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Stanislav Rassadin
THE TREES SING WITH THE BIRDS
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(from Spiridon Vangheli's book „The Boy From the Blue Hovel")
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Spiridon Vangheli was bom to be a children's writer. His feeling is
not that of being proudly distinct from a child, but that of being
happily close to the little one. For him a child is not an object of
watching and researching, but a partner in thinking and feeling. Both
the writer and his character are in constant movement. They would not
stop and let themselves being observed. They are in a hurry: they need
to grow and learn, make comparisons and draw parallels.
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Radu
teaches his little sister about water-melons: „When they are small,
they are playing on the ground, then they hide under the leaves. Do
you know what they do with their leaves? They drink rain and grow big.
The rain becomes red sweet snow inside the water-melon."
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The
child's explanation is based on two trivial things. The first one is
that ram turns into snow. This dull axiom is exploded, made
fresh and poetic by a specifica-tion in water-melons. Besides,
a cold and delicious granulated pulp of a water-melon can hardly be
called better than red sweet snow.
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The
other triviality is: rain gives land water to drink. This trite
metaphor is refreshed by a pagan literal perception of a child.
Ordinary water-melons are ani-mated, they play like children;
moreover, they become unusual living beings as they eat and drink with
the help of their tails!
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Radu
looks for regularities. He is puzzled. When he stretches his impatient
hand for a bunch, the beautiful grapes are sour. „When I pick them up,
they are sour, when my mother picks them up — they are sweet". The
conclusion is obvious — „They are getting sweet in mother's hands."
And it certainly has nothing to do with mother being experienced to
choose ripe bunches!
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The
child introduces his budding compassion into the world of nature. He
feels
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ity
for a little tree gnawed around by a rabbit, promises to apply a
healing medicine
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and
expects the execution of the law he has learned well — children are
protected
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by
grown-ups. He asks old trees why they have not taken care of the young
one!?
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He
sees the world as an amusing integrity. The boy teaches his
baby-sister: „Rodica, do you know what the forest is made of? Of trees
and summer. And summer? It is made of grass, strawberries, flowers,
butterflies, weeds and trees with leaves."
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Try
to make head or tail of this mysterious confusion and you will
probably fail. Radu discovers the complexity of the world. An attempt
to disintegrate the world gives him a lesson on its integrity.
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That
was about miniatures from Spiridon Vangheli's book The Boy From
theBlue Hovel.
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When
I read in Spiridon Vangheli's book of Stories about Guguțe that
the little boy received from his mother such gifts as a candy rooster
on a stick, a bagel with poppy seeds, and new pants, I have not the
slightest doubt that these treats are to be enumerated in this very
order: an immediate acute pleasure promised by a delicious candy is
sure to be mentioned before the pragmatic usefulness of the pants.
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When
I learn that Guguță, who was well under school age and decided to go
to school ahead of time, „washed both of his ears", in this funny
observation I hear the kid's diligence as well as a cunning hint of
the author that the other ear might occasionally happen to remain
unwashed.
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Do
you find it a minor detail? I don't. This is a small element of the
big truth — the foundation on which Guguță's magic castles grow.
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"Strange rings happened because Guguță's father had made him a fur hat
that was much too big."
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„Never mind," Father hâd said. „This way it will last for several
winters. You can wear it as it is."
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"But,
Papa, it keeps falling over my eyes!" Guguță complained. „Push it up
when it slides down — that will give you something to do all winter
long," said Father.
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Really! As if he hâd nothing better to do."
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With
this half-reproach of Father and with the hat that kept sliding down
and reminding of itself, wonders of the story began. First it was no
great surprise: Guguță saw a girl blue with cold, felt pity for her
and put the hat on himself and the freezing little girl. Then the
sorcery built up — all of the first-graders together with the teacher
got warm covered by the magic hat. And finally — miracles never cease!
— „Guguță sat near the stove, thinking. Could his hat, he wondered,
grow even larger — large enough to warm the whole village until
spring?"
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"There started spring under the fur hat. Though, electric bulbs were
lit even in the daytime. Life was going on under the hat: cars and
trucks were roaring, well sweeps were creaking. People were walking
bareheaded. A few hats remained in the village. For those who hâd to
leave the village to go for halva (you have tasted that delicious
paste of nuts, sugar, and oii, right?), bagels (yum-yum!) and on
business."
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Reality feeds fantasy and keeps it on the earth. Guguță is troubled by
drawbacks of his paradise: electric bulbs burning by daylight is a
waste of master, he keeps in store some hats for the villagers — „to
go for halva, bagels and on business" (a curious gradation made
exactly from Guguță's viewpoint: first things comefirst!).
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Guguță is a considerate and businesslike benefactor for the whole
village. оs it not a cherished dream for a child? Strânge as it may
seem, hyperbole in the story is an embodiment of reality. It reflects
the reality of every-day life, reality of childhood rules, reality of
recreating the world.
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Conceming terminology. In fact I would not caii these pieces of
writing stories, I would rather name them tales. They are pure
fairy-tales created by the same tandem of a child and an adult author
as the poems from The Boy From the Blue Hovel.
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At
the dawn of civilization mankind was making up legends based on then
experience animating nature and expressing people's naive ideals. In
the same way Guguță embodies his experience, his ideals,
and his relation with nature. And the principal thing here is
not borrowing from ready-made tales, but quenching his thirst for
creation, seif— realization, reshaping the world according to his
laws.
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If
there are loans, they are transformed according to the laws the
childhood follows in writing its never-ending tale.
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Let
us turn to the tale entitled His Majesty Guguță. A child
becomes a king and enjoys all the royal privileges as it would be in a
tradițional tale. But how did this idea come about?
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Guguță happened to notice that adults, leaving the village to work in
the field, were getting shorter and shorter: first they became smaller
than Guguță's little sister, then smaller than her shoe, and finally
smaller than a poppy seed. „Com-pared to them Guguță was a real giant;
no wonder that when all the grown-ups and elder children left for the
field he became the king." The tale ends in a similar way:
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"When
so many important and urgent matters had been done, His Majesty was
somewhat tired and came out to the margin of the village.
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Along
all the roads people were returning home from fields and farms. They
were as big as a rye-ear, then as a corn-cob, later as a tomato bush —
no, as a vine already.
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Though His Royal Majesty was staying in the same place, he was getting
smaller and smaller until the people took the boy by the hand and led
him home."
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Why
on finishing this merry tale one may have a feeling of light sadness?
The sadness is subtly rendered by the poetics of the fairy tale
itself. When Guguță is watching the leaving adults he is a
starting-point, a measure of all things; moreover, he is growing!
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In
the finale we are back to where we have started. Now Guguță is getting
smaller and smaller again, and the author calls him not „His Majesty",
not the king, but a boy. And he certainly feels sad that he will have
to grow for a long time before he becomes — no, not the king — but a
real adult independent man.
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As
for the other co-creator, the writer Vangheli, he sympathizes with the
child and shares his sadness; still he emphasizes another idea, his
own thought. Adults are the main people on the earth, they work and
get tired, they feed you, and you have to be grateful to them.
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The author is right, every pride needs to be subdued
from time to time. The little
Caracter has to be taken out of the zone of selfishness, egocentrism
that is no less rypical of a child than the best features, such as
optimism and Iove to life.
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To
realize how significant and complicated Vangheli's task is, we should
examine aiiother tale — Postman.
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The
beginning of the tale is somewhat childish.
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Letters get delivered to the villagers more.seldom. Guguță wants to
find out why. Then he thinks he found the answer: the postman is old.
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The
postman is given a horse and it helps for a while, but then it starts
anew. The village is in despair. Practicai Guguță takes measures.
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"Guguță bought a map of our country in a bookstore and researched
where people from his village left for. In the place where a mân lived
he painted a hat and where a woman lived — a flower. Then he drew a
map of the village. All the houses where people were waiting for
letters were depicted with open doors."
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Here
we have both a charming symbolism and a peasant thoroughness, both
poetry and humor. First there is a hidden smile, then it broadens when
a witty boy decides to write letters and send them to his
village-mates and starts acting. He is thinking how to write a letter
to a soldier's wife so that she would believe that it is really from
her husband. He is getting into his role.
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"Guguță was walking up and down the room, marching, standing at
attenn'on, but no soldier thoughts came to his mind. Only one: a
soldier must not let out a State secret. Then instead of a letter
Guguță painted a dove and endosed it in the envelope."
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The
village is in elation, nobody doubts the authenticity of such smart
letters. Everybody is happy.
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The
end of the story is extremely significant:
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"Thus, since Guguță began to help the postman to seal the letters, on
the village map there were less and less houses with open doors.
People were seeing iir the distance."
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Seeing whom? Guguță, right? No, not him!
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"Wheh
the old postman was coming, people were ready to take off their hats,
while for his horse oats and succulent grass were always in store."
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This is how Vangheli
directed the boy’s
self-realization. The good name of the old postman is reconstituted,
his horse is rehabilitated. They reap the glory. Guguță is in the
shade and nobody suspects that he is the village benefactor and
guarding angel. And this is — cunning Vangheli! — the victory of proud
Guguță, great plotter. He did not want anybody to reveal his secret
plan.
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Hence, a joyous tale preaches Kindness, Modesty, and Compassion.
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Spiridon Vangheli is not dissolved as a stage-director in his little
personage and co-author. He finds his self-expression — indirect, but
obvious and vivid. Children's good will, faith in good forces, their
unbridled imagination, all the traces of his co-authors (little Guguță
and even younger Radu), help Vangheli to recreate the world. He makes
a bright and big picture of it the way he would like to see it—in the
light of the spiritual ideal, which is worth craving for.
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Confident and merry optimism of Radu and Guguță is strengthened by the
dreams and hopes of Vangheli himself. Their children's „what I see" is
multiplied by his adult „what I foresee".
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