Love for nature, language and the profession of a writer - K.G. writes about this. Paustovsky. "Golden Rose" (summary) is about that. Today we will talk about this exceptional book and its benefits for both the average reader and the novice writer.
Writing as a Vocation
Golden Rose is a special book in Paustovsky’s work. She was released in 1955, at that time Konstantin Georgievich turned 63 years old. This book can be called a “textbook for beginning writers” only remotely: the author opens the curtain on his own creative kitchen, talks about himself, the sources of creativity and the role of the writer for the world. Each of the 24 sections carries a piece of the wisdom of an experienced writer who reflects on creativity based on his many years of experience.
Unlike modern Golden Rose textbooks (Paustovsky), the brief summary of which we will examine further has its own distinctive features: there is more biography and reflection on the nature of writing, and there are no exercises at all. Unlike many modern authors, Konstantin Georgievich does not support the idea of writing everything down, and the writer for him is not a craft, but a vocation (from the word "call"). For Paustovsky, the writer is the voice of his generation, the one who must cultivate the very best that is in man.
Konstantin Paustovsky. Golden Rose: A Summary of the First Chapter
The book begins with the legend of the Golden Rose (Precious Dust). She talks about the garbage man Jean Chamet, who wanted to give a rose of gold to his friend Susanne, daughter of a regimental commander. He accompanied her, returning home from the war. The girl grew up, fell in love and got married, but was unhappy. And according to legend, a golden rose always brings happiness to its owner.
Shamet was a garbage man; he did not have money for such a purchase. But he worked in a jewelry workshop and thought of sifting through the dust that he swept from there. Many years passed before grains of gold became enough to make a small golden rose. But when Jean Chamet went to Suzanne to present a gift, he found out that she had moved to America ...
Literature is like this golden rose, Paustovsky believes. The Golden Rose, a brief summary of the chapters of which we are considering, is completely imbued with this statement. The writer, according to the author, must sift through a lot of dust, find particles of gold and cast a golden rose, which will make the life of an individual person and the whole world better. Konstantin Georgievich believed that a writer should be the voice of his generation.
The writer writes because he hears a call within himself. He cannot help but write. For Paustovsky, a writer is the finest and most difficult profession in the world. This is described in the chapter "The inscription on the boulder."
The birth of the plan and its development
“Lightning” is chapter 5 of the book “The Golden Rose” (Paustovsky), the summary of which is that the birth of an idea is like lightning. The electric charge builds up for a very long time, to later strike with all the force. Everything that a writer sees, hears, reads, thinks, experiences, accumulates in order to become the idea of a story or book in one day.
In the next five chapters, the author talks about naughty characters, as well as about the origin of the idea of the novels “Planet Marz” and “Kara-Bugaz”. In order to write, you need to have something to write about - the main idea of these chapters. Personal experience for a writer is very important. Not the one that was created artificially, but the one that a person receives by living an active life, working and communicating with different people.
The Golden Rose (Paustovsky): Summary of Chapters 11-16
Konstantin Georgievich reverently loved the Russian language, nature and people. They delighted and inspired him, forced him to write. The writer attaches great importance to language skills. Everyone who writes, according to Paustovsky, has his own vocabulary, where he writes out all the new words that impressed. He gives an example from his life: the words "wilderness" and "swine" were unknown to him for a very long time. He heard the first from the forester, the second he found in Yesenin's verse. Its meaning remained incomprehensible for a long time, until a familiar philologist explained that the swine are those “waves” that the wind leaves in the sand.
You need to develop a sense of the word so that you can convey its meaning and your thoughts correctly. In addition, it is very important to correctly punctuation marks. An instructive story from real life can be found in the chapter “Cases in the Alshwang's Store”.
On the benefits of imagination (chapters 20-21)
Although the writer seeks inspiration in the real world, imagination plays a big role in creativity, says Konstantin Paustovsky. The Golden Rose, a brief summary of which would not be complete without it, is full of references to writers whose opinions about the imagination diverge greatly. For example, the verbal duel of Emil Zola with Guy de Maupassant is mentioned. Zola insisted that the writer didn’t need imagination, to which Maupassant answered with a question: “How then do you write your novels, having one newspaper clipping and without leaving your house for weeks?”.
Many chapters, including The Night Stagecoach (chapter 21), are written in the form of a story. This is a story about the storyteller Andersen and the importance of maintaining a balance between real life and imagination. Paustovsky is trying to convey to the novice writer a very important thing: in no case should one give up a real, fulfilling life for the sake of imagination and a life of fiction.
The art of seeing the world
It is impossible to nourish a creative vein only with literature - the main idea of the last chapters of the book "Golden Rose" (Paustovsky). The summary boils down to the fact that the author does not trust writers who do not like other forms of art - painting, poetry, architecture, classical music. Konstantin Georgievich expressed an interesting idea on the pages: prose is also poetry, but without rhyme. Each Writer with a capital letter reads a lot of poems.
Paustovsky advises to train the eye, learn to look at the world through the eyes of the artist. He tells his story of communication with artists, about their advice and how he himself developed his aesthetic sense, observing nature and architecture. The writer himself once listened to him and reached such heights of the word that even Marlene Dietrich knelt before him (photo above).
Summary
In this article, we have covered the main points of the book, but this is not the full content. The Golden Rose (Paustovsky) is a book worth reading to anyone who loves the work of this writer and wants to know more about him. It will also be useful for beginner (and not so) writers to find inspiration and to understand that the writer is not a prisoner of his talent. Moreover, the writer must live an active life.