Tolstoy question 6

[Michael Denner]

I think you're overreading. If this were "Death of Ivan Ilych," I'd be inclined to play along. Gustafson's "symbolic realism." Sometimes a curtain is not a curtain. 

But, at least at this early point in Tolstoy's writing, I think a sheet is just a sheet... There's plenty of detail in the trilogy that is simply autobiographical and therefore not particularly open to the kind of symbolic analysis you're trying to perform. Maybe young Tolstoy had a favorite blanky back at Yasnaya. 

~mad

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
   Dr. Michael A. Denner
   Associate Professor of Russian Studies
   Editor, Tolstoy Studies Journal
   Director, University Honors Program

   
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-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Judson Rosengrant
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 11:58 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS] Tolstoy question 6

Gasan raised an interesting point, which would order the words in a nice
logical sequence, but it is, on the other hand, very hard to imagine that
any of the Irtenevs and their retainers would ever have been punished so
severely.  Consider the enlightened views of maman and the attitude of
Grandmother (her mother) toward corporal punishment.  Nor, of course, would
Mimi ever have permitted such a thing.  The trilogy's characters, after all,
aren't monochromatic instruments of a gothic romance but richly fashioned
human beings with carefully defined social affiliations, backgrounds
(histories), values and opinions, and individual strengths and weaknesses
and capacities that evolve as the narrative progresses.  The question of
what they could or could not do is thus not only legitimate but of the
essence.        

'Bath sheet' certainly is a possible meaning and pulls 'sheet' (ambiguous in
English) back to something more definite.  If you'd like to see what a bath
sheet looks like in action and will forgive the extreme anachronism, not to
mention all the other incongruities, I'd recommend Fellini's 8½, where the
little boy Guido is wrapped by his loving mother and aunts in such a thing
--a lyrical  recollection of innocence by the adult Guido, for innocence,
after all, is one of the dimensions of human experience and no less real
than any other.  And it is of course Volodya's innocence that is the issue
at this particular juncture of our text, his inability to perceive Katenka
in a more grown-up way, although, obviously, the precocious Nikolenka was
able to in some measure: remember his two kisses in Детство and Volodya's
reaction to the first, in Chapter 9, 'Что-то вроде первой любви' (note too
the care of 'что-то вроде').

Thanks to everyone for your comments.  Having access to you through the list
is a tremendous boon to me as someone without an academic affiliation or
colleagues willing to contemplate an interesting lexical triplet and its
implications.  As for простыня, I think there may in the end be no fully
satisfactory answer, and the confirmation of that through your different
points of view is, in a way, liberating for me as a translator.  I'm quite
comfortable with ambiguities and contradictions once I'm confident that
that's what they are.  Even Tolstoy can nod.

Jud


Judson Rosengrant, PhD
PO Box 551 
Portland, OR 97207

503.880.9521 mobile
jrosengrant at earthlink.net

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