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Left/Levyi
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Re: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS re: Botkin, V.Stan K.-B.: could "left" here also have an echo of the Latin "sinister?" This meaning persists in derog. Brit. Slang: "left-hander" (and "left-footer") applied (rather irrationally?) to both Roman Catholics AND Homosexuals.
In the last paragraph of my recently published (in Zembla) article on Chose (the name of Van's University in ADA) I quote the Russian saying dva sapoga para ("they make a pair"; sapog is Russian for "boot"), about two people who, having something in common, match well. Reading Skitalets's story Ogarki ("The Scum", 1906), I belatedly discovered that this saying can be continued as follows: dva sapoga para i oba na levuyu nogu (literally: "the two boots that make a pair and both are for the left foot"). Because I speak in my article of Ilf and Petrov, the two Soviet writers (and patriots with leftist views) who make a wonderful pair, the full version of the saying would be even more appropriate.
Re homosexuality: Gomoseksualizm ("homosexuality") is one of some one hundred and eighty words that make up Fima Sobak's vocabulary. Fima Sobak is a character in Ilf & Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs". Compared to her friend Lyudoedka Ellochka ("Nellie the Cannibal"), who manages with only thirty words, Fima is certainly a cultured girl. It is interesting to compare the names Sobak, Tobak (in ADA, the name of Cordula de Prey's first husband; Van suspects Cordula of being a lesbian: 1.27) and... Koba (Stalin's nick-name, after the hero of Kazbegi's novel "The Parricide"). Sobak (accented, like the word in its singular form, on the second syllable; the family name Sobak is stressed on the first syllable), is gen. pl. of sobaka, Russian for "dog".
Mayakovsky (who, like Stalin, comes from Georgia) is the author of Levyi marsh ("Left March", 1918).
The phrase seksual'nyi levsha ("a sexually left-handed person", in the sense "a homosexual") occurs in Nabokov's Soglyadatay ("The Eye", 1930). A character refers thus of the narrator, a Russian emigre named Smurov. Vanya Smurov is the hero in Kuzmin's tale Kryl'ya ("The Wings", 1908). Kuzmin was a notorious gay author. In Nabokov's story, Vanya (a diminutive form of Ivan) is the affectionate name of the girl with whom Smurov is in love.
Sorry to be so laconic. "Brevity is a sister of talent" (Chekhov).
Alexey Sklyarenko
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In the last paragraph of my recently published (in Zembla) article on Chose (the name of Van's University in ADA) I quote the Russian saying dva sapoga para ("they make a pair"; sapog is Russian for "boot"), about two people who, having something in common, match well. Reading Skitalets's story Ogarki ("The Scum", 1906), I belatedly discovered that this saying can be continued as follows: dva sapoga para i oba na levuyu nogu (literally: "the two boots that make a pair and both are for the left foot"). Because I speak in my article of Ilf and Petrov, the two Soviet writers (and patriots with leftist views) who make a wonderful pair, the full version of the saying would be even more appropriate.
Re homosexuality: Gomoseksualizm ("homosexuality") is one of some one hundred and eighty words that make up Fima Sobak's vocabulary. Fima Sobak is a character in Ilf & Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs". Compared to her friend Lyudoedka Ellochka ("Nellie the Cannibal"), who manages with only thirty words, Fima is certainly a cultured girl. It is interesting to compare the names Sobak, Tobak (in ADA, the name of Cordula de Prey's first husband; Van suspects Cordula of being a lesbian: 1.27) and... Koba (Stalin's nick-name, after the hero of Kazbegi's novel "The Parricide"). Sobak (accented, like the word in its singular form, on the second syllable; the family name Sobak is stressed on the first syllable), is gen. pl. of sobaka, Russian for "dog".
Mayakovsky (who, like Stalin, comes from Georgia) is the author of Levyi marsh ("Left March", 1918).
The phrase seksual'nyi levsha ("a sexually left-handed person", in the sense "a homosexual") occurs in Nabokov's Soglyadatay ("The Eye", 1930). A character refers thus of the narrator, a Russian emigre named Smurov. Vanya Smurov is the hero in Kuzmin's tale Kryl'ya ("The Wings", 1908). Kuzmin was a notorious gay author. In Nabokov's story, Vanya (a diminutive form of Ivan) is the affectionate name of the girl with whom Smurov is in love.
Sorry to be so laconic. "Brevity is a sister of talent" (Chekhov).
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/