Vasily Grossman: Zhilitsa - some remarkable word play

[Olga Meerson]

Robert, dear, do not listen to big card players very knowledgeable about Russian literature--if, that is, what they say is that you should IGNORE a double-entendre. Card players think card-playing terminology is ONLY about playing cards, even if they are knowledgeable about their own national literature--which, for Russians, is a given but too often, alas, on a very automatized level. What you are seeing or on some level suspecting is definitely there. Right before that passage, the verb sdavat' referred to that document, and omitting an object always creates an ambiguity between different idiomatic meanings of a verb. Trust your ear! I am convinced that the double-entendre is at least as intentional as the allusion to the Queen of Spades in Shalamov's однажды играли у коногона Наумова.

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