightening reality to another, ideal world where beauty reigned. In his imagination, she always remained young and beautiful, his goddess. Although sometimes other, gloomy thoughts came into his head, he immediately drove them away.
« Simeonov ... wiped dust from the table, cleared books, installed a gramophone, ... extracted Vera Vasilievna from a torn, yellowish stained envelope ... ”and, spellbound, listened:
No, I don't love you so passionately,
Your beauty shines not for me;
I love you past suffering
And my lost youth.
Sometimes when I look at you
Looking into your eyes for a long time:
Mysterious I'm busy talking
But I'm not talking to you with my heart.
I'm talking to a friend of my early days,
I'm looking for other features in your features.
In the mouth of the living, the mouth has long been mute,
In the eyes of the fire of extinguished eyes.
«… carefully removed Vera Vasilievna, who had fallen silent, shook the disk, clasping it with straightened, respectful palms and, turning it over, again listened, languishing, "
The chrysanthemums in the garden have faded long ago
And love still lives in my sick heart ...
But one day Simeonov's fictional, illusory world collapses to the ground. He faced reality. Vera Vasilyevna turns out to be alive, and he is not happy that there is a real Vera Vasilyevna, and there is no one who filled his world with beauty.
What was the real Vera Vasilievna?
Lively, cheerful, having not lost her taste for life, she is celebrating her birthday surrounded by admirers and close people. Seeing her, hearing her, Simeonov feels disgust. Moreover, he is disgusted when she washed in his bath, but he still washes the bath after her, washes away the last traces of his illusions.
Did he manage to defend his ideals? Does he struggle with the disgusting reality?
He fled from life, shutting the door in front of her, but he could not completely fence himself off from it. He could not resist reality, so life dealt a blow to his illusions. And he is forced to take this blow.
The attitude towards the hero is mixed, ambiguous. On the one hand, he wants to sympathize:it is bad for a person when trouble happens to him and he is lonely, on the other hand, one cannot live only with illusions, although it is not harmful to dream; one must be able to live on our sinful earth, and there are joys in our life.
The hero reminds meGogol's Akaki Akakievich , for whom the only joy in life is to beautifully display letters (and only everything!) In the office, where he has been serving in the same position for many years, having no friends.
Simeonov looks likeon Chekhov's heroes,who live as if in a case, limiting themselves to the smallest ( Belikova people do not love and ... rejoice at his death; like him and another mountain -Alekhin from the story "Oh love" ). I believe that the hero of the story lives a boring and strange life: after all, it depends on the person himself how he builds his life, what he will be interested in, who his friends will be, without whom and without what he cannot live.
About Simeonov, I would say that he does not live, but exists.
And how does Tatyana Tolstaya feel about her hero? What details help answer this question. The hero has no name, only a surname. It seems to me that in our life this happens when a person is treated not quite respectfully.
Work does not bring him any joy: “he translated boring books, unnecessary books from a rare language” (and he had no other occupations), and this was enough for him only to “for a great price” buy a rare record again with voice of his Vera Vasilievna and processed cheese.
In my opinion, the author sympathizes with him, because he, Simeonov, does not communicate with anyone, he has no friends, he lives alone; for some reason he calls the sellers from whom he constantly buys old records crocodiles. I suppose that in our environment there are people who look like the hero of the story, are they not only the fruit of the author's imagination?
Listen to the lines of the poem E. Evtushenko “There are no uninteresting people in the world,” they helped me find the answer to the question posed.
There are no uninteresting people in the world.
Their destinies are like the histories of the planets.
Each has everything special, its own,
And there are no planets like it.
And if someone lived unnoticed
And with this invisibility was friends,
He was interesting among people
By its very lack of interest.
Everyone has their own secret private world.
There is the best moment in this world.
There is the most terrible hour in this world.
But this is unknown to us...
IN explanatory dictionary we find two meanings of the word"interesting":
1. Beautiful, attractive.
2. Exciting interest, entertaining, curious.
Which of the definitions is undoubtedly related to Simeonov?
Of course, the second definition of the word "interesting" - "exciting interest" - fits our mountain. I think they exist in real life. Both among adults and among my peers. These are people “from the outskirts”, as T. Tolstaya calls them, I would call them “little people” of today (this topic is not new in literature). They differ from those around them in their way of life, their attitude towards people and even their appearance, they live alone, without friends, and sometimes without relatives, do not communicate with neighbors, rarely smile, more often gloomy, silent.
Such people are unattractive, uninteresting; they are, and at the same time they are not. We them"perceived as ridiculous",We call them eccentrics or something more painful for them.
I find in the words of T. Tolstoy deep meaning: we should not be indifferent to such people, and her thoughts coincide with the point of view of the poet Yevtushenko:
There are no uninteresting people in the world ...
Everyone has "everything special, their own." I agree with this; but people like Simeonov are unhappy, because they don’t see much in life, they don’t notice, they don’t experience, “they don’t understand something important”, they live by their invented, virtual world which could collapse at any moment. And then what?!..
This story teaches a lot:be more attentive to people (including eccentrics), understand them and help at least kind word or attention, don't be callous.
Folk wisdom says:"To live life is notfield go; anything happens along the way...And if we are in this life, then we need to live joyfully, go towards our cherished, real goal, have reliable friends and comrades. Writer Alexander Kuprin noted that"The value of life is determined by what a person left behind."
Of course, we all dream, and each of his own. Sometimes dreams take us very high, but no matter how high we rise in dreams, we still need to sink to the ground every time in order to accustom ourselves to comprehend our actions, to learn from everyday experience. smart people, meeting friends, arguing, quarreling and reconciling - in a word, learning from life.Because life gives us many joys: the joy of searching, the joy of discovering, the joy of admiring the beautiful
I would like to give very correct thoughts of the academicianD.S. Likhacheva: “Almost every person combines different traits. Of course, some traits predominate, others are hidden, crushed. We must be able to awaken them in people best qualities and ignore minor imperfections.
Analyzing the story “The Okkervil River”, I was thinking about a person, his character, actions, lifestyle and attitude to life.
How to live? What to be?These eternal questions life puts before each person, before each of us. And the answer to it: "Need to live! We just need to live smart. Because the gift is life!”
In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya. In the process of my research, I realized that this is not an easy writer. Her books are controversial. The attitude of readers towards them is ambiguous. Someone does not like her books seem incomprehensible. Someone is amazed at the skill and boundless imagination of the writer. But what kind of romance is she"Kis",
Was awarded an award"Triumph" for 2001,
And also the winner of the competition
"The best editions of the XIV Moscow
international book fair
In the nomination "Prose-2001", says that the work of this writer has a great future, and it should be read.
- Research topic…………………………………………………..
Purpose of the study……………………………………………………
Research Hypothesis……………………………………………
- Research progress……………………………………………………..
- Biography of T. Tolstoy……………………………………………….
- The story of T. Tolstoy……………………………………………………….
- Who is Vera Vasilievna………………………………………
- Who was the real Vera Vasilievna……………………..
- How T. Tolstaya treats her hero……………..
- Definition of the word “Interesting”…………………………
What is the definition of our hero……..
- Thoughts of D.I. Likhachev…………………………………………………..
- Conclusion………………………………………
- Used Books…………….
Development of the problem "hero and time" in the story "The Okkervil River"
As we noted above, the category of time is the most important in the poetics of Tolstoy's prose. Even the first critics of the writer's work drew attention to this. "Permanent combination of time layers, alternation of acceleration and deceleration of time", - noted P. Spivak. The author, according to M. Lipovetsky, creates his own chronotope, in which everything is animated.
It should be noted that time in T. Tolstoy's stories is ambivalent, interpenetrating. Often the past flows into the present, the present into the future, and vice versa. Characteristic- dismemberment of the passage of time. Chronological jumps, change of acceleration and deceleration are very frequent. Moreover, it is important that the acceleration of the passage of time is associated with the everyday life of the characters, and the slowdown is associated with the most vivid memories. Time, like a memory, stops at the brightest. The beginning and end of time are in eternity.
In all stories, thanks to the hidden or explicit presence of the narrator, the countdown begins from the end, returning through the beginning again to the end. This is how the eternal circle of time is formed - one of the central concepts of T. Tolstoy's poetics.
And at the same time, one should agree with P. Weil and A. Genis, who note that the author's ideal is time that does not go forward, into the future, but in a circle. fat enjoys special time. The action in her stories takes place not in the past, not in the present, not in the future, but in the time that is always there.
Consider the specifics of the passage of time in the lives of the characters in one of the best stories "The Okkervil River".
This work, written in 1987, raises the theme "Man and Art", the influence of art on man, the relationship of people in the modern world, these are reflections on the relationship between dreams and reality.
The story is built on the principle of "linking associations", "stringing images". Already at the beginning of the work, a picture of a natural disaster - a flood in St. Petersburg - and a story about a lonely, aging Simeonov and his life are combined. Of course, the author’s postmodernist device is also noticeable: emphasizing the intertextual connection with “ Bronze Horseman» A.S. Pushkin, where the theme of the greatness of Peter I, his best creation - the most beautiful city of St. the tragic unfulfillment of these aspirations. Tolstaya is far from the idea that the world is reasonable, she protests against romantic illusion like life is absolutely wonderful. Irony in Tolstoy is not just a way to avoid pathos, not armor that protects the innermost, but a necessary feature of artistry, revealing the most natural and humane. The trouble with many of Tolstoy's heroes is that they do not notice the gift of life itself, they are waiting or looking for happiness somewhere outside of reality, while life passes in the meantime. T. Tolstaya shows that dreamy self-deception and the revelation of dreams are part of the natural self-movement of life. This process is typical for both men and women; not only Simeonov can serve as an example of this, but also Galya from the story "Owl", Alexandra Ernestovna ("Dear Shura").
The hero of the story “The Okkervil River” is self-sufficient (high social status, intense spiritual life), and even loneliness, sometimes pushing a person to extreme actions, is perceived here as an integral part of his spiritual world. In contrast to the lack of spirituality of many male heroes women's prose, Simeonov is feminine sentimental and impressionable, for many years he has been in love with the singer Vera Vasilievna, every day he listens to a record with her voice and dreams of meeting her, which does not prevent him from meeting a real woman - Tamara, who sometimes interrupts "precious dates with Vera Vasilievna. Hours of loneliness become “blissful” for Simeonov, just when no one bothers him, he enjoys the singing of his beloved woman, a distant and unrealizable happiness, because. the hero is actually in love with his dream (but this, as they say, is not a vice). The refinement, although somewhat deliberate, of the hero's experiences is emphasized.
The story can be divided into three time layers: present, past and future. Moreover, the present is inseparable from the past. The author recalls that time is cyclical and eternal: “When the sign of the zodiac changed to Scorpio, it became very windy, dark and rainy.”
Simeonov's bachelor life is brightened up by reading, enjoying the sounds of an old romance. T. Tolstaya masterfully conveys the sound of the old, “anthracite cast circle”:
No, not you! so fervent! I love! - jumping, crackling and hissing, Vera Vasilyevna quickly spun under the needle; ... a divine, dark, low rushed from a scalloped orchid, first lacy and dusty, then swelling with underwater pressure, swaying with lights on the water, - psh - psh - psh, puffy voice ... - no, Vera Vasilievna did not love him so passionately, but still, in essence, only him alone, and this was mutual with them. H-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh. The singer's voice is associated with a caravel rushing through the “night water splashing with lights, radiance blooming in the night sky. And the details of a modest life fade into the background: “processed cheese or ham scraps fished out of the windows”, a feast on a spread newspaper, dust on the desktop.
The inconsistency present in the hero's life is emphasized by the details of the hero's portrait: "On such days ... Simeonov ... installed the gramophone, feeling especially nosy, balding, especially feeling his young years around his face."
The name of the story is symbolic, it encodes the symbol of time - the river. “The Okkervil River” is the name of the final tram stop, a place unknown to Simeonov, but occupying his imagination. It may turn out to be beautiful, where there is a “greenish stream” with a “green sun”, silvery willows”, “humpbacked wooden bridges”, or maybe there “... some nasty factory throws out mother-of-pearl-poisonous waste, or something else, hopeless, marginal, vulgar." The river, symbolizing time, changes its color - at first it seems to Simeonov to be a "muddy green stream", later - "already blooming poisonous greens."
Having heard from the seller of gramophone records that Vera Vasilievna is alive, Simeonov decides to find her. This decision is not easy for him - two demons are fighting in his soul - a romantic and a realist: “one insisted on throwing the old woman out of my head, locking the doors tightly, living as before, loving in moderation, languishing in moderation, listening in solitude to the pure sound of a silver trumpet , the other demon - a crazy young man with a mind clouded from the translation of bad books - demanded to go, run, look for Vera Vasilievna - a blind, poor old woman ... shout to her through years and hardships that she is a marvelous peri, destroyed and raised him - Simeonova, faithful knight, -and, crushed by her silver voice, crumbled ... all the frailty of the world,
The details accompanying the preparation of the meeting with Vera Vasilievna predict failure. The yellow color of the chrysanthemums bought by Simeonov means some kind of disharmony, some sick beginning. This, in my opinion, is evidenced by the transformation of the green color of the river into poisonous green.
Another trouble awaits Simeonov - someone's fingerprint imprinted on the jelly surface of the cake. The following detail speaks of the disharmony of the upcoming meeting: "The sides (of the cake) were sprinkled with fine confectionery dandruff."
As she approaches Vera Vasilievna, the writer reduces her image, accompanying the hero’s path with everyday details, unsightly realities that the dreamer hero tries in vain to subdue to his imagination: to combine with romance lines a back door, garbage pails, narrow cast-iron railings, uncleanliness, a sniffing cat ... " Yes, that's what he thought. The great forgotten artist should live in just such a yard ... Her heart was beating. They bloomed a long time ago. In my sick heart." The hero did not turn off the path, having entered the apartment of Vera Vasilievna, but the reader understands that his beautiful water castle on the Okkervil River is already collapsing. What awaited the hero outside the door of the apartment of the great singer in the past? "He called. (“Fool,” the inner demon spat and left Simeonov.) The door swung open under the pressure of noise, singing and laughter gushing from the bowels of the dwelling, and Vera Vasilyevna immediately flashed. In real life, she turned out to be a huge, ruddy, thick-browed old woman with a booming laugh, with clearly masculine features of behavior. “She laughed in a low voice over the table heaped with dishes, over salads, cucumbers, fish and bottles, and famously drank, enchantress, and famously turned back and forth with her fat body.” The disappointment of the hero is that he was not alone at Vera Vasilievna's house, she did not expect him. The patriarchal nature of Simeonov's convictions is manifested in his sense of possessiveness, emphasized by the unreality of the situation: this feeling manifests itself when seeing guests at the singer's birthday: "She cheated on him with these fifteen ..." The writer's unrequited feeling of the hero is brought to absurdity: she cheated on him was in the world, only the wind stirred the grass and there was silence in the world.
The meeting with the dream, with the living but different Vera Vasilievna, completely crushed Simeonov. When he got to the singer's birthday, he saw the routine, lack of poetry and even vulgarity in the person of one of the singer's many guests, Kisses. Despite the romantic surname, this character stands firmly on the ground, is purely businesslike and enterprising.
At the end of the story, Simeonov, along with other fans, helps brighten up the singer's life. This is humanly very noble. But poetry and charm have disappeared, the author emphasizes this with realistic details: “Bent in his lifelong obedience,” Simeonov rinses the bath after Vera Vasilievna, washing off “gray pellets from the dried walls, picking out gray hair from the drain hole.”
The story ends, as it began, with the image of a river. “The gramophone started kissing, a wondrous, growing thunderous voice was heard ... soaring over the steamed body of Verunchik, drinking tea from a saucer, ... over everything that cannot be helped, over the approaching sunset, ... over nameless rivers, flowing backwards, overflowing their banks, raging and flooding the city as only rivers can do.” And this is exactly the feature of Tolstoy's style, which we noted above - the circularity of time, the movement in a circle.