Topical Guide 43
Mark Dorset
Lodkochnikov, Ariane
This is the first appearance of Ariane:
Despite my apprehensions about Mr. Lodkochnikov’s temper, I felt comfortable in the Lodkochnikov household, and I would have wanted to return to it again and again even if Raskol hadn’t had a sister. As it happens, he did. Her name was Ariane. She lurked in the shadows like a dream. Her hair and eyes were dark, and the aura of sexual desire when she was in the room was so strong at times that it filled the air like scent and made my head reel. I’m not sure whether it came from her or me. . . .
Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy”
She figures prominently in Where Do You Stop? and she stars in What a Piece of Work I Am.
Wishful Thinking
As I recall, on most of my visits Ariane would be prowling around the house in a slip, rubbing against door jambs or running her hands over her hips and purring. In hot weather, she wore tiny cotton underpants and a sleeveless undershirt. It was that outfit that she was wearing now, while she cleaned the spilled chowder from the floor.
Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy”
Yeah, sure.
River, as a Metaphor for Life’s Journey
“Think of Thoreau and his brother, whatever his name was, and what about Huck Finn and his old pal Jim, and I don’t know who else, river travelers all. Why, why,” he spluttered, and his eyes bulged, “growing up itself is like a journey. . . . You start out,” he said, “as just a little trickle, and you go here and you go there, and you grow bigger and deeper, and you have to turn this way and that to get around rocks, and you have some grand times, and you have some awful times, and eventually—”
He swallowed hard, and his eyes misted over.
“—eventually, you come to the sea, and your journey is done, and you’re a river no more.”Mr. Lodkochnikov, in Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy”
Mr. Lodkochnikov would have agreed with the Christensen sisters in this, and probably in nothing else. (By the way, Thoreau’s brother’s name was John.)
Name, What’s in a
“We’ll get to work on a boat right away,” [Mr. Lodkochnikov] said at last. “You came to the right man, boys. We Lodkochnikovs have been boatmen since time immemorial.”
Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy”
In Russian, Лодочник (Lodochnik) means “boatman.”
[more to come on Tuesday, July 13, 2021]
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