FOLKLORE COMICISM IN THE PROSE OF TATYANA TOLSTOY

Аннотация

The article analyzes the techniques of folk satire used in the stories of Tatyana Tolstaya to characterize images. Hyperbolization, travesty, depiction of the living as nonliving, popular in folk humor culture, are fruitfully used in many stories of Tatyana Tolstaya in order to reveal the crisis of the modern world, spiritual degradation. Key words: comedy; folk humor; intertext; hyperbole. Tatyana Tolstaya often uses the comic in those aspects that were characteristic of the original folk humor. One of such principles of folklore satire is that the comic is opposed to the tragic and the sublime. “Comic is not in the physical nature of man, nor in his spiritual nature, but in such a relationship between them, in which physical nature reveals the shortcomings of spiritual nature,” emphasized V. Ya. Propp [1]. In the story “Night,” the comic is perceived as tragic and sublime, because it is connected with the consciousness of a sick man, Alexei Petrovich, comprehending the crisis-ridden world around him. Alexei Petrovich, for example, is sure that he can become a writer: “Why not? He will want to and he will. He will take a piece of paper, a pencil and will be a writer” [2]. The funny thing in this episode is due to the moron’s confidence in his genius. The hero is contrasted with Ivan the Fool from satirical Russian fairy tales, who is confident in the correctness of his absurd actions (he puts hats on tree stumps so that they don’t freeze). Tatyana Tolstaya said: “I am an observer by nature. You look and think: “God, what a wonderful theater of the absurd, a theater of stupidity, a theater of fools... Why do we all, adults, play these funny games?” [3]. The story “They Sat on the Golden Porch” is told by a child, so it is filled with playful laughter. The neighbor Uncle Pasha is both King Solomon and the enchanted prince, he opens the door to Aladdin’s cave, and Veronica Vikentyevna is a greedy queen. Through the comic, the writer expresses the main idea: life is a priceless gift. Tolstaya does not teach her heroes how to live, does not suggest a way out, but strives to show the value of any human life. "They leave this life," says the writer, "often without receiving something important, and, leaving, they are perplexed like children: the holiday is over, and where are the gifts? But life was a gift, and they themselves were a gift" [2, p. 148]. The real life of Simonov from the story "The Okkervil River" is depicted by the author comically: a noose for the soul, a vulgar and hateful life are all around. And the soul is "caught with a knife and fork." Just like the soul of the poet Grisha from the story "The Poet and the Muse." The struggle of two demons in Simeonov's soul, presented by Tatyana Tolstaya in the story "The Okkervil River," is filled with comedy. Life is depicted as two polar principles, which forces the hero to act. When Simeonov learns the address of the singer Vera Vasilievna, something unusual happens to him: “Simeonov listened to the arguing voices of two struggling demons: one insisted on throwing the old woman out of his head, locking the doors tighter, occasionally opening them for Tamara, living 97 ` as he had lived before, loving in moderation, languishing in moderation, while the other demon – a mad youth with a consciousness clouded by the translation of bad books – demanded to go, to run, to find Vera Vasilievna” [2, p. 338]. The humor in the story "The Poet and the Muse" is based on the materialization of the spiritual: suffocating smoke pours out of the poems, which makes the wife cough, and immortality is replaced by the poet's skeleton, handed over to a medical institute. The hero of the story interprets and brings to life the famous lines from Pushkin's "Monument" in a very original way: he sells his skeleton for 60 rubles to the Academy of Sciences, hoping that in this way "it will outlive its ashes and escape decay, that it will not, as he feared, lie in the damp earth, but will stand among people in a clean, warm hall, laced and numbered, and the students - a cheerful crowd - will pat him on the shoulder, flick him on the forehead and treat him to a cigarette" [2, p. 267]. Tatyana Tolstaya masterfully uses the technique of comic substitution, used in folk satire, to show the lack of spirituality, the absence of love in the heart of the main character of the story "Dear Shura". Alexandra Ernestovna played all her life: "A simple piece on a tea xylophone: lid, lid, spoon, lid, rag ... The way back along the dark corridor with two teapots in hand is long. Twenty-three neighbors behind white doors listen: will she drip her filthy tea on our clean floor? She didn't drip, don't worry" [2, p. 48]. An established life, mechanical satisfaction of physical needs - that's what is most important for dear Shura. The author-narrator sees in her apartment a long corridor with a bandit's light in the kitchen, she is rummaging "in the dark coffin of the sideboard." "Laughter contains dest