Bunin Ivan Alekseevich
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Antonov apples
I remember the early fine autumn. August was full of warm rains, as if falling on purpose for sowing, with rains right at the right time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And “autumn and winter live well if the water is calm and there is rain on Laurentia.” Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled in the fields. This is also a good sign: “There is a lot of shading in the Indian summer - vigorous autumn”... I remember early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, it’s as if there is no air at all; voices and the creaking of carts can be heard throughout the garden. These Tarkhans, bourgeois gardeners, hired men and poured apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on the night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look at the starry sky, smell the tar in fresh air and listen to how the long convoy carefully creaks in the dark high road. The man pouring the apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but such is the establishment - the tradesman will never cut it off, but will also say:
Come on, eat your fill - there’s nothing to do! Everyone drinks honey while pouring.
And the cool silence of the morning is disturbed only by the well-fed cackling of blackbirds on the coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming sound of apples being poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden one can see far away the road to the large hut, strewn with straw, and the hut itself, near which the townspeople acquired an entire household over the summer. Everywhere there is a strong smell of apples, especially here. There are beds in the hut, there is a single-barreled gun, a green samovar, and dishes in the corner. Near the hut there are mats, boxes, all sorts of tattered belongings, and an earthen stove has been dug. At noon, a magnificent kulesh with lard is cooked on it, in the evening the samovar is heated, and a long strip of bluish smoke spreads across the garden, between the trees. On holidays, there is a whole fair around the hut, and red headdresses are constantly flashing behind the trees. There is a crowd of lively single-yard girls in sundresses that smell strongly of paint, the “lords” come in their beautiful and rough, savage costumes, a young elder woman, pregnant, with a wide, sleepy face and as important as a Kholmogory cow. She has “horns” on her head - braids are placed on the sides of the crown and covered with several scarves, so that the head seems huge; the legs, in ankle boots with horseshoes, stand stupidly and firmly; the sleeveless vest is corduroy, the curtain is long, and the poneva is black and purple with stripes brick color and lined at the hem with a wide gold “prosperity”...
Economic butterfly! - the tradesman says about her, shaking his head. - These are also being translated now...
And the boys in fancy white shirts and short porticoes, with white open heads, all come up. They walk in twos and threes, shuffling their bare feet, and glance sideways at the shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. Of course, only one buys, because the purchases are only for a penny or an egg, but there are many buyers, trade is brisk, and the consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful. Together with his brother, a burry, nimble half-idiot who lives with him “out of mercy,” he trades in jokes, jokes and even sometimes “touches” the Tula harmonica. And until the evening there is a crowd of people in the garden, you can hear laughter and talking around the hut, and sometimes the clatter of dancing...
By nightfall the weather becomes very cold and dewy. Having inhaled on the threshing floor rye aroma new straw and chaff, you cheerfully walk home to dinner past garden shaft. Voices in the village or the creaking of gates can be heard unusually clearly in the chilly dawn. It's getting dark. And here’s another smell: there’s a fire in the garden, and there’s a strong wafting of fragrant smoke from cherry branches. In the darkness, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: as if in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, are moving around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk across the apple trees . Either a black hand several arshins in size will fall across the entire tree, then two legs will clearly appear - two black pillars. And suddenly all this will slide from the apple tree - and the shadow will fall along the entire alley, from the hut to the gate itself...
Late at night, when the lights in the village go out, when the diamond constellation Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will run into the garden again.
Rustle through the dry leaves, like a blind man, you will reach the hut. There in the clearing it is a little lighter, and the Milky Way is white above your head.
Is that you, barchuk? - someone quietly calls out from the darkness.
Me: Are you still awake, Nikolai?
We can't sleep. And it must be too late? Look, there seems to be a passenger train coming...
We listen for a long time and discern a trembling in the ground, the trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already just outside the garden, the noisy beat of the wheels is rapidly beating out: rumbling and knocking, the train rushes by... closer, closer, louder and angrier... And suddenly it begins to subside, die out, as if going into the ground...
Where is your gun, Nikolai?
But next to the box, sir.
You throw up a single-barreled shotgun, heavy as a crowbar, and shoot straight away. The crimson flame will flash towards the sky with a deafening crack, blind for a moment and extinguish the stars, and a cheerful echo will ring out like a ring and roll across the horizon, fading far, far away in the clean and sensitive air.
Wow, great! - the tradesman will say. - Spend it, spend it, little gentleman, otherwise it’s just a disaster! Again they shook off all the gunk on the shaft...
And the black sky is lined with fiery stripes of falling stars. You look for a long time into its dark blue depths, overflowing with constellations, until the earth begins to float under your feet. Then you will wake up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, quickly run along the alley to the house... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!
"Vigorous Antonovka - for a fun year." Village affairs are good if the Antonovka crop is cropped: that means the grain is cropped... I remember a fruitful year.
The narrator remembers the place of his childhood once upon a time in the past. After all, when he was little, he lived in a village, which was then considered even a very rich village, because it was there that a lot of things grew and were sold.
The village was called Vyselki. The houses, oddly enough for a village, were made of brick, and this was the first sign at that time that the village was rich. And people lived there for a long time, especially old people and grandmothers. This also showed that the village was very wealthy. By the way, the provision of all the people who lived in this village, oddly enough, was similar. Even those who should have social level being poor, in fact, was quite wealthy, almost like the richest people in the village.
Also, he remembered Aunt Anna Gerasimovna. And especially her estate. Her estate, which was not too large, but beautiful, and also durable, and also her habitat seemed so ancient, and therefore very unusual.
Also, what the children really remembered and liked was that around her house there had been century-old trees for a long time, which was very beautiful and natural. Also, she had a garden in which there were many apple trees, because this is what she was famous for in the first place. Even nightingales and turtle doves were there, because the birds also liked the garden.
The roof was thatched and very thick, and therefore everyone admired this roof. And what smells were there in Aunt Anna’s house? After all, in the house, first of all, the smell of old furniture, as well as apples, ripe, juicy and tasty.
Even the narrator remembered his brother-in-law. After all, this was a man who loved to hunt. And, besides, a lot of people, friends and their acquaintances always gathered in his house. It was always noisy there, or almost always, everyone was having fun dinner parties, which he gave as a landowner.
Also, he always had a lot of dogs, as he needed them for hunting. The narrator remembers himself at such a dinner party, as he was with everyone after a hearty meal - on a black horse that rushes too fast, as it seems. Everything around flashes - trees, people on horses, and the path ahead is barely visible.
The dogs are barking, everyone is rushing, there is no stopping. Then, when it gets very dark, all the hunters, with nowhere to go, tired, burst into the house of some hunter near the forest, and stay there overnight. It happens that they live there for several days.
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I. A. Bunin, “Antonov apples” ( summary follows) is a picture-memory in which juicy autumn apples become the main thing actor, because without their suffocating aroma the author himself would not exist. Why? Sounds, smells, random pictures, vivid images... It would seem that thousands, millions of them flash through your entire life. Something is stored in memory for a long time and is gradually forgotten. Something passes without a trace, is erased as if it never happened. But something remains with us forever. It inexplicably seeps through the thickness of our consciousness, penetrates deep and becomes integral part ourselves.
Summary of “Antonov Apples”, Bunin I. A.
Early fine autumn. It seemed like just yesterday it was August with its frequent warm rains. The peasants rejoiced because when it drizzles on Laurentia, autumn and winter will be good. But time is running, and now a lot of cobwebs appeared in the fields. The golden gardens have thinned out and dried up. The air is clean, transparent, as if it were not there at all, and at the same time filled “to the brim” with the smells of fallen leaves, honey and Antonov apples... This is how Ivan Bunin begins his story.
“Antonov apples”: the first memory.
The village of Vyselki, the estate of the author’s aunt, where he loved to visit and spent his best years. The hubbub and creaking of carts in the garden: the harvest of autumn apples is underway. Bourgeois gardeners recruited men to fill the apples and send them to the city. Work is in full swing, even though it’s night outside. The cautious creaking of a long convoy can be heard, in the darkness here and there a juicy crackling sound is heard - this is a man eating apples one after another. And no one stops him; on the contrary, the owners encourage this insatiable appetite: “Go ahead, eat your fill - there’s nothing to do!” The thinned garden opens the way to a large hut - real home with his own farm. Everywhere there is an incredible smell of apples, but especially in this place. During the day, people gather near the hut and there is brisk trade. Who is there: single-yard girls in sundresses smelling of paint, and “lords” in beautiful and rough suits, and a young pregnant elder, boys in white shirts... By evening, the bustle and noise subsides. It's cold and dewy. Crimson flames in the garden, fragrant smoke, cherry branches crackling... “How good it is to live in the world!”
I. A. Bunin, “Antonov Apples” (read the summary below): second memory.
That year was a fruitful year in the village of Vyselki. As they said, if Antonovka is ugly, it means there will be a lot of bread and village affairs will be good. This is how they lived, from harvest to harvest, although it cannot be said that the peasants were poor; on the contrary, Vyselki was considered a rich region. Old men and women lived a long time, which was the first sign of prosperity: Pankrat would already be a hundred years old, and Agafya was eighty-three years old. There were also houses in the village to match the old people: large, brick, two or three under one roof, because it was not customary to live separately. They kept bees, were proud of the stallions, new sheepskin coats, canvases, spinning wheels, and harnesses were kept behind iron doors. I also remember the estate of Anna Gerasimovna’s aunt, which stood about twelve miles from Vyselki. In the middle of the yard was her house, surrounded by a linden tree, and then the famous apple orchard with nightingales and turtle doves. It happened that you crossed the threshold, and before other smells you could smell the aroma of Antonov apples. Everywhere is clean and tidy. A minute, then another, a cough can be heard: Anna Gerasimovna comes out, and now, amid endless trials and gossip about antiquity and inheritance, treats appear. First, Antonov apples. And then a delicious lunch: boiled ham, pink with peas, pickles, turkey, stuffed chicken and strong sweet kvass.
I. A. Bunin, “Antonov Apples” (summary): third memory.
End of September. The weather is getting worse. It rains more and more often. You stand like this by the window. The street is deserted and boring. The wind doesn't stop. The rain begins to fall. At first it is quiet, then stronger, stronger and turns into a thick downpour with leaden darkness and storm. Coming disturbing night. The morning after such a battle, the apple orchard is almost completely naked. There are wet leaves all around. The remaining foliage, already quiet and resigned, will continue to dangle on the trees until the first frost. Well, it's time to hunt! Usually by this time everyone gathered at Arseny Semenych’s estate: hearty dinners, vodka, flushed, weathered faces, animated conversations about the upcoming hunt. We went out into the yard, and there the horn was already blowing and howling different voices noisy gang of dogs. It happened that you overslept and missed the hunt, but the rest was no less pleasant. You lie in bed for a long time. There is silence all around, broken only by the crackling of wood in the stove. You slowly get dressed and go out into the wet garden, where you are sure to find a cold, wet Antonov apple that was accidentally dropped. Strange, but it seems unusually sweet and tasty, completely different from others. Later you start reading books.
Memory four.
The settlements are empty. Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseny Semenych shot himself, and those village old people are no longer there. The aroma of Antonov apples is gradually disappearing from the once prosperous landowners' estates. But this poor small-scale life is also good. In deep autumn, people in the house liked to leave the fire off at dusk and have quiet, intimate conversations in the semi-darkness. On the street, frost-blackened leaves rustle under boots. Winter is coming, and that means, as in the old days, the small estates will gather together, drink with their last money and spend whole days hunting in the snow-covered fields, and in the evening they will sing with a guitar.
Antonov apples are the first link in an endless chain of memories. Behind it, other pictures invariably emerge, which, in turn, bring to the surface long-forgotten feelings and emotions, happy, tender, sometimes sad, and sometimes painful. The juicy aroma of Antonov apples literally permeates everything around. But this is at the beginning of autumn, during the period of dawn and prosperity in the village. Then their smell gradually disappears, deep autumn sets in, and the village becomes poorer. But life goes on, and perhaps this smell will soon be felt again before others. Who knows?
I remember an early fine autumn. August was full of warm rains, as if falling on purpose for sowing, with rains right at the right time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And “autumn and winter live well if the water is calm and there is rain on Laurentia.” Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled in the fields. This is also a good sign: “There is a lot of shade in the Indian summer - autumn is vigorous”... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and - the smell Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, it’s as if there is no air at all; voices and the creaking of carts can be heard throughout the garden. These Tarkhans, bourgeois gardeners, hired men and poured apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on a night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look into the starry sky, smell tar in the fresh air and listen to how carefully it creaks in the dark a long convoy along the high road. The man pouring the apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but such is the establishment - the tradesman will never cut it off, but will also say:
- Go ahead, eat your fill, there’s nothing to do! Everyone drinks honey while pouring.
And the cool silence of the morning is disturbed only by the well-fed cackling of blackbirds on the coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming sound of apples being poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden one can see far away the road to the large hut, strewn with straw, and the hut itself, near which the townspeople acquired an entire household over the summer. Everywhere there is a strong smell of apples, especially here. There are beds in the hut, there is a single-barreled gun, a green samovar, and dishes in the corner. Near the hut there are mats, boxes, all sorts of tattered belongings, and an earthen stove has been dug. At noon, a magnificent kulesh with lard is cooked on it, in the evening the samovar is heated, and a long strip of bluish smoke spreads across the garden, between the trees. On holidays, there is a whole fair around the hut, and red headdresses are constantly flashing behind the trees. There is a crowd of lively single-yard girls in sundresses that smell strongly of paint, the “lords” come in their beautiful and rough, savage costumes, a young elder woman, pregnant, with a wide, sleepy face and as important as a Kholmogory cow. She has “horns” on her head - the braids are placed on the sides of the crown and covered with several scarves, so that the head seems huge; the legs, in ankle boots with horseshoes, stand stupidly and firmly; the sleeveless jacket is corduroy, the curtain is long, and the poneva is black and purple with brick-colored stripes and lined at the hem with a wide gold “prose”...
- Economic butterfly! - the tradesman says about her, shaking his head. - These are now being translated...
And the boys in fancy white shirts and short porticoes, with white open heads, all come up. They walk in twos and threes, shuffling their bare feet, and glance sideways at the shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. Of course, only one buys, because the purchases are only for a penny or an egg, but there are many buyers, trade is brisk, and the consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful. Together with his brother, a burry, nimble half-idiot who lives with him “out of mercy,” he trades in jokes, jokes and even sometimes “touches” the Tula harmonica. And until the evening there is a crowd of people in the garden, you can hear laughter and talking around the hut, and sometimes the clatter of dancing...
By nightfall the weather becomes very cold and dewy. Having inhaled the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home for dinner past the garden rampart. Voices in the village or the creaking of gates can be heard unusually clearly in the chilly dawn. It's getting dark. And here’s another smell: there’s a fire in the garden, and there’s a strong wafting of fragrant smoke from cherry branches. In the darkness, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: as if in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, are moving around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk across the apple trees . Either a black hand several arshins in size will fall across the entire tree, then two legs will clearly appear - two black pillars. And suddenly all this will slide from the apple tree - and the shadow will fall along the entire alley, from the hut to the gate itself...
Late at night, when the lights in the village go out, when the diamond constellation Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will run into the garden again.
Rustle through the dry leaves, like a blind man, you will reach the hut. There in the clearing it is a little lighter, and the Milky Way is white above your head.
- Is it you, barchuk? - someone quietly calls out from the darkness.
- I am. Are you still awake, Nikolai?
- We can't sleep. And it must be too late? Look, there seems to be a passenger train coming...
We listen for a long time and discern a trembling in the ground, the trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already just outside the garden, the noisy beat of the wheels is rapidly beating out: rumbling and knocking, the train rushes by... closer, closer, louder and angrier... And suddenly it begins to subside, die out, as if going into the ground...
- Where is your gun, Nikolai?
- But next to the box, sir.
You throw up a single-barreled shotgun, heavy as a crowbar, and shoot straight away. The crimson flame will flash towards the sky with a deafening crack, blind for a moment and extinguish the stars, and a cheerful echo will ring out like a ring and roll across the horizon, fading far, far away in the clean and sensitive air.
- Wow, great! - the tradesman will say. - Spend it, spend it, little gentleman, otherwise it’s just a disaster! Again they shook off all the gunk on the shaft...
And the black sky is lined with fiery stripes of falling stars. You look for a long time into its dark blue depths, overflowing with constellations, until the earth begins to float under your feet. Then you will wake up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, quickly run along the alley to the house... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!
Such works created in early period creativity of Ivan Alekseevich, includes the story “Antonov Apples”, in which one can feel the sadness and sadness of the writer himself. The main theme of this Bunin masterpiece is that the writer points to main problem society of that time - the disappearance of the former estate life, and this is the tragedy of the Russian village.
History of the story
In the early autumn of 1891, Bunin visited the village with his brother Evgeniy Alekseevich. And at the same time, he writes a letter to his common-law wife Varvara Pashchenko, in which he shares his impressions of the morning smell of Antonov apples. He saw how it began autumn morning into the villages and he was struck by a cold and gray dawn. The old grandfather’s estate, which now stands abandoned, also evokes pleasant feelings, but once upon a time it hummed and lived.
He writes that with great pleasure would return to a time when landowners were honored. He writes to Varvara about what he experienced then, going out onto the porch early in the morning: “I would like to live like the old landowner! Get up at dawn, leave for the “departing field”, don’t get out of the saddle all day, and in the evening with a healthy appetite, with a healthy fresh mood, return home through the darkened fields.”
And only nine years later, in 1899 or 1900, Bunin decides to write the story “Antonov Apples”, which was based on reflections and impressions from visiting his brother’s village estate. It is believed that the prototype of the hero of Arseny Semenych’s story was a distant relative of the writer himself.
Despite the fact that the work was published in the year it was written, Bunin continued to edit the text for another twenty years. The first publication of the work took place in 1900 in the tenth issue of the St. Petersburg magazine “Life”. This story also had a subtitle: “Pictures from the book “Epitaphs.” For the second time, this work, already revised by Bunin, was included in the collection “The Pass” without a subtitle. It is known that in this edition the writer removed several paragraphs from the beginning of the work.
But if we compare the text of the story with the edition of 1915, when the story “Antonov Apples” was published in Full meeting Bunin’s works, or with the text of the 1921 work, which was published in the collection “Initial Love”, then you can see their significant difference.
Plot of the story
The story takes place in early autumn, when the rains were still warm. In the first chapter, the narrator shares his feelings that he experiences in a village estate. So, the morning is fresh and damp, and the gardens are golden and already noticeably thinned out. But most of all, the smell of Antonov apples is imprinted in the narrator’s memory. The bourgeois gardeners hired peasants to harvest the crops, so voices and the creaking of carts can be heard everywhere in the garden. At night, carts loaded with apples leave for the city. At this time, a man can eat plenty of apples.
Usually a large hut is placed in the middle of the garden, which becomes settled over the summer. An earthen stove appears next to it, all sorts of belongings are lying around, and in the hut itself there are single beds. At lunchtime, this is where food is prepared, and in the evening they put out a samovar and the smoke from it pleasantly spreads throughout the area. And on holidays, fairs are held near such a hut. Serf girls dress up in bright sundresses. An “old woman” also arrives, which somewhat resembles a Kholmogory cow. But not so much people buy something, but come here more for fun. They dance and sing. Closer to dawn it begins to get fresh, and the people disperse.
The narrator also hurries home and in the depths of the garden observes an incredibly fabulous picture: “As if in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, are moving around the fire.”
And he also sees a picture: “Then a black hand several arshins in size will fall across the entire tree, then two legs will clearly appear - two black pillars.”
Having reached the hut, the narrator will playfully fire a rifle a couple of times. He will spend a long time admiring the constellations in the sky and exchange a few phrases with Nikolai. And only when his eyes begin to close and a cool night shiver runs through his entire body, he decides to go home. And at this moment the narrator begins to understand how good life is in the world.
In the second chapter, the narrator will remember a good and fruitful year. But, as people say, if Antonovka is a success, then the rest of the harvest will be good. Autumn is also a wonderful time for hunting. People already dress differently in the fall, since the harvest is harvested and complex work left behind. It was interesting for the storyteller-barchuk to communicate at such a time with old men and women, and to observe them. In Rus' it was believed that what lives longer old people, the richer the village. The houses of such old people were different from others; they were built by their grandfathers.
The men lived well, and the narrator even at one time wanted to try to live like a man in order to experience all the joys of such a life. At the narrator's estate serfdom was not felt, but it became noticeable on the estate of Aunt Anna Gerasimovna, who lived only twelve miles from Vyselki. The signs of serfdom for the author were:
☛ Low outbuildings.
☛ All the servants leave the servants’ room and bow low and low.
☛ A small old and solid manor.
☛ Huge garden
The narrator remembers his aunt very well when she, coughing, entered the room where he was waiting for her. She was small, but also somehow solid, like her house. But most of all the writer remembers the amazing dinners with her.
In the third chapter, the narrator regrets that the old estates and the order established in them have gone somewhere. The only thing left from all this is hunting. But of all these landowners, only the writer’s brother-in-law, Arseny Semenovich, remained. Usually towards the end of September the weather deteriorated and it rained continuously. At this time the garden became deserted and boring. But October brought a new era to the estate, when the landowners gathered at their brother-in-law's and rushed to hunt. What was it like wonderful time! The hunt lasted for weeks. The rest of the time it was a pleasure to read old books from the library and listen to the silence.
In the fourth chapter, the writer hears the bitterness and regret that the smell of Antonov apples no longer reigns in the villages. The inhabitants of the noble estates also disappeared: Anna Gerasimovna died, and the hunter’s brother-in-law shot himself.
Artistic Features
It is worthwhile to dwell in more detail on the composition of the story. So, the story consists of four chapters. But it is worth noting that some researchers do not agree with the definition of the genre and argue that “Antonov Apples” is a story.
In Bunin’s story “Antonov Apples” we can highlight the following: artistic features:
✔ The plot, which is a monologue, is a memory.
✔ There is no traditional plot.
✔ The plot is very close to poetic text.
The narrator gradually changes chronological pictures, trying to guide the reader from the past to what is happening in reality. The ruined houses of the nobles for Bunin are historical drama, which is comparable to the saddest and saddest times of the year:
Generous and bright summer is the past rich and beautiful home of landowners and their family estates.
Autumn is a period of withering, the collapse of foundations that have been formed over centuries.
Researchers of Bunin's creativity also pay attention to the pictorial descriptions that the writer uses in his work. It’s as if he’s trying to paint a picture, but only a verbal one.
Ivan Alekseevich uses a lot of pictorial details. Bunin, like A.P. Chekhov, resorts to symbols in his depiction: ★ The image of a garden is a symbol of harmony.
★ The image of apples is both a continuation of life, kindred, and love for life.
Story Analysis
Bunin’s work “Antonov Apples” is a reflection by writers on the fate of the local nobility, which gradually faded away and disappeared. The writer’s heart aches with sadness when he sees vacant lots in the place where only yesterday there were busy noble estates. An unsightly picture opens before his eyes: only ashes remain from the landowners' estates and now they are overgrown with burdocks and nettles.
Sincerely, the author of the story “Antonov Apples” worries about any character in his work, living with him all the trials and anxieties. The writer created unique work, where one of his impressions, having created a bright and rich picture, is smoothly replaced by another, no less thick and dense.
Criticism of the story "Antonov Apples"
Bunin's contemporaries highly appreciated his work, since the writer especially loves and knows nature and village life. He himself belongs to to the last generation writers who come from noble estates.
But critics' reviews were mixed. Yuliy Isaevich Aikhenvald, who was in great authority at the beginning of the 20th century, gives the following review of Bunin’s work: “Bunin’s stories, dedicated to this antiquity, sing its departure.”
Maxim Gorky, in a letter to Bunin, which was written in November 1900, gave his assessment: “Here Ivan Bunin, like a young god, sang. Beautiful, juicy, soulful. No, it’s good when nature creates a person as a nobleman, it’s good!”
But Gorky will re-read Bunin’s work itself many more times. And already in 1901, in a letter to his to the best friend He will write to Pyatnitsky his new impressions:
“Antonov apples smell good - yes! - but - they do not smell democratic at all... Ah, Bunin!