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RUSSIAN_PLOT

                                              March 21, 2005


   
There are many places    
where John Dickson Carr           UNLIKELY_CONFESSION
sneers at Russian novelists.                  
                     

  Dr. Fell blinked at his cigar.  "But that's quite right,
  nevertheless.  It wouldn't be true to life.  It wouldn't
  be true to life, for instance, if a modern novelist
  devoted to motives for murder the same profound and
  detailed analysis he devotes to little Bertie's early life
  among the dandelions, or the sinister Freudian motives
  behind his desire to kiss the housemaid.  Humph.  When an
  inhibition bites a man, it's a fine novel.  When a man up
  and bites an inhibition, it's only a detective story."

  "The Russians--" said J. R.

  "I knew it," said Dr. Fell querulously.  "I was afraid of
  that.  I decline to discuss the Russians.  After long and
  thoughtful reflection, I have come to the conclusion that
  the only adequate answer to one who begins rhapsodizing
  about the Russians is a swift uppercut to the jaw.
  Besides, I find it absolutely impossible to become
  passionately interested in the agonies and misfortunes of
  any character whose name ends in 'ski' or 'vitch.'  This
  may be insularity.  It may also be a disturbing sense
  that, from what I read, these people are not human beings
  at all.  Ah, God," said Dr. Fell musingly, "if only
  somebody would make a bad pun! If only Popoff would say
  to Whiskervitch, 'Who was that lady I seen you with last
  night?' Try to imagine a conversation, in the after life,
  between Mark Twain or Anatole France and any of the
  leading Russians, and you will have some vague glimmering
  of what I mean."

        -- Dr. Gideon Fell
           "The Eight of Swords" (1934)
           by John Dickson Carr
           Chapter 19 "A Highly Probable Story", p.212-213



                                        Now me, I was pleasantly
                                        surprised by "War and Peace":
                                        one of the few "Greatest Novels
                                        Ever Written" that lives up to
                                        it's reputation.

                                            WAR_AND_PEACE


                       "  'They are regular bandits, Dolohov
                       especially,' replied the visitor.  'He is
                       the son of Maria Ivanovna Dolohov, such a
                       worthy woman, but there! Can you imagine
                       it -- the three of them somehow got hold
                       of a bear, took it in a carriage with them
                       and set off to visit some actresses.  The
                       police hurried to interfere, and they
                       seized a police officer, tied him back to
                       back to the bear and then threw the bear
                       into the Moyka.  And there was the bear
                       swimming about with the policeman on his
                       back!"
                         'What a figure the officer must have
                       cut, my dear!' cried the count, helpless
                       with laughter.  "

                            -- "War and Peace", Book I, p. 41,
                       Penguin paperback edition translated by
                       Rosemary Edmunds




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