Morris dancing, eh? Watching this lovely Guardian slide-show brought it all flooding back.
I remember our school May Day celebration - it was usually at the beginning of June because it always rained in early May. I was the only kid in my class with English parents, and most of the other classes had a similar make-up. I always found it so embarrassing to have to say, "My mum comes from Shepherd's Bush and my dad comes from Acton." All the other kids got to go to exciting places, because their parents came from Kenya or India or Holland or French Guyana or Turkey or Trinidad or Australia. Even Ireland was more exciting than Shepherd's Bush.
So there we were, all the shades of the rainbow, prancing around a maypole, looked upon by a benign May Queen and Jack in the Green. The oldest kids got to do popmobility to the strains of ABBA's Waterloo. It was already fairly ancient back then but Mrs. Salmon had worked the routine out once and she jolly well wasn't going to change the music, thank you. The Jehovah's Witnesses and Plymouth Brethrens weren't allowed to join in the fun, even though Alison was one of our best dancers. The year before, we'd still been wearing school-property red polka-dot skirts for our country dancing number - stripping the willow and dosie-do-ing with the boys in white shirts - but this time around it was shorts and T-shirts because we were so grown up - nearly teenagers!
Then Joanna's dad and his pals did some Morris dancing - also in white shirts, but with bells and hankies.
Of course, May Day in Berlin is slightly different.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Translating Shakespeare
In the Guardian books blog, Nicholas Lezard rants and rages against a "translation" of Shakespeare into yoofspeak. Most people have responded by saying, basically, "Get a life, mate." And I have to agree.
But strangely, I often find that literary translators take a similarly elitist view. I've mentioned the very talented Shakespeare translator Frank Günther before. He's another one who is seemingly only willing to accept the relevancy of translations between one national/ethnic/whatever language and another, but not between sociolects or the like. I recall his very memorable and entertaining inaugural speech as FU Guest Professor for the Poetics of Translation. He put on a great show, staging a dialogue between himself and Schlegel and reading some of his excellent solutions to Shakespeare's trickiest tongue-twisters and puns. But he played other types of Shakespeare translations for laughs, including Feridun Zaimoglu's gangsta versions (without naming the translator!) and modern "Shakespeare for Dummies" versions in English.
In fact, if you ask me, all the different types of translations are relevant - perhaps not for everyone, but at least for a couple of "niche markets". So while the Germans have the "classic" Schlegel-Tieck translations of Shakespeare for ringing all the right bells in readers' collective memory, they also have Günther's more modern and less gappy versions for getting the rhyme and the rhythm across, plus others that stick to what's on the page a little more closely. And they have Zaimoglu's Romeo and Juliet and Othello for those times you just want to hear lots of swearing.
Sadly, I think it's in the nature of translators' work that we tend to be less daring than writers, let's say. A rather long list of gender components in German bachelor's and master's degrees puts it like this:
Male and female translators and interpreters act at the interface of various linguistic and cultural systems. They are therefore particularly important as agents, who both influence language use and enjoy a certain freedom within it. At the same time, their professional role within the discourse system encourages them particularly strongly to behave in a conventional manner.
We often ask ourselves not "how would I say this in my language?" but "how do we say this in our language?" - meaning that we choose phrases and words that are firmly established. So many - but of course not all - German translators tend to be quite conservative about using sometimes unwieldy gender-neutral terms. And the VdÜ seems to do a roaring trade in Bastian Sick's humorous prescriptive grammar books at its annual get-togethers (think Eats, Shoots and Leaves in German).
Of course, our "professional role within the discourse system" means we are expected to uphold the linguistic status quo rather than create neologisms and break in new grammars. And part of our work is the business of imitation, by the very definition of translation. But still. Sometimes I'd like to just go the whole hog and write "dese spirits I done cited, man, I jus can't get dem to fuck off again."
But strangely, I often find that literary translators take a similarly elitist view. I've mentioned the very talented Shakespeare translator Frank Günther before. He's another one who is seemingly only willing to accept the relevancy of translations between one national/ethnic/whatever language and another, but not between sociolects or the like. I recall his very memorable and entertaining inaugural speech as FU Guest Professor for the Poetics of Translation. He put on a great show, staging a dialogue between himself and Schlegel and reading some of his excellent solutions to Shakespeare's trickiest tongue-twisters and puns. But he played other types of Shakespeare translations for laughs, including Feridun Zaimoglu's gangsta versions (without naming the translator!) and modern "Shakespeare for Dummies" versions in English.
In fact, if you ask me, all the different types of translations are relevant - perhaps not for everyone, but at least for a couple of "niche markets". So while the Germans have the "classic" Schlegel-Tieck translations of Shakespeare for ringing all the right bells in readers' collective memory, they also have Günther's more modern and less gappy versions for getting the rhyme and the rhythm across, plus others that stick to what's on the page a little more closely. And they have Zaimoglu's Romeo and Juliet and Othello for those times you just want to hear lots of swearing.
Sadly, I think it's in the nature of translators' work that we tend to be less daring than writers, let's say. A rather long list of gender components in German bachelor's and master's degrees puts it like this:
Male and female translators and interpreters act at the interface of various linguistic and cultural systems. They are therefore particularly important as agents, who both influence language use and enjoy a certain freedom within it. At the same time, their professional role within the discourse system encourages them particularly strongly to behave in a conventional manner.
We often ask ourselves not "how would I say this in my language?" but "how do we say this in our language?" - meaning that we choose phrases and words that are firmly established. So many - but of course not all - German translators tend to be quite conservative about using sometimes unwieldy gender-neutral terms. And the VdÜ seems to do a roaring trade in Bastian Sick's humorous prescriptive grammar books at its annual get-togethers (think Eats, Shoots and Leaves in German).
Of course, our "professional role within the discourse system" means we are expected to uphold the linguistic status quo rather than create neologisms and break in new grammars. And part of our work is the business of imitation, by the very definition of translation. But still. Sometimes I'd like to just go the whole hog and write "dese spirits I done cited, man, I jus can't get dem to fuck off again."
Friday, 25 April 2008
Prizewinning Zaimoglu Translation
"Inspired" by three percent, I see that three American PhD students, Kristin Dickinson, Robin Ellis and Priscilla Layne, have won the Susan Sontag Prize for Translation - for their as-yet unpublished version of Feridun Zaimoglu's Koppstoff: Kanaka Sprak vom Rande der Gesellschaft. The website describes the book as presenting "the fictionalized voices of 26 women of Turkish heritage living in Germany... Koppstoff challenges readers to rethink conventions of religion, nationalism and femininity, and is globally significant for its contribution to debates on immigration, assimilation and discrimination–issues that resonate far beyond Germany’s borders."
A Jungle World review closes: "The rage is deep-seated. The language is wild, dense, associative, poetic. It describes the situation in accordance with the different professions, characters and temperaments: the good German is enjoying building up his hell again." What I find interesting is that the book is already ten years old, and as such reflects what was going on back then - the birth of a movement, perhaps, that I vaguely followed at the time. Back then, Zaimoglu was still moving in activist circles, and was in at the beginning of the "transethnic activist network" Kanak Attak. I'd say the claim on the Susan Sontag website that he founded it all on his ownsome is sightly exaggerated, to say the least. But the group's manifesto dates back to November 1998 - so was probably written around the same time as Koppstoff.
What struck me at the time was that people - like me, in fact - were beginning to reject the demands for assimilation or even "integration" and say: Why should we fit in with your society? And I think that's probably reflected in Koppstoff. From Jungle World again, a quote from the book:
Mihriban, 30, greengrocer: "If you live in a house and make sure the fridge is always full, keep on going shopping like a good girl, but people look daggers at you every time you want to open the fridge and take out something to eat, can you feel at home?"
Zaimoglu seems to have mellowed with age. His latest novel, Liebesbrand, is about an amour fou, a man obsessed by a woman who helps him after a coach crash in Turkey. I had to put it aside, it just didn't stoke my boiler. And the people at Kanak Attak have gone rather quiet too - their latest project seems to be a set of T-shirts. Of course, things have changed hugely since 1998 - 9/11 has shifted the focus to religion rather than ethnicity, and Germany has changed its citizenship and immigration laws (although not nearly to the extent being called for at the time). The media people work in have shifted too - there's Kanak-TV now and Zaimoglu is a critical member of the government's Islam Conference. His 2006 play Schwarze Jungfrauen (Black Virgins) was a collection of monologues based on interviews with neo-Muslim women - perhaps a continuation of the Koppstoff theme, but not as ground-breaking as it was ten years ago.
So, an interesting choice. As I see it, the book is almost a historical document - of a very exciting time. I wish the translators luck for getting it published, and will be fascinated to read it. If you'd like to read Zaimoglu's more recent fiction in English, try Margot Bettauer Dembo's translations on Words Without Borders.
A Jungle World review closes: "The rage is deep-seated. The language is wild, dense, associative, poetic. It describes the situation in accordance with the different professions, characters and temperaments: the good German is enjoying building up his hell again." What I find interesting is that the book is already ten years old, and as such reflects what was going on back then - the birth of a movement, perhaps, that I vaguely followed at the time. Back then, Zaimoglu was still moving in activist circles, and was in at the beginning of the "transethnic activist network" Kanak Attak. I'd say the claim on the Susan Sontag website that he founded it all on his ownsome is sightly exaggerated, to say the least. But the group's manifesto dates back to November 1998 - so was probably written around the same time as Koppstoff.
What struck me at the time was that people - like me, in fact - were beginning to reject the demands for assimilation or even "integration" and say: Why should we fit in with your society? And I think that's probably reflected in Koppstoff. From Jungle World again, a quote from the book:
Mihriban, 30, greengrocer: "If you live in a house and make sure the fridge is always full, keep on going shopping like a good girl, but people look daggers at you every time you want to open the fridge and take out something to eat, can you feel at home?"
Zaimoglu seems to have mellowed with age. His latest novel, Liebesbrand, is about an amour fou, a man obsessed by a woman who helps him after a coach crash in Turkey. I had to put it aside, it just didn't stoke my boiler. And the people at Kanak Attak have gone rather quiet too - their latest project seems to be a set of T-shirts. Of course, things have changed hugely since 1998 - 9/11 has shifted the focus to religion rather than ethnicity, and Germany has changed its citizenship and immigration laws (although not nearly to the extent being called for at the time). The media people work in have shifted too - there's Kanak-TV now and Zaimoglu is a critical member of the government's Islam Conference. His 2006 play Schwarze Jungfrauen (Black Virgins) was a collection of monologues based on interviews with neo-Muslim women - perhaps a continuation of the Koppstoff theme, but not as ground-breaking as it was ten years ago.
So, an interesting choice. As I see it, the book is almost a historical document - of a very exciting time. I wish the translators luck for getting it published, and will be fascinated to read it. If you'd like to read Zaimoglu's more recent fiction in English, try Margot Bettauer Dembo's translations on Words Without Borders.
Thursday, 24 April 2008
More Meyer
Mister Clemens Meyer read at the Literary Colloquium last night.
I went along, accompanied in the carriage out to Wannsee by fourteen chatty nuns, all with matching glasses and black handbags. It was not unlike a small outing of septuagenarian schoolgirls. The sun was still shining as I arrived, and I settled down in a seat next to four young Finns - or perhaps Hungarians. Mister Clemens Meyer arrived late, as usual, but the weather had put the audience in a conciliatory mood, and there was little shuffling of impatient feet.
And I have to say it was worth the wait - this time. In the past, I've seen Meyer reading and it's been a very mixed experience. If he doesn't like the person interviewing or introducing him, he seems to have no qualms about showing it. If he finds the questions put to him banal or unintelligent, he lets you know. I once went to a reading where he checked his mobile for text messages during the Q&A session. But if he feels comfortable with his interlocutor, you'd better fasten your seatbelt - because you're in for a very exciting ride.
The woman at the steering wheel last night was Ina Hartwig of the Frankfurter Rundschau. And she had Mister Meyer very firmly under control. They were obviously comfortable sharing a stage, and she had obviously done her homework very well. It seemed almost as if they were just picking up the thread from a past conversation. He read Die Flinte, die Laterne und Mary Monroe and to finish off part of Wir reisen. In between, Hartwig got an extraordinary amount of information out of him.
We found out how the first story came about - a friend told him about a man they both vaguely knew and how he'd ended up in jail. And Meyer added the air gun ("I've got one in my bedroom...") and Marilyn. Hartwig asked a question that made me look like a complete ballistics expert in comparison, but I can't tell you what it was unless you've read the story already. I laughed out loud, although there weren't many other ballistics experts in the house, judging by the lack of reaction all around me. She asked him about how his success has affected him, and whether he'd stay true to "the milieu". Which sent Mister Meyer into a bit of a tizz - of course he couldn't have written about an artist or a wine salesman three years ago, and he was at pains to point out he was wearing an Armani shirt - albeit with a Schimanski jacket over it when he arrived. But he still has his old friends and still goes drinking with them. It all sounded a bit like a pop star who's made it big claiming he still goes down his old local with the lads. Although I did once see Ronnie Woods in a pub, so maybe it's not all a myth.
There was some background information too. His father, a nurse from a family of farm workers, instilled him with a love of books. His grandparents on his mother's side were artists in the GDR. He lived fifteen minutes' walk from three libraries as a child. And some serious litcrit - Genet is "too gay" for him, but Wir reisen is super-gay. They talked a bit about his story Der Dicke liebt, in which an obese teacher develops a fatherly love for one of the girls he teaches - and is condemned by the world around him. Apparently, reactions have been mixed - some saying it's a gift to paedophiles, others (mostly women) seeing that it's not about that.
Whereas in the past I have come away from his readings convinced of Meyer's talent but thoroughly put off his person, this time was different. He seemed genuinely likeable, genuinely troubled by the way people put him into a certain category - the literary representative of the "underclass". All that showing off of his tattoos back in 2006 might not have been such a good idea after all. Several times, he banged his hand on the table and reminded himself not to overdo the pathos. He seemed comfortable enough in the opulent surroundings, hemmed in by photos of other writers - though I noticed they have taken all the pictures of women down since I was last there. He joked about reading stories about drugs and sex on the Wannsee - and I left with a smile on my face.
And - what a coincidence - the new issue of the Brooklyn Rail's InTranslation features one of the stories from Die Nacht, die Lichter. It probably won't make you feel all warm inside, though. Sorry about that.
I went along, accompanied in the carriage out to Wannsee by fourteen chatty nuns, all with matching glasses and black handbags. It was not unlike a small outing of septuagenarian schoolgirls. The sun was still shining as I arrived, and I settled down in a seat next to four young Finns - or perhaps Hungarians. Mister Clemens Meyer arrived late, as usual, but the weather had put the audience in a conciliatory mood, and there was little shuffling of impatient feet.
And I have to say it was worth the wait - this time. In the past, I've seen Meyer reading and it's been a very mixed experience. If he doesn't like the person interviewing or introducing him, he seems to have no qualms about showing it. If he finds the questions put to him banal or unintelligent, he lets you know. I once went to a reading where he checked his mobile for text messages during the Q&A session. But if he feels comfortable with his interlocutor, you'd better fasten your seatbelt - because you're in for a very exciting ride.
The woman at the steering wheel last night was Ina Hartwig of the Frankfurter Rundschau. And she had Mister Meyer very firmly under control. They were obviously comfortable sharing a stage, and she had obviously done her homework very well. It seemed almost as if they were just picking up the thread from a past conversation. He read Die Flinte, die Laterne und Mary Monroe and to finish off part of Wir reisen. In between, Hartwig got an extraordinary amount of information out of him.
We found out how the first story came about - a friend told him about a man they both vaguely knew and how he'd ended up in jail. And Meyer added the air gun ("I've got one in my bedroom...") and Marilyn. Hartwig asked a question that made me look like a complete ballistics expert in comparison, but I can't tell you what it was unless you've read the story already. I laughed out loud, although there weren't many other ballistics experts in the house, judging by the lack of reaction all around me. She asked him about how his success has affected him, and whether he'd stay true to "the milieu". Which sent Mister Meyer into a bit of a tizz - of course he couldn't have written about an artist or a wine salesman three years ago, and he was at pains to point out he was wearing an Armani shirt - albeit with a Schimanski jacket over it when he arrived. But he still has his old friends and still goes drinking with them. It all sounded a bit like a pop star who's made it big claiming he still goes down his old local with the lads. Although I did once see Ronnie Woods in a pub, so maybe it's not all a myth.
There was some background information too. His father, a nurse from a family of farm workers, instilled him with a love of books. His grandparents on his mother's side were artists in the GDR. He lived fifteen minutes' walk from three libraries as a child. And some serious litcrit - Genet is "too gay" for him, but Wir reisen is super-gay. They talked a bit about his story Der Dicke liebt, in which an obese teacher develops a fatherly love for one of the girls he teaches - and is condemned by the world around him. Apparently, reactions have been mixed - some saying it's a gift to paedophiles, others (mostly women) seeing that it's not about that.
Whereas in the past I have come away from his readings convinced of Meyer's talent but thoroughly put off his person, this time was different. He seemed genuinely likeable, genuinely troubled by the way people put him into a certain category - the literary representative of the "underclass". All that showing off of his tattoos back in 2006 might not have been such a good idea after all. Several times, he banged his hand on the table and reminded himself not to overdo the pathos. He seemed comfortable enough in the opulent surroundings, hemmed in by photos of other writers - though I noticed they have taken all the pictures of women down since I was last there. He joked about reading stories about drugs and sex on the Wannsee - and I left with a smile on my face.
And - what a coincidence - the new issue of the Brooklyn Rail's InTranslation features one of the stories from Die Nacht, die Lichter. It probably won't make you feel all warm inside, though. Sorry about that.
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
Translation Idol
no man’s land literary translation lab presents:
Translation Idol – no man’s land sucht den Superübersetzer*
Marking the first anniversary of our monthly literary translation lab, no man’s land invites all those budding, successful and prizewinning German-English translators out there to join in our first ever translation talent contest.
The text to translate is Ron Winkler’s poem “und später dann Paraboläpfel am Atem” (see below). Translate it any which way you like – fast and loose, slow and steady, straight from the hip, make it rhyme, give it a dialect, put it into iambic pentameter, recreate it as a limerick – whatever you want to do. You don’t have to be a seasoned professional – a passion for words is all it takes. Please send your translation for the contest (in Word or rtf format) by 4 May to: katy (squiggle) interalia.de. Don’t forget your name and telephone number.
Ideally, you should be able to attend the contest itself, at 8 pm on 6 May in the library (upstairs) at Max & Moritz, Oranienstraße 162, 10969 Berlin 36 (Kreuzberg). Just turn up with your translation, ready to read. The audience will vote on the winning version, and the poet will choose his own personal favourite. There’ll be prizes galore for the top Translation Idols. If you can’t attend, your text will be read on your behalf. It’s still well worth entering, as all entries will be published on the no man’s land website. Please let us know whether you’ll be coming to the contest when you send your submission.
So get your dictionaries out and get translating! Or just come along to participate in the audience vote and enjoy an entertaining evening of poetry and translation.
*oder die Superübersetzerin.
The poem:
›und später dann Paraboläpfel am Atem‹
unten der Garten. der spezialisierte
Wald. oben das endlose π der Sonne.
und Schönheit als eher Unscheinbarkeit.
also Wolken. insofern Wolken.
dazwischen das infernalische Obst. das
infernalische Obst.
waren dort nicht auch Grizzlyhasen?
nicht auch dort? am Zaun?
und dschungelartige Würfel
wie zu Boden geschrieene Vögel?
jemand drückte in diese sehr, sehr
verreiste Stimmung hinein die Räuspertaste
seiner Heckler & Koch. das war nicht ich,
das gehörte einer anderen Intensitätsgruppe
an.
Ron Winkler
The no man’s land literary translation lab is a monthly meeting for anyone interested in German-English literary translation. Just turn up at Max & Moritz with a text you want to go through with the group, or come along to provide advice and moral support. The lab meets at 8 pm every first Tuesday of the month, upstairs in the Max & Moritz library.
Translation Idol – no man’s land sucht den Superübersetzer*
Marking the first anniversary of our monthly literary translation lab, no man’s land invites all those budding, successful and prizewinning German-English translators out there to join in our first ever translation talent contest.
The text to translate is Ron Winkler’s poem “und später dann Paraboläpfel am Atem” (see below). Translate it any which way you like – fast and loose, slow and steady, straight from the hip, make it rhyme, give it a dialect, put it into iambic pentameter, recreate it as a limerick – whatever you want to do. You don’t have to be a seasoned professional – a passion for words is all it takes. Please send your translation for the contest (in Word or rtf format) by 4 May to: katy (squiggle) interalia.de. Don’t forget your name and telephone number.
Ideally, you should be able to attend the contest itself, at 8 pm on 6 May in the library (upstairs) at Max & Moritz, Oranienstraße 162, 10969 Berlin 36 (Kreuzberg). Just turn up with your translation, ready to read. The audience will vote on the winning version, and the poet will choose his own personal favourite. There’ll be prizes galore for the top Translation Idols. If you can’t attend, your text will be read on your behalf. It’s still well worth entering, as all entries will be published on the no man’s land website. Please let us know whether you’ll be coming to the contest when you send your submission.
So get your dictionaries out and get translating! Or just come along to participate in the audience vote and enjoy an entertaining evening of poetry and translation.
*oder die Superübersetzerin.
The poem:
›und später dann Paraboläpfel am Atem‹
unten der Garten. der spezialisierte
Wald. oben das endlose π der Sonne.
und Schönheit als eher Unscheinbarkeit.
also Wolken. insofern Wolken.
dazwischen das infernalische Obst. das
infernalische Obst.
waren dort nicht auch Grizzlyhasen?
nicht auch dort? am Zaun?
und dschungelartige Würfel
wie zu Boden geschrieene Vögel?
jemand drückte in diese sehr, sehr
verreiste Stimmung hinein die Räuspertaste
seiner Heckler & Koch. das war nicht ich,
das gehörte einer anderen Intensitätsgruppe
an.
Ron Winkler
The no man’s land literary translation lab is a monthly meeting for anyone interested in German-English literary translation. Just turn up at Max & Moritz with a text you want to go through with the group, or come along to provide advice and moral support. The lab meets at 8 pm every first Tuesday of the month, upstairs in the Max & Moritz library.
Monday, 21 April 2008
More Unpacking
Speak of the devil. No sooner do I mention the lovely Dorota Stroinska in my last post, and she goes and reveals all in a library. Not in the traditional sense of the word, of course.
The Berlin Übersetzer packen aus team is playing away this Friday - with a guest appearance at the Kurt Tucholsky Library in Prenzlauer Berg. Dorota translated Wojciech Kuczok's novel Dreckskerl from Polish into German - along with Gabriele Leupold, who was nominated for the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair this year. They've already "done" this event once so I happen to know that they're both very witty, insightful and entertaining.
If you're thinking, "Damn, why can't they do that in the Rhine area?" you're in luck. Because next week is the first ever Translators Reveal All reading in Cologne. Hartmut Fähndrich and Stefan Weidner meet up next Tuesday to talk about their work as translators from Arabic at Buchhandlung Kaiser.
So two evenings to shatter illusions: Arabic literature that isn't Arabian Nights, and Polish literature that's funny as well as dark. Incidentally, my first encounter with Polish literature was when a sailor showed me and my young friends his poetry in his cabin on board a ferry to Ireland - all we could make out was the word hemoroidy. Then he showed us the stars, with Dire Straits playing quietly in the background.
The Berlin Übersetzer packen aus team is playing away this Friday - with a guest appearance at the Kurt Tucholsky Library in Prenzlauer Berg. Dorota translated Wojciech Kuczok's novel Dreckskerl from Polish into German - along with Gabriele Leupold, who was nominated for the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair this year. They've already "done" this event once so I happen to know that they're both very witty, insightful and entertaining.
If you're thinking, "Damn, why can't they do that in the Rhine area?" you're in luck. Because next week is the first ever Translators Reveal All reading in Cologne. Hartmut Fähndrich and Stefan Weidner meet up next Tuesday to talk about their work as translators from Arabic at Buchhandlung Kaiser.
So two evenings to shatter illusions: Arabic literature that isn't Arabian Nights, and Polish literature that's funny as well as dark. Incidentally, my first encounter with Polish literature was when a sailor showed me and my young friends his poetry in his cabin on board a ferry to Ireland - all we could make out was the word hemoroidy. Then he showed us the stars, with Dire Straits playing quietly in the background.
The Boy with the Robber's Hands
I finished it a couple of days ago - Finn-Ole Heinrich's Räuberhände. It's the story of two boys - one has the perfect parents to the point of cliché, the other has an alcoholic mother who drinks outside the supermarket. They're best friends from the age of about 13 or so, and Samuel practically moves in with Janik and his parents. The narrator is Janik, just after the two have finished school and head off to Turkey in an illusory attempt to find Samuel's Turkish father - whose name he doesn't know. But before they left, Janik had overstepped a line and their friendship is now on the brink of collapse.
So the story takes place on all sorts of time levels. The most obvious is the tiny snippets of future at the beginning of each chapter - so you read with a permanent sense of slight foreboding, not knowing quite what's going to happen. But you're also regaled with tales from happier times - psychological tricks played on the perfect parents, a Kleingarten paradise, young love, how the two boys became friends. And then there's Istanbul, where the two of them chase Samuel's unknown father at a whirlwind pace - all heat, dust, sweat and resentment at fever pitch. And the structure works incredibly well, keeping up the pace so you're always on your toes but never irritated.
The critics have praised the film-like descriptions - which is a bit obvious really,seeing as the author is studying film - or at least he is when he's not writer-in-residence in lovely Erfurt. But it's true - they seem to glide by your mind's eye in technicolour. What I like most about the book, though, is the characters. Apart from the clichéd parents, they are all wonderfully painted: first and foremost Samuel and Janik, but also Samuel's mother Irene, Janik's girlfriend Lina, and another local alkie, Bubu. And the simmering resentment between the two boys is ever-present but rarely boils over - Janik resents Samuel for being the apple of his parents' eye, and Samuel resents Janik for having everything he wants.
The book also looks at national identities, although not overtly. Samuel has never met his father, but believes he is Turkish - and reinvents himself as a Turk. He learns Turkish from cheap cassettes, starts singing and dancing and yearns for his one true love - who has to be a Turkish girl, of course. As the narrator points out, Samuel has no idea what Turks are really like, it's all just a desperate romatic projection. On the other hand, Janik and his parents are such typical middle-class Germans it almost hurts. Wellmeaning teachers, wholemeal vegetarian lasagne, barbecues in the garden. The two (imagined) cultures meet in the middle at the boys' Kleingarten - a concept, I believe, alien to other nationalities. They create their cliché of Turkey there, in the most German of settings, alongside a grubby canal.
It's a book that makes you feel for the people who inhabit it, that makes you care what happens to them. It's a book you want to read again once you've finished the last page. I hope it'll do really well. Here's a brief sample from the very beginning:
(All his stuff and everything of hers worth saving is packed in boxes and stored in our garage. My parents helped me. Nine boxes, fourteen rubbish sacks. It took nearly three hours.)
My parents love Samuel. And he loves them. When Samuel gets on my nerves I sometimes call him their adopted child - that's his sore point, so to speak. Samuel and I have been friends as long as we've been in the same class. Nearly seven years now. And since then, Samuel's slept at our house almost every night. He's had his own bed in my room for ages. It was a present from my parents. They asked me first of course, if it was OK for me. They'd never make a decision like that over my head. But it's not as if I'd have minded. I'm not jealous, Samuel's my best friend and if my parents hadn't asked me, I probably would have asked them.
So the story takes place on all sorts of time levels. The most obvious is the tiny snippets of future at the beginning of each chapter - so you read with a permanent sense of slight foreboding, not knowing quite what's going to happen. But you're also regaled with tales from happier times - psychological tricks played on the perfect parents, a Kleingarten paradise, young love, how the two boys became friends. And then there's Istanbul, where the two of them chase Samuel's unknown father at a whirlwind pace - all heat, dust, sweat and resentment at fever pitch. And the structure works incredibly well, keeping up the pace so you're always on your toes but never irritated.
The critics have praised the film-like descriptions - which is a bit obvious really,seeing as the author is studying film - or at least he is when he's not writer-in-residence in lovely Erfurt. But it's true - they seem to glide by your mind's eye in technicolour. What I like most about the book, though, is the characters. Apart from the clichéd parents, they are all wonderfully painted: first and foremost Samuel and Janik, but also Samuel's mother Irene, Janik's girlfriend Lina, and another local alkie, Bubu. And the simmering resentment between the two boys is ever-present but rarely boils over - Janik resents Samuel for being the apple of his parents' eye, and Samuel resents Janik for having everything he wants.
The book also looks at national identities, although not overtly. Samuel has never met his father, but believes he is Turkish - and reinvents himself as a Turk. He learns Turkish from cheap cassettes, starts singing and dancing and yearns for his one true love - who has to be a Turkish girl, of course. As the narrator points out, Samuel has no idea what Turks are really like, it's all just a desperate romatic projection. On the other hand, Janik and his parents are such typical middle-class Germans it almost hurts. Wellmeaning teachers, wholemeal vegetarian lasagne, barbecues in the garden. The two (imagined) cultures meet in the middle at the boys' Kleingarten - a concept, I believe, alien to other nationalities. They create their cliché of Turkey there, in the most German of settings, alongside a grubby canal.
It's a book that makes you feel for the people who inhabit it, that makes you care what happens to them. It's a book you want to read again once you've finished the last page. I hope it'll do really well. Here's a brief sample from the very beginning:
(All his stuff and everything of hers worth saving is packed in boxes and stored in our garage. My parents helped me. Nine boxes, fourteen rubbish sacks. It took nearly three hours.)
My parents love Samuel. And he loves them. When Samuel gets on my nerves I sometimes call him their adopted child - that's his sore point, so to speak. Samuel and I have been friends as long as we've been in the same class. Nearly seven years now. And since then, Samuel's slept at our house almost every night. He's had his own bed in my room for ages. It was a present from my parents. They asked me first of course, if it was OK for me. They'd never make a decision like that over my head. But it's not as if I'd have minded. I'm not jealous, Samuel's my best friend and if my parents hadn't asked me, I probably would have asked them.
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