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Re: Query: chuckrick / xuxrik (khukhrik) in Invitation to a
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EDITOR's NOTE.
See below.
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From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
"Chuckricks/khukhriki" occurs in Chapter 6, when C. is anticipating his
wife's visit and is imagining what Marthe may be doing that hour. He
envisions Marthe "pick[ing] out some fruit" and "a famed punster, a
gluttonous, coxcombed old man in red trousers, ... gorging himself on
fried chuckricks at a Pavilion on the Lesser Ponds." In Russian, the same
sentence reads: "zhadnyi, khoklatyi starik... pozhiraet, obzhigaias',
podzharennye khukhriki..." Given the bird and hair motif in "khukhriki,"
if it's indeed there, the fact that the old man is "khokhlatyi" which
means possessing a crest or tuft of hair, as in birds, is, probably,
rather significant.
Galya Diment
------------------------------------------------------------- EDITOR'S
COMMENT. This sounds completely plausible. Any close reader of VN's prose
knows that his sentences (notwithstanding the precision of his word
choices) are often "sound-driven." Once the Russ. word "khoklatyi"
(coxcombed) is in place (amidst all those ZHs) the motivation for
"khrukhriki" is strong. Retention of the latter in the English version
nicely echoes the "coxcomb" and retains the underlying bird with a top
knot image. The whole thing is both the Russian and English is absolutely
ingenious. And to think that we blundered on to this gem because someone
wondered what a "chuckrick" is!
See below.
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From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
"Chuckricks/khukhriki" occurs in Chapter 6, when C. is anticipating his
wife's visit and is imagining what Marthe may be doing that hour. He
envisions Marthe "pick[ing] out some fruit" and "a famed punster, a
gluttonous, coxcombed old man in red trousers, ... gorging himself on
fried chuckricks at a Pavilion on the Lesser Ponds." In Russian, the same
sentence reads: "zhadnyi, khoklatyi starik... pozhiraet, obzhigaias',
podzharennye khukhriki..." Given the bird and hair motif in "khukhriki,"
if it's indeed there, the fact that the old man is "khokhlatyi" which
means possessing a crest or tuft of hair, as in birds, is, probably,
rather significant.
Galya Diment
------------------------------------------------------------- EDITOR'S
COMMENT. This sounds completely plausible. Any close reader of VN's prose
knows that his sentences (notwithstanding the precision of his word
choices) are often "sound-driven." Once the Russ. word "khoklatyi"
(coxcombed) is in place (amidst all those ZHs) the motivation for
"khrukhriki" is strong. Retention of the latter in the English version
nicely echoes the "coxcomb" and retains the underlying bird with a top
knot image. The whole thing is both the Russian and English is absolutely
ingenious. And to think that we blundered on to this gem because someone
wondered what a "chuckrick" is!