Записки Хендрика Груна из амстердамской богадельни

The older generation The novel "Notes of Hendrik Grun from the Amsterdam Almshouse" is compared by critics with "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey. And such a comparison is quite justified. The book by Hendrik Grun, just like Kesey's masterpiece, touches on the themes of personal freedom, the struggle against an inhuman and cruel system that sets rigid limits, going beyond which inevitably entails punishment. But the general tone of the narration of "Notes ..." is incomparably lighter and more humorous, and the "evil" in the face of Headmistress Stelvagen is much less ominous. Her machinations are rather funny and absurd than frightening. The main characters are not patients in a psychiatric hospital, but residents of a nursing home. And this introduces a new, unusually rich layer of the novel's problems - the clash of epochs. These people are the last generation to survive the Second World War. And they will not put up with any manifestation of totalitarian power, even if presented in such a grotesque manner as the installation of Stelvagen video cameras due to the fact that someone feeds aquarium fish cookies and they die as a result. The crime, of course, is obvious, but total surveillance is total surveillance, and if XX taught the heroes anything, it is that one must fight for one's freedom. The novel “Notes of Hendrik Grun from the Amsterdam Almshouse” turned out, on the one hand, to be really very funny and somewhat even carefree, and on the other hand, it became a reminder that one must rise up against tyrants and defend one’s rights. Even if there is already quite a bit left to live and it is much more comfortable to just go with the flow. Translator Vengerov E.