Tolstoy Question

[Gasan Gusejnov]

Dear friends,

линейка and простыня seem to be here the  compact catalogue of usual
punishment for children (and slaves) with their капризничанье.
Линейка - to beat them in the classroom, wet cold простыня - to quash their
rebellion or destroy their will. As far as I remember, there are
descriptions of such punishment in Leskov and elsewhere.

Thank you for drawing our attention to these three words of LNT!

gg <http://lenta.ru/columns/2010/08/16/johnson/>



On 26 August 2010 20:00, Hugh McLean <hmclean at berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Alexandra Smith wrote:
>
>> Quoting Judson Rosengrant <jrosengrant at EARTHLINK.NET>:
>>
>>  If I may, I have a small question for students of Tolstoy and perhaps of
>>> nineteenth-century Russian domestic culture.  Near the end of the third
>>> paragraph of Chap. 29 of the Юность section of Tolstoy's trilogy, we find
>>> the following:
>>>
>>> Происходило ли это оттого, что прозаические воспоминания
>>> детства--линейка,
>>> простыня, капризничанье--были еще слишком свежи в памяти, или от
>>> отвращения,
>>> которое имеют очень молодые люди ко всему домашнему . . . , но только
>>> Володя
>>> еще до сих пор не смотрел на Катеньку, как на женщину.
>>>
>>> In an earlier draft Tolstoy had, Володя долго не мог переварить
>>> воспоминаний
>>> детства, слез, линейки, простыни, связанных с Катенькой. . .
>>>
>> ------------------------
>> Dear Judson,
>>
>> It seems to me that in the final version Tolstoy makes the erotic
>> overtones, embedded in his draft version of the passage (related to
>> Katen'ka) less explicit.
>> In the description of Karl Ivanovich in chapter 1 (Detstvo) one of the
>> rulers is described as a tool used for punishment (it looks like a long
>> ruler):
>>
>> --На другой стене висели ландкарты, все почти изорванные, но искусно
>> подкленные рукою Карла Иваныча. На третьей стене, в середине которой была
>> дверь вниз, с одной стороны висели две линейки: одна - изрезанная, наша,
>> другая - новенькая, собственная, употребляемая им более для поощрения, чем
>> для линевания [...]
>>
>> The passage quoted in your e-mail suggests to me that Tolstoy's narrator
>> describes his period of puberty. He refers to his daydreaming (for which he
>> was punished by his teacher, since he might have been lacking concentration
>> during his lessons); his mood swings and his erotic dreams. The three words-
>> lineika, prostynia and kapriznichan'e -- make perfect sense if you read them
>> in the context of changes that happen to boys during puberty. Tolstoy
>> suggests that his character's memories were unromantic and embarrassing; and
>> he also says that some young men grow to hate these memories and tend to
>> suppress them (he uses a strong word "otvrashchenie"). In chapter one "Karl
>> Ivanovich" (Detstvo) Tolstoy's narrator  already  mentions the fact that he
>> had some dreams that he didn't want to discuss with Karl Ivanovich, his
>> teacher, who came to wake him up. The chapter starts with the reference to
>> the character's tenth birthday.
>>
>> with best wishes,
>> Alexandra
>>
>> -----------------------------------------
>> Alexandra Smith (PhD, University of London)
>> Reader in Russian Studies
>> Department of European Languages and Cultures
>> School of  Languages, Literatures and Cultures
>> The University of Edinburgh
>> David Hume Tower
>> George Square
>> Edinburgh EH8 9JX
>> UK
>>
>> tel. +44-(0)131-6511381
>> fax: +44- (0)131 -651 -1482
>> e-mail: Alexandra.Smith at ed.ac.uk
>>
>
> This is ingenious, but the phrase "perfect sense" seems overdone. The point
> of the sentence is that the narrator precisely was NOT having erotic
> thoughts about Katen'ka, had never thought of her as a woman. Then what is a
> bed-sheet doing there?
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Gasan Gusejnov / Гасан Гусейнов

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