Ilf & Petrov’s Excellent Adventure
Sep. 13th, 2019 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhen I finished reading Ilf & Petrov’s Little Golden America, I found that I had collected about three pages worth of quotes, which is obviously more than is ideal for a DW post, so I am trying to both winnow them down and simultaneously organize them into some sort of coherent whole.
It occurred to me that it might be best to start off with a post to give you the lay of the land, as it were. When Ilf and Petrov arrived in New York in 1935, they spoke English, but not so proficiently that they wanted to venture across the continent without an interpreter - and, in any case, they needed to find someone who could act as a driver, too, because neither of them knew how to drive well enough to make the journey. (Contemplate for a moment the audacity of undertaking to write a road trip book when you don’t know how to drive.)
Here, incidentally, is their description of New York: “New York is not one of those cities where people move slowly. The people who passed us did not walk, they ran. And so we, too, ran. From that moment on we could not stop. We spent a whole month in New York, and throughout that time we were constantly racing somewhere at top speed. Simultaneously, we acquired such a businesslike and preoccupied air that John Pierpont Morgan, Jr., himself might have envied us. At our rate of speed he would have earned approximately sixty million dollars during that month. We earned somewhat less.”
But fate is on their side! They meet a Mr. Adams, who speaks fluent Russian because he once lived in the Soviet Union (and worked in a number of other countries besides; he was an engineer and followed his work around the world). Unfortunately, Mr. Adams didn’t know how to drive either… but his wife Becky did.
So envision these four setting out cross country in a brown Ford, the loquacious Mr. Adams chatting along all the while, bounding into new experiences with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy. When they visit a prison, he insists on sitting in the electric chair, just to get an idea what it might feel like to be a prisoner condemned to death.
After a particularly quiet day, for instance, this is how Mr. Adams meets a similarly loquacious stranger: “In the eyes of both men gleamed such an unquenchable and insane desire to talk that it was clear to us that they were bound to meet in the desert. They could not fail to meet. Only love at first sight flares up with such natural alacrity.”
But sometimes his constant chatter yields dividends, as when they drive through the canyons of the West and he offers this description: “‘If you like,’ said Mr. Adams, ‘I’ll sell you an excellent literary simile. How much will you give me for it? You won’t give me anything for it? You want it for nothing? Well, all right: The wind has written its history on these cliffs. Is it good? Write it down in your little books! I am sure I have enriched Russian literature with that.’”
It occurred to me that it might be best to start off with a post to give you the lay of the land, as it were. When Ilf and Petrov arrived in New York in 1935, they spoke English, but not so proficiently that they wanted to venture across the continent without an interpreter - and, in any case, they needed to find someone who could act as a driver, too, because neither of them knew how to drive well enough to make the journey. (Contemplate for a moment the audacity of undertaking to write a road trip book when you don’t know how to drive.)
Here, incidentally, is their description of New York: “New York is not one of those cities where people move slowly. The people who passed us did not walk, they ran. And so we, too, ran. From that moment on we could not stop. We spent a whole month in New York, and throughout that time we were constantly racing somewhere at top speed. Simultaneously, we acquired such a businesslike and preoccupied air that John Pierpont Morgan, Jr., himself might have envied us. At our rate of speed he would have earned approximately sixty million dollars during that month. We earned somewhat less.”
But fate is on their side! They meet a Mr. Adams, who speaks fluent Russian because he once lived in the Soviet Union (and worked in a number of other countries besides; he was an engineer and followed his work around the world). Unfortunately, Mr. Adams didn’t know how to drive either… but his wife Becky did.
So envision these four setting out cross country in a brown Ford, the loquacious Mr. Adams chatting along all the while, bounding into new experiences with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy. When they visit a prison, he insists on sitting in the electric chair, just to get an idea what it might feel like to be a prisoner condemned to death.
After a particularly quiet day, for instance, this is how Mr. Adams meets a similarly loquacious stranger: “In the eyes of both men gleamed such an unquenchable and insane desire to talk that it was clear to us that they were bound to meet in the desert. They could not fail to meet. Only love at first sight flares up with such natural alacrity.”
But sometimes his constant chatter yields dividends, as when they drive through the canyons of the West and he offers this description: “‘If you like,’ said Mr. Adams, ‘I’ll sell you an excellent literary simile. How much will you give me for it? You won’t give me anything for it? You want it for nothing? Well, all right: The wind has written its history on these cliffs. Is it good? Write it down in your little books! I am sure I have enriched Russian literature with that.’”
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Date: 2019-09-13 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-09-13 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-16 11:17 pm (UTC)http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/14/ameriPhoto.php
AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHS: THE ROAD
Ilya Ilf & Evgeny Petrov (first chapter)
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Date: 2019-09-17 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-17 08:39 pm (UTC)your fault
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Date: 2019-09-17 08:42 pm (UTC)...and also haven't read either of Ilf & Petrov's two other important books (The Golden Calf or The Twelve Chairs), which I'm sure I ought to do something about. Must check the library.
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Date: 2019-09-16 11:38 pm (UTC)https://www.rferl.org/a/ilf_petrov_adventure_look_back_soviet_writers_1935_us-trip/2261530.html
A photo of Ilf and Petrov in New York in 1935 (from Aleksandra Ilf archive)
Aleksandra Ilf, the only child of Ilya Ilf, was only a few months old when her father took off for the United States. At the time -- with very few baby-care items available in Moscow -- her mother asked Ilf to bring baby supplies that could last for two years.
"Ilf brought just a few things back from the U.S. because they had very little time [to shop]," Aleksandra recalls. "Besides they were planning to have a stop-over in Paris where his brother's wife could have bought all that was needed."
Later, when Aleksandra Ilf would become the guardian of Ilf and Petrov's literary legacy, she would carry a business card that read "The daughter of Ilf and Petrov."
THE DUDES IN NY https://gdb.rferl.org/A94A0EEA-15B0-474C-94BF-5FE10D400B1D_mw800_s.jpg
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Date: 2019-09-17 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-09-25 12:15 am (UTC)