Tatyana Tolstaya "Kys"

The action in the novel takes place a couple of centuries after the nuclear war in the town Fedor-Kuzmichsk, before the nuclear catastrophe was called simplyMoscow. After the nuclear strike, much has changed. People, animals, plants mutated, and the old culture was forgotten. And only a small group of people who lived before the explosion ("former"), everyone remembers. Having survived the Explosion, they have lived for centuries, but can not change this new world in any way.

And the inhabitants-the "degenerates" -are simple people. They live in huts, eat mice, worms and rusty marsh. They earn little by little for food and are afraid of a formidable Kysi. Kys Is an invisible monster living in the denseforests. No one has ever seen her, but everyone knows - if you meet a cat, that's all, cover you. So they live quietly, peacefully, are afraid of kishi and do not strive for anything special.

The main character of the novel "Kys" - Benedict. His mother is Polina Mikhailovna, one of the "former". After her death ("the former" though they live for centuries, they can still die) Benedikt takes a friend of his mother, another "former" by name Nikita Ivanovich. Benedikt works as a copyist of old books. One day Benedikt is lucky, and he marries Olenka - a census-taker, the daughter of the local "bumpkin" Kudeyar Kudeyarovich. Then the measured life of Benedict begins to change ...

"Kys" is novel-dystopia, mutated the world of total ignorance inlubochnym frame of the Russian folk tale. It is difficult to imagine how the "former" lives, who look at how things happened after the Explosion, and still remember how everything was. The whole novel is permeated with irony and even sarcasm. At times the world described by Tolstoy seems ridiculous, at times frightening, but it certainly makes one think.

Worthy of attention and unusual language of the novel (which, however, many just repels). All of its heroes speak in an unusual dialect, a kind of "hodgepodge" of obsolete and dialect words, as well as neologisms invented by Tolstoy herself. And only the "former" speak the Russian language that is familiar to us, which makes them even more distinct from "degenerates".

Quotations from the book

"In those forests, old people say, they live in a crouch. She sits on the dark branches and screams so wildly and plaintively: ky-yys! ky-yys! - and no one can see her. A man will go into the forest, and she will be hanging behind him: hop! and the backbone of teeth: a crib! - and with the claw the main vein will feel and break, and all the mind will come out of man. "

"You, the Book! You alone can not deceive, you will not strike, you will not offend, you will not leave! Quiet - but you laugh, shout, eat; submissive, - amazing, teasing, luring; small - and in you peoples without number; a handful of bukovok, only, and you want - you will turn your head, you will confuse, you will turn, you will cloud up, the tears will vanish, the breath will die, all the soul like a canvas will be excited in the wind, wave up with wings, wings wave! "

"- Now I want to ask you everything, Benedikt. Here I am Fyodor Kuzmich's poems, glory to him, I blossom. And there everything: a horse, a horse. What is a "horse", you do not know?

Benedikt thought. Another thought. Even blushed with exertion. Himself how much
once this word was written, but somehow did not reflect.

"It must be a mouse."

- Why do you think so?

- But because: "If I do not want you, or if you do not eat oats." Exactly, a mouse.

- Well, how about then: "The horse is running, the earth is shaking"?

"So it's a big mouse." After all, how they will start to mess around, - another time you will not fall asleep. "