The novel "And the day lasts for more than a century" - a summary and analysis

Our article will be devoted to the novel "And the day lasts for more than a century", the summary and analysis of which will be in the center of attention. This work was the first creation of a large form for Chingiz Torekulovich Aitmatov. Although the writer was widely known before this publication, not only in the Soviet Union, but also in the West.

About the book and the title

The novel was published in the magazine "New World" in 1980. As a title he chose a line from the poem "The Only Days" by Boris Pasternak Chingiz Aitmatov. "And more than a century lasts a day" - this is the penultimate line of a very joyful poem about love, but it gets a completely different tone in the novel. The eternal day is not the time lit up by happiness, but the funeral of a close friend of the protagonist. Thus, the famous line of love turns into a deeply philosophical one, and the reasoning here is about the eternal loneliness of a person in a vast world.

"And the day lasts for more than a century": a summary

The place of action is the railway station of Toretam, located near the Baikonur cosmodrome, by which trains are constantly passing.

Iron canvas on both sides is surrounded by a great steppe desert of Sary-Ozeki. Not far away there is the Boranly-Burannyi railway station, where Yedigei is working as a switchman. He spends nights on a shift in a small booth. In one such watch comes to him his wife Ukubala and tells about the death of his friend Kazangap.

Thirty years have passed since the demobilization of Yedigei in 1944 after a concussion. Then the doctor promised him that in a year he would recover, but at that moment any physical work was beyond his power. Then he and his wife decided to try to get a job on the railway, suddenly there is a place for a janitor or guard.

Then Kazangap, with whom the couple had got acquainted by chance, called them to Boranly-Buran. When they arrived, Yedigei did not suspect that his whole remaining life would pass in this desolate, sparsely populated and waterless place. And all this time Kazangap was near, constantly helping. Gradually, their families became friends, became like family.

Home

A heavy and oppressive sediment is left by the events described in the work "And the day lasts for more than a century". The summary of his story tells how Yedigei, after returning home, reflects on the upcoming funeral of his best friend. And then the hero feels how the ground under his feet has shaken. It was at the launch site that a rocket had just risen by a fiery tail.

The rise was due to the fact that during the last twelve hours the US station Paritet ceased to communicate, so it was necessary to find out what had happened.

Yedigei persuades the Kazangap family to bury a friend in the ancient Ana-Beyit cemetery, which appeared in the time of the mankurts.

Mancourt

Chingiz Aitmatov addresses not only the present, but also the past in his work. "And more than a century lasts a day" - a novel full of historical insets. So the reader will learn about the mankurt. Once in these localities the Zhuanzhuans were in charge, who very skillfully deprived the memory of their prisoners. On their heads they wore a width - a hat made of leather. Initially, the skin was raw. In the sun, she gradually dried up and squeezed the head of the unfortunate. After this procedure, a person lost his memory and was called a mankurt. Such slaves were obedient and weak-willed.

One day a woman named Naiman-Ana, whose son was kidnapped by slaves, found her child, but he was already made mankurt. He grazed the cattle when his mother approached him, begging her to remember, but her memory did not return.

The woman was noticed, but she managed to escape. Then the Zhuanzhuans told the slave that this stranger had come to "steal his head off" (there was not a threat for the mankurts). Before they left, they left arrows and bow.

Mother comes back again, wanting to convince her son. But she did not manage to reach him, as she received a mortal wound with an arrow in her chest. The white Naiman-Ana handkerchief turned into a white bird, which was supposed to tell the truth to her son.

The funeral

By the morning of the preparation for the funeral Kazangap ended. The body was tightly wrapped in cloth and put in a cart, attached to the tractor. From the description of the burial rite, it can be concluded that Aitmatov paid much attention to the traditions of the steppe peoples ("And the day lasts for more than a century" is a very reliable work).

The way to the cemetery is not long - thirty kilometers. Yedigei rode ahead of the procession and pointed the way. In the head of the main character constantly reminisced about the past, working with Kazangap. The current generation did not appreciate the merits of the old people (and for what did they only squander the health?), But Yedigei himself did not regret anything.

New planet

Do not shy away from the unknown and turn to the fantastic Aitmatov. "And more than a century lasts a day" goes back to the theme of outer space and the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations.

A survey of "Parity" begins, it turns out that the astronauts, here former, disappeared. But there was a record, which talks about contacts with the inhabitants of the planet Forest Chest. The aliens invited the cosmonauts to visit their planet, they agreed, but nobody was told about it.

The crew of "Parity" returns, cosmonauts tell how another civilization, more technically advanced, lives. On their planet, there have never been wars, the inhabitants of it are extremely benevolent. The Forest Guards ask permission to visit the Earth and build an interplanetary station on it, which the earthlings are not yet able to create on their own.

This proposal was reported to the special commission, which should give an answer.

Long history

Again comes back to life Yedigei narrative of the novel "And more than a century lasts a day." The summary continues to describe the memories of the old man. Now he comes to mind one long story told by Kazangap.

It was 1951, a family with two children came to the road - both boys. The head of the family was called Abutalip Kuttybayev, he was the same age as Yedigei and came to these places not from a good life. Abutalip in the war years was captured by the Germans, then, in forty-third, he managed to escape, and then he nailed to the Yugoslav guerrillas. He returned home, but no one knew about the time that the man in the camp had spent. Then political relations with Yugoslavia began to deteriorate, someone told about his past, and Abutalip was forced to resign.

The author aspires to show not only the realities of harsh Soviet reality in his novel "And the day lasts for more than a century", problems of a philosophical nature worry him much more. So, the question of the unrequitedness, insecurity and loneliness of a person is raised. Nowhere is there a haven for the traitor (it was believed that if he was captured, then he surrendered). And then he and his family carried him to the Boranly-Buranny road. Here it was hard for them: the climate is not the same, there is no farm. Yedigei was sorry more than all Zaripa. But thanks to the help of the local family Kuttybaevs got accustomed. And Abutalip not only worked and worked at home, but also began to write memoirs, in which he recalled life in Yugoslavia.

A year passed, an inspector came to the checkpoint, and began to inquire about what Abutalip was doing. And after a while the passenger train stopped on Buranny, which never stops here. At the station three came down, they arrested Kuttybayev. Two months later it turned out that he was first under investigation, and after a while he died.

Every day the sons were waiting for their father's return, Zaripa harassed herself. Yedigei could not calmly look at this and was also tormented, because the woman was not indifferent to him.

Way

The main action connecting the novel "And the day lasts for more than a century" is the way of the funeral procession to the cemetery. Yedigei advances ahead of all and remembers his terrible anger when Zaripa left. Then he lost his temper, beat his camel, quarreled with Kazangap. But the friend kept prudence and gave him the wise advice to go and bow to Zaripa and Ukubala for having saved him from troubles.

And now this wise man lies motionless, and they go to bury him. But suddenly the procession comes across a fence of barbed wire. A soldier is standing nearby and explains that only those who have a pass can pass. A cemetery Ana-Bayit is going to demolish and build in its place a new microdistrict. Yedigei persuaded them to let them pass, but it did not work. Therefore, Kazangap was buried near the cemetery, just on the spot where Naiman-Ana died.

Ending

The end of the work "And the day lasts for more than a century" comes to an end. The summary tells about the commission's decision. After several meetings, it was decided to stop the astronauts from "Parity" to Earth, not invite aliens, and the near-Earth space to protect from encroachments with a hoop of missiles.

Yedigei leaves the funeral to go to the authorities to explain to them that it is impossible to destroy the cemetery where several generations of ancestors were buried. He almost reaches his destination, when a rocket flies into the sky. It is militant and destined to destroy everything that approaches the Earth. The first takes off the second, and behind it - the third, and so several dozen missiles, forming a protective hoop around the planet.

Yedigei in clubs of smoke and dust runs away, but the next day again wants to return.

Aitmatov, "And the day lasts for more than a century": analysis

The main carrier of all ideas and intentions of the author was the main character - Yedigei, a man who lived in the desert for almost forty years. But his life experience is valuable, which absorbed all the vicissitudes and sorrows brought by the twentieth century, and human sorrows: World War II, difficulties in the post-war years, bitter undivided love. But the most difficult for him was a memory test.

Memory and conscience, embodied in Yedigei, became the ideological basis of the novel "And the day lasts for more than a century". Analysis of the text indicates the abundance in the work of metaphorical images that bear philosophical meaning. Thus, the themes of loneliness, responsibility, memory, fear, moral principles are raised Aitmatov with his characteristic ease and conciseness.