Genius, talent or extraordinary ability has always caused lively debate: are they a gift or a curse of heaven? Many works are devoted to this issue, and even the Gospel in some sense narrates that a person with an extraordinary gift among people will certainly have a hard time. A similar topic applies to Dean Rubin. Leonardo's Handwriting is a novel about the extraordinary gift of Anna Nesterenko, a girl adopted by an ordinary Kiev family.
Strange baby
One evening in the apartment of a childless couple, Anatoly and Masha, a phone rang. Taking the phone, Mary heard the voice of a relative of her husband - she offered to adopt a girl, an orphan, which all relatives refused.
The reason for such soullessness was revealed quite soon: the child is truly strange. Almost immediately, it turns out that Nyuta is a psychic: she can see the future and periodically surprises others with her knowledge, which for the most part is not at all enthusiastic. People do not want to know what awaits them - this is what Dean Rubin has in mind. Leonardoâs handwriting, including that predicting the future is not able to save him.
Adoptive parents
Knowing the result of each football match in advance is only useful if you are betting. Such a talent would be a real curse for the fan, but Anatoly, who wholeheartedly loves the adopted daughter, still takes her to football and always refuses when the little heroine of the novel âLeonardo's Handwritingâ suggests telling how the match will end.
If the father is only upset, then Masha is scared to death. In search of answers, she goes to the neighbor of the deceased mother of the girl and hears a strange story, similar to a hoax.
Mother gave birth to nute from a minor lover, for which the town had a very notoriety. This father, a thimble, fooling simpletons on a local beach, will appear twice more in Leonardoâs Handwriting, and both times the adult Anna will have no idea who he is.
Locals consider Wolf Messing himself to be the father of the red-headed deceiver: he once traveled around Russia with performances and was seduced by the local beauty, the administrator of the hotel in which he stayed.
Fragments of mirrors
A neighbor tells Masha about why she refused the girl: after her mother died, she took Nyuta to her bed and, waking up at night, realized that the child was not in the apartment. Frightened, she went out into the corridor, saw an open neighbor's door, came in and was dumbfounded: a little girl stood near a mirror on a stool and talked to him, gently touching the surface, as if someone was there, inside.
This behavior across many pages will explain to Rubin's readers. Leonardo's Handwriting generally consists of separate fragments of the narrative - from different people, at different times. They add up to a more or less clear picture only after reading the entire novel as a whole. It turns out that leaving for work, the mother assured Anna that she was leaving in the mirror. And indeed, the front door was reflected in it, in which it disappeared, and then appeared again. Perhaps the unfortunate child was just waiting for the mirror to return his mother, but maybe everything is worse and more interesting: âLeonardo's Handwritingâ does not give a definitive answer to any question.
Not at all encouraged, Masha returns to Kiev to live in eternal anxious fear, which will eventually drive her crazy. She will sincerely believe that the mirror took away the real Anna, replacing her with another, alien, hostile witch, the fiend of the underworld itself. All the mirrors from the house will have to be removed, but still: if you do not curtain the windows, and the reflections in the dark windows lead the crazy woman to a terrible state.
Handwriting Leonardo
But all this will be later, when the adopted daughter will already be a graduate. In the meantime, Nyuta continued to excite the family with other oddities. Firstly, the girl was left-handed. An intelligent family decided not to overshoot the child: why in vain torment? The nanny, Christina, was of a different opinion. While her parents were not at home, Nyuta had to walk with her left hand tied to the body, and the result was amazing: the girl acquired extraordinary dexterity, being controlled equally with both hands. Later, incredible abilities will allow her to perform in the circus with breathtaking stunts and work as a stunt performer.
The next oddity was the letters. Stubbornly trying to teach her daughter how to read, the adoptive father suddenly realized that she was reading from right to left, so instead of a âbagelâ it turns out âkilbubâ. Even more interesting is that the girl writes in exactly the same way, and even flipping the letters in a mirror image. Such a phenomenon in psychology is called "Leonardo's handwriting": in many drawings of the legendary Da Vinci, the explanations are written that way.
Mirror Universes
Among other things, the girl discovers brilliant abilities in physics and mathematics. Arriving at an ad in an optical club, Anna meets a man whom she will be friends with all her life: the brilliant physicist Eliezer, who for several years will teach a very little girl a university course. Enthusiastic about mirrors, deeply understanding their properties and capabilities, many years later they together will calculate drawings for Anne Nesterenkoâs amazing attractions in the USA, Canada and Europe.
But for Anna, mirrors are not only pieces of glass with amazing optical characteristics. These are entire universes capable of preserving, preserving, showing the past or future. The girlâs head also has âmirrorsâ, which sometimes show her terrible things.
Genius and love
Even at school, a good guy Volodya falls in love with Anna. With him, they will travel more than one thousand kilometers with circus numbers amazing in complexity. They will live together, get married and disperse when the girl meets her true soul mate, which we often hear about when it comes to love. This is the bassoon player Semyon, Senya. He is much older than the heroine and loves her so selflessly that the girlâs oddities, annoying everyone around him, do not bother him at all.
His letters to his beloved open another world of Dina Rubinaâs novel. To find out how fancifully the lives of all the heroes are connected, you will have to read Leonardoâs Handwriting in full: the summary is completely unable to convey either colorful descriptions of the places where the events take place, or the many colorful characters that fill the novel.
Cursed Gift
Anna's miraculous gift exhausts her. In her internal "mirrors" she sees the impending deaths of close and alien people, unsightly secrets, unpleasant thoughts. Most often, this ability causes fear in people, the need to blame. Even in the circus school, âmirrorsâ showed her the death of a talented aerialist Tanya. Anna tried in vain to warn her, but she, of course, did not listen. Leonardo's Handwriting again sadly and ironically recalls that people want to hear only pleasant predictions of the future. After the pride of the graduation course broke right on the exam, the young psychic had to listen about the impairment, envy, witchcraft. This almost made Anna quit her studies. The case forced not to share her gift once again, she realized that it was better to keep quiet.
The second time, Anna will pierce at the end of the book, making an indirect attempt to warn Genevieve of the impending death of her new hobby: the Russian gymnast Elena, whom the âmirrorsâ showed Anna hanged on the lounge (safety circus cable). After the prophecy has come true, she hears the same accusations as in distant youth: a witch, a witch.
Free flight
All her life the heroine dreamed of freeing herself from the dubious gift of heaven. Realizing the futility of these hopes, she jumps on a motorcycle from the Cartier Bridge. Witnesses then claim during the investigation that she took off into the sky. Neither a body nor a motorcycle was found in the waters of the bay ...
It is rare to read a work similar to the one created by Dean Rubin. Leonardo's Handwriting, reviews of which as a whole can be described as enthusiastic, combines the amazing realism of the surrounding life with the deep mysticism of the plot and the general meaning of the story.
Readers unanimously note the excellent quality of Ruby prose. If after reading some modern books I want to âclear my throatâ, then the language is âLeonardo's Handwritingâ, âlike a breath of fresh airâ. They write about the richness of images, beautiful metaphors, the deep symbolism of the novel. There are those to whom the style seemed overloaded, but they did not stop reading, admitting that the book carries away insomnia.
Kievans are delighted with how accurate, graceful and loving their city is described: it seems that even the native inhabitant of Zhilyansk could not do it better.
Like every real book, âLeonardo's Handwritingâ everyone apparently understood in his own way, and this is especially noticeable in the scatter of opinions about the fate of the main character.
Some readers note only the untimely birth of Anna. Say, if she was born today, she would become a famous psychic, and life would not be so tragic. Others, on the contrary, reflect on the nature of this gift. Was the force that rewarded the heroine with such unusual abilities the force of good? Maybe itâs not without reason that the heroine so often says: âYou will not have fun with me!â
Readers find a distinct religious mark in the book and try again to answer who Jacob fought in the night and left crippled, but not defeated. Those who prefer a scientific approach in everything take a deep thought at the existence of mirror and parallel worlds. Some firmly say: "Mysticism." Others object: âNothing more realistic than this book has been written.â In general, the reading public is far from a unity of impressions, and this is another proof that the book is good and worth reading.
Only readers who were far from unraveling the inexplicable secrets of the universe were indifferent to the novel: in the book, almost every event has a hidden meaning, somehow reflecting the life of the main character. After the publication of Leonardoâs Handwriting, the reviews of literary critics described him as Rubinâs most powerful work. It is indeed impossible to tear oneself away from it: it is as addictive as it is sometimes addictive of mirror reflection - the whole world behind cold silver glass.