“Aksenov’s Quest for a Genre” in Brief Content
Artist of the original genre Pavel Durov spends the night in the penalty area of the traffic police of a provincial town. The bumper of his “Zhiguli” is broken by “ZIL” – polowalk, he can not be sheltered at night. Reflecting on why he travels all over the country for no apparent purpose, Durov feels that he “lost his grooves”, lost his place in life and felt the need for a genre. He does not understand whether he holds to the right to be the creator of miracles or is ashamed of his genre. He does not know if miracles are necessary for anyone.
Durov listens to the conversation of the dead – the victims of road accidents that gathered at night on the penalty area, and tries to find out from them: what is there, where do they come from? But one of the dead responds sadly to him: it’s not your business so far. The drowsy Durov dreamed a wonderful time, when he was a full-fledged part, and perhaps the center of life.
Waking
Another fellow traveler of Durov is Maman. She sits in his car near Velikiye Luki and tells her that she is going to Zinaida’s daughter in the Soltsy settlement of the Novgorod region. Konstantin’s son-in-law had a goof with Lariska’s librarian, and Mamanya was going to settle family
Waking up after a tumultuous drunken and loving night, Durov feels like “something was close, but it did not happen, flared up almost with might and main, but went out.” And yet he is happy because he was ready to print bags of props, was two steps away from the genre.
On the way to the south, Durov gets acquainted with Lesha Kharitonov. On the “Muscovite” own assembly, he already for the third week carries his large family from Tyumen to the Crimea. The whole family, even Tesha, believes that, despite everything, will achieve the goal. Soon the “Moskvich” refused brakes and he falls into the ditch. Durov was passing by on his new “Zhiguli”, but soon he himself almost becomes a victim of the accident. Then he returns, takes the family of Lesha Kharitonov in his car and takes him to Koktebel, to the sea. Durov himself is waiting in a cheap hotel in Golden Sands colleagues, artists of an endangered genre. They agreed to relax together, without saying a word about the work. But Durov does not hurry to them, realizing: they can not avoid talking about the fact that the genre runs away from under the wheels…
In a small Baltic town, Durov is mistaken for a counterfeiter, because he pays with new bills, just the kind that a real counterfeiter has made. Durov, however, received this money for staging a sports festival “Day, Zveni!”. He manages to justify himself only by the fact that he gives all the bills to unfamiliar newlyweds from the local combine. Somehow getting out of the wedding, on the road, he meets his colleague, the former inseparable friend Sashka, and finds out that Sashka is the same counterfeiter for whom Durov was accepted. A former illusionist made fake money from despair. Hearing the story of Durov about the journey in search of a genre, Sashka burns counterfeit bills and, slightly conjuring, removes from circulation those that have already been put into circulation.
The next passenger Durova – a young hippie Arkadius. He threw the school, he did not go to the army because of flat feet. Now Arkadius goes to Moscow to watch the “Mona Lisa”, which is located there from Japan to Paris. As a payment for the passage, Arkadius gives Durov his poems of his own work – about a theater without walls and a roof, which was smashed in the village street by fourteen idlers and Captain Ivan. Unexpectedly, Durov realizes that the fifteen, about which this poem is written, is he and his colleagues in the genre. Surrendering to an instant impulse, he travels to the Valley, where a miracle must happen.
Illusionists Alexander, Bruce, Vaclav, Guillaume, Dieter, Evsei, Jean-Claude, Zbigniew, Kenzaburo, Luigi, Mahmoud, Norman and Oscar gather in the mountains near the camp of glaciologists. Each of them experienced happiness in love over the years, drowned, died, swam, scrambled, despondent and raged with despair, but no one betrayed youth for big or small money, no one acquired impudence, cruelty and beastliness in travel.
The camp is abandoned by glaciologists, because avalanches are expected. But the illusionists decide to turn this Valley into a valley of wonders and unfold their props: Generator As It’s Like, Echo Plates, Avatar Barrel, Hoses of the Past, Gunpowder Threads of the Future, etc. Here, three huge avalanches sweep away both magicians and their miracles.
Young Arkadius gets angry when he gets to Moscow: it turns out that the long-awaited meeting with the “Mona Lisa” will not happen alone, but in a crowd of people; The modern world presents him with another “crap”. But suddenly, when he peers into the picture, Mona Lisa lifts her hand, closing her smile, and Arkadius sees her hand – that miracle and happiness that will last him for life.
It is not known what phenomena occurred in the avalanche mass, but at night Durov and his comrades find themselves on its surface. Their props are destroyed, they have no feelings, no memories. When suddenly they see a different valley in the distance and realize that it is the true Valley to which they all aspired. They are surrounded by the air of love, a miracle of lakes, a miracle of trees, a miracle of night lights, a miracle of grass and flowers are being performed on their eyes. Friends follow the miracle of a lion into the depths of the Valley and are preparing to meet new miracles.
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