It's Me, Eddie
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"It is they who have introduced a plague into this world. [...] The plague of money, the disease of money, the plague of buying; and selling is their handiwork [...] I hate this system, and I am not ashamed that my hatred has sprung from my wife's betrayal [...] I clear away your leftovers while my wife fucks and you amuse yourself with her [...] for the sole reason that there is an inequality, she has a cunt for which there are buyers, you, and I don't have a cunt [...] I'm going to blow up your world."--It's Me, Eddie (1979) by Eduard Limonov, cited in Can't Get You Out of My Head |
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It's Me, Eddie is the first novel by Russian writer and politician Eduard Limonov. The novel was written in New York in 1976, and published in Paris in 1979. When it was first published in Russia in 1991, it sold over a million copies.
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Plot
The plot is fictional but based on real experiences Limonov faced during his immigration to New York City.
The protagonist is a man named Eddichka, a Russian immigrant in New York City. His wife has just divorced him, and he is collecting welfare whilst working at a restaurant. Eddichka attends Trotskyist meetings. The text of the novel uses obscenities and naturalistic descriptions of explicit sexual scenes.
Publishing history
The novel was repeatedly published in Russian, French, and English. The novel has been called "the quintessential novel of the third wave emigration".
Reception
Zakhar Prilepin believes that this is "a genius book about human freedom, love, passion ... I was simply killed by it". Dmitry Bykov notes that this is a confessional and hysterical book, although The Diary of a Loser is the more important artistic achievement of Limonov (“even more poetry ... in some things more frank and subtle”). Joseph Brodsky , who composed the advertising text for the cover of the American edition, noted in private conversations that Limonov's confession is nothing new in the context of American literature.
The novel was mentioned in Adam Curtis's BBC documentary Can't Get You Out of My Head
See also
