Benny's job ("kook"
Terrance
lycidas2 at earthlink.net
Fri Jan 19 11:25:47 CST 2001
jbor wrote:
> >
> >
> > Kook is a nick name. So what?
>
> And "cucarachito" means little cockroach in Spanish. It is not the boy's
> given name at all, and represents a cultural/linguistic propensity which is
> echoed in the "coco/cocodrilo" example.
Right, the boy's call him "Kook." He never objects to being
called "Kook" ( English Slang. A person regarded as strange,
eccentric, or crazy. [Possibly from cuckoo.]), but replies.
His nick name is "Kook." He doesn't seem to be crazy or
eccentric, but a very typical, if not stereotypical Puerto
Rican boy from Uptown. The narrator says, Benny fell asleep
on the Shuttle and "He was awakened close to noon by three
Puerto Rican kids named Tolito, Jose and Kook, short for
Cucarachito." So the kids or someone gave him the nickname
him "Cucarachito" (a very offensive nickname, not a name
that would stick, at least not with friends when they are
getting along) and then shortened the nickname to "Kook."
And this clearly represents a cultural/linguistic
propensity. And it makes sense that this propensity is also
apparent in the "coco/cocodrilo" example. And isn't it the
case that cultural/linguistic propensity also explains why
"Alligator" is translated as "cocodrilo" in paragraph two of
chapter 5? Of course. So Coco has nothing to do with
Nicaragua or Vietnam. The military setting is all part of
the bosses dream. With Benny involved here, we have two
decades at play, the 1930s and the 1950s. It's the Cold War
here in V. that P is mocking.
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