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[alixtii]

Not a Mary Sue: A girl of eighteen, very much like her mother. Also slim and pretty, she still had a rather childlike expression. Her waist was soft and slender. So beautiful, healthy and well-developed were her youthful breasts that she seemed like the very breath of springtime.

A bazillion points to whoever can guess the original source.

ETA: Here's another from the same author: Afterwards he thought about her in his room at the hotel--thought she would certainly meet him next day; it would be sure to happen. As he got into bed thought how lately she had been a girl at school, doing lessons like his own daughter; he recalled the diffidence, the angularity, that was still manifest in her laugh and her manner of talking with a stranger. This must have been the first time in her life she had been alone in surroundings in which she was followed, looked at, and spoken o merely from a secret motive which she could hardly fail to guess. He recalled her slender, delicate neck, her lovely grey eyes.

* * *
Apparently Commander-in-Chief was preempted by, you know, the Commander-in-Chief. Since I don't think I could stand to watch any President not played by by Gina Davis or Martin Sheen at the moment without throwing things at the television, I think I'm going to skip out. Tell me if he says anything exceptionally stupid; otherwise, I'm sure it'll show up on tomorrow's Daily Show.

* * *
I've done some good work on To Live in Hearts, my chaptered fic where "introduce Madelyn for the first time." It feels good to be working on something more massive than a one-shot again.

* * *
Watched Gilmore Girls for the first time in a quite a long time. What has Rory done with her hair? I'm not a fan. Also, I wish Paris was (were?) prettier. I feel like a horrible person, incredibly shallow, and a failure as a feminist for saying that, but it's still true, unfortunately.

Comments

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Tolstoy?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Ooh, close. But no.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Russian? (20 questions)

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Yes. (How'd you know?)

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Childlike is a clue. I guess it could be Chekhov as he wasn't always perfect, but, um -- Turgenev?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Is it? I've just started my Russian lit class.

Not Turgenev.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

you're just starting, that's a clue --

Pushkin

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

No.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Is it Chekhov?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

*g*

I thought you already said no to that, I'm a bad reader.

Is it "The darling"?

and this must be 20th century class; I was assuming 19th.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

It's "Doctor Startsev" (Russian title: "Ionich"), translated by Ronald Hingley. I don't know if you saw the ETA, but the second passage is "The Lady with the Dog," translated by Constance Garnett.

I've been wanting to take a Russian lit class since before I was a freshman. My options were 20th Century lit and Dostoevsky, but the former was 200-level and the latter 300-level. Since I'm working on y thesis this semester, I opted for the (in theory) easier class. Also, 20th Cent. fit into my schedule better, (I hate breaks in between classes where I'm stranded up the hill; I'd rather have all my classes in one chunk).

My class has 7 students in it and I'm one of two that doesn't speak Russian. Of course, I have a critical vocabulary that some of the Russianists lack, so perhaps it evens out.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

oh, no i didn't see that. I would have known "Lady" off the first sentence :).

i can't remember if i've read Ionich; I think I have, but he has a lot of stories. Re: the question about 'childlike,' that word shows up a bit in Russian writing, describing women, and it occurs to me that it may be the translation of a certain word that sounds less patronizing in the original. Though probably not. I only mentioned 19th v. 20th b/c I assumed you would be ending with Chekhov in a 19C class and starting in a 20C :)

What else is on your list? are you doing "master & margarita"? By all rights, that book should have a fandom.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I only mentioned 19th v. 20th b/c I assumed you would be ending with Chekhov in a 19C class and starting in a 20C :)

Oh, don't worry, that came through 5x5. I was just filling in some of the backstory. Originally the description of the course was "Russian Lit in the Modern Age," and since I usually consider the modern age to more or less start with the publication of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason I was shocked to see she meant 20th Century. But the literature looks to be really good (except wheen it's deliberately not--deliberate on the part of the teacher, that is, not on the writer), so I can't complain.

What else is on your list? are you doing "master & margarita"?

Yes, we're doing Master and Margarita. Also poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Osip Mandelstam, stories by Isaac Babel, Little Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, "A Song about the Motherland” by Lebedev-Kumach, "A Word to Comrade Stalin" by Isakovsky, "One Man's Destiny" by
*Dmitry Sholokhov along with other essays and speeches, and Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

see, Russian literature doesn't EXIST before the late 18th century -- there just wasn't a tradition in the vernacular -- and that makes what they did in the 19th century that much more amazing. Though I'm with you on "modern" -- unless she's using it in the sense of "modernism," ie, early-mid 20th century. Though I don't think Russia really had modernism in that sense due to being so isolated.

I haven't read very much that's on your list -- I had a 20th century class, but Mayakovsky, Babel, and Bulgakov are the only overlap. i'll be interested to see your impressions. I've always wondered what would have happened if Chekhov had lived to see the revolution -- see if you can bring that up in your class. you'll be my hero.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

According to the prof, several elements of modernism (and if that's what she meant, she should have said "modernist" but again I won't complain) originated in Russia. Just as Russian formalism influenced Anglo-American structuralism, some of the tropes of modernist poetry, for example, originated in Russia. (Modernist poetry has tropes?) She says--I'll tell you whether or not I buy it afterwards.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

that sounds right -- the symbolists, etc -- but that was generally pre-revolutionary; afterwards, Russian lit, of necessity, grew up somewhat in isolation (assuming you're not including emigre literature, which I assume not, as Nabokov's not on the list!) I think it's just that "modern" means different things in different disciplines. Though why she didn't just say "20th century" is beyond me.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

We are reading Nabokov; it's just elsewhere on the syllabus that I missed. We're reading Pnin by Nabokov (because it's set in central NY) and Milan Kundera (a Czech writer)'s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Damn, I thought it was Kitty in War & Peace.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I was going with Natasha, but same general idea.