concept
The Roach (social type)
Roach
also: Плотва
In "A Fishy Business"'s allegory, the roach -- sickly and marginal -- is mapped onto two overlapping figures: the perennial theatrical extra and the hack translator churning out poor work for the era's thick literary journals.
Reading notes
- A Fishy Business §24 The Roach
The roach (plotva), sickly and marginal, is mapped onto two overlapping figures: the perennial theatrical extra (statist) and the hack translator churning out poor work for the "fat journals" (tolstye zhurnaly) -- the thick literary monthlies that were the era's dominant publishing format, here a dig at journeyman literary labor.