Little Whale, Varnisher of Reality (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Vassily Aksyonov
- First Published: 1964
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: The 1960's
- Setting: Moscow, Russia
- Principal Characters: Tolya, Ivan, His wife
- Genres: Short fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: 1960’s, Children, Family or family life, Parents and children, Fathers, Russia or Russian people, Animals, Moscow, Amusement parks
- Locales: Moscow, Russia
The Story
Little Ivan cheerfully greets his father, Tolya, coming home from work. Father's new leather cap intrigues him, and he asks whether one can fly with it. The father immediately catches on and stokes the boy's imagination by telling him that they can fly to the White Sea to see the polar bears and walruses. The boy adds whales and “limpeduzas”—a furry animal he has invented. When the father adds sharks, the boy rejects them as evil beasts.
The cheerful boy, nicknamed Little Whale by his father because he resembles a little whale in the bathtub, is not the...
[The entire page is 1540 words long]
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