Weird - Shukshin Vasily Makarovich
Vasily Shukshin
weirdo
His wife called him “Weirdo.” Sometimes affectionately.
The weirdo had one peculiarity: something always happened to him. He didn’t want this, he suffered, but every now and then he got involved in some kind of story - minor, however, but annoying.
Here are episodes from one of his trips.
I got a leave of absence and decided to go see my brother in the Urals: we haven’t seen each other for twelve years.
– Where is this spinner... the subspecies of bityur?! - the Freak yelled from the pantry.
- How should I know.
- Yes, they were all lying here! “The weirdo tried to look sternly with his round blue-white eyes. “Everything is here, but this one, you see, is not there.”
- Does it look like bityurya?
- Well. Pike.
“I apparently fried it by mistake.” The weirdo was silent for a while.
- So how is it?
- What?
- Delicious! Ha-ha-ha!... - He didn’t know how to make jokes at all, but he really wanted to. - Are your teeth intact? She's duralumin!..
...It took a long time to get ready - until midnight. And early in the morning Chudik was walking around the village with a suitcase.
- To the Urals! To the Urals! - he answered the question: where was he going? At the same time, his round, fleshy face and round eyes expressed an extremely careless attitude towards long roads - they did not frighten him. - To the Urals! We need to sneak around.
But the Urals were still far away.
So far, he had safely reached the regional city, where he had to buy a ticket and board the train.
There was a lot of time left. The weirdo decided to buy some gifts for his nephews - sweets, gingerbread... He went to the grocery store and joined the line. In front of him stood a man in a hat, and in front of the hat was a plump woman with painted lips. The woman spoke quietly, quickly, passionately to the hat:
– Can you imagine how rude and tactless a person must be! He has sclerosis, well, he has had sclerosis for seven years, but no one suggested that he retire. And this one has been leading the team for a week without a year - and already: “Perhaps, Alexander Semenych, it’s better for you to retire?” Nah-hal!
The hat agreed:
- Yes, yes... They are like that now. Just think! Sclerosis. And Sumbatich?.. I also haven’t kept up the text lately. And this one, what’s her name?..
The weirdo respected city people. Not everyone, though: he didn’t respect hooligans and salesmen. I was afraid.
It was his turn. He bought sweets, gingerbread, three bars of chocolate. And he stepped aside to put everything in his suitcase. He opened the suitcase on the floor and began to pack it away... I looked at the floor, and at the counter, where the line was, there was a fifty-ruble note lying at people’s feet. A sort of green fool, she lies there, no one sees her. The weirdo even trembled with joy, his eyes lit up. In a hurry, so that no one would get ahead of him, he began to quickly think about how to say something funnier, more witty, in line, about the piece of paper.
- Live well, citizens! - he said loudly and cheerfully.
They looked back at him.
– Here, for example, they don’t throw such pieces of paper around.
Everyone got a little worried here. This is not a three, not a five - fifty rubles, you have to work for half a month. But the owner of the piece of paper is not there.
“Probably the one in the hat,” the Weird guessed.
We decided to put the piece of paper in a visible place on the counter.
“Someone will come running now,” said the saleswoman.
The weirdo left the store in the most pleasant mood. I kept thinking how easy it was for him, how fun it was: “For example, here we don’t throw such pieces of paper!” Suddenly he was suddenly overcome with heat: he remembered that he had just exchanged just such a piece of paper and another twenty-five ruble note, the fifty ruble one should be in his pocket... He reached into his pocket - no. Back and forth - no.
- It was my piece of paper! - Weird said loudly. - That's your mother!.. My piece of paper.
My heart even began to ring with grief. The first impulse was to go and say: “Citizens, this is my piece of paper. I received two of them from the savings bank: one for twenty-five rubles, the other for half a ruble. I have now exchanged one, but the other is gone.” But just as he imagined how he would stun everyone with this statement, many would think: “Of course, since the owner was not found, he decided to pocket it.” No, don’t overpower yourself – don’t reach out for that damned piece of paper. They may not give it back yet...
- Why am I like this? - Chudik reasoned bitterly out loud. - So what's now?..
I had to return home.
I approached the store, wanted to look at the piece of paper at least from a distance, stood at the entrance... and did not enter. It will really hurt. The heart may not be able to bear it.
I rode on the bus and cursed quietly - gaining courage: there was an explanation to be had with my wife.
Another fifty rubles were taken from the book.
The weirdo, killed by his insignificance, which his wife again explained to him (she even hit him on the head with a slotted spoon a couple of times), was traveling on the train. But gradually the bitterness went away. Forests, copses, villages flashed outside the window... Different people came and went, different stories were told... The weirdo also told one to some intelligent friend when they were standing in the vestibule, smoking.
“We have a fool in our neighboring village too... He grabbed a firebrand and went after his mother.” Drunk. She runs from him and shouts: “Hands,” he shouts, “don’t burn your hands, son!” She takes care of him... And he rushes off, a drunken mug. To the mother. Can you imagine how rude and tactless you have to be...
- Did you come up with it yourself? – the intelligent comrade asked sternly, looking at the Weird over his glasses.
- For what? – he didn’t understand. - Across the river, the village of Ramenskoye...
The intelligent comrade turned to the window and spoke no more.
After the train, Chudik still had to fly by local plane for an hour and a half. He once flew once. For a long time. I boarded the plane not without some timidity. “Is it really possible that not a single screw in it will go bad in an hour and a half?” - thought. Then - nothing, I became bolder. He even tried to talk to his neighbor, but he was reading the newspaper, and he was so interested in what was in the newspaper that he didn’t even want to listen to a living person. And Chudik wanted to find out this: he heard that they provide food on planes. But they didn’t carry something. He really wanted to eat on the plane - out of curiosity.
“Healed,” he decided.
I started looking down. Mountains of clouds below. For some reason the weirdo couldn’t definitely say: is it beautiful or not? And everyone around them said: “Oh, what beauty!” He just suddenly felt the stupidest desire: to fall into them, into the clouds, like into cotton wool. He also thought: “Why am I not surprised? After all, there are almost five kilometers below me.” I mentally measured these five kilometers on the ground, put them on my butt to be surprised, but I was not surprised.
“Here’s a man?.. He just came up with an idea,” he said to his neighbor. He looked at him, said nothing, and rustled the newspaper again.
- Fasten your seat belts! - said the pretty young woman. - We're going to land.
The weirdo obediently fastened his belt. And the neighbor - zero attention. The weirdo touched him carefully:
- They tell you to fasten your belt.
“Nothing,” said the neighbor. He put the newspaper aside, leaned back in his seat and said, as if remembering something: “Children are the flowers of life, they should be planted with their heads down.”
- Like this? - Chudik didn’t understand.
The reader laughed loudly and said no more.
They quickly began to decline. The earth is just a stone's throw away, rapidly flying back. But there is still no push. As knowledgeable people later explained, the pilot “missed.” Finally there was a push, and everyone began to be thrown around so much that they could hear chattering and grinding teeth. This reader with the newspaper jumped out of his seat, butted the Weird with his bald head, then kissed the porthole, then found himself on the floor. During all this time he did not make a single sound. And everyone around was also silent - this amazed the Chudik. He was also silent. Become. The first who came to their senses looked out the windows and discovered that the plane was in a potato field. A gloomy pilot emerged from the pilot's cabin and walked towards the exit. Someone asked him carefully:
- Do we seem to have landed in potatoes?
– Don’t you see it yourself? - said the pilot.
The fear subsided, and the most cheerful ones were already trying to make jokes.
The bald reader was looking for his artificial jaw. The weirdo unfastened his belt and also began to look.
- This?! – he exclaimed joyfully and handed it to the reader.
Chudik, page 1
Vasily Shukshin
weirdo
His wife called him “Weirdo.” Sometimes affectionately.
The weirdo had one peculiarity: something always happened to him. He didn’t want this, he suffered, but every now and then he got involved in some kind of story - minor, however, but annoying.
Here are episodes from one of his trips.
I got a leave of absence and decided to go see my brother in the Urals: we haven’t seen each other for twelve years.
– Where is this spinner... the subspecies of bityur?! - the Freak yelled from the pantry.
- How should I know.
- Yes, they were all lying here! “The weirdo tried to look sternly with his round blue-white eyes. “Everything is here, but this one, you see, is not there.”
- Does it look like bityurya?
- Well. Pike.
“I apparently fried it by mistake.” The weirdo was silent for a while.
- So how is it?
- What?
- Delicious! Ha-ha-ha!... - He didn’t know how to make jokes at all, but he really wanted to. - Are your teeth intact? She's duralumin!..
...It took a long time to get ready - until midnight. And early in the morning Chudik was walking around the village with a suitcase.
- To the Urals! To the Urals! - he answered the question: where was he going? At the same time, his round, fleshy face and round eyes expressed an extremely careless attitude towards long roads - they did not frighten him. - To the Urals! We need to sneak around.
But the Urals were still far away.
So far, he had safely reached the regional city, where he had to buy a ticket and board the train.
There was a lot of time left. The weirdo decided to buy some gifts for his nephews - sweets, gingerbread... He went to the grocery store and joined the line. In front of him stood a man in a hat, and in front of the hat was a plump woman with painted lips. The woman spoke quietly, quickly, passionately to the hat:
– Can you imagine how rude and tactless a person must be! He has sclerosis, well, he has had sclerosis for seven years, but no one suggested that he retire. And this one has been leading the team for a week without a year - and already: “Perhaps, Alexander Semenych, it’s better for you to retire?” Nah-hal!
The hat agreed:
- Yes, yes... They are like that now. Just think! Sclerosis. And Sumbatich?.. I also haven’t kept up the text lately. And this one, what’s her name?..
The weirdo respected city people. Not everyone, though: he didn’t respect hooligans and salesmen. I was afraid.
It was his turn. He bought sweets, gingerbread, three bars of chocolate. And he stepped aside to put everything in his suitcase. He opened the suitcase on the floor and began to pack it away... I looked at the floor, and at the counter, where the line was, there was a fifty-ruble note lying at people’s feet. A sort of green fool, she lies there, no one sees her. The weirdo even trembled with joy, his eyes lit up. In a hurry, so that no one would get ahead of him, he began to quickly think about how to say something funnier, more witty, in line, about the piece of paper.
- Live well, citizens! - he said loudly and cheerfully.
They looked back at him.
– Here, for example, they don’t throw such pieces of paper around.
Everyone got a little worried here. This is not a three, not a five - fifty rubles, you have to work for half a month. But the owner of the piece of paper is not there.
“Probably the one in the hat,” the Weird guessed.
We decided to put the piece of paper in a visible place on the counter.
“Someone will come running now,” said the saleswoman.
The weirdo left the store in the most pleasant mood. I kept thinking how easy it was for him, how fun it was: “For example, here we don’t throw such pieces of paper!” Suddenly he was suddenly overcome with heat: he remembered that he had just exchanged just such a piece of paper and another twenty-five ruble note, the fifty ruble one should be in his pocket... He reached into his pocket - no. Back and forth - no.
- It was my piece of paper! - Weird said loudly. - That's your mother!.. My piece of paper.
My heart even began to ring with grief. The first impulse was to go and say: “Citizens, this is my piece of paper. I received two of them from the savings bank: one for twenty-five rubles, the other for half a ruble. I have now exchanged one, but the other is gone.” But just as he imagined how he would stun everyone with this statement, many would think: “Of course, since the owner was not found, he decided to pocket it.” No, don’t overpower yourself – don’t reach out for that damned piece of paper. They may not give it back yet...
- Why am I like this? - Chudik reasoned bitterly out loud. - So what's now?..
I had to return home.
I approached the store, wanted to look at the piece of paper at least from a distance, stood at the entrance... and did not enter. It will really hurt. The heart may not be able to bear it.
I rode on the bus and cursed quietly - gaining courage: there was an explanation to be had with my wife.
Another fifty rubles were taken from the book.
The weirdo, killed by his insignificance, which his wife again explained to him (she even hit him on the head with a slotted spoon a couple of times), was traveling on the train. But gradually the bitterness went away. Forests, copses, villages flashed outside the window... Different people came and went, different stories were told... The weirdo also told one to some intelligent friend when they were standing in the vestibule, smoking.
“We have a fool in our neighboring village too... He grabbed a firebrand and went after his mother.” Drunk. She runs from him and shouts: “Hands,” he shouts, “don’t burn your hands, son!” She takes care of him... And he rushes off, a drunken mug. To the mother. Can you imagine how rude and tactless you have to be...
- Did you come up with it yourself? – the intelligent comrade asked sternly, looking at the Weird over his glasses.
- For what? – he didn’t understand. - Across the river, the village of Ramenskoye...
The intelligent comrade turned to the window and spoke no more.
After the train, Chudik still had to fly by local plane for an hour and a half. He once flew once. For a long time. I boarded the plane not without some timidity. “Is it really possible that not a single screw in it will go bad in an hour and a half?” - thought. Then - nothing, I became bolder. He even tried to talk to his neighbor, but he was reading the newspaper, and he was so interested in what was in the newspaper that he didn’t even want to listen to a living person. And Chudik wanted to find out this: he heard that they provide food on planes. But they didn’t carry something. He really wanted to eat on the plane - out of curiosity.
“Healed,” he decided.
I started looking down. Mountains of clouds below. For some reason the weirdo couldn’t definitely say: is it beautiful or not? And everyone around them said: “Oh, what beauty!” He just suddenly felt the stupidest desire: to fall into them, into the clouds, like into cotton wool. He also thought: “Why am I not surprised? After all, there are almost five kilometers below me.” I mentally measured these five kilometers on the ground, put them on my butt to be surprised, but I was not surprised.
“Here’s a man?.. He just came up with an idea,” he said to his neighbor. He looked at him, said nothing, and rustled the newspaper again.
- Fasten your seat belts! - said the pretty young woman. - We're going to land.
The weirdo obediently fastened his belt. And the neighbor - zero attention. The weirdo touched him carefully:
- They tell you to fasten your belt.
“Nothing,” said the neighbor. He put the newspaper aside, leaned back in his seat and said, as if remembering something: “Children are the flowers of life, they should be planted with their heads down.”
- Like this? - Chudik didn’t understand.
The reader laughed loudly and said no more.
They quickly began to decline. The earth is just a stone's throw away, rapidly flying back. But there is still no push. As knowledgeable people later explained, the pilot “missed.” Finally there was a push, and everyone began to be thrown around so much that they could hear chattering and grinding teeth. This reader with the newspaper jumped out of his seat, butted the Weird with his bald head, then kissed the porthole, then found himself on the floor. During all this time he did not make a single sound. And everyone around was also silent - this amazed the Chudik. He was also silent. Become. The first who came to their senses looked out the windows and discovered that the plane was in a potato field. A gloomy pilot emerged from the pilot's cabin and walked towards the exit. Someone asked him carefully:
- Do we seem to have landed in potatoes?
– Don’t you see it yourself? - said the pilot.
The fear subsided, and the most cheerful ones were already trying to make jokes.
The bald reader was looking for his artificial jaw. The weirdo unfastened his belt and also began to look.
- This?! – he exclaimed joyfully and handed it to the reader.
Heroes of the story
The main character of the story is called Weird. That's what his wife called him, often in a negative context. The word “eccentric” has become the definition of a typical Shukshin hero. The peculiarity of these heroes is that they are simple, unsophisticated, not adapted to life and inconvenient for loved ones. Something happens to them all the time, and it interferes with the lives of others. They harm unintentionally, wishing others well. Freaks are childish and live by their hearts.
Such is the Weird. His portrait emphasizes simplicity and good-naturedness; he looks like a baby: a round fleshy face, round blue-white eyes. The author immediately reports that Chudik does not know how to joke, pretends that he is not afraid of a long journey, and respects city people. All these character traits are also childish, although the hero is 39 years old.
The teenage desire to impress forces Chudik to “cheerfully and wittyly” inform the queue that there is a 50-ruble note at the counter (half the monthly salary). The weirdo thinks he succeeded. But the reader already knows that Chudik doesn’t know how to make jokes. Even after discovering that it was he who lost the money, Chudik does not dare take it back. As a teenager, he is not confident in himself and is afraid that he will be judged and the paper will not be handed over.
The weirdo is even afraid of his wife, like a child is afraid of his mother’s scolding. And indeed, his wife hit him on the head a couple of times with a slotted spoon.
People notice the simplicity of the Weird and teach him how to live, making comments to him, although he tries to please everyone.
When he picks up a passenger's dentures on the plane, the passenger scolds Chudik for picking it up with dirty hands. The stern telegraph operator refuses to send a telegram to his wife in verse, reminding him that he is “an adult. Not in kindergarten." Daughter-in-law Sofya Ivanovna also makes a remark when Chudik sings loudly (from her point of view, he yells): “You’re not at the station.” Weird's best job is decorating a baby stroller. The weirdo is a master of his craft, he has already painted the stove, “which everyone marveled at.”
Shukshin leads the reader to the idea that the strange and abnormal is not the Weird at all, but those around him who reject the manifestation of feelings and the feelings themselves, calling them kisses and snot.
There is no anger in the Freak, which is why he tolerates anger in others so hard: “When they hated him, he was in great pain.” Faced with hatred, the Weird loses the meaning of life, does not fight, but leaves.
Chudik's brother Dmitry and his daughter-in-law Sofya Ivanovna come from the village, but live in the city. Dmitry misses his homeland, asks his brother about home and dreams of coming to visit with his family. Sofya Ivanovna strives to break all old ties and dreams of a career, as she understands it. Sophia considers her husband and his brother losers because they are from the village. Her career consists of working as a barmaid in some department. She also prepares her children for a successful city life; according to her father, she torments them at piano lessons and figure skating. According to Shukshin’s plan, she is made by an evil break with her native village, with nature. Although it’s hard not to get angry if a stroller (an expensive thing) is decorated with children’s paints, which are washed off with water at the first rain. So Shukshin does not take sides in the conflict.
“Weirdo” (V. Shukshin)
Quote: “At the airport, Chudik wrote a telegram to his wife: “We’ve landed.
A lilac branch fell on my chest, dear Pear, don’t forget me. Vasyatka." Issues:
The meaning of the name: Chudik is the nickname of the main character (only at the end of the story it is reported that Chudik’s actual name is Vasily Yegorovich Knyazev). This nickname characterizes his main feature: Strange, not adapted to life in society, simple-minded. Shukshin in the image of Chudik raises the problem of spiritual simplicity and openness. Society rejects humanity, hiding behind social patterns. Therefore, Chudik feels good only when communicating with nature: after all, the rain cannot be insincere.
Literary direction: realism.
Literary genre: story.
Genre features: the stories of Vasily Makarovich Shukshin in terms of genre are closer, despite their brevity, to the novel: they contain the whole life of a person, and raise global questions of existence. We can say that in this respect Shukshin became a successor to Chekhov's tradition.
At the same time, Chudik is a representative of the “little man” type characteristic of Russian literature (like, for example, Akakiy Bashmachkin in N.V. Gogol’s story “The Overcoat” or Makar Devushkin in F.M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Poor People”).
Time and place of action: the story takes place in the Urals and in Chudik’s native village. The time is contemporary to the author.
Weird guy. Analysis of Shukshin's story
The story “Freak” is about a talented person, such people decorate life, with their appearance vulgarity and indifference are banished, their destinies are closely connected with the fate of the people.
The thought of F. M. Dostoevsky runs through all of Shukshin’s work: every person is an unsolved mystery, and a “little man” can have a big heart.
The human soul constantly needs good relationships with people. These universal human values are carried by Shukshin’s “eccentrics” – naive people who are faced with misunderstandings from others and suffer from it.
Due to the discrepancy between their own and generally accepted views on reality, comical and sometimes tragicomic situations arise. The author and readers sympathize with the “weirdos” and laugh at them kindly.
COMPOSITION AND STORY
⦁ The weirdo is going to the Urals, to visit his brother, whom he has not seen for about 12 years. An adult, but childishly naive person, in his simplicity, finds himself in various unpleasant situations.
⦁ Manifestation of the eccentricity of the main character: he lost money (half his monthly salary), but does not dare to take it back; tries to send a telegram to his wife in verse, but the telegraph operator shames him; painted his nephew's baby carriage with paints, for which his daughter-in-law wants to kick him out.
IMAGE OF VASILY EGOROVICH KNYAZEV (CHUDIK)
⦁ Rural projectionist. ⦁ The hero's name and profession become known in the last paragraph of the story. ⦁ He is afraid of his wife and tries to please everyone. ⦁ There is no anger in him, so he has a hard time withstanding anger in others. ⦁ When faced with hatred, he loses the meaning of life, does not fight, but leaves. ⦁ Feels out of this world: “Why am I like this?” ⦁ Values village life and is not going to change it to city life.
⦁ Happy that I returned home, where I feel not like a “crank”, but a useful and necessary person.
IDEATORICAL AND THEMATIC CONTENT
Topics: relations between urban and rural residents, family relationships. The idea: for all their simplicity, “freaks” are more soulful, cleaner and more modest than their offenders.
"Freak" was written in 1967. Shukshin and appeared in 1967 in the ninth issue of the New World magazine. The main character of the story is thirty-nine-year-old rural mechanic Vasily Egorovich Knyazev. The story begins simply. His wife called him a weirdo. Sometimes affectionately.
The beginning of the plot is the next episode. The weirdo, going to visit his brother in the Urals, dropped his money in the store. However, he didn’t immediately realize that this fifty-ruble note was his, so he joked lightly and cheerfully: “You live well, citizens! Here, for example, they don’t throw such pieces of paper around.” After that, he could not overcome himself to take the damned piece of paper.
