the crocodile

Here's russian review..in case the link goes dead..Its russian so its a mix of big D and a critiq of Eduard Limonov.

Fiction&Fact
Alla Latynina

On January 13, 1865, a certain over-confident gentleman got a whim to tickle the nose of a crocodile peacefully dozing in a puddle. Suddenly he found himself tightly clamped between the reptile's jaws and the next thing he knew he was being swallowed alive. This did not seem to harm him much, though, for the crocodile proved incapable of digesting its offender. Better still, the gentleman's vanity was rewarded. "I've long been waiting for a chance to have everyone talk about me... Now I have achieved my ambition by the simple expedient of a crocodile's gulp. My every word will be heeded, every utterance considered, passed on and printed. I'll show them all who I am!" Thus boasted the hero of Dostoevsky's short story The Crocodile. Since the gentleman incarcerated in the crocodile's belly talked all sorts of Nihilist rot and promised to invent "a new theory of economic relations" ("I'll disprove it all and be a latter-day Fourier"), and Chernyshevsky locked up in the Peter and Paul Fortress had just published his cult novel What Is To Be Done, in which he proved himself to be precisely a "latter-day Fourier," the entire journalist community saw The Crocodile as a lampoon of Chernyshevsky, and roundly condemned Dostoevsky.I was irresistibly reminded of Dostoevsky's ancient story when I heard an account of an old dissident's terse remark apropos of the book Eduard Limonov had written in prison: "He writes... And his stuff is published." Those who were kept behind bars under the decrepit Brezhnev regime (not to mention the "great age" so loved by Limonov) had the privilege of neither.

Eduard Limonov had been teasing the crocodile long and hard, giving it fillips on the nose, pulling its tail, and occasionally offering it friendship and cooperation. The crocodile turned away languidly, for which it had been repeatedly castigated.

One can recall dozens of articles whose authors fumed at the unrestricted sale of Limonov's offending paper with its "black list of nations," glorification of "young Beria followers," and useful tips on grenade throwing. They waxed ironic about Limonov's part in the National Bolsheviks' public displays: The Fuhrer sends his young stormtroopers to disfigure the Latvian Embassy facade and scatter about leaflets in Sevastopol; the milksops are tried for terrorism while their leader is writing features on heroism and recruits new yobs to fill his Black Shirt squads. It may not come amiss to remember that Limonov suggested using National Bolsheviks as security services' agents-provocateurs. This is no calumny to denigrate the unfortunate prisoner, for he himself describes, in his book My Political Biography, a meeting with an FSB general. "Vladimir Vasilyevich," I said, "there's no need to eavesdrop or shadow us, you should be friends with us. Let us work together... There are areas, aren't there, where the state cannot interfere. Because it cannot jeopardize its prestige, attack embassies, organize demos here and there, while we can do all that." The general, to give him credit, refused.

In short, the crocodile had had enough. But when it finally snapped its jaws, the result was a replica of Dostoevsky's story. Articles and letters by French, American, etc. intellectuals came fast and furious; Putin, the State Duma, and the FSB were appealed to, as were the Russian authorities and international human rights organizations. "Poets and songbirds must never be caged" - this is the opening line of Israeli culture figures' letter to the president of Russia. "Word should be fought against by verbal means, not by brute police force." Very well put!

As for foreign human rights organizations, of the Amnesty International kind, they must be utterly unable to conceive that in this despotic country a writer can be locked up for something other than his books.

As for Limonov, the theory of his being persecuted for his views, articles and books does not tally with the fact that the Federal Security Service does not in any way prevent him from writing more articles and books in his cell, and publishing them to boot, which, incidentally, Limonov himself admits in one of the interviews. One of his prison creations was My Political Biography, a species of Mein Kampf (Limonov and his admirers ought to be flattered by the comparison, for the "great parties of the 20th century" - the Fascists, the Bolsheviks, and the Nazis - are direct forerunners of the National Bolsheviks, as their leader likes to repeat). A curious piece of writing. Excellent material for a psychoanalyst. Reading it, one begins to think that all this hectic party activity by Limonov is merely a consequence of blurred boundaries between literature and life. Suppose the armed struggle for Russians' rights in Kazakhstan, and preparation of an uprising, and purchases of weapons are no more than an artistic project?

"Prison entitles one to greatness. I believe the Fates have specially marked me out: In this philistine age without heroes I have been accused of 'crimes' that even the most glorious mutineers of the past would not be ashamed of," says Limonov in dialogue with the jingoist writer Alexander Prokhanov. So at the upcoming trial Limonov will have to choose between "greatness" and a "not guilty" verdict, while the court will have to engage in a kind of literary criticism - drawing a boundary between fiction and reality. If I were Limonov's counsel for the defense, I would think twice before trying to prove that he has committed no acts of "heroism" but simply made up the lot, in the manner of Baron Munchausen. For in that case the court's "not guilty" verdict might sound a death-knell for Limonov the writer.