Guzel Yakhina's novel about Zuleikh, in which there is a lot of things for understanding
This novel is called feminine, love, historical and even ethnic. Someone praises him, someone criticizes him. This review was written through a different reading - system-vector. And from this point of view, the novel is great.
The book "Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes" describes the fate of a Tatar woman during the time of dispossession and migration of peoples. The novel begins in 1930 and ends in the post-war 1946. Currently, a series is being filmed based on the novel, which will premiere on the Russia channel in 2019. The actress for the leading role was chosen precisely. Chulpan Khamatova will play Zuleikha. How the young actor Yevgeny Morozov will cope with the role of the Red Army soldier Ignatov, we will see soon.
The time when harsh censorship saved us from low-profile literature is over. Now everyone writes, and we, accustomed to believing what has been written, are not always aware of what we choose. Should an artist be aware of social responsibility when somehow translating his political position or historical vision through the written? I don’t know, the question is ambiguous. One thing is for sure - we, the readers, need to learn to read thoughtfully, think, ask questions and answer them ourselves. In this article, we share what caught on and made you think.
Women's fate - as it was recently
The novel begins with a description of a woman's life less than a hundred years ago. And this is not the first time I mentally thank life for being born half a century later. Break into infinity - in everything that concerns women's desires and opportunities. A woman at the beginning of the 20th century on the rights of domestic cattle, who is raped, beaten, engaged in hard domestic work from morning to evening, powerless and speechless. Murtaz's husband beats Zuleikha, but he feeds him - and she recognizes him this right to her as to property. He is strong and economic, which means she was lucky. She is beautiful and desirable, but it is impossible to give birth and keep children, which means she is spoiled, worthless, weak and can be expelled from the family.
The relationship between a son and a mother is conditioned by the psychic properties of both. Very close, in addition to consanguinity, backed up by a terrible past, which is mentioned in the novel in passing. The author barely touched the topic, but the topic itself - hunger and cannibalism - grabs and does not let go for a long time. The prophetic dreams of the Upyrikha's olfactory mother-in-law, her blindness, the constant feeling of anxiety next to her inspire fear in her daughter-in-law and deprive her of the ability to think clearly. The author uses colorful allegories and esoteric images, complementing the picture of the complex relationship between the skin-visual woman and the olfactory old woman.
Zuleikha endured and gave birth to four children, but not a single girl survived. She lost everyone as babies, and this is not surprising. The fears of the young visual mother did not leave her a chance to give birth to strong children, to protect and preserve them. In contrast, we see the attitude of people to the loss of a child in those days: "God gave, God took." She gave birth to a son in exile, in cruel conditions, in the midst of hunger and cold. But this was a completely different woman. Next to her anal husband and olfactory mother-in-law, she was shackled by an unconscious, deep, animal fear for her life. According to the law of nature, we primarily strive to preserve ourselves. And in this sense, mental well-being plays the first violin. As soon as she gets rid of fears for herself, she becomes able to give birth and raise a child.
Who is right, who is wrong
The novel is called historical and anti-Stalinist - is it really so? The terrible events of those years are shown in the lives of ordinary people without historical references and political overtones. The book shows the true culprits of the tragedy that happened - you and I, ordinary good people. People who, for their own petty gain and for personal reasons, are ready to convey, stipulate and send into exile those who prevent them from getting their little, often miserable, piece of happiness.
The imagination vividly depicts the communal apartment of Professor Leibe and his housekeeper Grunya. “She endured the tenants as firmly as bedbugs. I just didn't know what to poison. Stepan, who appeared in her life a couple of months ago, knew. I decided to start with the easiest - with the professor. And now - the letter was written and dropped into the mailbox (Grunya then sweated profusely, like a horse, deriving long and intricate words under Stepanov's dictation, the meaning of which she did not understand: bourgeois - through u or o? German - through e or u? Spy - through o or e? counterrevolution - with one or two p? together or separately?..). If Stepan is right, they will soon come to vacate the professor's office with trellises of wonderful windows overlooking the old park, with wax-scented floors and heavy walnut furniture."
How similar they are, these stories with communal apartments, positions, academic titles, with unloved husbands and wives, or simply unpleasant people, whom, in essence, ordinary people got rid of! And the reader may well draw on the stories of the other participants in the tragedy - Isabella and Konstantin Arnoldvich, the artist Ikonnikov, Commissioner Bakiyev …
Red Commissar Ignatov is a collective image of the commander and fighter of the revolution. A killer of innocent people or a hero and protector of the weak? Understanding its urethral nature, we see not a killer, but someone who is ready to give his life for others. Lack of personal interests and fear for himself allows him to take the life of those whom he considers the enemy of the revolution. Already at the very beginning of the novel, he kills Zuleikha's husband, irrationally, without hesitation, without malice or personal gain. Behind him are hungry old people and children. And Murtaza is a fist who does not want to give away grain.
And then - responsibility for the people in the cars. And a piece that does not go down the throat when hungry people ride next to it. “And now - the same thought: all these people today dined with boiling water. Not people, he corrects himself. Enemies. Enemies dined with boiling water - and this makes the porridge tasteless. " And after that, when he throws himself into icy water to save the "enemies" …
What were they like, our grandparents? Whom do we represent before us, calling the generation of holy people? And do we have the right to call them cruel from the well-fed new world they once built for us? What do we know about the time to judge? How are we different from that generation and how do we remain similar to them?
A novel for everyone about his own
The novel fascinates, the heroes delight and disturb, love twists and turns give rise to empathy and compassion. Every character, even a minor one, is spelled out so vividly in mental manifestations that it is amazing. The relationship of a skin-visual woman paired with a husband with a rigid psyche and a tendency to violence, a good mother's son and master. Beautiful, somewhat similar and so different skin-visual women, Nastasya and Ilona. Genius or madman in the image of the sound professor Leibe, who escaped into a world of illusion and returned to reality with the birth of a new person.
Gorelov, who served time on a bunk. You read about him and despise for petty greed, envy, you watch how he crawls before strong people and how he humiliates the weak. And you justify with all your heart. Because you understand what and how should have happened to a child in childhood, so that he stops in development, so that he remains a mentally underdeveloped child in the body of an adult man.
And finally, Yuzuf is the son of Zuleikha, a boy brought up in a godforsaken settlement on the Angara River among intellectual convicts. Isabella, Leibe, Ikonnikov taught him French, history and medicine, painting and music. Taiga united people in their quest for survival. And the most important science that the boy learned was how to live with dignity among other people.
"Reader - Co-author". Each time, taking on a new book, I remember these words of Marina Tsvetaeva. And every time I am ready to share responsibility for what I have written with the author. If you are determined to read this book as material exposing the Stalinist era, then you will find about it. Only this will be the same as reading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment as a detective story.
This novel is called feminine, love, historical and even ethnic. Someone praises him, someone criticizes him. This review was written through a different reading - system-vector. And from this point of view, the novel is great.
A bit of symbolism
A work becomes recognized when the reader recognizes the truth in it. An ingenious director and writer draws realities, does not give himself the right to the slightest lie or fantasy. And when a sound writer models events on paper, he is so immersed in the collective unconscious that this truth is visible even in small things. The first part of the novel, when Zuleikha breaks out of slavery from her husband, ends with the shouts of her mother-in-law: “Zuleikha-ah! Zuleikha-ah !!! (calls her mother-in-law to change the pot for her). Skillfully painted, made of milk porcelain, the pot rattles in her hands and in her daughter-in-law's ears for a long time. During the years of the revolution, the transition from the anal phase of human development to the skin phase begins. Finally, we will enter a new era after World War II, leaving the ossified conservatism in the past. But to this day, this rumbling of the pot is heard in the 21st century. A revolution is that turning point when the perception of the world changes and, as a consequence, politics, science, art, relationships and life with its everyday life. Those unable to adapt the new, to accept the idea of social transformation will sink into oblivion, the rest are still feverish.
Zuleikha went through her initiation and transformed into fearless, warlike and loving. A woman who yesterday was ashamed to voice her voice today hunts the beast, kills a huge bear with a point-blank shot. In the first part, she constantly turned to the spirits of the forest, and towards the end of the book: “At some point it seemed to her that she herself was this spirit of the forest”. There has been a complete transformation of religious and mystical thinking into a clear, earthly, responsible one. And at the same time, fate also changed.
The sound surgeon Leibe with his protective egg of egocentrism is undergoing a similar transformation. Life in his own world, where he is a recognized professor and an irreplaceable surgeon, gradually deprived him of his connection with the real world. He has a chance to free himself from illusions through helping people - he made a choice towards the life of a baby and was born again with him.
Now we are at a different level of perception of the world, medieval beliefs are perplexing, but we are still clouded by esotericism, we often hope for happiness outside. The day is about to come when love or exciting meaning will burst into life, and everything will be formed in the most joyful way. It won't come. The author patiently guides the reader along the paths to the light. Together with the heroes, we sensually reveal a simple wisdom: only where I fully take responsibility for myself and make a choice, where I devote myself to people, is it possible to awaken from a drowsy flutter in my world.
Especially shocking was the moment when a child in a settlement, confident that he lives in the center of the world, begins to learn big cities through the brush of an artist. Cathedrals and embankments, bridges and palaces. Petersburg and Paris. Toys, overseas fruits and vegetables, fashion and household items.
A whole world with its history and culture is born in the boy's head, and lo and behold! - knowing him, he wants to learn even more. Desires awaken in him, he is in a hurry to live, under the threat of death he runs away to where there is a low sky, rainy streets and the opportunity to learn painting from masters. “… To Leningrad. Straight to the University Embankment, into a long, austere building with dusty ocher columns and two severe sphinxes of pink granite at the entrance - to the Institute of Painting, the famous Repinka,.."
Where do we get the strength to live and desire? How do we know if we don't know something? Are we sure that everything we have acquired about life and people is not a settlement with straw shacks? Sometimes one "I want to know more" is enough for someone's brush to open up new worlds.
