Nets and traps
Nets and traps ( Russian Сети и ловушки / Seti i lowuschki ) is a story by the Russian writer Lyudmila Petruschewskaja , which appeared in 1974 in issue 4 of the Leningrad literary magazine Aurora (Russian Аврора / Avrora ) on pages 52-55. The translation into German by Renate Landa was brought out by Volk und Welt in 1985 in Berlin.
The author calls her text a monologue . In it, the question is elicited: How do you get married as a single person?
content
The first-person narrator shares events before the birth of her daughter. She was a young 20 year old then. The then 30-year-old father-to-be, Georgij, had above all criticized her lack of independence. She wants to please everyone. It turns out, however, that the pregnant woman has her own mind. For example, she does not want to give birth to the child with her parents in the Far East , but with her future mother-in-law Nina Nikolayevna, who lives only 24 hours away by train. This unfortunate idea also causes Georgij to shake his head. Only an independent opponent could exist in front of the mother. But Georgiy cannot come with us; is in the middle of a doctorate, gives in and hands the first-person narrator a letter to his mother.
The pregnant woman is not welcomed warmly. Nonetheless, Nina Nikolajewna allows the false daughter-in-law to access her living quarters after reading the presented written authorization. Georgij is already married. He and his wife, who lives in the same village as Nina Nikolajewna, have a child. Georgiy pays alimony.
Nina Nikolajewna is more friendly with her visit every day. Maternity clothes are bought together ... In return, the first-person narrator becomes more talkative until the sentence slips out, after which she had met other gentlemen besides Georgij. Upon this admission, the first-person narrator is shown the suitcase in front of the door.
shape
The concise text appears to be masterfully constructed: the first-person narrator reveals the hair-raising truths to the reader in bits and pieces. An economical preview of the happy ending from the pregnant woman's point of view is interspersed: Georgij arrives, does not show himself to his angry mother, moves into a flat with the younger of his two wives and adores his youngest child; loves it more than he ever loved the first-person narrator. The young mother can easily cope with the latter turn. At the end of the reading, the reader has to realize: This narrator is much smarter than the independent Georgij and his hypocritical mother put together.
reception
- Antje Leetz registers a “seemingly simple, yet intricately interwoven text” - presented in an almost elegiac tone.
German-language editions
- P. 42–57 in: Lyudmila Petruschewskaja: Music lessons. Stories. Drama. Translated from the Russian by Renate Landa. Volk und Welt, Berlin 1985. 160 pages
- P. 135–151 in: Lyudmila Petruschewskaja: Immortal love. Stories. Translated from the Russian by Antje Leetz and Renate Landa. Volk und Welt, Berlin 1990. 248 pages, ISBN 978-3-353-00748-3
- P. 7–19: Lyudmila Petruschewskaja: Nets and Traps , translator: Renate Landa in: Russian stories of the present. Edited by Bodo Zelinsky , Reclam, Stuttgart 1992, RUB 8829. ISBN 3-15-008829-1 (edition used)
Web links
in Russian language
- The text online at belousenko.com (the third story)
- Meeting at all-soch.ru
- Entry in Лаборатория Фантастики (Laboratory of Fantasy)
- Vagrius-Verlag, Moscow anno 2002: Такая девочка (Takaja djebotschka) - monologues and dialogues for the theater WorldCat - entries in an anthology with the story