What It's All About by Vadim Frolov

First published:Chto k chemu, 1966 (English translation, 1968)

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Coming-of-age, love, family, and emotions

Time of work: The mid-1960’s

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: Leningrad

Principal Characters:

• Alexander Sasha Larionov, a fourteen-year-old high school student
• Nikolai Larionov, his father, a navy man working in a scientific research institute
• Vera, his mother, a theater actress
• Nyurochka, his three-year-old sister
• Yuri Livansky, his uncle
• Lyuka, his aunt
• Yurka Pantyukhin, and
• Olga, his high school friends
• Dolinsky, a friend of his mother

The Story

What It’s All About treats an age-old subject: the impact of a divorce upon children and their finding the way to deal with the devastating experience. The family Larionov of Leningrad is going through a crisis: Sasha’s mother, an actress, has left home with her colleague Dolinsky, ostensibly on a theater tour. Sasha and his three-year-old sister, Nyurochka, are puzzled by her long absence, but their father is strangely silent about it. A sensitive child, Sasha suspects that something is very wrong when everybody is reluctant to answer his questions about his mother’s whereabouts. He is deeply troubled by his father’s refusal to deal with him honestly, pretending that nothing is wrong while withdrawing into himself and seeking solace in drinking. Sasha is further bothered by his father’s insistence that a boy is not worth half a kopeck if he cannot work out his own problems. The boy believes, however, that if the grown-ups would only explain things to children more often and more honestly, perhaps they would not do so many stupid things.

Sasha gets a similar response from his uncle and aunt, who love him dearly but treat him as a small boy; in effect, they refuse to do his father’s job for him. Sasha finds the only solace in his school friends, especially in Yurka Pantyukhin, who himself is caught up in a similar predicament at home: His father is absent, his mother is unable to cope, and his sister is on the verge of becoming a prostitute. Sasha is well liked by his schoolmates, especially by girls, for in their eyes he is good, honest, and brave, one who stands up for his convictions. That does not, however, solve his main problem. He is becoming increasingly frustrated with his relatives, with his friends, and with school. The intolerable situation comes to a head when a schoolmate tells him maliciously what everybody else knows—that his mother has run away with an actor and abandoned him and his family. Sasha beats him savagely and is expelled from school. He now feels an urge to run away from home, and he and Yurka plan to go to a village, where they would work and make a living. Yurka’s absent father, an inveterate drunkard, shows up, however, and Yurka decides that he must stay at home to take care of him.

Sasha is still determined to go away. Olga, who turns out to be his most sincere friend, understands his predicament and helps him with his plans. Instead of going to a village, however, he goes to Irkutsk in search of his mother. When he finally finds her and sees her on the street with her friend Dolinsky, he realizes that she has never kissed and looked at his father the way she kisses and looks at Dolinsky. Without talking to his mother, Sasha returns home, thinking that he has begun to understand what it is all about, although he may never understand it completely, nor will anybody else.

Context

What It’s All About, the first of several works by Vadim Frolov, is also his best. Even though he continues to write books for juveniles, he has not yet duplicated the success of his first novel. What makes this novel successful is its delicate treatment of a psychological interplay of human emotions and relationships. Frolov shows a remarkable understanding of the complexity of emotions and their potentially destructive force. He downplays the sensationalistic possibilities of the situation, guarding against slick and melodramatic posturing. Following the long-standing tradition of a psychological novel in Russian literature, he shows that he has learned well from his illustrious masters, such as Aleksandr Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevski, and Leo Tolstoy. While it is true that, possessing a far lesser talent he never reaches their level, he accomplishes his task in his own way.

Frolov succeeds in avoiding a pitfall that has plagued Soviet writers, many of whom have succumbed to, or have been coerced to follow, the utilitarian and pedagogical approach to literature. The subject matter of What It’s All About can easily be misused as an educational, even preaching tool. Frolov avoids that trap by addressing the problems forthrightly, allowing the reader a glimpse into the real problems Soviet adolescents are facing, which are not much different from those in the rest of the world. In this sense, he is in line with a more objective approach to literature, which has been increasingly evident in the Soviet Union since the 1960’s.