The best stories of famous writers. Classical Literature (Russian)

I will quit smoking on Monday. Next week I will start running and join the gym. At the weekend I'll clean up the room and find a job. You have to do more, right?

2019 has landed on our shoulders. It's time to get off the couch, open your eyes, drink mineral water and finally start. I have compiled for you 2 lists of books of world and Russian literature, which you should familiarize yourself with at least in 2016, if you have not done so before. Let's start, perhaps, with the "boring" Russian classics. Listen!

Fyodor Dostoevsky "Dream of a Ridiculous Man"

Have you thought about suicide at least once in your life? If not, then this is no reason to bypass Dostoevsky's story. Everyone knows this author purely from the book "Crime and Punishment", however, in my opinion, in order to fully understand the essence of Dostoevsky, one should start with the story "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man". How to understand the essence of human existence before the last shot in the head? How to exchange paradise for world wars and hatred of one's neighbor? And most importantly - how not to pull the trigger. The end of the story can be titled with the expression "Cherchez la femme", if you understand why, then everything was not in vain.

Anton Chekhov "Ward number 6"

Do you think Russian classics go better with a glass of vodka? I have a subjective opinion on this matter, but what about the views of Comrade Gromov? How to combine reading books, a glass of vodka, a psychiatric hospital and two brilliant people with completely different and at the same time the same views on existence in this world? Such an oxymoron permeates the whole story about the sad truth of the cheerful Chekhov. Have you already figured out how to drink literature?

Evgeny Zamyatin "We"

Yevgeny Zamyatin can be safely considered the founder of the great genre of dystopia. I'm sure if you chose him, then you simply must know such great anti-utopians as Orrwell and Huxley. If these names mean something to you, then without even thinking, get Zamyatin for yourself and start absorbing it with tablespoons. The military system, coupon relations and solid capital letters. Instead of people. Instead of names. Instead of life.

Leo Tolstoy "Death of Ivan Ilyich"

On the cover of this book, I would write in huge red letters: “Caution! Causes frustration, pain and awareness. Sentimental stupid people are strictly forbidden.” Forget about the hackneyed book "War and Peace", you have a completely different side of Leo Tolstoy, which is worth all the volumes of a huge novel. Trying to find a deep semantic subtext in the story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", you will miss the most important thing that lies on the surface. A banal, simple truth that is available to everyone, every time eluding us. If you found it in the story, and besides, you learned to live by it, my bow to you and white envy.

Ivan Goncharov "Oblomov"

That's something, and in the novel "Oblomov" to find yourself as easy as shelling pears. Alas. How beautiful is the contemplation of this life from the outside, when the stupid vanity of this world bypasses you. First love that somehow makes you get off the couch, obsessive friends, always trying to pull your lazy ass into the light - how absurd this whole "seething life" is. Avoid it, contemplate, think and dream, dream, dream! If you are a supporter of this statement, congratulations, your soul mate has been found in the protagonist of the novel Oblomov.

Maxim Gorky "Passion-face"

It is no coincidence that Gorky's work received such a symbolic name "Passion-muzzle", because the story cannot be read without trembling in the knees. If you love children too much, don't read. If you are impressionable and emotional - do not read. If girls with syphilis disgust you, don't read. In general, do not listen to me now, open the book and start to be afraid of the cruel realities of this life. The social bottom, dirt, vulgarity and yet truly happy, "pure" people in children's and adult swords about impossible happiness.

Nikolai Gogol "Overcoat"

A small person against a huge terrible society, or how to lose everything that is dear to you, even if it is a simple overcoat. A stingy official, an unnecessary environment, a small happiness in exchange for a great disappointment and death as the only logical conclusion. It is on the example of Akaki Bashmachkin that we will consider a large weighty and significant problem of society - the theft of an overcoat.

Anton Chekhov "The Man in the Case"

How do you keep in touch with your work colleagues, classmates or friends? I will advise one great way to improve your communication skills - come to visit them and be silent. I give you a 100% guarantee that society will be delighted with you. An umbrella in a case, a watch in a case, a face in a case. A kind of shell behind which a person tries to hide, protect himself from the outside world. A man who even managed to shove his sincere love into a case and protect it not only from the object of love, but also from himself. So what about maintaining relationships? Shall we keep quiet?

Alexander Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman"

And again we meet the big problem of the little man, only this time in Pushkin's work "The Bronze Horseman". Eugene, Parasha, Peter and a love story, it would seem, what could be more ideal for the plot of a romantic drama? But no, this is not "Eugene Onegin" for you. We break love, we break a city, we break a person, we add to this a drop of the symbolic image of the Bronze Horseman and we get the perfect recipe for one of Pushkin's best poems.

Fyodor Dostoevsky "Notes from the Underground"

And the last one on the list of Russian classics will be the one with whom we, in fact, began - the great beloved Dostoevsky. It is no coincidence that I put “Notes from the Underground” in the final place. After all, this work is not just exciting, it is wild in places, so to speak. Increased awareness of being is a deadly disease. Activity is the lot of the limited and stupid. If you like these interpretations, then you will like Dostoevsky, and if you also humiliated prostitutes at least once in your life, then the "underground" will become your favorite place to stay.

Read about the top 10 foreign classic books in the second part of the book list for 2016. Love Russian classics.

Anna Karenina. Lev Tolstoy

The greatest love story of all time. A story that has not left the stage, filmed countless times - and still has not lost the boundless charm of passion - a destructive, destructive, blind passion - but all the more bewitching with its grandeur.