Wow, this passage is pretty different in my Czech translation of the book, not in its sense, but its different.
I wonder if I would survive if I used this in an argument...
"The Russian people realized very long ago that life is no more than a dream. You know what a succubus is?"
"Yes," said Anna, with a smile. "A demon that takes female form to seduce a sleeping man. But what's the connection?"
I counted to ten again. My feelings had not changed.
"The most direct one possible. When they say in Russian vernacular that all women suck, the word "suck" as used in the phrase is actually derived from the word "succubus." An association which came to Russia via Catholicism. No doubt you remember - the seventeenth century, the Polish invasion, in other words, the Time of Troubles. That's what it goes back to. But I am wondering. All I wished to say was that the very phrase "all women suck,"" - I reiterated the words with genuine relish - "means in essence that life is no more than a dream. And so are all the bitches. That is, I meant to say, the women."
"Yes," said Anna, with a smile. "A demon that takes female form to seduce a sleeping man. But what's the connection?"
I counted to ten again. My feelings had not changed.
"The most direct one possible. When they say in Russian vernacular that all women suck, the word "suck" as used in the phrase is actually derived from the word "succubus." An association which came to Russia via Catholicism. No doubt you remember - the seventeenth century, the Polish invasion, in other words, the Time of Troubles. That's what it goes back to. But I am wondering. All I wished to say was that the very phrase "all women suck,"" - I reiterated the words with genuine relish - "means in essence that life is no more than a dream. And so are all the bitches. That is, I meant to say, the women."
I wonder if I would survive if I used this in an argument...
I couldn't imagine the succubus/suck joke being quite that way in any other language but English. Was there a similar wordplay in Czech along different lines?
Yes, the wordplay was based on the fact that the words woman, bitch and whore rhyme, it was even more offensive than the English version.
Maybe this can be discussed in the now-open book club thread, but I'd love to know those words
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
Schwarzenegger > ninjas and pirates 
- 14/05/2010 06:29:21 PM
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- 14/05/2010 06:29:21 PM
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I think I will need to get the Pelevin then. I have a lovely week off work next week. 
- 14/05/2010 06:32:57 PM
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- 14/05/2010 06:32:57 PM
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And here's an amusing passage (p. 123 in the hardcover edition)
- 14/05/2010 08:11:52 PM
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And then came the scene with the bottle of Champagne...
- 16/05/2010 12:35:46 AM
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Or you can say Schwarzenegger and samurai > ninjas and pirates
- 16/05/2010 12:28:54 AM
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- 16/05/2010 12:28:54 AM
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It was a mindtrip, to say the least
- 16/05/2010 12:43:12 AM
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Re: It was a mindtrip, to say the least
- 16/05/2010 10:13:34 AM
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When I see Segal, I think of a beardless Goodkind 
- 17/05/2010 02:23:41 AM
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- 17/05/2010 02:23:41 AM
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Well, even Goodkind could learn a thing or two from that Harrier sex scene.
- 17/05/2010 02:29:47 PM
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