Subject
Mr and Mrs. Gutter Perchers, acrobats and "Ch" sound in DAR
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While reading the programme of an entrancing performance, Dreyer comments on 'the Gutter-Perchers, who ever they are, and then a world-famous conjuror.' ( 820) The word "gutta-percha" ( a kind of resilient cautchuck,used as insulator and for dental fillings) appears again, now with the correct spelling, on page 883, when Dreyer and the Inventor are relieved to discover that a rival automannequin is not made of voskin, but is covered by that artificial rubber.
Beside the play with "percha/perch" ( VN's characters often "perch", like birds), we may learn from "Dar" ( The Gift, CCC's page 340), from a discussion about synesthaesia and Rimbaud's "audition colorée":
"If I had some paints handy I would mix burnt-sienna and sepia for you so as to match the colour of a gutta-percha "ch" sound..."
One of our generous EDs, SB, helped me off-list with feathering and swallows. He wrote:
"Looks like "feathering" was an inspiration of translation? Or, perhaps more likely, the "lastochka" comes in because VN wanted to convey the attractive English metaphor "feathering", which he knew from rowing at Cambridge, and couldn't get at it with a literal translation (into Russian, that is)."
I have no idea if "lastochkas" are "perchers", but I think that readers that don't speak Russian might miss a lot of associative onomatopoeias in which the Russian language is lurking in the background - if these burnt-sienna sepia colored "ch" have a similar sound as in "lastochka","perch" or "gutta-percha".
L'irondelle ( a lastochka?) is associated to Sybil Shade in Pale Fire, and she is one of the perchers...
What the Russian for "waxwing"?
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Beside the play with "percha/perch" ( VN's characters often "perch", like birds), we may learn from "Dar" ( The Gift, CCC's page 340), from a discussion about synesthaesia and Rimbaud's "audition colorée":
"If I had some paints handy I would mix burnt-sienna and sepia for you so as to match the colour of a gutta-percha "ch" sound..."
One of our generous EDs, SB, helped me off-list with feathering and swallows. He wrote:
"Looks like "feathering" was an inspiration of translation? Or, perhaps more likely, the "lastochka" comes in because VN wanted to convey the attractive English metaphor "feathering", which he knew from rowing at Cambridge, and couldn't get at it with a literal translation (into Russian, that is)."
I have no idea if "lastochkas" are "perchers", but I think that readers that don't speak Russian might miss a lot of associative onomatopoeias in which the Russian language is lurking in the background - if these burnt-sienna sepia colored "ch" have a similar sound as in "lastochka","perch" or "gutta-percha".
L'irondelle ( a lastochka?) is associated to Sybil Shade in Pale Fire, and she is one of the perchers...
What the Russian for "waxwing"?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm