Today, Vladimir Nabokov is usually classified as Russian-speaking writers living abroad. However, in Russia he was not able to get the proper fame, so the most outstanding works were written abroad. Such is “Mashenka” (1926) - Nabokov's first novel. The work was published under the pseudonym V. Sirin - it was invented by Vladimir Vladimirovich himself. A summary of Nabokov's “Mashenka” by chapters will allow the reader to understand the writer’s attitude to Russia and emigration.
A few words about the life and fate of the author
Vladimir Nabokov is a controversial figure in Russian literature. Compatriots who worked within the homeland could consider him a traitor and call the shameful word "emigrant". Abroad, he does not hesitate to give English lessons and earn a living from this. The creative growth of the writer occurs with extraordinary speed: he experiments with the form and volume of his works and from the author of stories turns into a novelist: until 1937 he was able to write 8 novels in Russian. Among the legacy of Vladimir Nabokov, the works “Lolita”, “Luzhin’s Defense”, “Gift”, “Invitation to Execution” stand out especially - any reader will appreciate them after reading a brief summary. Nasha’s “Mashenka” also belongs to the author’s best books.
Composition
“Remembering the old days, novels, remembering the old love” - with this epigraph the novel “Mashenka” begins. Nabokov did not accidentally borrow the Pushkin quote , since its interpretation may be ambiguous. In the context of the novel, love for a woman echoes love for the motherland; Mashenka is the means through which the author expresses longing for Russia.
The book consists of twelve chapters in which the name of the girl is mentioned 43 times. A summary of Nabokov's “Mashenka” makes it clear that she herself flashes only in Ganin's memoirs and does not appear in person. The image of the girl and her husband appears in the later novel “Luzhin's Defense”, where she remains “darling” with special eyes.
"Mashenka" as farewell to Russia
While abroad, Nabokov did not stop thinking about his homeland and in his works he repeatedly mentioned the fate of emigrants. Moving abroad was happy for some, and vice versa for others. The summary of "Mashenka" Nabokov reflects this idea. Having left Russia in 1919, the writer will never be able to return back, like the main character of the work Lev Glebovich Ganin. The inhabitants of the boarding house - emigrants from Russia - consider their historical homeland "damned", "mess." Only Lev Glebovich remembers her with fondness, because it was there that he met his first love.
Vladimir Nabokov: "Mashenka." Summary, conflict analysis
The action takes place in 1926 in a Berlin guesthouse. Lev Glebovich Ganin seems to the reader a young man who has tried himself in all fields of activity: he was a worker, extras, and even a waiter. Having accumulated enough money for a ticket, Ganin is ready to leave Berlin, but Lyudmila is holding him back - a woman whose romance lasts three months and is already fed up with him. Lev Glebovich, after much deliberation, announces to her that he fell in love with another woman. She is the youthful love of Ganin. The summary of “Mashenka” Nabokov allows you to understand the evolution of the feelings of the protagonist, who, as it turned out, even after many years after separation, fondly recalls his first lover.
A photograph of this girl Lev Glebovich shows a certain Alferov, which is her husband. However, he does not know that Ganin and Mashenka have known each other for nine years - this was the first experience of youthful love for both. In the following days, the protagonist of the novel lives on memories when he was very young and hot. He decides to leave the guesthouse on Saturday - exactly when Mashenka comes to his husband. Ganin deliberately sets Alferov’s alarm clock at a later time so that he is late to the station. Wanting to meet Mashenka, Lev Glebovich himself sets off for the train, but at the last minute changes his mind and takes a ticket to south-west Germany.
Love Story Masha and Ganina
Seeing and recognizing his first sweetheart in Alferov’s photograph, Lev Glebovich “became younger by exactly nine years.” He recalls a happy youth and a history of acquaintance with Masha. Ganin met her as a sixteen-year-old boy, recovering from typhoid. He created an ideal female image for himself, being in the Resurrection Cathedral, and soon recognized him in reality. Masha was a swarthy girl with “burning Tatar eyes”, with a clear voice and unusual gaiety. For the first time, Ganin met her surrounded by three friends and made an appointment for them, to which she was already alone. So brought two loving hearts, Vladimir Nabokov.
Masha ... A brief summary of the chapters allows the reader to understand the nature of this girl. Dating teenagers were sweet and at the same time innocent. They both knew that they would soon be separated: Ganin was destined to leave for Petersburg, but the “snow age of love” in this city resumed in November, when Mashenka arrived in the city. Both were burdened by the fact that their families were not familiar, so instead of meeting teenagers spent evenings talking on the phone. On New Year's Eve, their dates ended and resumed only in the summer - it was then that Mashenka, as if making sure of the infinity of these relations, told Ganin: “I am yours. Do whatever you want with me. ” Young Leo did not do anything illegal that day with his lover, fearing that someone might notice them in the park. Their last meeting took place a year later on the train, after which Ganin and Mashenka exchanged tender letters in the war years. Soon they lost each other. It is not known whether Mashenka recalled her first love, but Ganin experienced a pleasant shock only when he saw her in the photograph of Alferov.
The image of Mother Russia in the novel
The heroes of the work have different attitudes towards their historical homeland: some emigrants are happy that they left the hated land, while others, on the contrary, are bored in Berlin. It is in Russia that the forest edges, fields, special sunrises and sunsets are located, relatives of Ganina and Nabokova. “Without our emigrant love of Russia, it’s a cover,” says Podtyagin, one of the residents of the guesthouse. The same idea is shared by Vladimir Nabokov in his book. "Mashenka" (a brief summary of the work allows the reader to understand the true experiences of the writer himself) is a novel that has become a cry of the soul and a way of farewell to mother Russia.