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ADA's Baron Klim Avidiov and Gorky's Klim Samgin
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Just an afterthought concerning my recently posted note "Good should have fists..." Since the word dobro ("good") has sexual connotations (see note 7 to my piece), the first line of Kunyaev's poem, Dobro dolzhno byt' s kulakami, has a third meaning yet (for the second meaning see note 3): "One's genitalia should be [in the contact] with one's fists." This reminds me of Van masturbating in his bath in the fatal night of Lucette's suicide (3.5) and, on the other hand, of masturbators in Gorky's "The Life of Klim Samgin" (1825-36).* Cf., for instance, Tagilsky's confession to Samgin: "At twelve I began to masturbate, one of the girls caught me during this occupation and taught me to prefer normal sexual life" (LKS, Part Four).
By the way, SAMGIN = SMAGIN (A. I. Smagin was Chekhov's friend, a landowner in the province of Poltava, whom Chekhov for some reason has dubbed "the Persian Shah") = GIMNAST (gymnast) - T.
*In Ilf and Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs" (1927), in the Iznurenkov chapter, there is a mention of Gorky writing a big novel.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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By the way, SAMGIN = SMAGIN (A. I. Smagin was Chekhov's friend, a landowner in the province of Poltava, whom Chekhov for some reason has dubbed "the Persian Shah") = GIMNAST (gymnast) - T.
*In Ilf and Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs" (1927), in the Iznurenkov chapter, there is a mention of Gorky writing a big novel.
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/