Chapter 6 of Pelevin’s «Жёлтая стрела» (The Yellow Arrow) begins with this bravura passage which wouldn’t be out of place in Pynchon (the setting is the train called the Yellow Arrow, from which there is no escape and on which the passengers spend their lives):
Andrei unfolded the fresh copy of Put′ [‘The Way/Track,’ a railroad periodical] to the center spread, where there was a heading “Rails and Ties,” under which the most interesting articles were usually printed. Across the entire top of the sheet was a bold inscription:
TOTAL ANTHROPOLOGY He made himself comfortable, folded the paper in half, and immersed himself in reading:
“The clattering of the wheels that accompanies each of us from birth to death is, of course, the sound most familiar to us. Scientists have estimated that there are some twenty thousand imitations of it in the languages of various peoples, of which about eighteen thousand belong to dead languages; most of these forgotten sounds cannot be reproduced from the scanty surviving records, which have often not even been deciphered. They are, as Paul Simon would say, songs that voices never share. But the imitations that now exist in every language are of course quite varied and interesting; some anthropologists even consider them at the level of metalanguage, as cultural passwords, so to speak, by which people recognize their neighbors in the carriage. The longest turned out to be an expression used by pygmies from the Cannabis Plateau in Central Africa; it goes like this:
U-ku-le-le-u-ka-la-la-o-be-o-be-o-ba-o-ba.
The shortest imitation is the plosive p, which is used by the inhabitants of the upper Amazon. And here is how the wheels clatter in different countries of the world.
In America, it’s gingerel-gingerel.
In the Baltic countries it’s pa-duba-dam.
In Poland – pan pan.
In Bengal – chug-chung.
In Tibet – dzog-chen.
In France – clico-clico.
In the Turkic-speaking republics of Central Asia – bir-sum, bir-som, and bir-manat.
In Iran – avdal-hallaj.
In Iraq – jalal-iddi.
In Mongolia it is ulan-dalai. (Interestingly, in Inner Mongolia the wheels are knocked quite differently – un-ger-khan-khan.)
In Afghanistan – nakshbandi nakshbandi.
In Persia – karnak-zebub.
In Ukraine – hrikh-tarararukh.
In Germany – wril-schrapp.
In Japan – dodeska-zen.
The aborigines of Australia have tulup.
The mountain peoples of the Caucasus and, as is typical, the Basques have darlan-bichesyn.
In North Korea – uldu-chu-che.
In South Korea – duldu-kwan-um.
In Mexico (especially among the Huichotl Indians) – tonal-nagwal.
In Yakutia – tydyn-tygydyn.
In Northern China – tsao-tsao-tang-tieng.
In Southern China – de-i-chan-chan.
In India – bhai ghosh.
In Georgia – koba-tsap.
In Israel – taki-bats-buber-bum.
In England – click-o-click (in Scotland – glyuk-o-clock).
In Ireland – bla, bla, bla.
In Argentina…”
Andrew shifted his gaze to the very bottom of the page, where the long columns of lists ended with a short final paragraph:
“But, of course, the wheels clatter most beautifully, sincerely, and tenderly in Russia – tam-tam [as words: ‘there-there’]. It seems as if their clattering is pointing to some bright dawn distance – there she is, there, the beloved one…”.
Some of them have obvious origins (American gingerel = ginger ale, French clico = Veuve Clicquot, Inner Mongolian un-ger is from Baron Ungern, Afghan nakshbandi from the Sufi order, Georgian koba from Stalin’s nickname “Koba”), and some of them are just funny (Indian “by gosh”). As for Japan, in the magazine publication I linked to it’s додеска-дзен, but in the book version I have it’s додеска-ден = Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den; I don’t know whether one of them is a misprint or whether he changed his mind.
For the original Russian, click the link in the first line of the post and scroll down to “Андрей развернул свежий “Путь” на центральном развороте.” And for tam-tam in Andrei Bely, see this 2010 post.
I also recognize the Tibetan “dzog-chen”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen
Avdal-Hallaj for Persian is equally mystical. Makes an odd contrast with the crass materialism of bir som and bir manat…
Others’ opinions may differ, and of course it may work better within the broader context of the full work; however, I found the “Sounds of Silence” reference weirdly off-putting. It seemed both inapt and utterly out of place amidst the surrounding nonsense.*
While I assumed that Cannabis Plateau was fictional, I Googled the name anyway, and I found this business in Ottawa: “We are Canada’s first data-driven cannabis retail store.”
Others’ opinions may differ, and of course it may work better within the broader context of the full work; however, I found the “Sounds of Silence” reference weirdly off-putting. It seemed both inapt and utterly out of place amidst the surrounding nonsense.
I’m pretty sure Russians have a very different relationship with Paul Simon than Yanks, Brits, etc. Maybe I’ve been infected, but I found it funny.
Never, but never, have I heard the sound of wheels here in England going ‘click-o-click’!
bir-som and bir-manat made me smile in a smile of recognition. Koba-tsap is spooky.
Never, but never, have I heard the sound of wheels here in England going ‘click-o-click’!
Maybe not, but it’s a more plausible representation than most of these. Plausibility is not a concern here. (Note, inter alia, the inclusion of both Persia and Iran.)
bir-som and bir-manat made me smile in a smile of recognition.
Yes indeed. (Both mean ‘one ruble,’ and they can be seen on, e.g., this 1938 one-ruble bill.)
click-o-click, whatever its other faults, is a great setup for глюк-о’clock
it’s a more plausible representation than most of these.
On the other hand, dodes’ka-den actually is a representation of clattering wheels.
click-o-click, whatever its other faults, is a great setup for глюк-о’clock
It sure is.
Actually N.Korean is “uldu-juche” (nod to official ideology), no idea whether “uldu” has any meaning.
I am not sure how much interest there is in finding what any of those “mean” (very scarry quotes). Just in case, Ukrainian begins with гpix = sin and then “tararuh” is conventionalized sound of noise (usually “tararah” though); Israeli with “taki” a “discourse particle” (scare quotes again) whith which Jews stereotypically begin every utterance and then in “batz-buber-boom” batz and boom are again conventionalized noise sounds. Indian “bhai” came from “Hindi rusi bhai bhai” and “ghosh” is probably from Sri Aurobindo Ghose.
Thanks! It’s interesting to me, anyway.
@Brett: “I found the “Sounds of Silence” reference weirdly off-putting. It seemed both inapt and utterly out of place amidst the surrounding nonsense.”
Come on, it’s just a pop song. But whatever it might be, it’s mentioned in a paper the protagonist is reading. Like most things aboard the Yellow Arrow, the paper is pretty crappy. That world resembles both the late Soviet and early post-Soviet reality so the silly op-ed fits right in.
Typical of early Pelevin, it’s an escape story. A Buddhist escape story, some would add. The protagonist finds his way out of the train by reinterpreting its unpalatable world in ways that seem absurd or crazy.
Reminds me of Rabelais’s long lists, which are extravagantly meaningless in context but are comprised of meaningful parts. In one place a character justifies himself with an extended footnote referencing a number of legal cases in unintelligible abbreviated legalese, and someone liked them all up in a law library and found out the all of the cases were real.
But did not say whether these real legal cases made Rabelais’s joke funnier if you knew what they were.
It was diddle-ee-dee, diddle-ee-dah here in England. So much so that the phrase was used in an advertising campaign for the Motorail system for transporting cars: ‘Diddle-ee-dee, diddle-ee-dah, let’s take the car”. That was long, long ago. Continuously welded track came in more than a generation ago and put paid to the rhythm we all loved.
U-ku-le-le-u-ka-la-la-o-be-o-be-o-ba-o-ba sounds like the chorus to Nazaré Pereira’s Maculelê: Maculelê Maculalá Obê obê Obá obá… Maculelê being a dance performed by a circle of dancers rhythmically striking sticks.
I’m a bit confused as to how I can _almost_ understand Pelevin’s prose in the original Russian, without have studied any Russian, just by having Bulgarian as my mother tongue. I don’t think I have that with any other Russian author. In «Жёлтая стрела» and «Принц Госплана» especially.
U-ku-le-le-u-ka-la-la-o-be-o-be-o-ba-o-ba sounds like the chorus to Nazaré Pereira’s Maculelê
Thanks very much for that — I had just assumed he was making up some funny syllables!
I’m a bit confused as to how I can _almost_ understand Pelevin’s prose in the original Russian, without have studied any Russian, just by having Bulgarian as my mother tongue. I don’t think I have that with any other Russian author.
Very odd indeed. Further study is needed…
And now that I google Nazaré Pereira’s Maculelê and find it on YouTube, I realize that not only is it familiar, I actually own Brazil Classics, Vol. 1: Beleza Tropical — I just haven’t listened to it in a long time. It’s a great album and I should put it at the top of the pile.
Was «Принц Госплана» translated into Korean or Japanese? Pelevin lived in Korea for a while in the ’90s, IIRC.
EDIT: Duckduckgoing “ゴスプランのプリンス” I found that it was, as 「ゴスプランの王子さま」. I’ll try with Korean too, now.
Was Prince (as in the musician) especially popular in Japan at some point? With katakana you get results (on duckduckgo) about him, and equally perplexing, you get a lot of results for Antoine Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince in Hiragana. Not a generic “prince” in either case. The English language Wikipedia article “Prince” links to an article on the Japanese language Wikipedia which is about what you would expect it to be about, in katakana.