The Reader Travels

In George Bird’s translation of Dostoevsky’s The Double, there’s a scene in the beginning of the story where the hero is described as being “as pleased as Punch.” My first instinct was to blurt out, “What?”

I thought to myself, why would Mr. Bird translate the Russian story into English cliches? I mean, how cheesy is that? But when I started researching it, I found that Punch and Judy are characters known by Russians and Britons, Germans and Italians alike.

Dostoevsky was most certainly comparing Mr. Golyadkin to that crazy little paranoid puppet. The Double even had a character (who could very well have been one of Mr. Golyadkin’s personalities) named Petruschka, which just so happens to be Punch’s alias whenever he tours Russia.

Punch and Judy puppet shows are not what you’d call politically correct, what with all that raunchiness and violence. Sadly, it’s just not funny to beat up your wife anymore, not even with Punch’s signature slap stick. Despite all the political correctness, it’s good to know there are still “professors” of Punch and Judy puppet shows in most of the English speaking nations of the world.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Russia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.