Rated the book
I don't like rereading books. Even if it seems to me that I have completely forgotten the plot, I still start to remember at most halfway through how it will all end. But as a child, I did not yet know about this dislike of mine. This is probably why I reread “The Adventures of Pencil and Samodelkin” countless times. Even now, after almost twenty years, I vaguely remember the main events of my first favorite book. Succumbing to nostalgic feelings, I wanted to know more about the author and his books. It was then that I discovered that, it turns out, Yuri Druzhkov (or Yuri Postnikov) was a man of a very difficult fate, both personal and literary. A lot of grief befell him, starting from his earliest childhood. But, fortunately, Yuri was able to overcome all the difficulties, and as a result, not only the Soviet Union, but the whole world received such a wonderful writer (“The Adventures of Karandash and Samodelkin” have been translated into 18 languages!). However, in the writing field, Druzhkov is the complete antipode of Dontsova. He has written only four full-length books and several fairy tales. But, as they say, less is more.
The book “Who Cries for You” is prose for adults and was published twenty years after it was written. That is, this is a relatively new work for the reader and, unfortunately, still little known. When I was choosing another audiobook and came across a familiar name of the author, I immediately became interested. I started listening. The rich and very correct Russian language immediately captivated me. The plot slowly tightened. Although, of course, you shouldn’t expect action-packed prose. This is how the narrator himself speaks about his work:
Even without adventure?
- What, you can’t live without them?
“Probably not a book,” I suggested. - They won’t read.
- Don't scare me! I know one modern novel, a sort of series. Whatever the type, he is a bundle of stressful situations. The intertwining between them is condensed and stressful. But here’s the problem: I, an ordinary reader, was suddenly overcome by stress fatigue from all this pressure.
In this book you will find the reflections of a person who found himself in an extreme situation, about everything that is important to him and that he may have lost forever (we don’t keep what we had, and when we lose it, we cry). And here it was especially waiting for me a pleasant surprise: a father’s reasoning about his child, with incredible tenderness and all-consuming love - I have never read anything like this. Moreover, all this was written with such sincere feeling that it aroused in me endless tenderness and admiration for my father.
My little sparrow! You gave me this blessing - the blessing of caring not about yourself, not about your affairs and sorrows, not about your career, not about your pleasure - caring about another. A person cannot help but care about anyone. You revealed this and another great secret to me...
...You taught me selfless devotion, allowed me to guess what it means to be irreplaceable, the only one needed without any conditions, secret benefit for yourself. You - to me, I - to you, we really, we need each other so much! My sunshine, a real friend, a real person.
The plot itself is very simple: the plane crashes somewhere in the remote taiga. Of all the passengers, only two survive - a man and a woman, strangers until that moment. By some incredible miracle, a week later they manage to come across a deserted camp with huge reserves of all human goods, from electric razors and canned food, to building materials and books. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot get in touch with the outside world. Did some terrible catastrophe befall all of humanity, leaving only these Adam and Eve alive?..
Everything in this book is good: the beginning, the denouement, the relationships of the characters, their thoughts and fears. Only one thing darkened the whole impression for me: literally from the first pages I felt a terrible antipathy towards the narrator. He is an absolute loser and a simpleton (not to say a sucker), who speaks loudly (and almost always correctly) about important things, but he himself is unable to stand up for his own little son, where necessary, but easily renounces his beliefs at the end, erasing all the months he has lived in the taiga (simply a betrayal, but I don’t want to write in more detail in order to avoid spoilers). And I was also touched by the fragment where this very Soviet man speaks badly about a fellow emigrant who left such a Great Country at a difficult moment (don’t forget in what years the book was written).
Overall, a decent book. I sincerely hope that it will gain its popularity and win the love of the reader.
Rated the book
What will happen if two people, complete strangers to each other, find themselves alone in the middle of the taiga, completely without things or equipment? Do you think the reader of such a plot will expect an adventure novel about overcoming or some kind of mystic fantasy? But no! Don't believe it! Nothing here is what it seems! From the annotation to the novel, first of all, one should take away the words “philosophical parable”, and everything else is just for the sake of the surroundings.
The narrative is constructed in the form of a diary, divided into notebooks covering fairly long periods of time. In this case, there is no connection to dates at all. The plot begins quite cheerfully: after a passenger plane crashes somewhere over the taiga, two passengers happily survive, in the context of the novel - an unnamed man and woman. After a week of traveling through the forest, travelers stumble upon an unfinished village left by someone, which has everything for a long stay in isolation: water, food, electricity, heat, clothing and medicine. The heroes do not understand where they are until the very end, and the further they go, the more questions they have. Why did people leave the city, in which the work of improvement had begun, but was not completed? Where did they go? Will they come back? Why does a Geiger counter click like... high levels radiation? And then how long do they have to live if the level really exceeds nomu? Where have all the mosquitoes gone from the forest? Why do birds here fly from south to north in autumn? Where does energy constantly come from for buildings if the wind generator does not always work? Why is the radio silent? Why does no one respond to signals sent via radio? What if something happened on the ground while they were flying on the plane? Global catastrophe, epidemic dangerous infection, and even nuclear war! What the hell is going on here?! All the mysticism at the end is explained quite logically and in an ordinary way. From the LOST promised by the annotation there is only a general mysterious and mystical mood. But someone, having seen the annotation, was waiting! For sure! But I really liked the mysterious and tense atmosphere in which the events take place at the beginning. And then, the closer to the end, the greater the emphasis is on the emotions and thoughts of the main character, which is greatly facilitated by the form of narration chosen by the author. To some, the hero may seem overly emotional, but this can be justified in the unusual situation in which the characters find themselves.
In fact, the misadventures of the heroes themselves play a very secondary role here and serve as a backdrop for considering the behavior of people in isolation and interpersonal relationships in a small group. This book is about love, about humanity, about how not to forget who you are, how to continue to remember for whom and what you live, about how not to lose hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.
As for the characters, if the man, due to the fact that he is the narrator, emerges in great detail, then the nameless female character is simply terribly flat and superficial. However, what else should you expect from a book written by a man on behalf of a man in the form of a confession? That's it! And in general, I think that it was quite possible to do without the love line. Why does the interaction of different-sex characters necessarily have to be reduced to the same thing? Just don’t tell me about the impossibility of friendship between a man and a woman! Ha!
Most of the book main character I identified with the author himself. Apparently this is how it was intended? At some point, a suspicion even arose that suddenly the situation described in the story took place in the life of Yuri Druzhkov, but there was no confirmation. The moments in which the author, through a character, talks about his love for his little son Valentin are written very warmly and touchingly. One of the brightest descriptions in my memory. Literally every page here is imbued with the love of a father for his son, because in the most difficult moments the hero remembers little Valya, who is probably somewhere out there waiting for his father to return home from a protracted business trip.
In general, my choice was very successful; it’s a pleasant book, but not without certain drawbacks, of course.
Rated the book
It’s very difficult for me to imagine that for one reason or another the world around me would become empty, and I would find myself, for example, in a forest or on a desert island completely alone. Let’s even say, not alone, but in the company of a complete stranger to me, a person who is not someone significant in my life, who does not connect me with the world around me.
It's even harder to imagine where my thoughts might lead me in such a situation. What will I think about first, who will I remember, what will I regret, what would my life seem like? And how can you not go crazy alone with your thoughts and the digging itself? How not to kill your faith in the hope of salvation, the faith that somewhere out there, in “real” life, they are waiting for you, they are crying for you...
The heroes of this book are in unique conditions: far from civilization, their life, their family, but still they have everything they need for life. It’s like leaving everything and moving to the village, but still it’s not the same...
How to find the meaning of your life in such conditions, what to do, why to move? How to escape from constant thoughts and memories of a past life, from constant analysis of your life, from awareness of your mistakes and betrayal? And when the characters were immersed in these thoughts, I truly became scared from the realization that if I started digging, I would find many imperfections and mistakes in my life. It's scary to think about it, although I understand that it is necessary. Yes, I wasn’t terrified when the tragedy happened to the main characters, but their thoughts really scared me. All the fears of the main characters live in each of us, they scratch us from the inside, but they are drowned out by life, affairs, worries. But when you are left alone for a long time, they burst out and nothing can be done...
Is happiness possible under such conditions? Happiness for two strangers, torn out of their usual life, a life without everyday hassles, without attachments and family, without those familiar little things that fill every ordinary day of “that” life? Yes, they all have a roof over their heads, food, they can even come up with something they like to do, or they can do nothing. But I think that there cannot be complete and unconditional happiness in such conditions. In moments of joy, they always looked back, they were always haunted by longing for their old life and the thought that everything that happened to them was temporary, they would come back. But is it possible to return painlessly after a long period of solitude?
This book touched me. A thousand thoughts, doubts, questions swarm in my head and give me no rest. I couldn't bring myself to step into the shoes of the heroes because it's really scary! It’s scary to realize that your life was not right, that you made only mistakes: you offended your loved ones, paid too little attention to your family, set the wrong goals for yourself, chose the wrong paths. It's scary that there may come a time when you no longer have a chance to fix everything. I push all these thoughts away, I don’t want to think about it. It’s necessary, but I don’t have enough courage and strength... But the heroes had to...
The book really surprised me, I was not ready for such experiences, too strong, too painful, too scary, too frank!
First notebook
Landing was announced at 308...
The flight was delayed from half a day. As always happens in these cases, in the huge airport hall we involuntarily noticed each other based on random words, similar behavior, and other trivial but expressive signs. The road wretches easily recognize their own kind in the noise of the station and gradually gather guillemots in an appointed place in a group of strangers who have in common - tickets for the “three hundred and eighth”, “ninth”, “tenth”...
I reproach myself for being distracted and inattentive to them then. But is it possible to foresee everything? Memory shows me the bustle of everyday life. Memory... I want to stop it, stop each of them, shout: wait, listen to me, let me look at you differently... And I can’t change anything...
Young mother with a child. An unshaven Mongol, or a Kyrgyz, or a Kalmyk. An old woman with a soft scarf on her shoulders, so soft, kind, smiling in appearance that I didn’t want to call her anything other than grandmother. An incomprehensible man in a gray hat. One of those that you can think of anything and guess nothing. I remember how surprised I was by his radar ability, without looking, to sense any noticeable woman flashing in the distance. He always followed her with his eyes, and then again buried himself in the newspapers, with which he did not part for a minute.
Several young people, different in appearance, but subtly similar, like those who grew up in a small village or served in the same unit. They played cards on the windowsill, not paying attention to the fact that nearby, some tall citizen, excited to the limit, was constantly looking into his sleeve and knocking the toe of his shoe on the floor.
Young students, two military men, a Japanese man covered with devices, one railway worker - we all hung around the buffet area, waiting until the calm speakers finally called us.
A young attractive woman stood patiently in line at the buffet. She doesn’t seem to be a beauty, as my good friend could say about her, he could say and add: but you can’t take your eyes off her. It seems that she is not a beauty in well-oiled blue jeans…
There was no one around free space. I noticed her immediately and thought: I’ll sit until it’s her turn, and then I’ll get up and... The funny thing is, for some reason it seemed to me that she understood that they were waiting for her. The turn came, I stood up, even nodded politely and slightly. She smiled at me as if she really said: you were waiting for me, thank you.
This on another plane, I thought. – To St. Petersburg, Kyiv or Riga... She flew with us...
They announced landing on "three hundred and eighth".
An unshaven Mongolian, a soft grandmother, a tall citizen excited to the limit, young people, among whom a new guy in a green cowboy jacket appeared at the last minute, a mother with a child, young students, an incomprehensible man with newspapers, military men, a railway worker, a Japanese man hung with devices, a woman, apparently not a beauty - we entered the plane, not knowing at that moment that everyone could and would not enter it.
We boarded the plane.
It is stuffy and cramped, cozy and not very comfortable for those who do not like tedious and long lying in a chair, especially when the movable staircase does not move, does not leave us, and no one invites us to fasten our seat belts, although the front door has already been closed.
Excited to the limit, the tall citizen tapped the toe of his shoe on the floor. Every five minutes he looked into the leather sleeve. The young people, with their new energetic friend, began to play, calmly play cards on a black “diplomat”. An incomprehensible man was sitting next to me, immersed in a newspaper, and next to him, against a smooth beige wall, was a Japanese man. Hung with cases, he was filming something through the porthole with a small, whirring movie camera.
The pilot walked through the cabin to the rear section and answered someone as he walked: don’t worry, we’re flying, we’ll be flying soon. But we stood, and the movable staircase did not move.
“And I kept wondering when these things would start.” “Please, they begin,” an incomprehensible man surprised me with his unexpected bass voice, looking up from the newspaper.
- What kind of things? – I answered, since the words were spoken clearly for me.
-Have you read the newspapers?
- Did not have time.
– This is happening, you haven’t read!.. These eastern hooligans are beating up their neighbors. The war is real. Tanks, missiles, forty divisions... Do you think ours will watch their friends beating up?... And Khabarovsk is not far away. So I’ll be in time for the beginning... The good beginning.
“God forbid,” the grandmother turned in our direction. There was no smile on her face.
“Well, that’s quite enough,” remarked the railwayman. – If ours start, it won’t be ours who will take advantage of it. They’ll shoot us quietly, as if it’s not them at all, we respond, and off we go...
– Is there any point in panicking? – without looking up from the cards, an energetic guy in a cowboy jacket asked quietly. “If you scare me, I’ll start to be afraid of the newspaper.”
The tall citizen, excited to the limit, suddenly said to someone unknown:
- To hell with them!
He took off his leather suitcase from above and ran to the doors of the pilot’s cabin, knocking on it sharply and demandingly. The flight attendant came out.
- Open it for me.
– Please don’t worry, we’ll be flying soon.
- But I don’t want to fly with you! Open immediately.
-Won’t you regret it? – the girl smiled.
- I won’t regret it, open...
He jumped through the door that was open for him, the only one.
“What a rude guy,” the grandmother waved her hand in annoyance.
We fastened our seat belts. A movable staircase rolled away from the liner.
The young flight attendant introduced herself, the pilot’s last name, the city where we were flying, and wished us a good trip...
It seems to me that I remember everyone who was in our long salon, a very long salon, soft and gray from the whitewashed covers on the chairs, from the soft light of the windows, from muffled conversations and the rustle of newspapers. But I flew more than once and never remembered anyone, or rather, I simply didn’t notice.
I remember everyone in this salon. I remember shoulders, the backs of heads far away from me, I even remember bags and suitcases in cages above our heads. My memory, against my will, wants to make our flight unusual, not as dry and everyday as it all really was. With significant words, significant movements. I can’t do it, I can’t think of anything, but I remember their special uniqueness. I remember everyone.
Stewardess. She has girlish, flowing hands, an excellent gait, movements, and stance that attract the locator glances of my seatmate... But by the way, he probably thinks the same thing about me.
- A? Which ones go? – my neighbor quietly announced himself, or rather began to look for contact with me for the long, tiring journey. And a faint cognac mist flew towards me.
“They fly,” I said, not very friendly.
- And they fly! – It’s unclear why he was happy. - Yes, and they fly...
She calmed down an unshaven man who looked like a Mongolian, but then it turned out that he was a native northerner, who looked around the salon, walked around it first from end to end, and now was in no hurry to fasten his seat belts.
“Daughter,” he said, changing the H to S, “how can this be?” Where is my car?
One could only guess what the “machine” was. He spoke Sh as S.
- I see there are no cars anywhere. Where's the car?
– Please don’t worry, I explained to you, the car is flying with us. Let’s sit down and get your car,” the flight attendant smiled.
“I don’t see,” he looked around the luggage racks again, “there’s no car.” I paid money, I paid a lot.
“Your car is in the trunk,” someone invisible joked. - In the trunk. I could ride it myself to the tundra.
“I have a washing machine to wash my clothes,” the restless one took offense. - IN kindergarten wash clothes.
My neighbor suddenly gurgled and looked at me as if I understood how much fun he was having.
- These naive Samoyeds... On the ramp he pestered the girl: where is the car, show me the car.
- It happens, so what?
– Anything can happen... We tell a joke... One Chukchi bought a machine for printing money. For ten thousand. Turn the knob - ten, turn it - another. I earned myself a thousand, and the car suddenly stopped working. Blank paper is gone. He does it this way and that, nothing. I unscrewed the machine, and there was one paper roll. The machine was washing. The crooks adapted...
Really funny.
The salon, sounded by a soft, even hum, seemed to me as if all its bulkheads, trims, and ribs were stretched from tension, trembling from the strain, pressing our fragile bodies into the chairs. And suddenly he went limp, hovering with relief in elastic weightlessness.
Well, we're finally flying...
- I can’t get used to it. I fly a million times and it’s always creepy,” my talkative neighbor noted. Whatever one may say - height. No one is driving, and time is money... It buzzes well, hums confidently. – He nodded towards the window, where the unshakable wing whitened solidly and reliably in the sun. It was as if a humming sound came from this strong, self-confident stillness.
The stuffiness gave way to a flying coolness. They came to life, began to move, the ones that had been quiet, such different fellow travelers.
“We just have to fly in the other direction,” he said, “otherwise we’ll end up in the thick of things, back to the beginning...”
A little boy came out onto the path of the salon, or rather jumped out of his chair, and walked along the elastic rug, looking at all of us with cheerful eyes.
He will stop near me, I thought for some reason. The kid actually stopped nearby.
- Are we flying? – I leaned towards him.
“I’m not scared at all,” said the boy.
“And I’m not scared either.”
“And mom isn’t scared,” said the boy.
– Is she brave?
- No, she's kind.
A young attractive woman, who did not seem to be a beauty, turned to us.
“And beautiful,” the neighbor winked. “You see, mom is worried, run to her.”
The boy looked back.
“This is not my mother,” he said loudly, and the woman smiled at him.
“I wouldn’t refuse,” the sucker confessed. – Think first, such a mother will suit everyone.
– Do you know how to blow up balloons? – the boy asked me.
- Don’t you know how?
- He is very strong.
The boy handed me a wrinkled blue bag.
- Do you have a lace?
- I have thread from a spool.
He showed me a tangled white thread.
“A real master will never inflate a balloon with a thread,” the guy playing cards a little behind us, apparently the main one in his campaign, looked at the boy.
“You see, I’m a master, but it seems we don’t have a lace,” I said.
– Give this wonderful strong cord to the craftsmen.
The guy took the lace out of his shoe, which had been thrown on the floor, and handed it to his friend, who was also playing cards while standing.
- How are you going to go? – the grandmother was surprised, habitually and comfortably located in an airplane seat, as if on a home sofa.
- My party is over. My boots are ready...
I inflated the balloon, tied it with the cord I had been given, and gave it to the boy.
“But mom couldn’t,” the boy praised me and threw the ball.
It squeaked against the ceiling with its blue side, flew to the side, where they splashed it back to the boy, but the ball flew in the wrong place. A small but rather noisy sitting mess began - the pursuit of the blue ball.
“Come to us,” the guy playing cards called the boy. - I'll give you an orange. I have two grids of them, one in a drawer and one in my pocket. Here.
“Lest this box plops on your head.” “Put it on its side, it will come in,” the smiling grandmother offered advice.
“It’s soft,” the guy answered, “the fruit will spring.”
The boy stomped towards him, hugging his ball with his hands.
“Go and study, diamonds are trump cards,” the neighbor said sarcastically. - the pictures will be shown to you.
“He shouldn’t do that,” I asked. – You’re loud... Don’t... And the women will be offended.
- What did I say that was offensive? – the neighbor raised his eyebrows. “Here, who, as it turned out, was mistakenly supposed to be her mother,” the neighbor nodded towards the young woman, “loudly called her beautiful.” So what? Did you notice how she smiled?...
Why am I drawn to talk in such detail about him, about the Chukchi with the car, about the flight attendant, about the boy with the blue balloon, about everyone else, cheerful or gloomy, tired or cheerful, old or young? Every optional, trifling word, movement, look, deed - all this will be needed by someone in the world. To whom?
- Not a single woman would be offended by such words... Although, between us, if only someone knew how unbearably boring it is to constantly have only beautiful woman and nothing more,” added the strange man with the newspapers.
A flight attendant entered the cabin. On a light cart she carried coffee smoke and everything that came with it. My neighbor's sensitive eyes turned to her. The flight attendant approached our seats. He took the tray from her, emphatically elegant, bowing his head slightly.
– Whose box of oranges? – the girl noticed. – Please correct it before it falls to someone...
The guy stood up and started moving the box. In my opinion, it rested securely and firmly, but went in two-thirds, sticking out above the chairs with an orange side.
“Whoever loses will sit in this place,” the guy warned.
What was I thinking about in those minutes? It seems like nothing...
About snow-gray clouds, spreading endlessly from edge to edge over forests, roads, villages, over which we probably flew, not seeing anything at such a huge height, nothing except the tangible firmament of clouds. About the sky, open to all four directions of the world, about the sky where there is never a single cloud, they lie on the ground. Clouds are not for the sky, they are for the wet dark earth...
I had never flown such a distance, so at first I was surprised by the ease with which my neighbor kicked off his shoes. He stretched out his legs, lowered the newspaper onto his knees, yawned blissfully and closed his eyes. I looked around. The guy playing cards tied his low shoes together with one lace, hung them on the seat, and when he noticed how I was looking at his preparations, he winked at me:
- Otherwise they will run away. One day I was looking all over the salon for my left shoe.
“Your shoes are worthless,” his grandmother told him, “they’re a mischief to the owner.” Equally unlucky.
- How did I offend you, mother? – the guy smiled.
“They told you to move the box, but you’re stubborn.”
- Yes, I stood in line behind them for two hours, I can’t see them anymore, let alone move them.
- Why did you buy it then?
- For seeds.
- For seeds? Oranges? Oh, are you thinking of planting in the garden, you joker?
– I’ll sow where only bears live, in the taiga.
- Unlucky.
Grandma was sitting in fuzzy gray socks. She wrapped the slippers in newspaper and put them in her chair.
The Japanese did not take off his patent leather shoes. I looked carefully so that he wouldn't notice. Then I saw her feet, the shoe-clad feet of a young woman, or maybe a girl in blue jeans. The three of us, shod on the entire liner, I came to a very deep observation. She, the Japanese and me. There is already a small isolated caste of those who do not take off their shoes.
There was a very long silence, if it is, perhaps, silence - in a closed cabin, humming from the powerful external tension. The windows became like black mirrors, darkening every minute, absorbing the reflections of sleepy people, the light of dim lampshades above them, creating next to us the same cabin flying in space, the same as ours, and only the glare on the wings sometimes revealed that it was unreal , unsteady, weightless, like a shadow, a mirage. The night was flying towards us from the east, and we were in a hurry to meet it.
Suddenly, on the path in the middle of the salon, I saw a small child’s shoe. He lurked on the carpet, comically holding up a strap that looked like a tail, and looked at me with a black button eye, as if he had run away from his owner and was now afraid that he would be caught, sneaking up on me, waving his strap or tail. The vibration made it slide across the soft green pile.
I could hardly resist saying “kitty-kitty” to him, this little red shoe looked so lively and cheerful, probably similar to its owner. I even reached out my hand to lightly stroke the red flank or tail, or just touch it. And he froze awkwardly, absurdly, forgetting to move his hand. The young woman, bowing her head, looked at me and at this mischievous shoe and smiled at me, him, us. Everyone around was sleeping, and we, almost opposite each other, were smiling at something unknown, and our tail was shaking and literally in a hurry to run away from us into a dark corner, under an easy chair.
She laughed happily, dropped down in front of the shoe right at my feet, took it in handfuls, like a real kitten, and carried it to where the brave little boy was sleeping in his mother’s arms. I saw only his serene top of his head, a funny tuft on it, like a tousled ponytail.
My neighbor raised his head, as if listening to the steady hum of the engines.
“It’s buzzing,” he said, stretching, “it’s buzzing well.”
- Puts you to sleep.
- And let it be, as long as it hums while it’s in the sky. I will never forget one cruel joke... Yes... we sat down at night in Tomsk. I didn’t go out onto the promenade, but fell asleep alone next to it. He opens his eyes, silence, the plane is empty, the door is open. What's the matter, he asks. And I blurted out like I hit him: we’re falling... I’m ashamed to remember. Validol was used up, poor fellow...
He drooped, covered with the newspaper like a blanket, and again left me alone for a long time.
Height. Almost immeasurable height. How it secretly creeps in and grows cold inside each of us from the look at the black mysticism, windows, scarlet reflections on the wings, thin walls, a thin ceiling and the trembling floor below us...
... When my boy was three years old, he asked me to go up with him to the top floor of the house in which he had lived since the day he was born. Indigenous first-floor workers, we entered the cramped elevator, as if into a real space cabin, looked around, took our time, pressed the button, and began to rise higher, higher, higher. I felt the boy’s palm freeze in my hand, a living excitement coming from it to me, the very initial delight of heights.
It’s too early for him, I thought. What the hell, he will start running to the elevator and walking along the cornices and railings like a kitten. I wanted to find some reason, stop the elevator, postpone the journey, but the baby pulled me towards him so much, there was so much grateful living joy in him towards me, the culprit of the ascent, the leader of the expedition, that I laughed and straightened up, placing my legs wide, like Someone probably puts them on the deck of the ship.
We opened the door to the common loggia, stepped straight to the blue cliff, the boy froze, not understanding how, far below, the huge trolleybuses and smoky dump trucks that had recently been such angry giants suddenly became like toys. Above the small street a small motor ship was sailing along a canal-stream, and behind this canal the endless Tushino with all its houses, trees, towers, chimneys sparkled white, blue, and sparkled with sunny windows. The wind was flying from everywhere: from the side, from above, from below. I picked him up, took him in my arms, the stunned boy, as if not trusting the crazy wind, the flying height, and my boy suddenly grabbed me, the only one who was familiar and reliable in this space flying away to who knows where, and said something that for a moment froze the most the heart is in me.
- Daddy, won’t you leave me?
I pressed him to me, shuddering with tenderness.
- What are you doing, my little one? What are you... what are you... what are you? - I muttered.
The first journey, the first discovery of heights, radiance. The discovery of light and the first feeling of possible or impossible betrayal. My boy…
... Meanwhile, the plane seemed to be hanging motionless in the thick black. And only a steady hum conveyed the feeling of flight. It’s humming, I suddenly said to myself in the words of a neighbor, it’s humming well...
...And even now, alone with a sheet of white paper, I feel with what reluctance, with what burden I undertake to write about what happened to us later, how I put aside from one line to another the memory that turned me gray...
At first, in the windows, for one moment, there was a blinding, unbearably bright scarlet light. We plunged into it, and the pitch-black cosmic roar hit all the veins and ribs of our fragile machine, threw it sideways or down, or back, or forward, or into different sides instantly, I couldn’t understand where, I couldn’t understand who screamed so terribly: all of us at once or the device itself from the metal breaking pain.
But it died down as quickly as it all happened. The thin walls, floor and ceiling did not crack anywhere, did not crumple, did not fly apart, or burst into crumbs. The glass was still cold and impenetrable black. Perspiration fogged them. And only the traces of the drops snaked and flowed along them like black glass cracks.
My neighbor was dumbfounded and touched the crumpled o front seat face. The frightened boy was crying. The salon was buzzing with alarmed voices.
- Kanagli! Still, no less than ten kilograms plopped down on my head.
The guy playing cards said this as he lifted the box of oranges back into the metal mesh. From his words, from his confident voice, from the everyday ordinary movements of one person, for some reason I felt calmer. People sank into chairs, straightening their hair, clothes, and looking for their shoes.
“And I’m wondering where the thunder comes from,” the grandmother quipped in a hoarse voice that was not her own. - God punished you.
- What is this? – my neighbor asked with white naughty lips. - I was sleeping... I unfastened my seat belts, fool...
“Probably lightning, a thundercloud,” I said. - Everything turned out okay. It's buzzing, do you hear?
- That's right, it's buzzing...
A flight attendant entered the cabin, very calm in appearance, but now it seems to me that she then had a completely different, unrecognizable face.
– Please fasten your seat belts.
- For what? – someone couldn’t stand it and shouted nervously.
“So that I don’t worry about you,” the girl answered. - Do something nice for me.
- What about thunder?
- That's what the sky is for, so that it thunders.
I noticed her hands. They were linked at the very chest on the uniform jacket.
- Comrades, is there a doctor among you? – the girl asked quietly, approaching us. - We need a doctor.
“It’s me,” a big, plump man stood up.
“Please come with me,” the girl asked and left without looking back.
Gone forever...
“Someone is feeling bad,” the grandmother complained in the next row. - It shook, God forbid...
It didn’t immediately dawn on me that our silent Japanese began to speak at that moment. He stood up, his hands trembled, his lips trembled, mixing Japanese and English words into a heap, into confusion.
Yuri Druzhkov
Who's crying for you
Part one
First notebook
Landing was announced at 308...
The flight was delayed from half a day. As always happens in these cases, in the huge airport hall we involuntarily noticed each other based on random words, similar behavior, and other trivial but expressive signs. The road wretches easily recognize their own kind in the noise of the station and gradually gather guillemots in an appointed place in a group of strangers who have in common - tickets for the “three hundred and eighth”, “ninth”, “tenth”...
I reproach myself for being distracted and inattentive to them then. But is it possible to foresee everything? Memory shows me the bustle of everyday life. Memory... I want to stop it, stop each of them, shout: wait, listen to me, let me look at you differently... And I can’t change anything...
Young mother with a child. An unshaven Mongol, or a Kyrgyz, or a Kalmyk. An old woman with a soft scarf on her shoulders, so soft, kind, smiling in appearance that I didn’t want to call her anything other than grandmother. An incomprehensible man in a gray hat. One of those that you can think of anything and guess nothing. I remember how surprised I was by his radar ability, without looking, to sense any noticeable woman flashing in the distance. He always followed her with his eyes, and then again buried himself in the newspapers, with which he did not part for a minute.
Several young people, different in appearance, but subtly similar, like those who grew up in a small village or served in the same unit. They played cards on the windowsill, not paying attention to the fact that nearby, some tall citizen, excited to the limit, was constantly looking into his sleeve and knocking the toe of his shoe on the floor.
Young students, two military men, a Japanese man covered in equipment, one railway worker - we all hung around the buffet area, waiting until the calm speakers finally called us.
A young attractive woman stood patiently in line at the buffet. She doesn’t seem to be a beauty, as my good friend could say about her, he could say and add: but you can’t take your eyes off her. She doesn’t seem to be a beauty in well-fitted blue jeans...
There wasn't a single empty seat around. I noticed her immediately and thought: I’ll sit until it’s her turn, and then I’ll get up and... The funny thing is, for some reason it seemed to me that she understood that they were waiting for her. The turn came, I stood up, even nodded politely and slightly. She smiled at me as if she really said: you were waiting for me, thank you.
This on another plane, I thought. - To St. Petersburg, Kyiv or Riga... She flew with us...
They announced landing on "three hundred and eighth".
An unshaven Mongolian, a soft grandmother, a tall citizen excited to the limit, young people, among whom a new guy in a green cowboy jacket appeared at the last minute, a mother with a child, young students, an incomprehensible man with newspapers, military men, a railway worker, a Japanese man hung with devices, a woman, apparently not a beauty - we entered the plane, not knowing at that moment that everyone could and would not enter it.
We boarded the plane. It is stuffy and cramped, cozy and not very comfortable for those who do not like tedious and long lying in a chair, especially when the movable staircase does not move, does not leave us, and no one invites us to fasten our seat belts, although the front door has already been closed.
Excited to the limit, the tall citizen tapped the toe of his shoe on the floor. Every five minutes he looked into the leather sleeve. The young people, with their new energetic friend, began to play, calmly play cards on a black “diplomat”. An incomprehensible man was sitting next to me, immersed in a newspaper, and next to him, against a smooth beige wall, was a Japanese man. Hung with cases, he was filming something through the porthole with a small, whirring movie camera.
The pilot walked through the cabin to the rear section and answered someone as he walked: don’t worry, we’re flying, we’ll be flying soon. But we stood, and the movable staircase did not move.
And I kept wondering when these things would start. “Please, they begin,” an incomprehensible man surprised me with his unexpected bass voice, looking up from the newspaper.
What kind of things? - I answered, since the words were spoken clearly for me.
Haven't you read the newspapers?
Did not have time.
This is happening, you haven’t read!.. These eastern hooligans are beating up their neighbors. The war is real. Tanks, missiles, forty divisions... Do you think ours will watch their friends beating up?... And Khabarovsk is not far away. So I’ll be in time for the beginning... The good beginning.
“God forbid,” the grandmother turned in our direction. There was no smile on her face.
“Well, that’s quite enough,” the railroad worker remarked. - If ours start, it won’t be ours who will take advantage of it. They’ll shoot us quietly, as if it’s not them at all, we respond, and off we go...
Is there any point in panicking? - Without looking up from the cards, an energetic guy in a cowboy jacket asked quietly. - If you scare me, I’ll start to be afraid of the newspaper.
The tall citizen, excited to the limit, suddenly said to someone unknown:
To hell with them!
He took off his leather suitcase from above and ran to the doors of the pilot’s cabin, knocking on it sharply and demandingly. The flight attendant came out.
Open it for me.
Please don't worry, we'll be flying soon.
But I don’t want to fly with you! Open immediately.
Won't you regret it? - the girl smiled.
I won’t regret it, open it...
He jumped through the door that was open for him, the only one.
What a rude person,” the grandmother waved her hand in annoyance.
We fastened our seat belts. A movable staircase rolled away from the liner.
The young flight attendant introduced herself, the pilot’s last name, the city where we were flying, and wished us a good trip...
It seems to me that I remember everyone who was in our long salon, a very long salon, soft and gray from the whitewashed covers on the chairs, from the soft light of the windows, from muffled conversations and the rustle of newspapers. But I flew more than once and never remembered anyone, or rather, I simply didn’t notice.
I remember everyone in this salon. I remember shoulders, the backs of heads far away from me, I even remember bags and suitcases in cages above our heads. My memory, against my will, wants to make our flight unusual, not as dry and everyday as it all really was. With significant words, significant movements. I can’t do it, I can’t think of anything, but I remember their special uniqueness. I remember everyone.
Stewardess. She has girlish, flowing hands, an excellent gait, movements, and stance that attract the locator glances of my seatmate... But by the way, he probably thinks the same thing about me.
A? Which ones go? - my neighbor quietly announced himself, or rather began to look for contact with me for the long, tiring journey. And a faint cognac mist flew towards me.
“They fly,” I said, not very friendly.
And they fly! - It’s unclear why he was happy. - Yes, and they fly...
She calmed down an unshaven man who looked like a Mongolian, but then it turned out that he was a native northerner, who looked around the salon, walked around it first from end to end, and now was in no hurry to fasten his seat belts.
“Daughter,” he said, changing the H to S, “how can this be?” Where is my car?
One could only guess what the “machine” was. He spoke Sh as S.
I see there are no cars anywhere. Where's the car?
Please don't worry, I explained to you, the car is flying with us. Let’s sit down and get your car,” the flight attendant smiled.
I don’t see,” he looked around the luggage racks again, “there is no car.” I paid money, I paid a lot.
“Your car is in the trunk,” someone invisible joked. - In the trunk. I could ride it myself to the tundra.
“I have a washing machine to wash my clothes,” the restless man was offended. - Wash clothes in kindergarten.
My neighbor suddenly gurgled and looked at me as if I understood how much fun he was having.
These naive Samoyeds... On the ramp he pestered the girl: where is the car, show me the car.
It happens, so what?
Anything can happen... They tell us a joke... One Chukchi bought a machine for printing money. For ten thousand. Turn the knob - ten, turn it - another. I earned myself a thousand, and the car suddenly stopped working. Blank paper is gone. He does it this way and that, nothing. I unscrewed the machine, and there was one paper roll. The machine was washing. The crooks adapted...
Really funny.
The salon, sounded by a soft, even hum, seemed to me as if all its bulkheads, trims, and ribs were stretched from tension, trembling from the strain, pressing our fragile bodies into the chairs. And suddenly he went limp, hovering with relief in elastic weightlessness.
Well, we're finally flying...
I can't get used to it. I fly a million times and it’s always creepy,” my talkative neighbor noted. Whatever one may say - height. No one is driving, and time is money... It buzzes well, hums confidently. - He nodded towards the window, where the unshakable wing whitened solidly and reliably in the sun. It was as if a humming sound came from this strong, self-confident stillness.
An amazing book of an interesting fate from an amazing person. Yuri Druzhkov, a name now almost forgotten by the modern reader, is the same person to whom we owe Karandash and Samodelkin. A man who during his lifetime managed to publish only one book, beloved by everyone (the continuation of the adventures of Karandash and Samodelkin was published after his death). “Who Cries for You” was released by the son of Yuri Druzhkov. For more than twenty years, the book lay “on the table”, waiting to bring a little more good to our evil world.
The plot of the story is quite simple. We begin to get acquainted with the notebooks that make up the diary of a man who survived a plane crash. From them we learn that the plane on which our poor fellow was flying crashed in an unknown place, apparently somewhere in the taiga. Collapsed upon contact with the ground and drowned in the lake. Of all the passengers, two survived - our hero and the woman. The name of which we never learn, in fact, like the name of our narrator. The survivors, who do not understand where exactly they are, try to find at least some hint of civilization, and after several days of wandering through monotonous forests, eating berries, being eaten by mosquitoes, spending the night in hollow trees and hollows covered with leaves, they find something like a camp. It contains stocks of canned food and other food. Construction Materials. Seed stocks. A large number of different equipment eg fire trucks and construction cranes. There are instructions for using equipment, constructing buildings, and growing vegetables. There is only one. Of people. True, there are no mosquitoes here for some unknown reason either. And for some reason the birds above the camp fly from south to north...
Inflamed by TV series (especially emphasized in the LOST annotation), thrillers and generally plots with sharp twists, the brain begins to tune in to some unexpected plot moves, intriguing half-hints and veils that will gradually begin to fall, throw up puzzles, and put events into the overall picture. Of course, general plot contours do exist. Only with a gentle smile on your face and marketers tearing off your hands for the annotation to the book - it’s not about that at all. This is a special, surprisingly bright story about what Man is, what modern man is, how one must be able to love, be able to live. How you need to look for hope, meaning, find joy when it seems there is none. How important it is when somewhere there is a person who cries for you.
The book is so unexpectedly wonderful in its simplicity that it is necessary to talk about it in some special format, and not evaluate it by the number of stars. An associative comparison arose with two things - “The Juices of the Earth” by Knut Hamsun and “Concrete Island” by James Ballard, but only a simple comparison. From the themes raised by all these works about humanity, people, society.
The main thing that the book expresses is the personality of the author. Wikipedia suggests that Yuri Druzhkov endured a huge number of trials in his life. Having fallen ill at the age of three, he lost his childhood, spending the next thirteen years of his life in a tuberculosis hospital, experiencing both the blow of the famine of the thirties and the fascist occupation of the beginning of World War II. And then, years later, we got Karandash and Samodelkin, kindest world. And in “Who Cries for You” all the goodness of a person who has suffered a lot of suffering in his life is fully manifested. The words with which our hero remembers his little son and his childhood, which, unlike the author, is destined to take place... honestly, I have never read anything sincere and kinder in relation to a man to your own child. Light pouring straight from the pages.
And the language... What a beautiful Russian language, with words lost somewhere in childhood, words that we no longer use now, which may seem outdated, inappropriate, “shameful.” Thirty years have passed since the book was written - and it’s just absolutely obvious - no, guys. There's no shame in being a real person. The book gives this feeling to the fullest extent.
I don't like rereading books. Even if it seems to me that I have completely forgotten the plot, I still start to remember at most halfway through how it will all end. But as a child, I did not yet know about this dislike of mine. This is probably why I reread “The Adventures of Pencil and Samodelkin” countless times. Even now, after almost twenty years, I vaguely remember the main events of my first favorite book. Succumbing to nostalgic feelings, I wanted to know more about the author and his books. It was then that I discovered that, it turns out, Yuri Druzhkov (or Yuri Postnikov) was a man of a very difficult fate, both personal and literary. A lot of grief befell him, starting from his earliest childhood. But, fortunately, Yuri was able to overcome all the difficulties, and as a result, not only the Soviet Union, but the whole world received such a wonderful writer (“The Adventures of Karandash and Samodelkin” have been translated into 18 languages!). However, in the writing field, Druzhkov is the complete antipode of Dontsova. He has written only four full-length books and several fairy tales. But, as they say, less is more.
The book “Who Cries for You” is prose for adults and was published twenty years after it was written. That is, this is a relatively new work for the reader and, unfortunately, still little known. When I was choosing another audiobook and came across a familiar name of the author, I immediately became interested. I started listening. The rich and very correct Russian language immediately captivated me. The plot slowly tightened. Although, of course, you shouldn’t expect action-packed prose. This is how the narrator himself speaks about his work:
- Even without incident?
- What, you can’t live without them?
“Probably not a book,” I suggested. - They won’t read.
- Don't scare me! I know one modern novel, a sort of series. Whatever the type, he is a bundle of stressful situations. The intertwining between them is condensed and stressful. But here’s the problem: I, an ordinary reader, was suddenly overcome by stress fatigue from all this pressure.
In this book you will find the reflections of a person who found himself in an extreme situation, about everything that is important to him and that he may have lost forever (we don’t keep what we had, and when we lose it, we cry). And here a particularly pleasant surprise awaited me: a father’s thoughts about his child, with incredible tenderness and all-consuming love - I had never read anything like this before. Moreover, all this was written with such sincere feeling that it aroused in me endless tenderness and admiration for my father.
My little sparrow! You gave me this blessing - the blessing of caring not about yourself, not about your affairs and sorrows, not about your career, not about your pleasure - caring about another. A person cannot help but care about anyone. You revealed this and another great secret to me...
...You taught me selfless devotion, allowed me to guess what it means to be irreplaceable, the only one needed without any conditions, secret benefit for yourself. You - to me, I - to you, we really, we need each other so much! My sunshine, a real friend, a real person.
The plot itself is very simple: the plane crashes somewhere in the remote taiga. Of all the passengers, only two survive - a man and a woman, strangers until that moment. By some incredible miracle, a week later they manage to come across a deserted camp with huge reserves of all human goods, from electric razors and canned food, to building materials and books. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot get in touch with the outside world. Did some terrible catastrophe befall all of humanity, leaving only these Adam and Eve alive?..
Everything in this book is good: the beginning, the denouement, the relationships of the characters, their thoughts and fears. Only one thing darkened the whole impression for me: literally from the first pages I felt a terrible antipathy towards the narrator. He is an absolute loser and a simpleton (not to say "sucker"), loudly (and almost always correctly) talking about important things, while he himself is unable to stand up for his little son where necessary, but easily gives up his beliefs in the end , crossing out all the months spent in the taiga (simply a betrayal, but I don’t want to write in more detail in order to avoid spoilers). And I was also touched by the fragment where this very Soviet man speaks badly about a fellow emigrant who left such a Great Country at a difficult moment (don’t forget in what years the book was written).
Overall, a decent book. I sincerely hope that it will gain its popularity and win the love of the reader.
Quite an unexpected book. Unexpected in that, for all its originality, it turned out to be unclaimed by either the reader or the publisher. Unexpected in its plot, the action of which actually begins with a plane crash of a passenger airliner over the endless Siberian taiga. Unexpected with its numerous smart and serious reflections on life.
However, to read this novel and enjoy it, you need patience, patience and more patience: they don’t write like that now (the author died in 1983) - there is not much dynamics in the book, but there are very, very many emotions, memories, reflections. .. Perhaps at the moment, in our pragmatic times, it may seem that the author is even overacting at some points. But we must not forget how many years ago this thing was written.
As a result. Of course, you need to read such a book, and even though it is not very large, it is quite fascinating, but at the same time you must clearly understand that this is by no means light entertaining literature, here you need to think and empathize while reading...
Yuri Druzhkov
Who's crying for you
Part one
First notebook
Landing was announced at 308...
The flight was delayed from half a day. As always happens in these cases, in the huge airport hall we involuntarily noticed each other based on random words, similar behavior, and other trivial but expressive signs. The road wretches easily recognize their own kind in the noise of the station and gradually gather guillemots in an appointed place in a group of strangers who have in common - tickets for the “three hundred and eighth”, “ninth”, “tenth”...
I reproach myself for being distracted and inattentive to them then. But is it possible to foresee everything? Memory shows me the bustle of everyday life. Memory... I want to stop it, stop each of them, shout: wait, listen to me, let me look at you differently... And I can’t change anything...
Young mother with a child. An unshaven Mongol, or a Kyrgyz, or a Kalmyk. An old woman with a soft scarf on her shoulders, so soft, kind, smiling in appearance that I didn’t want to call her anything other than grandmother. An incomprehensible man in a gray hat. One of those that you can think of anything and guess nothing. I remember how surprised I was by his radar ability, without looking, to sense any noticeable woman flashing in the distance. He always followed her with his eyes, and then again buried himself in the newspapers, with which he did not part for a minute.
Several young people, different in appearance, but subtly similar, like those who grew up in a small village or served in the same unit. They played cards on the windowsill, not paying attention to the fact that nearby, some tall citizen, excited to the limit, was constantly looking into his sleeve and knocking the toe of his shoe on the floor.
Young students, two military men, a Japanese man covered in equipment, one railway worker - we all hung around the buffet area, waiting until the calm speakers finally called us.
A young attractive woman stood patiently in line at the buffet. She doesn’t seem to be a beauty, as my good friend could say about her, he could say and add: but you can’t take your eyes off her. She doesn’t seem to be a beauty in well-fitted blue jeans...
There wasn't a single empty seat around. I noticed her immediately and thought: I’ll sit until it’s her turn, and then I’ll get up and... The funny thing is, for some reason it seemed to me that she understood that they were waiting for her. The turn came, I stood up, even nodded politely and slightly. She smiled at me as if she really said: you were waiting for me, thank you.
This on another plane, I thought. - To St. Petersburg, Kyiv or Riga... She flew with us...
They announced landing on "three hundred and eighth".
An unshaven Mongolian, a soft grandmother, a tall citizen excited to the limit, young people, among whom a new guy in a green cowboy jacket appeared at the last minute, a mother with a child, young students, an incomprehensible man with newspapers, military men, a railway worker, a Japanese man hung with devices, a woman, apparently not a beauty - we entered the plane, not knowing at that moment that everyone could and would not enter it.
We boarded the plane. It is stuffy and cramped, cozy and not very comfortable for those who do not like tedious and long lying in a chair, especially when the movable staircase does not move, does not leave us, and no one invites us to fasten our seat belts, although the front door has already been closed.
Excited to the limit, the tall citizen tapped the toe of his shoe on the floor. Every five minutes he looked into the leather sleeve. The young people, with their new energetic friend, began to play, calmly play cards on a black “diplomat”. An incomprehensible man was sitting next to me, immersed in a newspaper, and next to him, against a smooth beige wall, was a Japanese man. Hung with cases, he was filming something through the porthole with a small, whirring movie camera.
The pilot walked through the cabin to the rear section and answered someone as he walked: don’t worry, we’re flying, we’ll be flying soon. But we stood, and the movable staircase did not move.
And I kept wondering when these things would start. “Please, they begin,” an incomprehensible man surprised me with his unexpected bass voice, looking up from the newspaper.
What kind of things? - I answered, since the words were spoken clearly for me.
Haven't you read the newspapers?
Did not have time.
This is happening, you haven’t read!.. These eastern hooligans are beating up their neighbors. The war is real. Tanks, missiles, forty divisions... Do you think ours will watch their friends beating up?... And Khabarovsk is not far away. So I’ll be in time for the beginning... The good beginning.
“God forbid,” the grandmother turned in our direction. There was no smile on her face.
“Well, that’s quite enough,” the railroad worker remarked. - If ours start, it won’t be ours who will take advantage of it. They’ll shoot us quietly, as if it’s not them at all, we respond, and off we go...
Is there any point in panicking? - Without looking up from the cards, an energetic guy in a cowboy jacket asked quietly. - If you scare me, I’ll start to be afraid of the newspaper.
The tall citizen, excited to the limit, suddenly said to someone unknown:
To hell with them!
He took off his leather suitcase from above and ran to the doors of the pilot’s cabin, knocking on it sharply and demandingly. The flight attendant came out.
Open it for me.
Please don't worry, we'll be flying soon.
But I don’t want to fly with you! Open immediately.
Won't you regret it? - the girl smiled.
I won’t regret it, open it...
He jumped through the door that was open for him, the only one.
What a rude person,” the grandmother waved her hand in annoyance.
We fastened our seat belts. A movable staircase rolled away from the liner.
The young flight attendant introduced herself, the pilot’s last name, the city where we were flying, and wished us a good trip...
It seems to me that I remember everyone who was in our long salon, a very long salon, soft and gray from the whitewashed covers on the chairs, from the soft light of the windows, from muffled conversations and the rustle of newspapers. But I flew more than once and never remembered anyone, or rather, I simply didn’t notice.
I remember everyone in this salon. I remember shoulders, the backs of heads far away from me, I even remember bags and suitcases in cages above our heads. My memory, against my will, wants to make our flight unusual, not as dry and everyday as it all really was. With significant words, significant movements. I can’t do it, I can’t think of anything, but I remember their special uniqueness. I remember everyone.
Stewardess. She has girlish, flowing hands, an excellent gait, movements, and stance that attract the locator glances of my seatmate... But by the way, he probably thinks the same thing about me.
