SOURCE: Ingdahl, Kazimiera. “The Genesis of ‘The Cherry Pit’.” In A Graveyard of Themes: The Genesis of Three Key Works by Iurii Olesha, pp. 67-95. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994.

In the following essay, Ingdahl assesses the significance of “The Cherry Pit” to Olesha's oeuvre and investigates the origins of the story.

1. “lessons of Observation”

“The Cherry Pit” obviously occupies a special place in Olesha's oeuvre. Robert Russell, for example, describes it as “transitional” and “valedictory”; linked with Envy, at the same time it points forward, “… indicating in the displays of neuroses and in the desperation of the optimistic ending, the bleakness of Olesha's future.” Structurally and linguistically he connects the story with No Day Without a Line (Ni dny biz smrоcкi, 1956), perceiving this kinship to lie “… in the characteristic conversational, hortative language, in the apparently fragmentary nature of the story, in the observation of fleeting similarities...