Valentin Kataev will live eighty-nine years. He will survive the First World War and the Civil War, he will survive in the dungeons of the Odessa Cheka. He will have a great career in literature, his books will be included in the school curriculum, and his plays will be performed at the Moscow Art Theater and on Broadway.… But until a very old age, Kataev will retain the colorful, thick Odessa dialect. You can see and hear on the preserved videos: in front of us is a genuine Odessa citizen. In the sixties, Kataev would surprise the literary world with his new prose. Free organization of the text and free relationship with chronology. The apparent "spontaneity" of writing. Instead of a single plot, there is a scattering of small stories. He will call this creative manner "movism", from the French "mauvais" — "bad, bad". It's either a joke or a flirtation. The "Moviste" stuff is beautifully written, and their author knew his own worth. "The Broken Life, or the Magic Horn of Oberon" is the largest and most radical example of movism. Life here is not 'broken' in the same way that a heart is broken. The hero's past and childhood are divided into many episodes, and Kataev does not combine them sequentially, but into a mosaic. Before us is the whole world of a city boy's childhood against the backdrop of the enchanting Odessa of the early 20th century. The child was surrounded by things much more interesting than today. A magic lantern, a real microscope, a mandolin, a toy steam engine, a model airplane, a piece of phosphorus that turns its owner into an almost real magician. Our hero hand—gilds nuts for the Christmas tree, conducts chemical experiments trying to get hydrogen (and getting an explosion), catches sparrows with vodka, tries to hijack a fishing boat, robs a newsstand (for the sake of detectives about Nat Pinkerton), buries treasures, wins the lottery-allegri.... The experimental autobiography of Valentin Kataev, built as a series of fragments-memories from childhood and youth, which add up to a complete picture of life in Odessa at the beginning of the 20th century. – The work is known as an example of Kataev's late "movism" — a literary method where, instead of a single plot, the reader receives a "mosaic" of independent episodes and short stories united by a common theme. – The book sensitively reflects children's impressions, experiences, relationships with family and environment, as well as ways of learning about the world through simple but vivid events and the little things of everyday life. Valentin Petrovich Kataev (1897-1986) was a Russian Soviet writer, playwright, poet, author of prose and plays; he fought in the First World War and the Civil War, and was wounded twice. His most famous works — "The Lonely Sail is White" and "The Son of the Regiment" — were included in the school curriculum, and the plays were staged on Broadway. Brother of the writer E. P. Petrov (co-author of "12 chairs").