This article examines the fundamental motifs of Arkady Dragomoshchenko's poetry - memory, forgetting, criticism of the subject - through the prism of his first novel, Raspolozhenie v domakh i dereviakh. Special attention is given to the novel's protagonist in comparison to the protagonist of J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as the role of dialectics of truth and lies in the novel's poetics.