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the "I haven't eaten" thing...

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If it is interesting, I have one commentary concerning my and Sephia’s previous posts for our comrades who are not familiar with Soviet culture.
There is a cult Soviet satiric novel Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov. It has the sequel titled Golden Calf by the same authors. The novels were written in 1928 and 1931. They are still popular although my father says they are not so interesting now. He says I don’t understand some things. From my part I think I always may ask him to explain.
The main character of the novels is Ostap Bender, a legend character, an improvisator, a gifted resilient swindler. The authors called him a great schemer. In the Twelve Chairs he and his companion Kisa Vorobyaninov were looking for treasure hidden in one of twelve chairs. The treasure belonged to Vorobyaninov’s family before October Revolution of 1917. After the Revolution the property of noble families was confiscated and distributed to different places. Ten years later Vorobyaninov’s mother-in-law on her deathbed said to her son-in-law she had hidden the treasure into one of twelve chairs from the suite of furniture. After that two companions began their finding. During their mission they needed money. Once Ostap occupied himself with making fools of people and made Kisa Vorobyaninov to go begging. When Vorobyaninov was begging he was speaking three languages, “Monsieur! I haven’t eaten for six days (in French) . Give me, please a few kopecks for a piece of bread (in German) . Give something to a former deputy of the State Duma (in Russian) .” The first phrase is the most known. In the text of the novel all the words are written with Cyrillic letters, so I don’t know how they are spelled in French or German.

Sorry for the reference on the novel which hardly has English version. I often have associations with Russian realities and Russian culture.

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AAnnAArchy said:
I'm reading Hitching Rides with Buddha by Will Ferguson. It's about a Canadian hitchhiking through Japan - apparently the first person ever to do so. It's a fascinating book and it makes me want to go to Japan as soon as I can afford the trip.

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Did you read Shogun by James Clavell? It is one of the most magnificent books I have ever read! It is about Englishman in Japan in the beginning of 17 century. There is the television serial of the same name. Absolutely different culture, different religion, different principles of life… The novel is not easy to read, but it makes a great impression.

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Cornflower said:

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AAnnAArchy said:
I'm reading Hitching Rides with Buddha by Will Ferguson. It's about a Canadian hitchhiking through Japan - apparently the first person ever to do so. It's a fascinating book and it makes me want to go to Japan as soon as I can afford the trip.

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Did you read Shogun by James Clavell? It is one of the most magnificent books I have ever read! It is about Englishman in Japan in the beginning of 17 century. There is the television serial of the same name. Absolutely different culture, different religion, different principles of life… The novel is not easy to read, but it makes a great impression.

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No, I haven't, but it sounds really interesting. I'll have to pick up a used copy because I'm assuming with the horrible schedule I've been keeping lately (I'm so sorry that I haven't been around and that I've let spammy posts stay up - I started a new job and I've been working my butt off trying to get caught up for all the time I lost after my back surgery last year) that it's going to take me quite a while to get through it.

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