Summary Chapaev and Void VO Pelevin
V. O. Pelevin
Chapayev and Void
One of the fundamental things Pelevin built around one of the most fundamental psychological images, around the archetype of the quadrice. In one ward of the psychiatric hospital are four patients. Everyone alternately tells his story, or rather, not a story, but describes his world. In one of the worlds, the corresponding character enters into an alchemical marriage with the West (a psychiatric patient Simply Maria – with Schwarzenegger). In another – in alchemical marriage with the East (Serdyuk – with the Japanese Kavibata). One of the worlds is the world of the protagonist, Peter the Void, who, along with Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev and Anna, is at war on the Eastern Front (the central world of the narrative). The fourth world (the narrator – the crazy bandit Volodin) itself breaks up into four constituent parts of the narrator’s personality: the inner defendant, the internal prosecutor, an internal lawyer and
The archetype of the quatrains, despite the formal simplicity of the plot (the madman leaves the hospital because he is experiencing an epiphany, although not the one the doctor expected, namely: the patient comes to the conclusion that this world is illusory), gives the product depth, multifacetedness.
In the text is abundantly represented and the symbolism, so to speak, the second row. For example, the fragment: “We were on a dirt road that was going uphill.” A gently sloping break began on the left side of the road, and a weathered stone wall of a surprisingly beautiful pale-lilac shade appeared on the right, “is a chain of symbols that are in dreams that are called great dreams. The break at the left here means the unconscious man, the stone mountain on the right is consciousness. The ascent symbolizes the complexity of immersion in the unconscious (mind disturbs).
As a parallel storyline of the narrative, Pelevin intentionally takes the life and thoughts of Vasiliy Ivanovich Chapayev. Here the author combines the simplicity of anecdotal images rubbed to holes with folk rumors with the philosophical depth and sincerity of the conversations of these same characters in the book. This opposition prepares the reader for the perception of the main conflict of the work, the conflict between reality and the idea of it. Is there really this world? He is no more real than the one Vasily Ivanovich, who lives in anecdotes.
If Aivazovsky signs on the wreckage of the mast, dangling among the waves, then Pelevin, we meet a kind of signature, a description of the style of writing. In the scene of Peter the Great’s acquaintance with his medical card, the author, in fact, speaks not of the character of the narrative, but of himself, that “his thought,” as if gnawing, deepens into the essence of this or that phenomenon. “Thanks to this peculiarity of his thinking in the state “Analyze every question asked, every word, every letter, laying them down on bones.”
In the book “Chapaev and Emptiness” there are many curious and moralizing places. I most of all remember the author’s recommendation as a writer to behave with some critics: “Being compelled by my occupation to meet with a lot of hard idiots from literary circles, I developed the ability to participate in their conversations, not really thinking about than there is a speech, but freely juggling with ridiculous words… “
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