Abstract

The Irishman in Larrovitch

This article focuses on the book "Feodor Vladimir Larrovitch," edited by William George Jordon and Richardson Wright. This slender volume that gives an account of writer Feodor Vladimir Larrovitch, his birthplace, parents and life, is a neat piece of book publishing with abundant illustrations. As an introduction to a new but now disputed writer, it owes much to a handful of American writers. While at Kiev, Larrovitch was a wrestler, a broadsword fencer, and a boxer. He was even a vamp and "rail with the machine," a very Irish trait. His youthful likeness is negative, but the one as an elderly man shows very distinctly the Irish strain, though not so fully as his father's. Then there are his failings, which include love-making of a rather unscrupulous kind, and his weakness for drink. He was superstitious enough to consult a crystal globe in order to explore the future.