BOOKBROODER

“Has he a passport anyway or something of the sort?
To be sure he has, he is a good man, a man of experience; three rubles he’s promised to pay.”

Dostoevsky published many short stories in during 1846 to 1848 and this is interesting to know that his first novel ‘Poor Folks’ was also published in 1846. The wizard was getting ready to rule the world. I have encountered his non-physical style of writing in his novels Crime and punishment and the Idiot. What I mean by non-physical is his famous cerebral narration, which happens inside the head!

Last week I decided to opt for his short stories and two tales that got qualified were ‘Bobok’ and this one. In this tale, an elderly man (Astafy) convinced Agrafena to admit himself in the kitchen as a lodger and boarder. Agrafena is the cook, washerwoman, and housekeeper of the narrator. The narrator is the owner of the lodge. Agrafena was such a silent creature that except for some dinner inquiries she had not uttered a single word in the last six years.

This elderly man turns out to be an old soldier and he shares many stories. One day a man steals a coat from the peg in front of their eyes and this old man runs after him, but could not catch him and returns empty-handed. But he makes friends with the narrator after this deed the narrator is the owner of the house!

Once the old man starts sharing his story, it becomes a story within the story and the original narrator just disappears. My binoculars could not find him anymore. The two terms you will find in this story’s description, are ‘dual-layer narration’ and ‘naturalistic storytelling’. The story within the story is dual-layer narration and the meaning of naturalistic prose that I comprehended initially was something which is natural. But this is not the case. It’s not being realistic. Certainly not like Chekhov’s realistic tales. Naturalism occurs when the character of humans is governed by the environment in a plot.

One day this soldier, who was a tailor too, does not find the breeches, that he had made for some wealthy men, He talks to the drunkard,

“No Astafy Ivanovitch, I never- sort of – touched your breeches.”

This was my first story of Dostoevsky. And I will remember it. If you will read this, you will find a strange thing in the dialogues. You will find the repeated utterances of all the time and though it may be highly irritating. It did not irritate me. When the story was finished, which was not a happy ending the repeated occurrences of salutations made it multifold sympathetic.

There is a very strange tone in all this narration and that tone is a tone of commiseration. If you will read it in flow you will feel as if a climax scene is going on and the compassion and sympathy are outpouring.

In the major part of the story, you will see the narrator(that old man) would be speaking to the three people at a time. First the drunkard (Emelyanoushka ), the second is the inn owner (the sir,) and the third, is you (the reader). And what a wonder this genius has constructed the game. I loved it.

It’s about poor folks whom this drunkard man represented! One poor fellow who was an honest thief!

I also know that Dostoevsky experimented with many narrative techniques in his early career and this tale might have tumbled out of his experimental desk. Who knows, but this was a new tryout for me too.

A bizarre sympathetic tone throughout, I will remember for a long!

“Every year, Said grandfather, every year, they run amuck. I let them, pride of the lion in the yard. Stare and they burn a hole in your retina. A common flower, a weed that no one sees. Yes. but for us, a noble thing. The dandelion.”

Do you hear some sounds which are emanating from nowhere around, and still you hear them? Or, do you not hear the sounds which are there, far away, you know this, yet you do not hear them? I advise you, to borrow the ear of a canine, for five seconds, don’t look into the eyes of that earless canine in those five seconds. When it is on you, tune it high (the ear), stretch it taut and you will hear, through this borrowed ear, those sounds, miles and miles across the town. Give it back (the ear).

Ray Bradbury does this so many times. This was his style for me. He will make you hear those sounds which are not there. Or, which are there but you are not aware! He made me feel this.

I read this book by Ray five months ago and this was my first book by the author. I liked the book and the writing very much, It impressed me a lot. Awe-inspiring! Unique in taste and style both! But I did not post my thoughts on it. Do you know the reason? I tell you now. Actually, I could not add up the entire book together at that time. There was a story going on and it was arousing the curiosity, and pressing the nerve of infantile fancy, and was moving at a very fast pace, but yet I could not gather it up. As if I had filled some sort of fresh sand in my fist, and I felt its warmth in my palms and its granularity between my fingers, yet I could not clench my fist and it slipped out slowly.

Now in the past few weeks, I have read dozens of short stories from his book ‘100 most celebrated stories’ and I got the answer to what dilemma had caught me when I finished the dandelion wine. I found that some of the stories were the same as those I had read in this book. So was the Dandelion wine a short story collection? I asked myself, and I could not say, yes! There were so many interlinked narratives in this book that you can get confused if they are all different or just one story.
Maybe my ignorance but the common thread was a 12-year-old boy Douglas. He sometimes thinks and talks a way more maturely than his age and a philosophizing tone is always present in the book. He was a mystery throughout for me. This guy Douglas!

Children squinting their ways through the hide-and-seek or kick-the-can, in summer evenings, eating foil-wrapped chilled Eskimo pies. One man trying to make a Happiness Machine, two old women collapsing against the attic door, scrabbling to lock it right, a young reporter falling in love with a ninety-year-old lady, you find all this here, in the Green town, many strange people entering in the life of Douglas one summer.

“I don’t know anything.
…The beginning of wisdom as they say. When you are seventeen, you know everything.”

Great author! Great writing! Great stories! Great this wine, Dandelion wine! Taste it once!

An honest thief!

Let us have this wine this summer, Dandelion wine!