Fans of unusual crime fiction have something to look forward to in March - the English translation of Jakob Arjouni's Chez Max (in the capable hands of Anthea Bell).
I very much enjoyed the book when I read it about two years ago. It is set in a dark society where cigarettes and illegal immigrants are dangerous contraband. According to Arjouni, it was inspired by America's reaction to 9/11, and that certainly shows. Great characters, especially the protagonist - a real nasty piece of work.
If you're part of the easyjetset, you may have read a nice little interview with the author in November's in-flight mag. If you're not, you can still read it here.
No Exit Press has published several of his previous books in English, and you can read two extracts translated by Anthea Bell on Words Without Borders.
Friday, 30 January 2009
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Fame
Do I have to spell it out any more than the title? This is a review of Daniel Kehlmann’s new novel. It sold 160,000 copies in its first week in the shops. It made the evening news. There’s a poster for it hanging in the window of the scientific bookshop down the road from me. There is no escaping Ruhm.
My impression at the launch was that it’s a very clever book. And on reading it, I can certainly confirm that. It’s made up of nine interlocking stories revolving around three famous people – the writer Leo Richter, the actor Ralf Tanner and the Spanish-speaking writer Miguel Auristos Blancos, modelled on a certain bestselling Latin American author, as Kehlmann was happy to reveal at the reading. Between them are ordinary people whose lives become entangled with theirs in one way or another.
It’s not a revolutionary idea. Ali Smith’s Hotel World, for example, does a similar thing – as does the film The Edge of Heaven, to give a German example. And I’m sure the better-read can list all manner of other examples. But Kehlmann has done it rather entertainingly. Some of the links are fairly tenuous – Leo Richter watches Ralf Tanner getting slapped in public on YouTube, for example – but they do always raise a smile.
The book’s strength though, as those who know Measuring the World will guess, is in its characters. All treated with a healthy lack of respect, the author seems to like some of them more than others. There’s the calmly eloquent retired teacher who turns out to be a character in a Leo Richter story and tries to persuade the writer not to make her die in a Swiss euthanasia clinic. There’s the despairing doctor who goes on a tour of Latin America as Richter’s lover, forever fearful that he’ll steal the details of her life for his writing. Or Ralf Tanner, who ends up opting out of his life of luxury in favour of a job as his own lookalike – only he’s not very good at it.
And then there’s Leo Richter. Is he? Isn’t he? He’s certainly a very famous writer who gets invited to all sorts of dull readings and events. He is asked the same questions with alarming regularity:
“Why do they always ask that?” Leo whispered in the car. “Where I get my ideas? What kind of question is that, what am I supposed to say?”
“What do you answer?”
“Bathtub.”
“What?”
“I say I get all my ideas in the bathtub. They like that.”
He’s a fussy eater, a nervous flyer, a spoilt brat looking for material in everything he does. And then he takes it and manipulates his characters’ lives against their will. Not a very flattering self-portrait, to whatever extent it is one.
One theme running through the book other than fame is modern communications technology. Internet forums, mobile phones, YouTube, emails, HSDPA cards – this all appears self-consciously far removed from the nineteenth-century setting of Kehlmann’s last novel. Ultimately, though, all the trappings of modern life let down the characters, getting them stranded in the wrong places and the wrong lives. For one unfortunate soul (wrongly described in many reviews and on the book jacket as a blogger), posting insulting comments on web forums becomes an obsession and he is unable to cope with real life.
This story, incidentally, is the only one of any great stylistic interest, with the first-person narrator addressing his audience in his very own parlance culled from the net – a great challenge for a translator, as his language is dripping with embarrassing Anglicisms. Otherwise though, Kehlmann’s linguistic style, although varying slightly with each story, is fairly standard stuff. In fact it reminded me ever so slightly of Ingo Schulze’s Handy (Cell Phone), another collection of often interwoven short stories looking at the influence of mobile communication on our lives.
Ruhm is an entertaining read, and its attraction does indeed lie in its structure. It’s the kind of book one ought to read twice. But there was one thing that put me off reading it that second time. Kehlmann deliberately juxtaposes his famous, creative characters with good old salt-of-the-earth ordinary folk. Mountain guides in the Andes, market traders in Turkmenistan and a surprising number of men in technical jobs. It’s these technicians who disturbed me the most. The author sets them up as a kind of anti-artists, the opposite to writers, actors and painters. It's them of course behind all this awful technology in our lives, and it's their fault that it goes wrong. They lead dull, frustrating lives in loveless marriages or living with mum. They read Auristos Blancos’ claptrap, longing for a bit of excitement through an affair or an assumed identity. And they ask, “Where do you get your ideas?”
And although the writers, above all Leo Richter, don’t come off particularly well either, they are still portrayed as a class apart from – above – the rest of us mere mortals. Fame, Kehlmann seems to be telling us, may be less attractive than it appears, but those who have it deserve it.
My impression at the launch was that it’s a very clever book. And on reading it, I can certainly confirm that. It’s made up of nine interlocking stories revolving around three famous people – the writer Leo Richter, the actor Ralf Tanner and the Spanish-speaking writer Miguel Auristos Blancos, modelled on a certain bestselling Latin American author, as Kehlmann was happy to reveal at the reading. Between them are ordinary people whose lives become entangled with theirs in one way or another.
It’s not a revolutionary idea. Ali Smith’s Hotel World, for example, does a similar thing – as does the film The Edge of Heaven, to give a German example. And I’m sure the better-read can list all manner of other examples. But Kehlmann has done it rather entertainingly. Some of the links are fairly tenuous – Leo Richter watches Ralf Tanner getting slapped in public on YouTube, for example – but they do always raise a smile.
The book’s strength though, as those who know Measuring the World will guess, is in its characters. All treated with a healthy lack of respect, the author seems to like some of them more than others. There’s the calmly eloquent retired teacher who turns out to be a character in a Leo Richter story and tries to persuade the writer not to make her die in a Swiss euthanasia clinic. There’s the despairing doctor who goes on a tour of Latin America as Richter’s lover, forever fearful that he’ll steal the details of her life for his writing. Or Ralf Tanner, who ends up opting out of his life of luxury in favour of a job as his own lookalike – only he’s not very good at it.
And then there’s Leo Richter. Is he? Isn’t he? He’s certainly a very famous writer who gets invited to all sorts of dull readings and events. He is asked the same questions with alarming regularity:
“Why do they always ask that?” Leo whispered in the car. “Where I get my ideas? What kind of question is that, what am I supposed to say?”
“What do you answer?”
“Bathtub.”
“What?”
“I say I get all my ideas in the bathtub. They like that.”
He’s a fussy eater, a nervous flyer, a spoilt brat looking for material in everything he does. And then he takes it and manipulates his characters’ lives against their will. Not a very flattering self-portrait, to whatever extent it is one.
One theme running through the book other than fame is modern communications technology. Internet forums, mobile phones, YouTube, emails, HSDPA cards – this all appears self-consciously far removed from the nineteenth-century setting of Kehlmann’s last novel. Ultimately, though, all the trappings of modern life let down the characters, getting them stranded in the wrong places and the wrong lives. For one unfortunate soul (wrongly described in many reviews and on the book jacket as a blogger), posting insulting comments on web forums becomes an obsession and he is unable to cope with real life.
This story, incidentally, is the only one of any great stylistic interest, with the first-person narrator addressing his audience in his very own parlance culled from the net – a great challenge for a translator, as his language is dripping with embarrassing Anglicisms. Otherwise though, Kehlmann’s linguistic style, although varying slightly with each story, is fairly standard stuff. In fact it reminded me ever so slightly of Ingo Schulze’s Handy (Cell Phone), another collection of often interwoven short stories looking at the influence of mobile communication on our lives.
Ruhm is an entertaining read, and its attraction does indeed lie in its structure. It’s the kind of book one ought to read twice. But there was one thing that put me off reading it that second time. Kehlmann deliberately juxtaposes his famous, creative characters with good old salt-of-the-earth ordinary folk. Mountain guides in the Andes, market traders in Turkmenistan and a surprising number of men in technical jobs. It’s these technicians who disturbed me the most. The author sets them up as a kind of anti-artists, the opposite to writers, actors and painters. It's them of course behind all this awful technology in our lives, and it's their fault that it goes wrong. They lead dull, frustrating lives in loveless marriages or living with mum. They read Auristos Blancos’ claptrap, longing for a bit of excitement through an affair or an assumed identity. And they ask, “Where do you get your ideas?”
And although the writers, above all Leo Richter, don’t come off particularly well either, they are still portrayed as a class apart from – above – the rest of us mere mortals. Fame, Kehlmann seems to be telling us, may be less attractive than it appears, but those who have it deserve it.
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
On Translating Zaimoglu
Kristin Dickinson, Robin Ellis and Priscilla D. Layne have a fascinating long article in Transit, the UC Berkeley journal of travel, migration and multiculturalism in the German-speaking world. The three authors were the winners of last year's Susan Sontag Translation Prize for their rendering of Feridun Zaimoglu's Koppstoff (I wrote about it here). Their article talks about the process and problems of translating it, with two sample sections also available online.
They take a very academic approach to the subject and to the translation itself - not surprising given the context of the article. And while I do have certain issues with translation studies as an academic discipline - particularly that it doesn't take the material conditions of working translators into sufficient account - I do appreciate the fact that it exists, and that people like Dickinson, Ellis and Layne are putting the theories to the test in practical translation projects.
They look at things like the different readerships for the two versions and the authenticity of the text itself. Interestingly, they talk about the idea of substituting Ebonics for Zaimoglu's artificial Turkish-inflected German - very sensibly rejecting it out of hand, something any working translator would give them a hearty pat on the back for. The notion of uprooting the original sociolect, dialect, ideolect or whatever it may be and replanting it in, say, Bradford just because there is a substantial migrant population there too, is rather on the ridiculous side. Strangely, though, it has worked in the past for theatrical translations, where a translator can re-locate the entire plot of Kleist's Cracked Pot to Skipton in 1810. And my favourite exception to this otherwise hard and fast rule is the German version of My Fair Lady, in which Eliza drawls her way through the action in finest Berlinerisch.
I think the authors have done a good job of their translation, by the way, and tackled a lot of challenges along the way. One thing I find very interesting is that they seem to have had no contact with the author himself. Perhaps that's part of the approach they've taken, just working everything out their own way for their own very different audience. But I personally find a basic minimum of discussion with the author very productive for my translations, and a great source of feedback from someone intimately familiar with the original.
I wonder when we'll be able to read the entire book of "interviews" with Turkish-German women in English - and how it will go down?
They take a very academic approach to the subject and to the translation itself - not surprising given the context of the article. And while I do have certain issues with translation studies as an academic discipline - particularly that it doesn't take the material conditions of working translators into sufficient account - I do appreciate the fact that it exists, and that people like Dickinson, Ellis and Layne are putting the theories to the test in practical translation projects.
They look at things like the different readerships for the two versions and the authenticity of the text itself. Interestingly, they talk about the idea of substituting Ebonics for Zaimoglu's artificial Turkish-inflected German - very sensibly rejecting it out of hand, something any working translator would give them a hearty pat on the back for. The notion of uprooting the original sociolect, dialect, ideolect or whatever it may be and replanting it in, say, Bradford just because there is a substantial migrant population there too, is rather on the ridiculous side. Strangely, though, it has worked in the past for theatrical translations, where a translator can re-locate the entire plot of Kleist's Cracked Pot to Skipton in 1810. And my favourite exception to this otherwise hard and fast rule is the German version of My Fair Lady, in which Eliza drawls her way through the action in finest Berlinerisch.
I think the authors have done a good job of their translation, by the way, and tackled a lot of challenges along the way. One thing I find very interesting is that they seem to have had no contact with the author himself. Perhaps that's part of the approach they've taken, just working everything out their own way for their own very different audience. But I personally find a basic minimum of discussion with the author very productive for my translations, and a great source of feedback from someone intimately familiar with the original.
I wonder when we'll be able to read the entire book of "interviews" with Turkish-German women in English - and how it will go down?
Friday, 23 January 2009
Clemens Meyer's Online Fight Club
The FAZ blogs, otherwise a bit on the dull side, have livened up a bit since Clemens Meyer started contributing. He certainly seems to be as preoccupied with boozing and fighting - and writing and art - as his books would suggest. So we get a little summary of all the other writers he wanted to punch when drunk as a student, a near punch-up at the Christmas funfair, a spot of rioting on New Year's Eve - and at least the promise of a series of literary boxing matches, starting with Daniel Kehlmann vs. Jörg Fauser.
All garnished with opinionated book tips, references to his difficult film script, and asides slagging off writers and critics. More fun than Rainald Goetz, guaranteed.
All garnished with opinionated book tips, references to his difficult film script, and asides slagging off writers and critics. More fun than Rainald Goetz, guaranteed.
Berlin Stories
That NPR thing I was looking forward to has launched, unbeknownst to me. That'll teach me not to listen to the radio...
But you can listen to various Berlin Stories on the nice website, with a couple of extra features. Lots of Americans talking about what they like or don't like or find just plain bizarre about Berlin. And they promise a few Germans talking about the states in the future too... Plus you can send them your own Berlin Story if you're that way inclined.
But you can listen to various Berlin Stories on the nice website, with a couple of extra features. Lots of Americans talking about what they like or don't like or find just plain bizarre about Berlin. And they promise a few Germans talking about the states in the future too... Plus you can send them your own Berlin Story if you're that way inclined.
Berlin Publishing: Arrivals and Departures
Speculation is rife over the future location of the Suhrkamp publishing house. Now one German paper has claimed negotiations are underway for a move from Frankfurt to Berlin, while the managing director is keeping pretty schtumm, neither confirming nor denying anything.
They already have a terribly tasteful "representation" in Berlin's Fasanenstraße, which I visited last year. And as the Süddeutsche Zeitung suggests, relocation against the wishes of 80% of the staff would be a great way to cut human resources costs. Plus Berlin, only rescued by the scruff of its neck from the mires of post-industrialisation by the government's relocation a few years ago, would have a bit of high culture to show for itself.
But the real news for me is that Galiani Berlin now has an office - although apparently not a website. A new imprint under the aegis of Kiepenheuer & Witsch and run by the inimitable Wolfgang Hörner, its motto is "Interested in everything and never boring". Sounds good, eh? I stumbled across the new premises at the very top of Friedrichstraße on my way to the baker's one morning. Not that I usually scrutinise doorbell panels at 8 am you understand, but there was a large yellow sign on the door instructing the man from Deutsche Telekom where to ring. The first actual books will be published this coming autumn.
Hörner left Eichborn Berlin with its excellent contemporary German authors along with Esther Kormann to set up the new house, and has been replaced by Laurenz Bollinger. Sadly, Bollinger will be based in - you guessed it - Frankfurt.
They already have a terribly tasteful "representation" in Berlin's Fasanenstraße, which I visited last year. And as the Süddeutsche Zeitung suggests, relocation against the wishes of 80% of the staff would be a great way to cut human resources costs. Plus Berlin, only rescued by the scruff of its neck from the mires of post-industrialisation by the government's relocation a few years ago, would have a bit of high culture to show for itself.
But the real news for me is that Galiani Berlin now has an office - although apparently not a website. A new imprint under the aegis of Kiepenheuer & Witsch and run by the inimitable Wolfgang Hörner, its motto is "Interested in everything and never boring". Sounds good, eh? I stumbled across the new premises at the very top of Friedrichstraße on my way to the baker's one morning. Not that I usually scrutinise doorbell panels at 8 am you understand, but there was a large yellow sign on the door instructing the man from Deutsche Telekom where to ring. The first actual books will be published this coming autumn.
Hörner left Eichborn Berlin with its excellent contemporary German authors along with Esther Kormann to set up the new house, and has been replaced by Laurenz Bollinger. Sadly, Bollinger will be based in - you guessed it - Frankfurt.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
German Crime Writing Prize
They announced the winners of the German Crime Writing Prize the other day. In the German category, the winners are:
1. Linus Reichlin, Die Sehnsucht der Atome (allegedly the spring's most original crime novel in German)
2. Bernhard Jaumann, Die Augen der Medusa (the third in a series)
3. Heinrich Steinfest, Mariaschwarz (which Denis Scheck also recommended at the Helen & Kurt Wolff Symposium in the USA)
And the international winners are:
1. Richard Stark, Ask the Parrot
2. Jerome Charyn, Citizen Sidel
3. Deon Meyer, Onsigbaar/Blood Safari.
The winners don't get anything at all and there is no awards ceremony. But the people who choose the top crime novels are a very impressive collection of critics and booksellers, so I assume one can trust their judgement to some extent.
1. Linus Reichlin, Die Sehnsucht der Atome (allegedly the spring's most original crime novel in German)
2. Bernhard Jaumann, Die Augen der Medusa (the third in a series)
3. Heinrich Steinfest, Mariaschwarz (which Denis Scheck also recommended at the Helen & Kurt Wolff Symposium in the USA)
And the international winners are:
1. Richard Stark, Ask the Parrot
2. Jerome Charyn, Citizen Sidel
3. Deon Meyer, Onsigbaar/Blood Safari.
The winners don't get anything at all and there is no awards ceremony. But the people who choose the top crime novels are a very impressive collection of critics and booksellers, so I assume one can trust their judgement to some extent.
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