tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post9179576577554196824..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Russian books I have read recently - Teffi and Zoshchenko - "Yes, we'll loot and pillage!"Amateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-26087123975800461792018-10-03T09:35:13.737-05:002018-10-03T09:35:13.737-05:00Feuilletonist is good, accurate, although I know, ...Feuilletonist is good, accurate, although I know, as a French student, why most English-language writers avoid the word. Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-24509021123802593172018-10-03T07:40:45.794-05:002018-10-03T07:40:45.794-05:00Both wonderful authors; I'm glad you got a cha...Both wonderful authors; I'm glad you got a chance to experience them.<br /><br /><i>Actually, given what is in the Teffi collection, I would never guess that she has been thought of as a humorist.</i><br /><br />She's not a humorist in the sense that Zoshchenko is, more of what they used to call a feuilletonist; her early pieces, the ones that made her wildly popular in prerevolutionary Russia, are sharply observed scenes of urban life with a humorous tinge. Dostoevsky started out the same way in the 1840s, and you can see the experience cropping up all the way through his novels (the tone of voice of his narrators is often that of the feuilletonist, and the use of language is superficially slovenly in the same way, which is what leads snobs like Nabokov to claim he couldn't write decent Russian), just as Hemingway's days as a reporter inform his later fiction. I'm glad she's finally getting some of her due in translation.Languagehathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285708503881129380noreply@blogger.com