”Women’s literature” is a beautiful landscape in the Russian literary world in the 20th century. It is not sentimental love plots that take center stage in women’s literature, but the author’s incisive analytical views on the activities of characters, questions of value orientation, and the depth and drama of women’s judgments. These themes are deeply reflected in the novels and plays of Petrushevskaya, Tokareva, Tolstoya, Ulitskaya, and others. The works of the above-mentioned writers reflect the basic trend of the development of Russian literature in recent decades: not to pursue the description of life, but to pursue the understanding of life, the excavation of the human spiritual world, and the understanding of moral and ethical issues and interpersonal issues. think.
A distinctive representative of Russian women’s literature is Tokareva. We can think about the value positioning of Tokareva’s works through the words of the critic and artist Bcharov: “The literary world should correspond to different life processes, absorb different aspects, different combinations, and most importantly, he should enrich Our understanding of the essential level of facts is naturally in harmony with the laws of life in a wider field.” In Tokareva’s works, the description of the inner world of the characters plays a special key role. In her works, she depicts the spiritual motivation that determines people’s spiritual growth and the pursuit of spiritual harmony and comfort. The author believes that the tragedy of human destiny must exist in the hearts that lack kindness and kindness, indifference and selfishness.
Victoria Tokareva was born on November 20, 1937 in Leningrad. She showed a love for literature when she was a teenager, but at that time she did not want to be a writer, but a medicine, and because her application was rejected, she chose to study music. After graduating from the Leningrad Conservatory, she taught in a middle school on the outskirts of Moscow. Tokareva was dissatisfied with her living conditions, and later she was admitted to the Soviet State Film Academy to study film script creation. From then on, she began to embark on the road of literary creation. Tokareva published her first short story “A Day Without Lies” in 1964. Her first collection of novels, “When Did It Get A Little Warmer”, was published in 1972, and her works are often seen in magazines such as “Youth”, “New World” and “Flag”, Tokareva is not only known for her novels , The script she created is also very popular. Her screenplay has been made into more than twenty films. In 2000 at the Cannes Film Festival she was awarded the “Literature and Film Contribution Award”. According to Tokareva herself, Chekhov played a very important role in the formation of her creative style, she once said vividly: “…I remember that my mother read me Chekhov when I was twelve years old. Khoff’s “The Rothschild Violin”, it was like turning a certain key in my mind. I felt that it was stored from the very beginning, just like the information stored in the computer. I was like a person with a The writer of the keyboard, and Chekhov pressed the necessary keys.” Today, Tokareva continues her literary creation in Moscow, and her works have been translated into many languages and widely circulated around the world.
The Test of Conscience and Emotion: “Instead of Me”
The novel “Instead of Me” is one of Tokareva’s representative works. The protagonist of the novel is Nick, who is thirty-five years old, young, handsome and talented. It didn’t help him, however, appearance, intelligence and talent were all fading away like smoke. There are many unemployed actors in the UK, Nick is one of them. Her wife, Catherine, who had made him her only son, bore him a son and a daughter, but five years later she married a dentist. Nick’s mother was involved in a car accident and suffered multiple fractures throughout her body, requiring multiple surgeries, both large and small. What worries the protagonist in particular is the doctor’s warning that “…the treatment will be long-term and will require a lot of time and money”. He felt that he was “on the rubble of his own life”. Nick is counting on a miracle. The miracle appears in the novel in the form of a job posting in the newspaper: “Mr. Sokalov is going to travel to Russia and he needs a secretary”.
The novel recounts the background of Mr. Sokalov, who was born in Russia and brought to England at the age of eight. Now he is eighty-three years old and paralyzed. The old man wanted Nick to do the work for him – to eat and drink, to fight, to play with women, etc., to do everything Sokalov could not do himself now. He is rich, but now he is old and sick. He cannot eat or drink. He can only survive on some finely chopped food and mineral water. Nick agreed, because with the money he could buy his own theater, cure his mother, and bring Catherine back. And that only takes a month of work.
Nick accompanies Mr. Sokalov to visit the place where he lived as a child. In the process Nick realizes that coercion and insults are hard to bear, even for a lucrative deal. The strange demands of the old man are changing every day, which torment Nick deeply. For example, Nick needs to eat three kilograms of caviar, have sex with the woman he loves in front of Sokarov, and so on. Nick understands that he is a villain when he has sold his personality and conscience for the money. He was almost destroyed. As he was about to return to London, the old man made one last request, that he would crush the grass and apply it to his face, and then all the work was done. However, Nick didn’t do it. The last thing Sokalov saw was the back of the secretary turning away. “Nick walked away freely, like a teenager. Above him, the lark chirped softly.” This ending gives the novel a philosophical character. Both Nick and Sokarov are being tested by conscience and emotions that come from the depths of the human heart. At the end of the novel, the author describes Nick’s next life: Nick washing dishes in the kitchen, his mother watching a comedy, laughing. The doorbell rang, and the postman brought a letter and a check. “Nick signed and opened the check. It was a check from Sokolov. It was enough money for him to last a lifetime.” In the letter, Sokalov entrusted his beloved eight-year-old great-grandson to him. At the end of the letter, he left three words of the deceased old man: “Live for me”.
Tokareva’s writing style is unique, her works are permeated with delicate and gentle humor, light sarcasm and deep sympathy for the protagonist. Reading her novels, we seem to see the protagonists, hear their voices, experience their experiences, and become one with them. There is an internal connection between every sentence in the novel “Replace Me”, and there is no redundant and meaningless sentence. She expounds serious ethical and moral issues to readers with a humorous and brisk style of writing. Her works are concise and easy to understand, but they are full of depth and practical significance.
Only Hopeful Love: “Say – Don’t Say”
Her other famous novel “Say – Don’t Say” is a work describing the fate of women. The heroine Artamonova, a future composer and musician, is now a college student who falls in love with her married classmate, Kireyev. Without Kireyev, she could hardly breathe. Friends advised her to confess this to Kireyev. To say or not to say? Altamonova pondered this question throughout April and May. Well, what if he doesn’t need this feeling? Love is noble, and Artamonova is afraid of hurting her self-esteem. Better not to say it and leave it all as it is. In this way, Artamonova added a lock to love. One summer day, the doorbell rang suddenly, and Artamonova opened the door and saw Kireyev. Kireyev was drunk, and she has been pregnant since that day. She wanted to tell Kireyev about this, but hesitated for a long time, whether to say it or not, and finally did not say it. Thinking of the future life, Altamova decided not to have this child. After entering the operating room, she looked back at the door of the operating room. She had been looking forward to Kireyev running in in his coat and hat, grabbing her hand and saying, “It’s almost too late!” But Kireyev didn’t know where she was or why she was here place.
She later married twice and divorced. She has never been childless because that miscarriage made her unable to have children. The unborn son has always existed in Artamonova’s life, and the more time passes, the stronger the miss. For her, a person’s life is really empty. Later, after a concert, Artamonova took the subway home. As she went down the elevator, she was lost in thought. When she saw Kireyev standing in front of her, she was not surprised at all. After a while, Artamonova suddenly wanted to say, “You know what? We used to be able to Have a baby.” But she didn’t say it, what’s the point of saying something that can’t be undone? After they said goodbye to each other, the subway came, and Artamonova suddenly panicked, as if this was her life. Last train. The carriage swayed gently, and her heart was empty. Suddenly she understood, because her own indecision—to speak or not to speak, to ask or not to ask ruined their lives. If you follow the doctor’s advice and give birth to the child, the son is almost 30 years old. After the concert, they will go home together. She will say to Kireyev: “Get to know, this is your son.” Outside the car window It’s the dark tunnel and the rustling wind. “The next stop is Belarus,” said the female announcer. Artamonova raised her head and thought: “Strange, I got on the train from the Belarusian station, that is to say, the train came back to this starting point after a full circle.” Kireyev was still standing in the same place. Artamonova saw him when the carriage doors opened and people got on and off. Artamonova jumped out at the last moment, walked up to him and asked what he was doing, and Kireyev told her, wait for you, I’ve been waiting for you all my life.
In this novel, the author does not give a plan to find happiness, and she does not want to impose her own ideas on the work. The author reveals the inner world of the protagonist through delicate psychological description, dialogue description and behavior analysis, and successfully portrays a woman who is hesitant and afraid to take responsibility for life. Tokareva’s novels reveal the real problems close to life. The plots of the novels are unfolded in the extremely ordinary daily life environment. Her works are friendly and gentle to read, and her works are created for everyone.
Tokareva’s works are full of love, she believes that if a person has no love in his heart, then he is dead and just pretends to be alive. The characters in the works are constantly changing with the times, but their inner essence has not changed. There are sorrows and sorrows in her works, but there is never a lack of expectations for a better future.
Tokareva’s works are written fluently and delicately, which profoundly shows people’s emotional world, the relationship between people, the fate of women and the social issues that are closely related to everyone in real life. The famous writer Yuri Najibin said of her: “Victoria Tokarev has no bad novels, her novels are only good, very good and quite good…” Her novels are very good Having developed the tradition of Russian realism and following the trend of naturalism, she is loyal to the Russian classic literary tradition, and reproducing life in the form and proportion of life itself is the main task of her artistic creation.
