Book contents
- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transliteration and Translation
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Promised Lands
- Part II New York and the Eastern States
- Part III To the Pacific Ocean
- 13 The Road
- 14 Frozen Meat, Salty Butter, and Other American Delicacies
- 15 The Nationalities Question
- 16 A Laboratory of Anthropology
- 17 New Mexico Moderns
- 18 Can You Kid a Kidder?
- 19 The Man in the Red Shirt
- 20 Natural Wonders and Technical Marvels
- 21 The American Dneprostroi
- Part IV The Golden State
- Part V Journey’s End
- Select Bibliography
- Index
17 - New Mexico Moderns
from Part III - To the Pacific Ocean
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2024
- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transliteration and Translation
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Promised Lands
- Part II New York and the Eastern States
- Part III To the Pacific Ocean
- 13 The Road
- 14 Frozen Meat, Salty Butter, and Other American Delicacies
- 15 The Nationalities Question
- 16 A Laboratory of Anthropology
- 17 New Mexico Moderns
- 18 Can You Kid a Kidder?
- 19 The Man in the Red Shirt
- 20 Natural Wonders and Technical Marvels
- 21 The American Dneprostroi
- Part IV The Golden State
- Part V Journey’s End
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 17 reconstructs Ilf and Petrov’s encounters with the members of the artist colonies in Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico. A letter of introduction from John Dos Passos to the poet Witter (Hal) Bynner gave the writers entrée into the community of New Mexico moderns, but they learned little about it. This was among the great lost opportunities of the trip. Bynner was a literary trickster of the sort that the two Soviet funnymen would have appreciated. Following the poet’s advice about where “to go to see Indians,” they chanced to meet Alexandra Fechin, the former wife of the Russian émigré painter Nicolai Fechin. They quickly classified her as another unhappy immigrant. That she moved in the same American modernist circles as “the famous American poet” Witter Bynner does not seem to have crossed their minds.
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- Information
- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the CapitalistsIlf and Petrov's American Road Trip, pp. 175 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024