Word: backbend
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...narrative does a complicated backbend, for instance, in order to refer to a Russian restaurant in London named "the Sutky (so called because it was open day and night)." This comes at a point weighty with literary allusions to Crime and Punishment, so the reader suspects hidden meanings and looks up sutky. No allusions here; all it means is "a day and a night." Marvelous; now we know another Russian word. Perhaps the scraps in Welsh, Turkish, Greek and Hebrew offer magical insights, perhaps not. The suspicion is that they are simply authentic sound effects. You skip them...
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