Essay on literature. Review of novel B

Chapter first

Leonid Soshnin returned home in the worst possible mood. AND
although it was far to go, almost to the outskirts of the city, to the railway village,
he did not get on the bus - let his wounded leg ache, but walking will calm him down and
he will think over everything that he was told in the publishing house, he will think over and judge how
him to continue to live and what to do.
Actually, there was no publishing house, as such, in the city of Veisk, from
he left a branch, the publishing house itself was transferred to the city more
large, and, as the liquidators probably thought, more cultured,
having a powerful printing base. But the "base" was exactly the same as
in Veysk, a decrepit legacy of the old Russian towns. Printing house
was located in a pre-revolutionary building made of strong brown brick, stitched
lattices of narrow windows along the bottom and shapedly curved along the top, also narrow,
but already elevated like an exclamation mark. half building
Weisky printing house, where there were typesetting shops and printing machines, had long been
fell into the bowels of the earth, and although lamps clung to the ceiling in continuous rows
daylight, all the same, in the typesetting and printing shops it was uncomfortable, chilly and
something all the time, as if in blocked ears, flashed or worked, buried
in the dungeon, an explosive mechanism of delayed action.
The publishing department huddled in two and a half rooms, creaking
highlighted by the regional newspaper. In one of them, wrapped in cigarette smoke,
twitched, crawled on a chair, grabbed the phone, littered the local
cultural luminary -- Syrokvasova Oktyabrina Perfilyevna, moving forward and
further local literature. Syrokvasova considered herself the most knowledgeable
man: if not in the whole country, then in Veysk she has no equal in intelligence
was. She made presentations and reports on current literature, shared her plans
publishing houses through the newspaper, sometimes, in the same newspapers, and reviewed books
local authors, in place and out of place inserting quotes from Virgil and Dante,
from Savonarola, Spinoza, Rabelais, Hegel and Exupery, Kant and Ehrenburg, Yuri
Olesha, Tregub and Yermilov, however, and the ashes of Einstein with Lunacharsky sometimes
disturbed, the leaders of the world proletariat also did not bypass the attention.
Everything has long been decided with Soshnin's book. Let the stories from it be printed
and in thin, but metropolitan magazines, three times they were condescendingly mentioned in
review critical articles, he stood "in the back of the head" for five years, got into
the plan was approved in it, it remains to edit and arrange the book.
Having appointed the time for a business meeting at exactly ten, Syrokvasova appeared at
publishing house at twelve. Having smelled Soshnin with tobacco,
out of breath, she rushed past him along the dark corridor - light bulbs
someone "stole away", hoarsely threw "Sorry!" and crunched the key for a long time
faulty lock, cursing in an undertone.

Retired operative Leonid Soshnin returned home in a gloomy mood, where no one was waiting for him. The reason for the bad mood of the writer-policeman was a conversation with the editor of a publishing house located nearby. Oktyabrina Perfilievna Syrokvasova made humiliating remarks, despite the fact that the manuscript of Soshnin's first work, Life is the most precious of all, would finally be published. The forty-two-year-old retired operative had mixed thoughts. “How in the world to live? Lonely? These were the questions that worried him the most.
In life, everything did not work out for him: after two injuries, Soshnin was sent into retirement. And after constant quarrels, Lerka's wife left, taking away the last joy in life, her daughter Sveta.
Looking back, he asks himself questions to which he does not find the right answers. Why is there no place for love and happiness? Why is there so much suffering in life? To answer these questions, Soshnin understands that he needs to know the Russian soul, and it is worth starting with his closest relatives, with people whom he met every day and with whom his life collided. How blind people are! Do they show their pity not to those who need it - war invalids dying nearby, but to ruthless robbers and murderers? Why do criminals live happily without fear of justice?
Leonid tried to get a little distracted from heavy thoughts and imagined how he would come home, cook dinner for himself, rest a little so that he had the strength to sit at the table at night, over an untouched sheet of paper. It was at night that Soshnin liked to work, when no one could disturb the world created by his imagination.
Leonid Soshnin's apartment is located in an old two-story house on the outskirts of Veisk, where he spent all his childhood. There are many memories associated with this house, which he is unlikely to ever forget. Here his mother died, from this home his father went to war. Soshnin stayed with his aunt Lipa, whom he called Lina from childhood, she was his mother's sister. Aunt Lina, after her sister, moved to the commercial department of the railway in the city of Weiska. Almost all of the employees of this department were imprisoned soon after. The aunt tried to poison herself, but they managed to save her, and after the trial she was sent to a colony. By this time, Soshnin Leonid studied at the regional specialized school of the Internal Affairs Directorate, despite the convicted aunt, he was left at school, thanks to the efforts of his neighbors and, to a greater extent, fellow soldier father Lavry the Cossack.
Aunt Lina came out under an amnesty. At that time, Leonid was already a district police officer in the Khailovsky district, where he met his wife. Aunt Lina considered Sveta her granddaughter and loved to babysit her. After the death of Aunt Liina, her place was taken by Aunt Granya, who was also reliable, a switchman on a shunting hill. All her life, Aunt Granya was engaged in raising other people's children, and in addition to little Leni. Soshnin comprehended in his aunt's kindergarten the first knowledge of brotherhood and diligence.
But one day an accident happened to Aunt Granya, after which she stopped appearing in public. On this day, Lenya was on duty, at a festivities on the occasion of the celebration of the Day of the Railwayman, four young guys, pretty drunk, raped Aunt Granya, and if at that moment there was no partner next to Soshnin, then Leonid would have shot these drunks sleeping on clearing guys. Of course, they were condemned, but one day the aunt expressed the idea that the young lives of the condemned were ruined. Lenya was outraged by these words, and he could not even restrain himself and shouted at his aunt, because she pities nonhumans, and after that they began to shun each other ...
In the smelly and dirty entrance of the house in which the bachelor Soshnin lived, three not sober hooligans pester him, forcing him to say hello, and then apologize for his disrespectful behavior. Soshnin, trying to get past the unfriendly company, agrees to apologize, but the leader of the gang does not rest on this. Intoxicated guys start a marriage, attacking Soshnin. He, despite the wounds received during the service, defeats the robbers. One guy got the most, when he fell, he hit his head on a heating battery. Soshnin picks up a knife from the floor, barely moving, goes to the apartment. And without hesitation, he dials the police number, reports a fight: “One of the attackers, he hurt his head on the battery. So that they don’t look for a villain - I did this.
Coming to his senses after what happened, Lenya replays his life in his head.
He and his partner, it was the case, were chasing a drunkard on a motorcycle who stole a truck. The truck raced at great speed through the streets of their small town and has already managed to destroy more than one innocent life. Soshnin, who was the eldest at the time, decided to shoot the criminal. The shot was fired by his partner, but before his death, the truck hijacker managed to push the motorcycle on which his operatives were chasing. Soshnin miraculously saved the injured leg from amputation. But Lenya still remained lame, and had to learn to walk again. There was a long trial in this case: was it lawful to use weapons?
Leonid experienced a lot, even the meeting with his wife did not happen like everyone else. He saved the girl from hooligans who tried to take off her jeans behind the Soyuzpechat stall. Like everyone else, at first life with Leroy was calm and in harmony. But gradually mutual recriminations began. Most of all, Lera did not like when Leonid was engaged in literature. And once Soshnin alone "took" a recidivist named Demon in a hotel in the city.
And Venka Fomin, who returned from prison, ruined his career as an operative of the homicide department. It was like this, Lenya brought Sveta to his wife's parents, who lived in a distant village. And his father-in-law told him that in a neighboring village a violent, drunken peasant had locked up old women in a barn, and was threatening to set fire to him if the old women did not give him ten rubles for a hangover. During the detention, Soshnin slipped on a pile of manure and fell, thereby frightening Venka Fomin, who put a pitchfork into him ... but this time, Leonid Soshnin's death was over. But the second group of disability and retirement could not be avoided.
At night, Leonid woke up from the terrible scream of the neighbor girl Yulka, who lived on the first floor with her grandmother Tutyshikha. After drinking a bottle of balm from the gifts brought from the Baltic sanatorium by Yulia's father and stepmother, Grandma Tutyshikha was already in a dead sleep.
At the funeral of grandma Tutyshikha, Soshnin runs into his wife and daughter. At the wake, they sat together at the same table.
After the commemoration, the wife and daughter stay with Leni. At night he does not sleep, feeling how timidly the sleeping wife pressed against him, and behind the partition the daughter sniffles. He comes up to his daughter, straightens her blanket and pillow, presses his cheek against her head and forgets, giving in to tender memories. Leonid wanders into the kitchen, rereads the "Proverbs of the Russian people" collected by Dahl - the section "Husband and Wife" - and is surprised at the wisdom contained in simple words.
“The dawn was already rolling into the kitchen window with a damp, snowball, when, having enjoyed peace among a quietly sleeping family, with a feeling of confidence in his abilities and strength, unknown to him for a long time, without irritation and longing in his heart, Soshnin clung to the table, placed a blank sheet of paper in a spot of light and froze over him for a long time.

Please note that this is only a summary of the literary work "The Sad Detective". This summary omits many important points and quotations.

The novel "The Sad Detective" was published in 1985, at a time of turning point in the life of our society. It was written in the style of hard realism and therefore caused an outburst of criticism. The reviews were mostly positive. The events of the novel are still relevant today, as works about honor and duty, about good and evil, about honesty and lies are always relevant.
The novel describes different moments in the life of the former policeman Leonid Soshnin, who retired at the age of forty-two due to injuries received in the service.
I remember the events of different years of his life.
The childhood of Leonid Soshnin, like almost all children of the post-war period, was difficult. But, like many children, he did not think about such complex issues of life. After his mother and father died, he stayed with his aunt Lipa, whom he called Lina. He loved her, and when she began to walk, he could not understand how she could leave him when she had given him her whole life. It was the usual childish selfishness. She died shortly after his marriage. He married the girl Lera, whom he saved from molesting hooligans. There was no special love, it’s just that he, as a decent person, could not help but marry a girl after he was accepted in her house as a groom.
After his first feat (catching a criminal), he became a hero. After that, he was wounded in the arm. It happened when one day he went to calm down Vanka Fomin, and he pierced his shoulder with a pitchfork.
With a heightened sense of responsibility for everything and everyone, with his sense of duty, honesty and struggle for justice, he could only work in the police.
Leonid Soshnin always thinks about people, the motives of their actions. Why and why do people commit crimes? He reads many philosophical books to understand this. And he comes to the conclusion that thieves are born, not made.
For a completely stupid reason, his wife leaves him; after the accident, he became disabled. After such troubles, he retired and found himself in a completely new and unfamiliar world, where he tries to save himself with a “pen”. He did not know how to get his stories and books printed, so they lay for five years on the shelf of the editor Syrokvasova, a “gray” woman.
Once he was attacked by bandits, but he coped with them. He felt bad and lonely, then he called his wife, and she immediately realized that something had happened to him. She understood that he had always lived some kind of intense life.
And at some point he looked at life differently. He realized that life should not always be a struggle. Life is communication with people, caring for loved ones, concessions to each other. After he realized this, his affairs went better: they promised to publish the stories and even gave an advance, his wife returned, and some kind of peace began to appear in his soul.
The main theme of the novel is a man who finds himself among the crowd. A person lost among people, entangled in thoughts. The author wanted to show the individuality of a person among the crowd with his thoughts, actions, feelings. His problem is to understand the crowd, to merge with it. It seems to him that in the crowd he does not recognize people whom he knew well before. Among the crowd, they are all the same and kind, and evil, and honest, and deceitful. They all become the same in the crowd. Soshnin is trying to find a way out of this situation with the help of books that he reads, and with the help of books that he himself is trying to write.
I liked this work because it touches upon the eternal problems of man and the crowd, man and his thoughts. I liked the way the author describes the hero's relatives and friends. With what kindness and tenderness he treats Aunt Grana and Aunt Lina. The author draws them as kind and hardworking women who love children. As the girl Pasha is described, Soshnin's attitude towards her and his indignation at the fact that she was not loved at the institute. The hero loves them all, and it seems to me that his life becomes much better because of the love of these people for him.

The main task of literature has always been the task of relating and developing the most pressing problems: in the 19th century there was the problem of finding the ideal of a freedom fighter, at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries it was the problem of revolution. In our time, the topic of morality is the most relevant. Reflecting the problems and contradictions of our time, the masters of the word go one step ahead of their contemporaries, illuminating the path to the future. Viktor Astafiev in the novel "The Sad Detective" refers to the theme of morality. He writes about the everyday life of people, which is typical of peacetime. His heroes do not stand out from the gray crowd, but merge with it. Showing ordinary people suffering from the imperfection of the surrounding life, Astafiev raises the question of the Russian soul, the originality of the Russian character. All the writers of our country, one way or another, tried to solve this problem. The content of the novel is peculiar: the main character Soshnin believes that we invented this riddle of the soul ourselves in order to keep silent from others. Features of the Russian character, such as pity, sympathy for others and indifference to ourselves, we develop in ourselves. The writer tries to disturb the souls of the reader with the fate of the characters. Behind the little things described in the novel, the problem posed is hidden: how to help people? The life of heroes causes sympathy and pity. The author went through the war, and he, like no one else, knows these feelings. What is seen in the war can hardly leave anyone indifferent, not cause compassion, heartache. The events described take place in peacetime, but one cannot help but feel the similarity, the connection with the war, for the time shown is no less difficult. Together with V. Astafiev, we think about the fate of people and ask ourselves: how did we get to this point? The title "The Sad Detective" doesn't say much. But if you think about it, you can see that the main character really looks like a sad detective. Responsive and compassionate, he is ready to respond to any misfortune, a cry for help, to sacrifice himself for the benefit of complete strangers. The problems of his life are directly related to the contradictions of society. He cannot but be sad, because he sees what the life of the people around him is like, what their fates are. Soshnin is not just a former policeman, he benefited people not only on duty, but also at the call of the soul, he has a good heart. Astafiev, through the name, gave a description of his main character. The events described in the novel could be happening now. In Russia, ordinary people have always had a hard time. The time, the events of which are described in the book, is not indicated. One can only guess that it was after the war. Astafiev tells about Soshnin's childhood, about how he grew up without parents with Aunt Lina, then with Aunt Granya. The period when Soshnin was a policeman is also described, he caught criminals, risking his life. Soshnin recalls the past years, wants to write a book about the world around him. Unlike the main character, Syrokvasova is far from a positive image. She is a typical figure in modern fiction. She is instructed to choose whose works to print and whose not. Soshnin is just a defenseless author who is under her rule among many others. He is still at the very beginning of his journey, but he understands what an incredibly difficult task he has undertaken, how weak his stories are, how much he will take from him, giving nothing in return, the literary work to which he doomed himself. The reader is attracted by the image of Aunt Grani. Her tolerance, kindness and diligence are admirable. She devoted her life to raising children, although she never had her own. Aunt Granya never lived in abundance, did not have great joys and happiness, but she gave all the best that she had to orphans. At the end, the novel turns into a reasoning, a reflection of the protagonist about the fate of the people around him, about the hopelessness of existence. In its details, the book does not have the character of a tragedy, but in general terms it makes you think about the sad. The writer often sees and feels much more behind the seemingly mundane fact of personal relationships. The fact is that, unlike the others, he analyzes his own feeling deeper and more comprehensively. And then the individual case is raised to the general beginning, prevails over the particular. In a moment eternity is expressed. Uncomplicated at first glance, small in volume, the novel is fraught with a very complex philosophical, social and psychological content. It seems to me that the words of I. Repin are suitable for The Sad Detective: “In the soul of a Russian person there is a trait of special, hidden heroism ... He lies under the bushel of personality, he is invisible. But this is the greatest force of life, it moves mountains .. She merges completely with her idea, "she is not afraid of dying." That is where her greatest strength is: "she is not afraid of death." Astafiev, in my opinion, never loses sight of the moral aspect of human existence. his work caught my attention.
The novel "The Sad Detective" was published in 1985, at a time of turning point in the life of our society. It was written in the style of hard realism and therefore received an outburst of criticism. The reviews were mostly positive. The events of the novel are still relevant today, as works about honor and duty, about good and evil, about honesty and lies are always relevant. The novel describes different moments in the life of the former policeman Leonid Soshnin, who retired at the age of forty-two due to injuries received in the service. I remember the events of different years of his life. The childhood of Leonid Soshnin, like almost all children of the post-war period, was difficult. But, like many children, he did not think about such complex issues of life. After his mother and father died, he stayed with his aunt Lipa, whom he called Lina. He loved her, and when she began to walk, he could not understand how she could leave him when she had given him her whole life. It was the usual childish selfishness. She died shortly after his marriage. He married the girl Lera, whom he saved from molesting hooligans. There was no special love, it’s just that he, as a decent person, could not help but marry a girl after he was accepted in her house as a groom. After his first feat (catching a criminal), he became a hero. After that, he was wounded in the arm. It happened when one day he went to calm down Vanka Fomin, and he pierced his shoulder with a pitchfork. With a heightened sense of responsibility for everything and everyone, with his sense of duty, honesty and struggle for justice, he could only work in the police. Leonid Soshnin always thinks about people, the motives of their actions. Why and why do people commit crimes? He reads many philosophical books to understand this. And he comes to the conclusion that thieves are born, not made. For a completely stupid reason, his wife leaves him; after the accident, he became disabled. After such troubles, he retired and found himself in a completely new and unfamiliar world, where he tries to save himself with a "pen". He did not know how to get his stories and books published, so for five years they lay on the shelf of the editor Syrokvasova, a "gray" woman. Once he was attacked by bandits, but he coped with them. He felt bad and lonely, then he called his wife, and she immediately realized that something had happened to him. She understood that he had always lived some kind of intense life. And at some point he looked at life differently. He realized that life should not always be a struggle. Life is communication with people, caring for loved ones, concessions to each other. After he realized this, his affairs went better: they promised to publish the stories and even gave an advance, his wife returned, and some kind of peace began to appear in his soul. The main theme of the novel is a man who finds himself among the crowd. A person lost among people, entangled in thoughts. The author wanted to show the individuality of a person among the crowd with his thoughts, actions, feelings. His problem is to understand the crowd, to merge with it. It seems to him that in the crowd he does not recognize people whom he knew well before. Among the crowd, they are all the same and kind, and evil, and honest, and deceitful. They all become the same in the crowd. Soshnin is trying to find a way out of this situation with the help of books that he reads, and with the help of books that he himself is trying to write. I liked this work because it touches upon the eternal problems of man and the crowd, man and his thoughts. I liked the way the author describes the hero's relatives and friends. With what kindness and tenderness he treats Aunt Grana and Aunt Lina. The author draws them as kind and hardworking women who love children. As the girl Pasha is described, Soshnin's attitude towards her and his indignation at the fact that she was not loved at the institute. The hero loves them all, and it seems to me that his life becomes much better because of the love of these people for him.
V.P. Astafiev is a writer whose works reflect the life of people of the 20th century. Astafiev is a person who knows and is close to all the problems of our sometimes difficult life. Viktor Petrovich went through the war as a private, he knows all the hardships of post-war life. I think that, with his wisdom and experience, he belongs to those people whose advice and orders should not only be heeded, but should be tried to be carried out. But Astafiev does not act as a prophet, he simply writes about what is close to him and what worries him. Although the works of Viktor Petrovich belong to modern Russian literature, the problems that they often raise are more than one thousand years old. The eternal questions of good and evil, punishment and justice have long made a person look for answers to them. But this turned out to be a very difficult matter, because the answers lie in the person himself, and good and evil, honesty and dishonor are intertwined in us. Having a soul, we are often indifferent. We all have a heart, but we are often called heartless. Astafiev's novel "The Sad Detective" raises the problems of crime, punishment and the triumph of justice. The theme of the novel is the current intelligentsia and the current people. The work tells about the life of two small towns: Veisk and Hajlovska, about the people living in them, about modern customs. When talking about small towns, an image of a quiet, peaceful place arises in the mind, where life filled with joys flows slowly, without any special emergencies. There is a feeling of peace in the soul. But the one who thinks so is mistaken. In fact, life in Veisk and Khailovsk flows in a stormy stream. Young people, drunk to such an extent that a person turns into an animal, rape a woman who is suitable for them as a mother, and the parents leave the child locked in an apartment for a week. All these pictures, described by Astafiev, horrify the reader. It becomes scary and creepy at the thought that the concepts of honesty, decency and love are disappearing. The description of these cases in the form of summaries is, in my opinion, an important artistic feature. Hearing every day about various incidents, we sometimes do not pay attention, but collected in a novel, they make you take off your rose-colored glasses and understand: if this did not happen to you, it does not mean that it does not concern you. The novel makes you think about your actions, look back and see what you have done over the years. After reading, you ask yourself the question: “What did I do good and good? Did I notice when the person next to me felt bad? "You begin to think about the fact that indifference is as evil as cruelty. I think that the search for answers to these questions is the purpose of the work. In the novel "The Sad Detective" Astafiev created a whole system of images. The author introduces the reader to each hero of the work, telling about his life. The main character is a police officer Leonid Soshnin. He is a forty-year-old man who received several injuries in the line of duty and must retire. Having retired, he begins to write, trying to figure out where in a person so many anger and cruelty. Where does he accumulate? Why, along with this cruelty, does Russian people have pity for the prisoners and indifference to themselves, to their neighbor - a disabled war and labor? Astafiev contrasts the main character, an honest and courageous operative worker, with policeman Fyodor Lebed , who quietly serves, moving from one position to another.On especially dangerous trips, he tries not to risk his life and gives the right to neutralize armed criminals to his partners, and it is not very important that the partner does not have service weapons, because he is a recent graduate of the police school, and Fedor has a service weapon. A vivid image in the novel is Aunt Granya - a woman who, not having her own children, gave all her love to the children who played near her house at the railway station, and then to the children in the Orphanage. Often the heroes of the work, which should cause disgust, cause pity. The urn, which has turned from a woman engaged in amateur performances into a drunkard without a home and family, causes sympathy. She yells songs and sticks to passers-by, but she becomes ashamed not for her, but for the society that has turned its back on the Urn. Soshnin says that they tried to help her, but nothing happened, and now they simply do not pay attention to her. The city of Veysk has its own Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky. Astafiev does not even change the names of these people and characterizes them with a quote from Gogol's The Inspector General, thereby refuting the well-known saying that nothing lasts forever under the moon. Everything flows, everything changes, but such people remain, changing clothes of the 19th century for a fashionable suit and shirt with gold cufflinks of the 20th century. The city of Veisk also has its own literary luminary, who, sitting in his office, "wrapped in cigarette smoke, twitched, crawled on a chair and littered with ashes." This is Oktyabrina Perfilyevna Syrokvasova. It is this man, whose description causes a smile, that moves local literature forward and further. This woman decides what works to print. But not everything is so bad, because if there is evil, then there is good. Leonid Soshnin reconciles with his wife, and she returns to him again with her daughter. It is a little sad because the death of Soshnin's neighbor, Tutyshikha's grandmother, makes them reconcile. It is grief that brings Leonid closer to Leroy. A blank sheet of paper in front of Soshnin, who usually writes at night, is a symbol of the beginning of a new stage in the life of the protagonist's family. And I want to believe that their future life will be happy and joyful, and they will cope with grief, because they will be together. The novel "The Sad Detective" is an exciting work. Although it is difficult to read it, because Astafyev describes too terrible pictures. But such works need to be read, because they make you think about the meaning of life, so that it does not pass colorless and empty. I liked the work. I took a lot of important things out for myself, I understood a lot. I met a new writer and I know for sure that this is not the last work of Astafiev that I will read.

NOVEL V. P. ASTAFYEV "SAD DETECTIVE"

V.P. Astafiev is a writer whose works reflect the life of people of the 20th century. Astafiev is a person who knows and is close to all the problems of our sometimes difficult life.

Viktor Petrovich went through the war as a private, he knows all the hardships of post-war life. I think that, with his wisdom and experience, he belongs to those people whose advice and orders should not only be heeded, but should be tried to be carried out. But Astafiev does not act as a prophet, he simply writes about what is close to him and what worries him. Although the works of Viktor Petrovich belong to modern Russian literature, the problems that they often raise are more than one thousand years old.

The eternal questions of good and evil, punishment and justice have long made a person look for answers to them. But this turned out to be a very difficult matter, because the answers lie in the person himself, and good and evil, honesty and dishonor are intertwined in us. Having a soul, we are often indifferent. Everyone has a heart, but often we are called heartless. Astafyev's novel "The Sad Detective" raises the problems of crime, punishment and the triumph of justice. The theme of the novel is the current intelligentsia and the current people. The work tells about the life of two small towns: Veisk and Hajlovska, about the people living in them, about modern customs. When talking about small towns, an image of a quiet, peaceful place arises in the mind, where life filled with joys flows slowly, without any special emergencies. There is a feeling of peace in the soul. But the one who thinks so is mistaken. In fact, life in Veisk and Khailovsk flows in a stormy stream. Young people, drunk to such an extent that a person turns into an animal, rape a woman who is suitable for them as a mother, and the parents leave the child locked in an apartment for a week. All these pictures, described by Astafiev, horrify the reader. It becomes scary and creepy at the thought that the concepts of honesty, decency and love are disappearing. The description of these cases in the form of summaries is, in my opinion, an important artistic feature.

Hearing every day about various incidents, we sometimes do not pay attention, but collected in a novel, they make you take off your rose-colored glasses and understand: if this did not happen to you, it does not mean that it does not concern you. The novel makes you think about your actions, look back and see what you have done over the years. After reading, you ask yourself the question: "What did I do good and good? Did I notice when the person next to me felt bad?" You begin to think about the fact that indifference is as evil as cruelty. I think that finding answers to these questions is the purpose of the work.

In the novel "The Sad Detective" Astafiev created a whole system of images. The author introduces the reader to each hero of the work, talking about his life. The main character is police officer Leonid Soshnin. He - a forty-year-old man who received several injuries in the line of duty - should retire. Having gone on a well-deserved rest, he begins to write, trying to figure out where there is so much anger and cruelty in a person. Where does she keep him? Why, along with this cruelty, does Russian people have pity for the prisoners and indifference to themselves, to their neighbor, a disabled veteran of war and labor? The main character, an honest and courageous operative, Astafiev contrasts the policeman Fyodor Lebed, who quietly serves, moving from one position to another. On especially dangerous trips, he tries not to risk his life and gives his partners the right to neutralize armed criminals, and it is not very important that the partner does not have a service weapon, because he is a recent graduate of a police school, and Fedor has a service weapon. A vivid image in the novel is Aunt Granya - a woman who, not having her own children, gave all her love to the children who played near her house at the railway station, and then to the children in the Children's House. Often the heroes of the work, which should cause disgust, cause pity. The urn, which has turned from a woman engaged in amateur performances into a drunkard without a home and family, causes sympathy. She yells songs and sticks to passers-by, but she becomes ashamed not for her, but for the society that has turned its back on the Urn. Soshnin says that they tried to help her, but nothing happened, and now they simply do not pay attention to her. There are Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky in the city of Veysk. Astafiev does not even change the names of these people and characterizes them with a quote from Gogol's The Inspector General, thereby refuting the well-known saying that nothing lasts forever under the moon. Everything flows, everything changes, but such people remain, changing clothes of the 19th century for a fashionable suit and shirt with gold cufflinks of the 20th century. The city of Veisk also has its own literary luminary, who, sitting in his office, "wrapped in cigarette smoke, twitched, crawled on a chair and littered with ashes." This is Oktyabrina Perfilyevna Syrokvasova. It is this man, whose description causes a smile, that moves local literature forward and further. This woman decides what works to print. But not everything is so bad, because if there is evil, then there is good. Leonid Soshnin reconciles with his wife, and she returns to him again with her daughter. It is a little sad because the death of Soshnin's neighbor, Tutyshikha's grandmother, makes them reconcile. It is grief that brings Leonid closer to Leroy. A blank sheet of paper in front of Soshnin, who usually writes at night, is a symbol of the beginning of a new stage in the life of the protagonist's family. And I want to believe that their future life will be happy and joyful, and they will cope with grief, because they will be together.

The novel "The Sad Detective" is an exciting work. Although it is difficult to read it, because Astafyev describes too terrible pictures. But such works need to be read, because they make you think about the meaning of life, so that it does not pass colorless and empty. I liked the work. I took a lot of important things out for myself, I understood a lot. I met a new writer and I know for sure that this is not the last work of Astafiev that I will read.