The snake catcher
The Snake Catcher ( Russian Змеелов / Zmeelow ) is a novel by the Russian writer Lasar Karelin , which was written in 1980/1981 and published in 1983 by the Moscow workers' publishing house in Moscow . The translation into German by Monika Tantzscher was brought out by Volk und Welt in 1985 in Berlin.
content
Moscow in the summer of 1980 or 1981: The 39-year-old convicted Pavel Shorokhov, a graduate of the Plekhanov Institute and former party member , is returning to his birthplace after five years. The express train from Ashkhabad had taken more than three days and nights to get to the Kazan railway station . Pawel had worked as a snake catcher in the Karakum in the subtropics directly on the Soviet - Iranian border for a year in the highlands and earned 4,000 rubles with it. At the snake farm near the town of Kara-Kala, he got 30 rubles for a cobra and 20 rubles for a Levan otter .
Pavel's life is botched. As a qualified director of the largest Moscow delicatessen store, he was sentenced to eight years in a colony after a court hearing for falsifying accounts, fudging protocols, manipulating prices and embezzling. After four years of toil as a lumberjack, he had been released early for good conduct.
He cannot go straight to his former wife Sinaida, who cares little about their son Serjosha. Sina got married again. Pavel's widowed sister Nina lives with her daughter Olja a long way north of Moscow in Dmitrov . He keeps the nurse in case of an emergency. So Pavel is the first to see a friend - Pyotr Grigoryevich Kotov in Medvedkovo Schokalski Street. Pyotr has a sarcoma . The dying person is cared for at home by the night nurse Lena, a young childless widow who lives alone. Before Pjotr - a dodgy business man like Pawel before - dies, he gives his friend and former business partner a copybook in which all dubious deals are encoded. Pawel is supposed to decipher the records, but remains stuck in the middle of the investigation. So he hands the notebook over to a public prosecutor . Because the presumed heads of the Moscow slide gang should also receive their punishment. Pavel's enemies send a knife. He stabs from behind. Pavel had disregarded one basic rule of snake catching: wait before attacking. Look around for another enemy from ambush. Nonetheless, Lasar Karelin and the reader hope that the snake catcher will survive. Because the wounded man is cared for at the scene of the crime by the faithful Lena, his future wife.
shape
The plot of this homecoming story runs for about a week exclusively in Moscow. So it is not a Karakum adventure, but rather a declaration of love to the old Moscow, largely unadulterated by new buildings. Motifs on the subject of snake catching are only brought into the novel to illustrate Pavel's fight against the Moscow fish and fruit pushers using a few analogues. In order to survive against this Moscow otter breed, Pavel must avoid vodka. Drinking before catching a snake is like a death sentence. The dry rustling, harbinger of a snake, must not be ignored. During the year that Pawel worked as a snake catcher, two colleagues were killed while catching snakes. After a bite, the snake catcher, who always works alone, has to quickly cut open the wound and vacuum it. If he cannot get to the wound, it can be fatal. The snake catcher's legs are protected by bite-proof linen boots. When Olya asked her uncle what the snakes were saying, Pavel replied: “They hiss. But in very different ways. "
Another form element is the “triple ensemble”, which Lasar Karelin lets appear several times. Once there are the transport workers Andrej, Semjon and Stassik, who unload boxes of huge black plums in front of Pawel's vegetable shop. Pavel's intimate enemy Boris Mironov - alias Mitritsch, alias Kolobok - had given the returnees seasonal work as a fruit seller. It is probably also Mitritsch who hired three anonymous thugs at the end of the novel, who are supposed to put an end to Pawel, this crumbling existence.
Pavel just got out of the Turkmen desert to take over the compromising notebook from the dying Pyotr. The reader thinks of a constructed accident. The author knows better: "He [Pyotr] ... postponed his death, was waiting for you [for Pavel]."
filming
The novel was made into a film by Wadim Derbenjow in 1985. The title role played Alexander Mikhailov and Lena Natalja Belochwostikowa . Leonid Markov played Pyotr Kotow.
German-language editions
- Lasar Karelin: The snake catcher. Novel. Translated from the Russian by Monika Tantzscher. Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1985, 213 pages
annotation
- ↑ The Moscow Summer Olympics is only just history (Edition used, p. 134, 20. Zvo).
See also
- Mile Budak published a novel of the same name in 1942.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Russian Московский рабочий
- ↑ engl. Kara-kala
- ↑ Russian Medvedkowo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 94, 7th Zvu
- ↑ Edition used, p. 132, 11. Zvo
- ↑ Russian Wadim Derbenjow
- ↑ Russian The Snake Catcher , IMDb entry
- ↑ Russian Leonid Markow