Ivan Bunin, whose stories are included in the school curriculum for the study of Russian literature, began to create at the end of the 19th century, in the 80s. He is from a galaxy of writers who grew up in a noble estate, closely connected with the picturesque nature of the Central Russian strip. For work on the compilation of lyrics “Listopad” dedicated to rural nature, its natural beauty, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin in 1901 received the Pushkin Prize.
Bunin’s stories are distinguished by the fact that sometimes they have a lyrical plot (for example, a story about Antonov’s apples), describing not a series of events, but the memories and impressions of the lyrical hero regarding life in a noble estate.
The writer can be called a master of poetic prose, he creates an elegiac atmosphere with the help of impressions and associative memories of the lyrical hero. The story has many descriptions. For example, a vivid picture of an improvised fair in the garden, colorful landscape sketches of the morning, winter hunting and many others.
Bunin's stories characterize him as an observant, sensitive author. He knew how to find a striking feature in the most everyday life scenes, something that people usually pass by without noticing. Using a variety of techniques, drawing with the help of details in subtle or textured strokes, he conveys his impressions to the reader. While reading, you can feel the atmosphere and see the world through the eyes of the author.
Bunin's stories do not captivate us with external entertainments and not with a mysterious situation; they are good because they meet the requirements put forward for good literature: an unusually figurative language in which various paths are interwoven. The author does not even give a name to many of his protagonists, but they are obviously endowed with exclusivity, special sensitivity, vigilance and attentiveness inherent in the author.
As for the shades of colors, smells and sounds, all that “sensual and material” from which the world is built, all the literature preceding Bunin and his contemporaries did not have any samples of prose containing the finest nuances such as his.
An analysis of Bunin's story, for example, about Antonov’s apples, makes it possible to identify the means used by him to create images.
The picture of an early autumn morning in the apple orchard is created by a chain of definitions expressed by adjectives: quiet, fresh. The garden is large, golden, thinned, dried out. The smells of apples, honey and freshness, as well as sounds: the voices of people and the creak of moving carts join this picture. The visual picture is complemented by the image of the last Indian summer with flying cobwebs and a list of folk signs.
Apples in the story are eaten with a juicy bang, at the mention of sending them a slight digression arises - a picture of a night trip on a cart. Visual image: the sky in the stars; smells: tar and fresh air; sounds: careful creak of convoy carts. Again the description of the garden continues. Additional sounds appear - the clucking of blackbirds, and it is full because the birds graze on the trees of the coral mountain ash.
Bunin's stories are often full of the sad mood of withering, desolation, and dying due to the theme. The sadness of the landscape, as it were, illustrates and creates with the life of people one indissoluble whole. The author uses the same images in prose as in his landscape lyrics. Therefore elegiac stories can be called prose verses.