Rereading fairy tales familiar from childhood is always an unusual feeling. Sometimes we are surprised to notice that the story is three times shorter than we thought. Sometimes—fortunately, rarely—we are amazed that we could have liked this book at all. More often than not, new associations and jokes emerge between the lines, and the plot appears in a completely different light. This is how “Three Fat Men” by Yuri Olesha is read now. On the one hand, the complex structure of the story becomes visible, through which the narrator carefully helps the reader navigate his way. On the other hand, the deliberately Soviet, poster-like description of the revolution is striking. Before us is still a beautiful and kind fairy tale, but it no longer seems so simple. Are there even simple fairy tales? It is unlikely that in our time there is at least one children's book left in which they did not look for a double bottom...