Чудная Арина

In the author's new book there is a series of literary miniatures already familiar to the reader, the heroine of which is Arina Rodionovna, Pushkin's nanny, and new characters - Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gorky, other Russian classic writers, as well as artists and theater celebrities. An associative game with well-known facts of biographies, titles of works and quotes from them is a distinctive feature of these fictitious stories that reveal "unknown" episodes from the lives of great people. This is a pocket book 15.5x11 cm on the cover and 1.5 cm thick - I just measured it with a ruler and I sit, rejoice at my ingenuity. Ha! I mean, who else would have thought of such a thing ... Yes, anyone: the main thing here is to start. The binding is firm. Dmitry Sytnikov's illustrations are hilarious. sorry for my French... It is impossible to write seriously about "Wonderful Arina". You read a lot - and you are drawn to laugh and fool around. It sits on my shelf on the edge, to which you do not need to reach. It was dripped with tea in places and caught in wet fingers, causing some of the pages to wave. She herself opens in different places - where it is read especially often. Although, over time, they ALL became favorites. She is a proven cure for sadness and bad mood. The book is written in the genre of "pseudoharms" - absurdist literary anecdotes. Stories "about the greats", based on real facts or randomly pulled out phrases and turned inside out, and then twisted up and tied with a bow. ... I explain clearly? The founder of the genre is, of course, D. Kharms. The successors are the artists V. Pyatnitsky and N. Dobrokhotova (the "Merry Fellows" cycle, which is also usually attributed to Kharms). Now Lana Nebaluy has taken up the matter (is that really her real name?)... Arina Rodionovna, the legendary nanny of Pushkin, who, it turns out, put her caring hand to the work of many Russian classics, as well as other figures and scientists, runs like a red thread through the book, for example, Mendeleev, whom she very opportunely helped to lay out his "cards". In the second part - "Tolstoyanki" - there is no nanny, but many new characters appear, just as familiar and recognizable. We won't list them all - it's useless. You'll figure it out for yourself... When Fyodor Mikhailovich wrote his first detective story, his young wife, Anna Grigorievna, ran to Tolstoy for advice. Incognita. Tolstoy, of course, advised. Anonymously - through his wife Sophia ... The book is light - literally and figuratively, cheerful and irresponsible. Since it consists of short stories, you can read it from anywhere. A special pleasure is the opportunity to ridicule the classics, respect for which we are persistently instilled in childhood, - to remove monuments from their pedestals for a while. It turns out like this: you laugh at Pushkin and Dostoevsky, at Chekhov, Stanislavsky, at the village girls who are frightened by Nekrasov, at the bare feet of Count Tolstoy, and it’s funny to you that you, such an adult uncle (aunt), laugh like a fool at such stupidity and, to your surprise, you feel smart, educated, and independent.