Summary of “Golden Rose” by Paustovsky
Precious dust
The scavenger Jean Shamet removes the craft workshops in the Paris suburb.
Serving as a soldier during the Mexican War, Shamet fell ill with a fever, and he was sent home. The regimental commander instructed Chamette to take her eight-year-old daughter Susanna to France. All the way, Shamet took care of the girl, and Suzanne eagerly listened to his stories about the golden rose that brings happiness.
One day Shamet meets a young woman, in which she learns Susannah. Crying, she tells Chamette what her lover changed her, and she does not have a home now. Suzanne lives with Shamet. Five days later she makes peace with her lover and leaves.
After parting with Suzanne, Shamet ceases to throw waste from the jewelry shops, where there is always a little gold dust. He builds a small winnowing machine and translates jewelery dust. Collected for many days, gold Shamet gives the jeweler to make a golden rose.
The rose is ready, but Shamet learns
Soon Shamet is dying. The jeweler sells the rose to the elderly writer and tells him the story of Shamet. Rosa appears to the writer as a prototype of creative activity, in which, “as from these precious dust particles, a living stream of literature is born.”
Inscription on a boulder
Paustovsky lives in a small house on the Riga seashore. Nearby is a large granite boulder with the inscription “In memory of all who perished and perish at sea.” Paustovsky regards this inscription as a good epigraph to a book about writers’ work.
Writing is a calling. The writer tries to convey to people thoughts and feelings that concern him. At the behest of the call of his time and people, a writer can become a hero, endure severe trials.
An example of this – the fate of the Dutch writer Edward Dekker, known under the pseudonym “Multatuli” (Latin “Long-suffering”). Serving as a government
The artist Vincent Van Gogh was equally dedicated to his cause. He was not a fighter, but he brought his pictures glorifying the earth into the treasury of the future.
Flowers from shavings
The greatest gift left to us from childhood is the poetic perception of life. A person who retains this gift becomes a poet or a writer.
During his poor and bitter youth, Paustovsky writes poetry, but soon realizes that his poems are tinsel, flowers from painted shavings, and instead he writes his first story.
The first story
This story Paustovsky learns from a resident of Chernobyl.
Jew Yoska falls in love with the beautiful Christ. The girl also loves him – a small, red-haired, with a squeaky voice. Khristya moves to Yoska’s house and lives with him as a wife.
The place begins to worry – the Jew lives with the Orthodox. Yoska decides to be baptized, but Father Michael refuses him. Yoska leaves, scolding the priest.
Upon learning of Yoska’s decision, the rabbi curses his family. For insulting the priest, Yoska is sent to prison. Khristya is dying of grief. The police chief issues Yoska, but he loses his mind and becomes a beggar.
Returning to Kiev, Paustovsky writes about this his first story, reread it in the spring and understands that it does not feel the author’s admiration for the love of Christ.
Paustovsky believes that the stock of his everyday observations is very poor. He throws to write and ten years wanders around Russia, changing professions and communicating with a variety of people.
Lightning
The plan is lightning. It arises in the imagination, full of thoughts, feelings, memory. For the appearance of a plan, a push is needed, which can be everything that is happening around us.
The embodiment of design is a downpour. The idea develops from constant contact with reality.
Inspiration is a state of mental uplift, a consciousness of one’s creative power. Turgenev calls the inspiration “the approach of God,” and for Tolstoy “the inspiration is that suddenly something that can be done…” opens.
Riot of heroes
Almost all writers plan their future works. Writing without a plan can writers who have the gift of improvisation.
As a rule, the heroes of the planned work resist the plan. Leo Tolstoy wrote that his characters do not obey him and act the way they want. All writers know this stubbornness of heroes.
The story of one story. Devonian limestone
1931 Paustovsky is renting a room in Livny, Orel. The owner of the house has a wife and two daughters. An older, nineteen-year-old Anfisa, Paustovsky meets on the river bank in a society of a frail and quiet blond teenager. It turns out that Anfisa loves a boy suffering from tuberculosis.
One night Anfisa ends with herself. For the first time, Paustovsky witnesses immense female love, which is stronger than death.
Railway doctor Maria Dmitrievna Shatskaya invites Paustovsky to move to her. She lives with her mother and brother, a geologist Vasily Shatsky, who was driven mad by the Basmachi of Central Asia. Vasily gradually gets used to Paustovsky and begins to talk. Shatsky is an interesting interlocutor, but at the slightest fatigue, he begins to rave. Paustovsky describes his story in “Kara-Bugaz”.
The idea of the story appears in Paustovsky during Shatsky’s stories about the first studies of the Kara-Buga Bay.
Study of geographical maps
In Moscow, Paustovsky obtains a detailed map of the Caspian Sea. In his imagination, the writer wanders along its banks for a long time. His father does not approve of hobbies with geographical maps – it promises many disappointments.
The habit of imagining different places helps Paustovsky correctly see them in reality. Travel to the Astrakhan steppe and Embu give him the opportunity to write a book about Kara-Bugaz. Only a small part of the collected material enters the story, but Paustovsky does not regret – this material is useful for a new book.
Notches on the heart
Every day of life leaves its notches in the memory and heart of the writer. Good memory is one of the foundations of writing.
Working on the story “Telegram”, Paustovsky manages to fall in love with the old house where the lonely old woman Katerina Ivanovna, the daughter of the famous engraver Pozhalostin, lives for his silence, the smell of birch smoke from the stove, old engravings on the walls.
Katerina Ivanovna, who lived with her father in Paris, is very lonely. Once she complains Paustovsky for her lonely old age, and after a few days gets very sick. Paustovsky evokes from Leningrad the daughter of Katerina Ivanovna, but she is three days late and arrives after the funeral.
Then Paustovsky reflects on the richness of the Russian language, dreams of publishing various explanatory dictionaries and a short book about the life of remarkable people.
Diamond tongue
Spring in shallow wood
The wonderful properties and richness of the Russian language are revealed only to those who love and know their people, feel the charm of our land. In Russian there are many good words and names for everything that exists in nature.
We have books of connoisseurs of nature and folk language – Kaigorodov, Prishvin, Gorky, Aksakov, Leskov, Bunin, Alexei Tolstoy and many others. The main source of language is the people themselves. Paustovsky talks about the forester, whom the relationship of words admires: a spring, a birth, a homeland, a people, relatives…
Language and Nature
In the summer, held by Paustovsky in the forests and meadows of Central Russia, the writer again learns many words that are known to him, but far and far away.
For example, “rain” words. Each type of rain has a distinctive name in Russian. A mournful rain pours steeply, strongly. A fine mushroom rain rushes from the low clouds, after it mushrooms begin to rampantly climb. Blind rain, going in the sun, people call “The princess cries.”
One of the beautiful words of the Russian language is the word “dawn”, and the word “lightning” next to it.
Piles of flowers and herbs
Paustovsky is fishing in a lake with high, steep banks. He sits at the very water in thick thickets. Above, on a meadow overgrown with flowers, village children collect sorrel. One of the girls knows the names of many flowers and herbs. Then Paustovsky learns that the girl’s grandmother is the best herbalist in the region.
Dictionaries
Paustovsky dreams of new dictionaries of the Russian language, in which words related to nature could be collected; accurate local words; words from different professions; garbage and dead words, bureaucracy, clogging up the Russian language. These dictionaries should be with explanations and examples so that they can be read as books.
This work is beyond the power of one person, because our country is rich in words that describe the diversity of Russian nature. Our country is rich in local dialects, figurative and euphonious. The naval terminology and the spoken language of seamen are excellent, which, like the language of people of many other professions, deserve a separate study.
Case in the Alshwang shop
Winter of 1921. Paustovsky lives in Odessa, in the former shop of the ready-made dress “Alshvang and company.” He serves as secretary in the newspaper “Sailor”, where many young writers work. Of the old writers, Andrei Sobol, who is always something of an excited person, often comes to the editorial office.
Once Sobol brings his story to “Sailor”, interesting and talented, but jerky, confused. Sobol to suggest correcting the story no one dares because of his nervousness.
Corrector Blagov corrects the story for one night without changing a single word, but simply correctly putting punctuation marks. When the story is printed, Sable thanks Blagov for his skill.
As if nothing
Almost every writer has his own kind genius. Paustovsky regards Stendhal as his inspiration.
There are many minor at first glance circumstances and skills that help writers work. It is known that Pushkin wrote best in the autumn, often missed places that he did not give, and returned to them later. Gaidar came up with phrases, then wrote down them, then again thought out.
Paustovsky describes the peculiarities of the writings of Flaubert, Balzac, Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Andersen.
The old man in the station buffet
Paustovsky gives a very detailed account of the story of a poor old man who did not have the money to feed his pet dog. Once the old man walks into the buffet, where young people drink beer. Petya starts begging for a sandwich. They throw the dog a piece of sausage, insulting her master. The old man forbids Petit to take a handout and for the last pittance buys her sandwich, but the barmaid gives him two sandwiches – this will not ruin her.
The writer discusses the disappearance of details from contemporary literature. Details are needed only if it is characteristic and closely related to intuition. A good detail gives the reader a correct idea of a person, event or epoch.
White Night
Gorky plans to publish a series of books “History of factories and plants.” Paustovsky chooses an old factory in Petrozavodsk. It was founded by Peter the Great for casting cannons and anchors, then he made bronze castings, and after the revolution – road cars.
In the Petrozavodsk archives and the library, Paustovsky finds a lot of material for the book, but he can not create a single whole from scattered notes. Paustovsky decides to leave.
Before leaving, he finds a grave in an abandoned cemetery, crowned with a broken column with an inscription in French: “Charles Eugene Lonsewil, engineer of the artillery of Napoleon’s Great Army…”.
Materials about this person “hold together” the data collected by the writer. Participant of the French Revolution Charles Lonsewil was captured by Cossacks and exiled to Petrozavodsk plant, where he died from fever. The material was dead until a man appeared who became the hero of the novel The Destiny of Charles Lonsewil.
Life-giving start
Imagination is a property of human nature, creating fictitious people and events. Imagination fills the void of human life. The heart, imagination and reason are the environment where culture is born.
Imagination is based on memory, and memory is based on reality. The law of associations sorts memories, which are very closely involved in creativity. The wealth of associations testifies to the wealth of the writer’s inner world.
Night Stagecoach
Paustovsky plans to write a chapter on the power of imagination, but replaces it with a story about Andersen, who travels from Venice to Verona by night diligence. Andersen’s fiancée is a lady in a dark cloak. Andersen proposes to extinguish the lantern – darkness helps him to invent different stories and present himself, ugly and shy, young, lively handsome.
Andersen returns to reality and sees that the stagecoach is standing, and the driver is bargaining with several women who are asking them to give a lift. The driver requires too much, and Adersen pays for women.
Through the lady in the cloak, the girls are trying to find out who helped them. Andersen replies that he is a predictor, knows how to guess the future and see in the dark. He calls the girls beauties and predicts each of them love and happiness. In gratitude, the girls kiss Andersen.
In Verona, the lady, who introduced herself as Elena Guiccioli, invites Andersen to visit. At the meeting Elena admits that she recognized in him the famous storyteller, who in life is afraid of fairy tales and love. She promises to help Andersen, as soon as it is required.
Long-conceived book
Paustovsky decides to write a book, a collection of short biographies, among which there is a place for several stories about unknown and forgotten people, the disinterested people and devotees. One of them is the river captain Olenin-Volgar, a man with an extremely busy life.
In this collection Paustovsky wants to mention his friend – the director of the museum of local lore in the small town of Central Russia, whom the writer considers an example of dedication, modesty and love for his land.
Then follow notes Paustovsky on some writers from his list.
Chekhov
Some stories of the writer and doctor Chekhov – exemplary psychological diagnoses. Chekhov’s life is instructive. For many years he drove out a slave from himself, drop by drop – that’s how Chekhov talked about himself. Paustovsky keeps a part of his heart in the Chekhov house on the Outskirts.
Alexander Blok
In Blok’s early little-known poems there is a line evoking in memory all the charm of a foggy youth: “The spring of my dream is far away…”. This is enlightenment. Of these insights, the entire Blok consists.
Guy de Maupassant
The creative life of Maupassant is swift as a meteor. A merciless observer of human evil, towards the end of his life he was inclined to glorify love-suffering and love-joy.
In the last hours Maupassant thought that his brain was eaten by some poisonous salt. He regretted the feelings he had rejected in his hurried and tedious life.
Maksim Gorky
For Paustovsky, Gorky is the whole of Russia. As one can not imagine Russia without the Volga, one can not think that there is no Gorky in it. He loved and thoroughly knew Russia. Gorky discovered talents and determined the era. From such people as Gorky, you can begin the chronology.
Victor Hugo
Hugo, a violent, violent man, exaggerated everything he had seen in his life and what he wrote about. He was a knight of freedom, her herald and messenger. Hugo inspired many writers to love Paris, and for that they are grateful to him.
Mikhail Prishvin
Prishvin was born in the ancient town of Yelets. The nature around Yelets is very Russian, simple and not rich. In this her property lies the basis of writer’s vigilance of Prishvin, the secret of Privin’s charm and witchcraft.
Alexander Greene
Paustovsky is surprised by the biography of Green, his hard life as a renegade and an unruly tramp. It is not clear how this closed and suffering person has preserved the great gift of powerful and pure imagination, faith in man. The poem in prose “Scarlet Sails” ranked him among the remarkable writers who seek perfection.
Eduard Bagritsky
In the stories of Bagritsky about himself so much fables, that sometimes it is impossible to distinguish the truth from the legend. Fudge Bagritsky – a characteristic part of his biography. He himself sincerely believed in them.
Bagritsky wrote magnificent verses. He died early, and without taking “a few more difficult peaks of poetry.”
The art of seeing the world
Knowledge of areas adjacent to art – poetry, painting, architecture, sculpture and music – enriches the writer’s inner world, gives special expressiveness to his prose.
Painting helps the prose writer to see the colors and light. The artist often notices what writers do not see. Paustovsky sees for the first time the whole variety of colors of Russian bad weather thanks to the picture of Levitan “Above Eternal Peace”.
Perfection of classical architectural forms will not allow the writer to compose a heavy composition.
The talented prose has its own rhythm, depending on, the feelings of language and good “writer’s hearing”, which is associated with musical hearing.
Most enriches the language of the prose writer poetry. Leo Tolstoy wrote that he would never understand where the line between prose and poetry was. Vladimir Odoyevsky called poetry a harbinger of “the state of mankind, when it ceases to reach and will begin to enjoy what has been achieved.”
In the back of the lorry
1941 year. Paustovsky is traveling in the back of a truck, hiding from the raids of German aviation. The traveler asks the writer what he thinks about in times of danger. Paustovsky answers – about nature.
Nature will act upon us with all power, when our state of mind, love, joy or sorrow come fully in line with it. Nature must be loved, and this love will find the right ways to express itself with the greatest power.
Farewell to yourself
Paustovsky finishes the first book of his notes on the writer’s work, realizing that the work is not finished and there are many topics to write about.
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