Earlier, I wrote that I had decided to reread the duology about Ostap Bender, which I had previously read only as a teenager. After finishing the “most complete” version of The Twelve Chairs, I picked up a similar edition of the second novel, The Golden Calf. This one is also presented as “The complete version of the novel without omissions or cuts.”
According to legend, the authors hadn’t planned to write a second novel—the first was self-contained, and Ostap Bender dies at the end. The authors even claimed they flipped a coin to decide whether he would live or die. But after the wild success of the first book, it would have been odd if they hadn’t gone ahead with a sequel. Although there is an opinion that the continuation had been planned much earlier, and the rest is just a neat and officially supported legend.
In the first novel, there were two main characters—Kisa Vorobyaninov and Ostap Bender himself. But it was clear who was playing the first violin, who was the thinker and driving force in the duo. Without Ostap, Kisa likely wouldn’t have recovered a single chair. That’s why the second book has no connection to the “leader of the Russian nobility” and instead puts the resurrected Ostap fully in the spotlight, now accompanied by new helpers who are significantly more useful (though still no match for him). As for his death, Ostap mentions it only in passing: someone did try to kill him, but brave Soviet medicine managed to save his life. The only reminder is a clearly visible scar from a razor cut on his neck.
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