Paustovsky, Squeaky Floorboards: Summary

The eternal agonizing theme of Russian literature - how a forest (garden) was cut down - continued by K. G. Paustovsky in "Squeaky Floorboards."

The forest is alive. Who will surprise you with this? But the forest at Paustovsky is sometimes so deliberately alive that it gives a tremendous impetus to the director of the school film studio in his fantasies and philosophical thoughts. In fact, ideal metaphors inspire little creativity.

“Cannot discourage legitimate gain”

Composer Tchaikovsky creates, secluded in a manor surrounded by forest. Forester Vasily brings the bad news. The visiting merchant Troshchenko, the new owner of the "profaned" landowner, decided: the forest is under an ax. Tchaikovsky rushes to the governor. He shrugs: we can’t discourage the benefits of legal property. The composer is trying to buy the forest. Offers the merchant a bill for tomorrow’s masterpieces. That requires cash. They are not. Forest tirelessly cut down. But Troshchenko suddenly appears at the threshold of the house where music sounded yesterday. Change your mind? Did the big cabin go wrong? But the composer has already left. To Moscow. And then - and to Petersburg? To the capital, to the sovereign emperor with a petition? May be. The final is open.

This could be the scenario of the potential film “Squeak” with philosophical background based on Paustovsky's work “Squeaky Floorboards”.

Duma of Tchaikovsky

As the theme of the ax looming over the forest develops, the author reads the composer's thoughts. And he looks insincere when he talks about the "educational impact" of nature and associates forest conservation with the power of the state. "Express the poetry of the country." "Save the corner of the earth." "Descendants will never forgive us ...". There are several inflated places in the story about the desecrated beauty of the earth and the mighty influence of forests. It's not that the composer could not think about the fate of posterity. I could very well. But he hardly thought of them in a pompous style that excludes personal experience.

Higher people

No less strange is the way he sees the significance of creativity - through the eyes of Tchaikovsky - Paustovsky in "Squeaky Floorboards." Favorite poet of the composer - Pushkin. All musical compositions already written are a tribute to Alexander Sergeyevich, people and friends. And the tribute, as seen, is not rich. There is probably a reader who is not bored with this kind of passage. You can’t look at the icons with boredom. Recall the Chernyshevsky novel. Read “What to do?” boring but interesting. We are aware that there are no higher people. But we need them so much. Not like shepherds, no. But as those who decide the meaning of life. A question that torments everyone living. We need the confidence of classicism and the romantic impulse at the same time. So as never to doubt: duty is the peak of happiness. And what life really is, we well know.

Squeaky life

Paustovsky has more than one floorboard creaking in his Squeaky Floorboards. The maid’s dress in the governor’s house is starched to a squeak. “Existing legal provisions do not give an opportunity” - the master of the house speaks creakily and the owner of the house lives creakily. And the servants creak. Troshchenko walks in creaky boots, an arrogant merchant from Kharkov, who started this whole logging. He will hit the ax with the butt on the trunk - the tree sings, and he hears his song, the one that merges with the ringing of coins. And the music ... There is no trace of it. A ferry creaks on the way home after a useless visit to the governor. Life obeys the creak of five shaky floorboards, which the protagonist of Paustovsky’s short story “Squeaky Floorboards” is trying so hard to circumvent in his house.

Where does the music come from?

This is one of the key issues of the work.

When the American science fiction writer Robert Sheckley was asked where he takes his stories, he wittily replied: they say, if you knew where - he would have scored more. Tchaikovsky in Paustovsky’s short story “Squeaky Floorboards” gives a different answer to a similar question from an enthusiastic student: there is no secret. But there is work. Such an answer was given either for educational purposes, or from embarrassment. But yes, the story has this: work, work, work. Not sparing yourself. Like an ox. Like a day laborer. Hence the inspiration. Oh oh

Where ivan tea blooms

There is still a mystery. Where does the music come from? The “hymn” style of the story (in harmony with nature, nourished folk power, the lyrical power of the forest side), it would seem, suggests a straightforward answer - from the forest. But by and large it is not so important where Paustovsky and his hero find a source of inspiration. Mystery is mystery. The main thing - there is an alternative to the damned creaky life. There is harmony. And where is its source, think for yourself. Paustovsky gives his answer in Squeaky Floorboards.

That the flowers of carnations resemble fluff in shreds, and the light falls in layers - the images speak little. They do not copy flowers and light, and do not show light and flowers as God created them. What is magnetism?

The modern man of the metropolis is unlikely to share the torment of those who cry over a felled birch. The man of the metropolis is not destined to know the road to Rudom Yar, which Tchaikovsky knows in all details - past the willow-tea blossoming near the stumps, through a broken bridge and light forest. A man of a metropolis does not have to go this way. A modern conservationist measures the forests with steps of good and the straight road leads to moral utilitarianism. But Tchaikovsky remembers the forest path as only a child can remember it. And this painful fact overshadows the ugly prettiness in the form of shreds and layers. And deliberately sorrowful thoughts about the fate of the Russian state in connection with the abused nature.

The liberal governor with swollen eyes has not had this childish attitude for a long time. It, this attitude, was reborn into arrogant commercial excitement with the merchant Troshchenko. What did Tchaikovsky suggest in the "Squeaky Floorboards" by Paustovsky the businessman? Bills - perhaps under the Queen of Spades or The Nutcracker. Instead of cash? It's ridiculous! So, do not grow up? It is necessary. Higher people who create indestructible values ​​are not born. So grows up in Paustovsky’s short story “Squeaky Floorboards” by Fenya, who went to the composer's house with strawberries and listened. So Basil grew up growing this forest. And, we think, also young people in the house of the liberal governor.

And if not, then complete butchery comes out. How thieves scatter loggers from a falling pine. Who sent them to theft? Disharmonious people. And the bad business executives, of course - first, it would be necessary to cut a shallow forest to give scope to the fall of the giant pine. Everything about them is disharmonious. Even the columns on the governor's house are flaky. Another thing is the composer's house.

House

He dried up like an old piano. But he misses the music. Waiting. And he sings when the master is at the piano. And the old chandelier responds. Resonances are the subtlest. This house, it is surrounded by a protective belt. A living wall. Warm and reliable.

Irony boomerang

The culmination of Paustovsky’s short story “Squeaky Floorboards” is the conversation between the businessman and the composer. The dialogue is built on irony. Moreover, the irony of the reverse. Troshchenko gushes aphorisms, which, it would seem, should defeat the composer. The merchant has a coat “not knocked out by nobility”, but there is money. The composer is a person "from elevated spheres", but he is not able to bargain. The merchant does not live in the "empire", but he is in honor. Troshchenko agrees: yes, he’s a maclack. But, then who is he who came to bow to him, Maclac? The creator of the "air thing." After all, music is smoke. “Always with me” is a merchant about his mind. But why is it not a petitioner that is ridiculous, but an important merchant. The comic effect arises from the mismatch of the scale of the individual. A minor merchant mocks a recognized genius with world fame. This is ridiculous. The only difference in the "social position" is enough for comic.

Historical parallels

It all comes down to the fact that a “musical” dry house is a house in the village of Frolovskoye near Klin. In the last years of his life, Tchaikovsky sought one or the other “refuge”. In one of his letters, he calls this place “paradise” - after capitals and overseas travels. The neglected garden. Next is the forest. And such gave! The owner of the estate, which the composer rented, ordered the forest to be cut.

In the fiction of the biographical Tchaikovsky of that time appears ... Well, we read biographies of wonderful people. Who are they written for? For people unremarkable. Who, not without contentment, will think about reading: “Well, I’m not so petty, preoccupied, weak. And everything seems to be in order with the stomach. ” If it were possible to materialize a hybrid of creative torment and vicissitudes of fate, they would certainly be put up in the Kunstkamera. Yes, probably the composer was not the highest person. But it was, because the highest man is the highest in humanity.

Apparently, it was in Frolovsky that Tchaikovsky composed, for example, symphony No. 5, which the unceremonious biographer prints with his own stigma - “not that”, and the performers will scratch their heads: “how to play?”. Is rock obeying joy or celebrating its victory? Interpretations are opposite.

Fiction like real life

Literary images act selectively and are interpreted differently. The terrible moment of death is about the fall of a felled tree. Someone will admire: “Strongly said!”. And someone cringes at the artificiality of the phrase. But the grace of the syllable is immaterial in an important dispatch: leave to nature its ability to give birth, grow, be perfect and self-sufficient. And the man ... Paustovsky was thinking about an unusual autobiography. Fictional. What kind of people would he get along on the road-roads! How many would have done!

Fortissimo

Having forgotten the noise of the forest, bewitched by the roar of spaceports and the rustling of silent household appliances, we resign ourselves to the creak of shaky floorboards. We fight for ourselves in the macrocosm, where there is no longer harmony. One creak. And the floorboards are the burning earth under our feet: for example, in the spirit of Paustovsky (his earth is only shaking), and we will play the last chord.