Decent double-breasted suit summary. Sergey Dovlatov Suitcase (collection). Book Reviews

Sergey Dovlatov

Suitcase (collection)

... But such, my Russia,

you are dearer to me than all the lands ...

Alexander Blok

Published with the kind permission of Elena and Ekaterina Dovlatov

Publishing house AZBUKA®

Foreword

In OVIR this bitch says to me:

- Each departing person is entitled to three suitcases. This is the established norm. There is a special order from the ministry.

There was no point in arguing. But I, of course, objected:

- Only three suitcases ?! What about things?

- For example?

- For example, with my collection racing cars?

- Sell, - the official responded without delving into it.

- If you are dissatisfied with something, write a statement.

- I'm happy, - I say.

After prison, I was happy with everything.

- Well, behave more modestly ...

In a week I was already packing my things. And, as it turned out, only one suitcase was enough for me.

I almost sobbed in self-pity. After all, I'm thirty-six years old. Eighteen of them I work. I earn something, I buy. I own, as it seemed to me, some property. And the result is one suitcase. And a rather modest size. So I'm a beggar? How did this happen ?!

Books? But mostly I had forbidden books. Which are not allowed by customs. I had to distribute them to my friends along with the so-called archive.

Manuscripts? I sent them to the West long ago by secret routes.

Furniture? I took the desk to a thrift store. The chairs were taken by the artist Chegin, who had previously done with boxes. I threw away the rest.

So he left with one suitcase. The suitcase was plywood, covered in fabric, with nickel-plated fasteners at the corners. The castle was inactive. I had to tie a clothesline around my suitcase.

Once I went with him to a pioneer camp. On the lid it was written in ink: “Younger group. Seryozha Dovlatov ". Nearby someone scribbled amiably: "shitty." The fabric broke in several places.

The inside of the lid was covered with photographs. Rocky Marciano, Armstrong, Joseph Brodsky, Lollobrigida in transparent clothes. The customs officer tried to tear off Lollobrigida with his nails. As a result, only scratched.

But Brodsky did not touch. He just asked - who is it? I replied that a distant relative ...

On May 16, I found myself in Italy. He lived in the Roman hotel "Dina". The suitcase was pushed under the bed.

Soon he received some fees from Russian magazines. Purchased blue sandals, flannel jeans, and four linen shirts. I never opened the suitcase.

He moved to the United States three months later. To New York. At first he lived at the Rio Hotel. Then with friends in Flushing. Finally I rented an apartment in a decent area. I put the suitcase in the far corner of the closet. I never untied the clothesline.

Four years have passed. Our family has recovered. The daughter became a young American. A son was born. He grew up and began to be naughty. One day my wife, out of patience, shouted:

- Go to the closet now!

My son spent three minutes in the closet. Then I released it and I ask:

- Were you scared? You cried / And he says:

- No. I was sitting on a suitcase.

Then I took out my suitcase. And he opened it.

On top was a decent double-breasted suit. Based on interviews, symposia, lectures, gala receptions. I suppose it would have worked for the Nobel Prize too. Next is a poplin shirt and shoes wrapped in paper. Underneath is a corduroy jacket with faux fur. Left - winter hat from a fake cat. Three pairs of Finnish crepe socks. Driver's gloves. And finally - a leather officer's belt.

At the bottom of the suitcase lay a page of Pravda for May 1980. The big headline read: "Great Teaching - Live!" In the center is a portrait of Karl Marx.

As a schoolboy, I loved to paint the leaders of the world proletariat. And especially - Marx. He smeared an ordinary blot - it already looks like ...

I looked around the empty suitcase. At the bottom - Karl Marx. On the lid is Brodsky. And between them - a lost, priceless, only life.

I closed my suitcase. Inside, balls of naphthalene rolled echoingly. Things lay in a motley heap on the kitchen table. This was all that I have made in thirty-six years. For all my life at home. I thought - is this really all? And he answered - yes, that's all.

And then, as they say, memories flooded. They must have been hidden in the folds of this wretched rag. And now they burst out. Memories that should have been named - "From Marx to Brodsky." Or, let's say - "What have I acquired." Or, let's say, simply - "Suitcase" ...

But, as always, the preface dragged on.

Finnish crepe socks

Ethat story happened eighteen years ago. I was at that time a student at the Leningrad University.

The university buildings were located in the old part of the city. The combination of water and stone creates a special, majestic atmosphere here. It's hard to be lazy in such an environment, but I did it.

There are exact sciences in the world. This means that there are imprecise ones. Among inaccurate, I think, philology takes the first place. So I became a student of philology.

A week later, a slender girl in imported shoes fell in love with me. Her name was Asya.

Asya introduced me to friends. All of them were older than us - engineers, journalists, cameramen. There was even one shop manager among them.

These people dressed well. Loved restaurants, travel. Some had their own cars.

They all seemed to me then mysterious, strong and attractive. I wanted to be my man in this circle.

Later, many of them emigrated. Now these are normal elderly Jews.

The life we \u200b\u200bled was costly. Most often, they fell on the shoulders of Asya's friends. I was extremely embarrassed by this.

I remember how Doctor Logovinsky quietly slipped me four rubles while Asya ordered a taxi ...

All people can be divided into two categories. For those who ask. And to those who answer. For those who ask questions. And those who frown in irritation in response.

Ashina's friends did not ask her questions. And all I did was ask:

- Where have you been? Who did you say hello to on the subway? Where did you get your French perfume? ..

Most people consider the problems unsolvable if they are not satisfied with the solution. And they endlessly ask questions, although they do not need truthful answers at all ...

"Suitcase" is a collection of stories by Sergei Dovlatov, published in 1986 by the Hermitage publishing house (Ann Arbor).

In Russia, the book was first published by the Moskovsky Rabochy publishing house (1991).

In 2013, the collection was included in the list of "100 books" recommended by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation to schoolchildren for independent reading.

The hero of the work, leaving for the USA, takes with him only a small plywood suitcase. Opening it a few years later, he finds there a double-breasted suit, a poplin shirt, a corduroy jacket, three pairs of Finnish crepe socks, and a fake cat winter hat. Each of these items becomes an occasion for memories.

Finnish Crepe Socks
Finding himself in a difficult financial situation, the hero of the story accepted the offer of a familiar farmer to "enter the share" and purchase a batch of Finnish crepe socks, which were in great demand at that time: they could be handed over to wholesalers for three rubles per pair. The immediate enrichment operation was disrupted by the Soviet light industry, which suddenly flooded stores with similar goods for eighty kopecks. Finnish socks from a shortage have turned into illiquid.

"Nomenclature low shoes"
The hero ended up in a brigade of stone cutters, which was instructed to cut down a relief image of Lomonosov for the new station of the Leningrad metro. After the completion of all the work, a banquet was held. The narrator, finding himself at the same table with the mayor, noticed that he had taken off his shoes. Pulling them to him, the hero bent down and hid someone else's shoes in a nearby briefcase.

"Decent double-breasted suit"
A stranger named Arthur appeared in the editorial office, with whom the hero first went down to the buffet, and then went to the restaurant. The next day, Dovlatov was invited to the editor's office - there was a major of state security. It turned out that Arthur is a spy. The major suggested that the journalist continue his acquaintance and go to the theater with Arthur. For the sake of such an occasion, the editor ordered the purchase of an imported double-breasted suit for “Comrade Dovlatov” at a local department store.

"Officer's belt"
The story takes place during the hero's service in the camp guard. Once the foreman ordered Dovlatov to deliver the prisoner to the mental hospital on Iosser. The hero found a partner by the name of Churilin in the tool shop, where he soldered a brass badge on a leather officer's belt. Filled with tin from the inside, such a belt turned into a formidable weapon.

"Jacket Fernand Leger"
The narrator recalls the many years of friendship with the family of actor Nikolai Cherkasov. After the death of the people's artist, his widow Nina Cherkasova traveled to Paris and brought Dovlatov a gift - an old jacket requiring repair with traces oil paint on the sleeve. It turned out that the jacket belonged to Fernand Léger. The artist's widow Nadya specially donated the jacket for Dovlatov, since Leger bequeathed her "to be a friend of every rabble."

"Poplin shirt"
On election day, the agitator Elena Borisovna came to the hero. Instead of going to the polling station, the hero, along with a new acquaintance, went to the cinema, and from there to the House of Writers. This is how the history of the Dovlatov family began. Lena was the first to talk about emigration. The narrator, who by that time had not yet “reached some fatal point,” decided to stay. Before leaving, his wife presented Dovlatov with a Romanian poplin shirt.

"Winter hat"
Together with his brother Boris, the hero went to the Sovetskaya Hotel, where women from the film group that were filming the documentary were waiting for them. During the feast, one of them - Rita - asked the narrator to accompany her to the airport: it was necessary to meet the director of the picture. At the taxi stand, there was a fight with tall guys. The adventures were continued at the police station, emergency room, restaurant. Their result was the acquisition of a new fur seal hat by Dovlatov.

"Driver's gloves"
Dovlatov agreed to play the role of Peter the Great in an amateur film, which the journalist Schlippenbach decided to stage. In the studio's sham shop, they found a camisole, a hat and a black wig. One of the scenes had to be filmed near a beer stand. The hero's fears that he would be mistaken for an idiot in such clothes were not justified: the appearance of the tsar was perceived by the line as an everyday circumstance.

The worst thing for a drunkard is to wake up in a hospital bed. Not yet fully awake, you mutter:

All! I'm tying it! Tying forever! More - not a single drop!

And suddenly you find a thick gauze bandage on your head. You want to touch the bandages, but it turns out that your left hand is in a cast. Etc.

All this happened to me in the summer of 1963 in the south of the Komi Republic.

A year before that, I was drafted into the army. I was enrolled in the camp guard. Graduated from the twenty-day warden school under Sindor ...

Even earlier, I had been boxing for two years. Participated in republican competitions. However, I do not remember that the coach told me at least once:

Well, that's it. I'm calm for you.

But I heard this from the instructor Toroptsev at the school supervision staff. After three weeks of classes. And despite the fact that it was not boxers who threatened me in the future, but repeat offenders ...

I tried to look around. Sun spots were yellow on the linoleum. The bedside table was filled with drugs. There was a wall newspaper at the door - Lenin and Health Care.

It smelled of smoke and, oddly enough, algae. I was in the medical unit.

The head, tied with a bandage, ached, I felt a deep wound above the eyebrow. The left hand did not work.

My tunic hung on the headboard. There should have been cigarettes. Instead of an ashtray, I used a jar of some kind of ink solution. I had to keep the matchbox in my teeth.

Now it was possible to recall the events of yesterday.

In the morning I was struck off the escort list. I went to the foreman:

What happened? Am I entitled to a day off?

It’s like that, ”says the foreman,“ you can rejoice ... The zack is mad in the fourteenth barrack. He barks, crows ... Aunt Shura bit the cook ... In short, you will take him to the mental hospital on Iossera. And then the whole day is free. Weekend type.

When should I go?

Right now.

Why - one? Together, as expected. Take Churilin or Gaenko ...

I found Churilin in the tool shop. He fiddled with a soldering iron. Something crackled on the workbench, spreading the smell of rosin.

I do the soldering, - said Churilin, - jewelry work. Look.

I saw a brass badge with an embossed star. The inside of it was covered with tin. A belt with such a soldering turned into a formidable weapon.

At that time we had a fashion - the Chekists got themselves leather officer belts. Then they covered the badge with a layer of tin and went to the dances. If there was a massacre, brass plaques flashed overhead ...

I say:

Get ready.

What?

We are taking the psycho to Yosser. Some prisoner went crazy in the fourteenth barrack. By the way, he bit aunt Shura.

Churilin says:

And he did the right thing. Apparently he wanted to eat. This Shura takes government oil home. I have seen.

Come on, I say.

Churilin cooled the badge under the tap and tightened the belt;

Go...

We got weapons, we go on watch. About two minutes later the inspector brings in an unshaven, fat prisoner. He rests and shouts:

Want beautiful girl, an athlete! Give me an athlete! How long should I wait ?!

The controller answered without irritation:

At least six years. And then, if released ahead of schedule. You have a group business.

The zack paid no attention and continued to shout:

Give me, you bastards, a sportswoman-ranked! ..

Churilin looked at him closely and nudged me with his elbow:

Hey, how crazy is he ?! Normal person. At first he wanted to eat, but now give him a woman. And even a discharger ... A man with taste ... I would also not mind ...

The inspector gave me the documents. We went out onto the porch. Churilin asks:

What's your name?

Doremifasol, - answered the prisoner.

Then I told him:

If you are really crazy, please. If you're pretending, that's okay. I am not a doctor. My business is to take you to Yosser. The rest doesn't bother me. The only condition is not to overplay. You will start biting the shot. And you can bark and crow as much as you like ...

We had to go about four kilometers. There were no passing timber trucks. Captain Sokolovsky took the camp chief's car. They say he left to take some exams at Inta.

In short, we had to walk. The road led through the village, to the peat bogs. From there - past the grove, to the very crossing. And behind the crossing began the camp towers of Yosser.

In the village near the store, Churilin slowed down his steps. I handed him two rubles. There was no need to fear the patrolmen during these hours.

Features of S. Dovlatov's idiostyle (on the example of the collection "Suitcase")

In the article "The Suitcase: What Did He Take Out" I. Sukhikh writes that the Dovlatov suitcase may have literary prototypes. In one of his interviews with the American press, S. Dovlatov acknowledged the influence of V. Golovyakin on his work. This writer has a short story "About the suitcase". One old woman complains to another that her son who left has left an unnecessary suitcase at home, and she cannot fit it in any way: it will get dusty under the bed, it will not fit on a wardrobe, it is not customary for people to put a wardrobe on a suitcase. “A suitcase, it will remain a suitcase - and nothing new can be invented for it. If, for example, a table or a wardrobe, or, for example, some kind of sofa, you can still sit on the sofa. And the suitcase is not suitable for this. Woe to me with the suitcase! "

In the preface to S. Dovlatov's book, the suitcase is suitable for this. The punished son goes to the closet:

“My son spent three minutes in the closet. Then I released it and I ask:

Were you scared? Did you cry? And he says:

No. I was sitting on a suitcase. "

But the main original idea is different. The suitcase is the keeper of "a lost, priceless, unique life" (S. Dovlatov's favorite oxymoron).

If we consider the collection as a suitcase with contents, then on top "lies" the epigraph from the poem by A. Blok:

To sin shamelessly, not awake,

Losing counts of nights and days

And, with a hard head from hops,

Walk aside to God's temple.

Bow down three times,

Seven - cross yourself

Sneaking to the spit-out floor

Hot to touch your forehead.

Putting a copper penny in a plate,

Three, and seven more times in a row

Kiss the centenarian, poor

And the kissed salary.

And returning home, measure

For the same penny someone

And a dog hungry from the door,

Hiccuping, push aside.

And under the icon lamp

Drink tea while clicking off the bill

Then overshoot the coupons

Pot-bellied opening the chest of drawers,

And on feather beds

Fall into a heavy dream ...

Yes, and such, my Russia,

You are dearer than all lands to me.

Blok's image of Russia is contrasted. It is built on the opposition of piety and sinfulness, spiritual generosity and hoarding, kindness and indifference. Dovlatov replaces the affirmative "yes" with the doubting "but" in the quotation. It is worth noting that it is addressed rather to the cross-cutting plot of its own prose than to the poetic plot of Blok.

Sorting out possible names, Dovlatov tries to find a dominant in the preface.

"From Marx to Brodsky" - looks like a history of dissident spiritual quests. True, Marx is represented in a suitcase not by Capital, but by a page of Pravda for May 1980 (which could not have been, since the author crossed the border two years earlier).

“What I Have Gained” - seems to oscillate between the spiritual and the material and represents, what critics have noticed, a variation of two titles of B.S. Zhitkova: “What I Saw” and “What Happened”.

The final version brings the story back to real time. To things that the author took with him to emigration. Eight things - eight stories.

"Suitcase" is again a book of stories. The fragmentary description of the chronotope of the “zone”, various illustrations of “compromises”, the family album of “ours” were replaced by a composition in which each story is tied to a thing and strung on the core of the main character's biography.

In all, even the most simple thingsthose around us have their own philosophy and even mysticism.

Things are more durable than a person, they survive him, remaining, for those who understand, a monument to the past tense and bygone life.

Things have their own aura, atmosphere. They firmly grow together with any situation, causing a collapse of memories. Psychologists distinguish between the concepts of "meaning" and "meaning", but, which is logical, one comes from the other. The meaning is objective, general (this chair, this cabinet). "Personal meaning" is embodied in meanings, attaches to them, creates individual memories and thoughts. This meaning turns an ordinary material thing into a “temple of the spirit”.

"Suitcase" is a book about the personal meanings of things that have become stages of fate and memories of "such a Russia."

A whole suitcase of memories:

“Things lay in a motley heap on the kitchen table. This was all that I have made in thirty-six years. For all my life at home. I thought - is this really all? And he answered - yes, that's all. "

Dovlatov's stories about the origin of these things are historical. The absence of goods of group "B" (goods of group B - consumer goods or goods intended for personal consumption) and the pursuit of imported things determine the plot of "Crepe Finnish socks". The desire of the Soviet authorities to curry favor with the launch of any construction projects, rallies and speeches of chiefs and artists amusingly paint "Nomenclature Low Shoes". Dangerous contacts with foreigners, espionage passions and newspaper compromises culminate in a gift from the editorial board of the Decent Double-Breasted Suit. Drunken spree, friendly warm companies and artistic acts are associated with the "Jacket of Fernand Leger", "Winter hat" and "Driver's gloves".

But these state-historical and everyday absurdities are every time not a subject, but a reason for a story. In "Suitcase" the composition is shifted towards the hero-narrator to a greater extent than in other works. His image can be imagined as a children's counting-out: "Dot, dot, comma, minus - a curve face." Socks, low shoes, shirt, suit, jacket, officer's belt, hat, gloves - that's a man.

M. Gorky once invented the literary series “History young man XIX century ". "Suitcase" may well be called the fragmentary hysteria of a young man of the mid-twentieth century. Ordinary russian history... Funny and sad.

The difference in levels between the poles of anecdote and drama is quite large here. It all starts with "penny" stories. The farmers bought socks, and the next day they filled up all the shops with them, and the business went bankrupt. For the sake of a joke, a hard worker stole the boss's shoes, and he had to be sick in order to get out of the embarrassing situation. A friendly Swede came to write a book about Russia, studied Russian for six years, and was mistaken for a spy and sent home a week later.

But even these simple stories are spread by reprises, hyperboles, psychological paradoxes. The linear plot is constantly being broken by various stylistic effects.

A completely everyday, plausible story about an unsuccessful black mark on the last page takes on a phantasmagoric character:

“As a result, we divided the socks. Each of us took two hundred and forty pairs ... After that there was a lot. "

“And only one thing was constant. For twenty years I have sported pea socks. I gave them to all my friends. He kept Christmas decorations in them. He wiped the dust with them. I plugged the cracks in the window frames with my socks. And yet, the amount of this rubbish almost did not decrease.

So I left, leaving a pile of Finnish crepe socks in an empty apartment. I put only three pairs in a suitcase. "

In the second story, recalling Karamzin's famous answer about what is happening in his homeland ("They steal"), Dovlatov demonstrates examples of this activity, giving examples of the theft of his friends: a bucket of cement (frozen), a ballot box, a fire extinguisher, a bust of Paul Robson, a billboard , music stand. Nomenclature low shoes, in fact, are the apogee of this series.

Even in these texts there is a shadow of some kind of drama. The sock story is complicated by the story of an unhappy first love. The chapter on the stolen low shoes is superimposed on the picture of working "enthusiasm" and bohemian life. Fernand Léger's jacket turns into a story about a prince and a beggar, about human loyalty and betrayal.

Sadness gradually accumulates, grows heavy and dissolves the humorous nature of the last stories.

Poplin's Shirt tells the story of his relationship with his wife. But for the first time so openly (after the "Reserve" and "Nashi"), so sentimental.

The chapter on Fernand Léger's jacket is another story about a beggar, but in a simpler, Russian version. The aesthetics are represented here by the "artist card", with the inscription:

"" Lena! Serving art requires the whole person, without a trace. Rafik Abdullaev "...".

But on the last page of this pedigree is a square photograph:

“… A little bigger postage stamp... A narrow forehead, a neglected beard, the appearance of an out-of-qualification matador. This was my photograph. If I'm not mistaken - from last year's certificate. There were traces of the factory seal on the white corner. "

The culmination of "Suitcase" is "Driver's Gloves".

Schlippenbach's quite banal idea ("The film will be, to put it mildly, apolitical. It will have to be shown in private apartments. I hope Western journalists will watch it, which guarantees international resonance") to look at Leningrad through the eyes of the founder, leads to a completely non-trivial result. The hero dressed by Peter first freezes on the spit of Vasilyevsky Island, then finds himself at a beer stall at the corner of Belinsky and Mokhovaya:

“The drunks are crowding around. It will be amazing. Monarch among the scum ... ".

"Scum", perhaps, does not mean scoundrels, but people of the "bottom" - exhausted, gloomy. There is also an intellectual among them.

In memory of this story, only the driver's gloves remained.

The "officer's belt" is adjacent to the "Zone". This is a story about life on the other side of the grid:

“This whole world has disappeared somewhere. And only the belt is still intact. "

You can easily trace the connection of stories from "Suitcase" with other works of Dovlatov.

"Decent double-breasted suit" is like part of "Compromise". It also reveals the topic of balancing on the verge of cynicism and betrayal, the topic of selling oneself to the state, presented against the background of the newspaper.

The story of the first love described in Crepe Socks leads to the Branch, which has not yet been written.

The statement about the documentary character of Dovlatov's prose is a "common place" in research and literary criticism. Critics who are unfriendly towards the writer see this as a flaw, an inadequacy of the artistic principle. Admirers of his talent see this as a virtue.

The writer's friends sincerely recognize him as a poet. From the point of view of psychology, it is this recognition that plays a key role in a person's life; the environment and life circumstances (especially emigration and service in the zone) had a huge impact on Dovlatov's work.