Word: fyodor
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Nabokov's young hero is very like the young Nabokov. Count Fyodor Godu-nov-Cherdyntsev is in his early 20s, living in exile in Berlin, struggling not to be crippled by memories of the ancient family estate in Leshino, and trying to get his poetry and prose published in impoverished emigre magazines. His sister marries and leaves for Paris; he meets and falls in love with Zina, a remotely fragile German girl. All of this is simple, and corresponds roughly to the facts of Nabokov's own life...
...from the first page, the reader is off fiction's flatlands into Nabokov's magic world. His aristocratic Fyodor is a lord of language, and this patrimony cannot be expropriated...
...PETTY DEMON (355 pp.)-Fyodor Sologub-Random House...
...glutton and compulsive sucker on caramels, Peredonov is the anti-hero of Fyodor Sologub's classic. The Petty Demon, a glittering fantasy that had enormous success in Russia when it came out in 1907 but has not been widely read elsewhere. (This deft translation is the first time it has been reissued in the U.S. since 1916.) A poor schoolteacher in an ugly 19th century provincial town, Peredonov hopes to be appointed inspector of schools through the intercession of his vulgar mistress Varvara with a powerful princess...
Only Lee J. Cobb as old Fyodor Karamazov manages to do justice to his role, and he completely steals the show. From the opening moments of the film where he is seen tickling the feet of a gypsy girl to his unforgettable scene with Father Zossima, he is nearly perfect...