Check out one curious piece called Monday Starts Saturday. You will learn a summary of it by reading this article. The authors of the work - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - wrote it in 1964. According to the genre, the story is "Monday begins on Saturday." The summary is divided into three stories. It begins, like the work itself, by the following events.
Vanity around the sofa (first story)
Alexander Privalov, Leningrad programmer, travels on vacation by car. He goes to the city of Solovets, in which he has one meeting planned. Privalov picks up on the way two employees from the organization of the Research Institute of Witchcraft and Wizardry (NIICHAVO) and drives them to Solovets. Here they arrange it for the night in the museum of the institute - the Hut on chicken legs (INSURANCE).
Privalov gradually begins to notice various strange phenomena. For example, he is struck by the similarity with Baba-Yaga of Naina Kievna Gorynych, a museum ranger. He sees a talking tree, a mermaid on it, a huge cat who recites songs and fairy tales, and a book-changeling with constantly changing content. Privalov in the morning catches a pike from a well. She fulfills desires. As you probably already understood, by the genre this work is a fantastic humorous novel. The main character thinks that everything unusual should obey some system.
The story with an unchangeable nickel
The Strugatsky brothers further describe the strange story that happened with the main character. He finds, walking around the city during the day, an irreplaceable nickel. Privalov begins to experiment with him. He buys various things on him. Police interrupt this experiment. Privalov is taken to the department, forced to repair the damage. A non-exchangeable five-copeck coin is seized and given in return as usual. At the same time, the police are not at all surprised by such a strange subject.
Sofa Lost
Privalov, returning to the WISKWAY to relax, discovers that the sofa, which stood still in the morning, disappeared. Then strange characters come to him one after another, demonstrating amazing abilities. They become invisible, fly, pass through walls and for some reason are interested in the missing sofa. Privalov in between finds out that this piece of furniture is actually a magical translator of reality. He was kidnapped by Viktor Korneev, an employee of the institute, for his research work, since the sofa could not be officially recovered from the museum due to the bureaucracy of Modest Matveevich Kamnoedov, the administrator. The abduction scandal in the morning becomes uncontrollable. Privalov comes to the aid of the one whom he threw to the city - Roman Oira-Oira. He persuades him to go to NIICHAVO to work as a programmer. Privalov agrees - he was interested in what was happening.
Vanity of vanities (second story)
About six months after the events described in the first part, the action of the second takes place. Alexander Privalov, who now manages the computer center at NIICHAVO, remains on duty at the institute on New Year's Eve. He takes keys from department heads. A series of vivid characters created by the Strugatsky brothers passes in front of him - the magicians of the Hunt, Kristobal Khozevich and Kivrin Fedor Simeonovich, opportunists and hack-workers Vybegallo Ambrose Ambruazovich and Merlin, director of the Institute Nevstroyev Janus Poluektovich, who simultaneously exists in two incarnations - as the scientist U-Jan as administrator A-Janus, and others.
Privalov begins to bypass the institute from the building of the vivarium, located in the basement. It contains mythological and magical creatures. Then it passes through the floors of the sections of the Universal Transformations, Eternal Youth, Defense Magic, Predictions and Prophecies, Absolute Knowledge, The Meaning of Life, Linear Happiness. The round in the laboratory of the still working Vitka Korneev ends. Privalov is trying to drive him out of the room, but he cannot cope with a practicing magician who is keen on research. He discovers, after leaving Vitka’s laboratory, that there are many employees at the institute who prefer to return to the duty station instead of celebrating New Year's at home. These all people had one motto: "Monday starts on Saturday." The summary of its meaning is as follows: they saw the purpose of their life in the knowledge of the unknown and in work. Having met the New Year, all these people returned to their studies.
Gastro-unsatisfied human model
In the laboratory of Vybegallo, a professor, at this time a model of an unsatisfied gastrointestinal man "hatched" from the autoclave. This is a copy of the professor, capable of only devouring everything that is edible. Employees gather in the Vybegallo laboratory. The Strugatsky brothers (“Monday starts on Saturday”) describe the appearance accompanied by correspondents and the professor himself. According to his theory, the path to spiritual growth and personal development lies, first of all, through the satisfaction of its material needs. The presented model is an intermediate step on the path to creating the model of the Ideal Man, fully satisfied. She successfully demonstrates her ability to eat a lot, more and more. The model, in the end, bursts from gluttony, while bombarding correspondents and Vybegallo with the contents of the digestive system. Everyone disagrees.
Field Test Decision
Privalov ponders what is happening for a while, then falls asleep. Further, the following events are described in the work by the Strugatsky brothers ("Monday begins on Saturday"). After awakening, Privalov tries to create breakfast with the help of magic, but instead becomes a witness to the meeting taking place at the director of the institute. It discusses the danger of the following model. Vybegallo longs to test it at the institute, and other experienced magicians suggest conducting proving tests a few kilometers from the city. Nevstroyev Janus Poluektovich, director of the institute, after a heated debate decides to conduct them at the training ground, as significant damage will accompany the experiment. Nevstroyev gives Roman Oyra-Oyra "preliminary thanks" for courage and resourcefulness.
Testing the Ideal Man Model
Privalov is present at the test. The Ideal Man model has the ability to satisfy all material needs through magic. She, leaving the autoclave, transfers all material values located in the area of her magical abilities (including things of nearby people) to herself, after which she tries to turn the space. The Oira-Oira novel prevents cataclysm. He throws a bottle of genie at the Perfect Consumer. The genie, who broke free, destroys the model.
All fuss (third story)
We turn to the presentation of the third story, which was described in the work of the Strugatsky ("Monday begins on Saturday"). The Aldan computer broke down - the machine on which the protagonist works. While it is being repaired, Privalov walks around the institute. He falls into one department (Absolute Knowledge), in which the machine invented by Louis Sedlov is demonstrated at this time. On it you can get into a fictional future or a fictional past.
Privalov sets off for the future
Privalov’s journey into the future is an interesting episode that the Strugatsky included in his work. "Monday begins on Saturday" has acquired a truly epic scale. Privalov sets off for the future, agreeing to an experiment. First he sees a strange world with inhabitants resembling the ancient ancestors of man. Then Privalov appears among people, the same as his contemporaries, externally. However, in their world, spaceships are already traveling to distant planets. After this, Privalov finds himself in an era of return. In it, people flying away to distant stars and planets returned to Earth. He notices that the Iron Wall is in this world, and learns that the World of Fear of the Future is behind it. Once behind the Wall, Privalov sees war, murder and blood.
From a resident accidentally met by him, the protagonist learns that robots have enslaved a part of the world beyond the Wall. Another part was captured by the aliens. Communists, minerals, plants and parasites enslaved some more areas. Aircraft appear , bombs are falling. The main character moves to the opposite side of this wall. The world here is called the World of Humane Imagination. Then it returns to reality, but the car disappears without a trace.
The story of the dead parrot
Privalov comes to Oyra-Oyra and sees a dead parrot in a laboratory lying in a cup. An approaching Janus Poluektovich, director of the institute, calls this parrot Photonchik. He burns his corpse in a furnace, scatters the ashes in the wind and leaves. The novel is surprised because he found a green charred feather in the stove the day before. How it could appear if only today a parrot was burned, and others of the same color were not nearby, remains a mystery.
The next day Privalov composes verses for the wall newspaper with the witch Stella. Suddenly he sees the same green parrot enter the room. He flies, but in appearance is not quite healthy. Other employees appear. They are wondering where this parrot came from. Then everyone takes up their work, but suddenly they notice that the parrot is dead. The inscription "Photon" and a ring with numbers can be seen on his foot. It was the same on the foot of a parrot lying yesterday dead in a cup. Everyone is perplexed. Artist Drozd accidentally puts a parrot in a cup.
The computer the next day correct. The main character starts his work. Then Roman calls him and says that there is already no parrot in the cup and no one has seen him. The protagonist is surprised, but then, absorbed in work, stops thinking about it. Roman later calls again and asks Privalov to come. When he arrives, he discovers a living green parrot, on whose foot a ring is visible.
The parrot answers the words of employees in other words. It is not possible to establish a semantic connection between them. Then the names of those present are called, and he briefly characterizes each: primitive, old, rude, etc. Employees cannot understand how he knows all this.
Who really is Janus Poluektovich
We are approaching the curious ending, which concludes the book "Monday begins on Saturday." The idea comes to friends that the parrot belongs to Janus Poluektovich, an even more mysterious person. This two- person man never appears in public at twelve o'clock in the morning. He also cannot remember after midnight what happened before her. Janus Poluektovich, moreover, foresees unmistakably the future.
In the end, scientists realize that there is a possibility of countermotion, in other words, the passage of time in the opposite to the generally accepted direction. If the parrot was counter-literate, then it can be alive today, and yesterday, after death, it was put in a cup. The day before yesterday he was burned by Janus when he found him. And the day before, he left in the stove a charred feather, found by Roman.
The novel is trying to explain what happened to the Tunguska meteorite, the concept of countermotion. It was actually a spaceship. The aliens who were in it were contraceptives. They lived from future to past, by the standards of ordinary people.
Two incarnations of Janus Poluektovich
Scientists have guessed the secret of Janus Poluektovich. He studied science in the person of A-Janus until he discovered the idea of countermotion. Then he understood how to put it into practice. And in a year that is still a distant future for NIICHAVO employees living now, he turned himself, as well as Photon, his parrot, into contraceptives. After that, he began to live according to the time line back. And now every midnight the director moves on today from tomorrow. He lives in the form of A-Janus, like ordinary people, that is, from the past to the future, but in the form of U-Janus, on the contrary, from the future to the past. In this case, both incarnations remain one person. They are combined in space and time.
Meeting with U-Janus
Privalov meets U-Janus during lunch. He asks, having courage, whether it is possible to come to him tomorrow morning. He replies that Privalov will be called to Kitezhgrad tomorrow morning, therefore, he will not be able to enter. He then adds that there is no future unique to all. There are many of them, and some of them do every human act.
This ends the story "Monday begins on Saturday." The summary, as you understand, conveys only its main events in a general way. After reading the text of the work, you will learn many interesting details.
"Monday begins on Saturday," the majority of readers are positive. Fans of humorous fiction will especially enjoy this work. The stories of the Strugatsky brothers are very exciting and interesting, and this is no exception. Writers are very popular today. Perhaps with full confidence we can say that one of the most famous stories is "Monday begins on Saturday." Quotes from this work, and especially its name, can often be heard from the lips of science fiction lovers.