There are things you just don't want to translate at the office. And it's not like the people I share my office with look over my shoulder every ten minutes. But still, I worry they might pick up from my face or something what exactly I'm working on. I mean, they know it's Axolotl Roadkill and are duly impressed, in a head-shaking, oh I met her once, that must be a challenge kind of way. But they haven't read the book.
Today's been one of those days. When you translate, you get closer to a text than ever before. You research those references you probably just skipped over when you read the book first or second time round. You deconstruct the sentences to establish exactly who's doing what, when, where and why. And then you have to find a way to tell the readers in your language what exactly's going on on the page.
So today there's a reference to a film. Sounds harmless enough, could be a documentary about street kids or something. OK, fairly standard procedure, I look it up on imdb.com and can't find it with the German title. So I google it and get eight hits. One of them has been removed after a complaint under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Another is an interview with one of the actors, which informs me about the innovative use of vegetables in the work. That's all I'm saying. The photos were fun, nice pair of cowboy boots. Thankfully, nobody looked over my shoulder at that moment.
So now I know an actor and the English name and I find it on imdb, but the English title gives you not even the slightest intimation of the content, unlike the German which – once you know what kind of film it is – is pretty clear. Right now, I've added the director's name ('XY's film Way Down') but I'm not sure whether that's enough. It's not like the guy has a long list of illustrious works to his name. Should I go the whole hog and add a gloss on the content of the film? No, because your average German reader won't necessarily pick up on it either. Should I choose another film English readers will be more likely to know? But then I'm taking away from the whole Berlin feeling - it's not set in Soho, after all. Plus I'd have to trawl through dubious databases to find an equivalent.
I'm still pondering. And why am I telling you all this? Because I've got to a point in the book I'm embarrassed to translate, at least while my child's still awake in the next room and might come in. Not that she looks over my shoulder every ten minutes. But still, as fucked-up Mifti would say: this is blogging as a permanent displacement activity.
But rather at home of an evening than at the office.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Lutz Seiler: Die Zeitwaage
There are books like devil’s food cake; there are books like Mother’s Pride; and then there are the books like German rye bread – filling, nutritious, tasty in its own way, but it gets a bit dry in your mouth if you take large bites.
Lutz Seiler’s short story collection Die Zeitwaage is one of those. Seiler is known for his poetry but won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2007 for one of the stories in this book. My regular readers will know I’m a sucker for prose written by poets. This collection is his first prose publication, perhaps a step towards writing a full-length novel at some point. It contains 13 short stories, some of them linked by their characters, narrators or settings.
As in his poetry, Seiler’s background in the uranium-mining region of Thuringia, East Germany, plays an important role. A number of the pieces are set in the region, reverberating with small-town atmosphere that could almost be anywhere, were it not for the threat of bulldozers moving in to tear the place down or the queer vocabulary of the East German state. Often these stories document tiny moments that assume huge meaning – a school caretaker not waving but drowning, an injured blackbird (to which we later return).
A few are set in the present, all of them rather depressing tales of fathers losing grip on their children through marriage break-ups. Perhaps not what I needed right now. Yet here too, Seiler picks up on small details and leaves clues for his readers to follow, should they so wish. There are fathers in many of the other stories too, all of whom feel like they’re about to disappear at any moment. And there’s a dry, dark humour so subtle you very nearly don’t notice it. Or perhaps it’s not there after all.
The prose is incredibly writerly – one piece starts telling the story of a past relationship in the first person, only to jump out of the plot and tell us that the writer tries to contact his ex-girlfriend and finds out she has died in an accident. Then we return to the storyline to watch the relationship disintegrate. I was reminded of Ingo Schulze, who’s also fond of these games with his narrators – is it really me, or am I stringing you along? With Schulze I can deal with it, it feels like playful teasing. With Seiler though, I found it increasingly self-indulgent and pretentious.
And then there are the allusions. No doubt I missed many of them, but I did discover Thomas Mann’s Mario and the Magician re-located to a Californian pier – not without a disintegrating relationship of course. And Seiler’s great hero and model is Wolfgang Hilbig, often cited as the East German working-class writer to have maintained his dignity as an author, if not in his personal life. The stories are scattered with references to him and his work – a stoker on a train, rotting apples in a cellar, and no doubt more that didn’t catch my eye.
Until we come to the final, eponymous piece. Having filled us up with all this writerly prose, Seiler seems to allow himself an unexpected amuse-bouche here. Because here we have a budding writer in the heady days of East Berlin at the end of the GDR. Heartbroken by the end of a relationship (what else?), he squats an apartment and gets a casual job in a bar. And here he comes across The Worker. It took me some time to get behind the humour here, but in the end it was practically slapstick. The Worker is everything the narrator isn’t – a man of few words who earns his living with his hands, a man who never pays for his breakfast and then dies a gruesome and pointless working-man’s death. The narrator-writer is of course inspired to put pen to paper by his great presence and his passing, tempted to pray for The Worker’s soul – and that his own tentative story may continue. Pathos? Check. Self-irony? Check. A man uncomfortable in his own skin? Oh yes.
All in all, Die Zeitwaage showcases Seiler's outstanding writing very well. It’s tough and needs a lot of chewing, but it has its own rather brown and nutritious charm. If only it weren’t so incredibly depressing all the way through, I’d have thoroughly enjoyed it. But then you can hardly eat rye bread with syrup, can you?
Lutz Seiler’s short story collection Die Zeitwaage is one of those. Seiler is known for his poetry but won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2007 for one of the stories in this book. My regular readers will know I’m a sucker for prose written by poets. This collection is his first prose publication, perhaps a step towards writing a full-length novel at some point. It contains 13 short stories, some of them linked by their characters, narrators or settings.
As in his poetry, Seiler’s background in the uranium-mining region of Thuringia, East Germany, plays an important role. A number of the pieces are set in the region, reverberating with small-town atmosphere that could almost be anywhere, were it not for the threat of bulldozers moving in to tear the place down or the queer vocabulary of the East German state. Often these stories document tiny moments that assume huge meaning – a school caretaker not waving but drowning, an injured blackbird (to which we later return).
A few are set in the present, all of them rather depressing tales of fathers losing grip on their children through marriage break-ups. Perhaps not what I needed right now. Yet here too, Seiler picks up on small details and leaves clues for his readers to follow, should they so wish. There are fathers in many of the other stories too, all of whom feel like they’re about to disappear at any moment. And there’s a dry, dark humour so subtle you very nearly don’t notice it. Or perhaps it’s not there after all.
The prose is incredibly writerly – one piece starts telling the story of a past relationship in the first person, only to jump out of the plot and tell us that the writer tries to contact his ex-girlfriend and finds out she has died in an accident. Then we return to the storyline to watch the relationship disintegrate. I was reminded of Ingo Schulze, who’s also fond of these games with his narrators – is it really me, or am I stringing you along? With Schulze I can deal with it, it feels like playful teasing. With Seiler though, I found it increasingly self-indulgent and pretentious.
And then there are the allusions. No doubt I missed many of them, but I did discover Thomas Mann’s Mario and the Magician re-located to a Californian pier – not without a disintegrating relationship of course. And Seiler’s great hero and model is Wolfgang Hilbig, often cited as the East German working-class writer to have maintained his dignity as an author, if not in his personal life. The stories are scattered with references to him and his work – a stoker on a train, rotting apples in a cellar, and no doubt more that didn’t catch my eye.
Until we come to the final, eponymous piece. Having filled us up with all this writerly prose, Seiler seems to allow himself an unexpected amuse-bouche here. Because here we have a budding writer in the heady days of East Berlin at the end of the GDR. Heartbroken by the end of a relationship (what else?), he squats an apartment and gets a casual job in a bar. And here he comes across The Worker. It took me some time to get behind the humour here, but in the end it was practically slapstick. The Worker is everything the narrator isn’t – a man of few words who earns his living with his hands, a man who never pays for his breakfast and then dies a gruesome and pointless working-man’s death. The narrator-writer is of course inspired to put pen to paper by his great presence and his passing, tempted to pray for The Worker’s soul – and that his own tentative story may continue. Pathos? Check. Self-irony? Check. A man uncomfortable in his own skin? Oh yes.
All in all, Die Zeitwaage showcases Seiler's outstanding writing very well. It’s tough and needs a lot of chewing, but it has its own rather brown and nutritious charm. If only it weren’t so incredibly depressing all the way through, I’d have thoroughly enjoyed it. But then you can hardly eat rye bread with syrup, can you?
Monday, 31 May 2010
Austrians in the UK
This week the good people of London and Hay-on-Wye can catch a couple of Austrian writers live. It's often said that Austrian authors are the most avant-garde in the German-speaking community - but I'll let you be the judge of that.
Lydia Mischkulnig certainly has some of the most avant-garde sunglasses I've ever seen in an invitation to a reading. You can see her in person on Thursday, 3 June at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London. And seeing as everything in the whole world right now is revolving around the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, Mischkulnig is no exception - she won it in 1996. They'd like you to book so there's no pushing and shoving.
Then on Friday, 4 June Clemens Setz is reading at the Guardian Hay festival. Actually he was supposed to be reading in London back in April but there was a slight volcano incident. So here's your chance to see him without even having to leave the sunny climes of Wales. He too has won prizes by the bucketload, including one at the Ingeborg Bachmann competition in 2008. I find he's rather fond of adjectives, but perhaps that's just me.
Lydia Mischkulnig certainly has some of the most avant-garde sunglasses I've ever seen in an invitation to a reading. You can see her in person on Thursday, 3 June at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London. And seeing as everything in the whole world right now is revolving around the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, Mischkulnig is no exception - she won it in 1996. They'd like you to book so there's no pushing and shoving.
Then on Friday, 4 June Clemens Setz is reading at the Guardian Hay festival. Actually he was supposed to be reading in London back in April but there was a slight volcano incident. So here's your chance to see him without even having to leave the sunny climes of Wales. He too has won prizes by the bucketload, including one at the Ingeborg Bachmann competition in 2008. I find he's rather fond of adjectives, but perhaps that's just me.
Booksellers Reveal All
They're taking off their glasses, shaking down their hair and closing up shop for the rest of the afternoon. Remember that fantastic scene with the lady in the bookstore from The Big Sleep? Well soon you can get your kicks from German lady booksellers in an erotic calendar.
As trade mag Börsenblatt reports, twelve lovely ladies from all around the country have been posing for the calendar. Cue much moaning about people expecting booksellers to be mousy and bespectacled when they're actually full-blooded babes. I don't know though, I think I'd find it rather unnerving to be sold books by someone I'd seen in her underwear. I suspect it'll be no good for business - and if you watch that clip above, you'll notice that all those feminine charms still don't convince Humphrey Bogart to buy anything.
As trade mag Börsenblatt reports, twelve lovely ladies from all around the country have been posing for the calendar. Cue much moaning about people expecting booksellers to be mousy and bespectacled when they're actually full-blooded babes. I don't know though, I think I'd find it rather unnerving to be sold books by someone I'd seen in her underwear. I suspect it'll be no good for business - and if you watch that clip above, you'll notice that all those feminine charms still don't convince Humphrey Bogart to buy anything.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Translation Idol Entries Now Online
Head over to no man's land to peruse some blurry pictures, the original text and all the entries for Translation Idol 2010.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Friday, 28 May 2010
The Problem With Panels
The problem with public appearances is the fear. The days of low-level anxiety beforehand over what to wear - no, those shoes just won't do, and that dress is too much - until you start to feel like a character in a Noel Streatfield novel and long for a plucky Nanny to run you up a little something out of the drawing room curtains. Then the eight hours of concentrated fear beforehand, in which you worry about what on earth to say. The inability to eat, combined with the fact that you know you need to keep your blood sugar up so you keep nibbling at things and then discarding them like some spoilt kid in a Frances Hodgson Burnett novel.
Followed by half an hour of outright irrational terror as you stand around politely with your fellow panel people and assure each other you all have no idea what you're talking about. And then you're up there and everyone's looking at you and yes, you are the token woman, and people take your photo and your mind goes blank as soon as any question refers back to a previous comment because you're operating on pure adrenaline and charm and you're smiling and nodding and thinking, how on earth can I phrase this completely erudite thought in fucking German, so you have a two-minute delay operating and by the time you've worked it out the conversation's moved on and you make your entire profession look like a bunch of monosyllabic morons with fixed grins.
And then it's over, and being a well brought-up kind of girl who wants to be good and kind like in a Susan Coolidge novel, you stick around and smile a bit more. And presumably you've managed to appear not entirely terrified, because nobody reassures you that you were great, or you were fine, or you were better than the guy on the right, or your shoes looked nice. At which point the post-panel paranoia kicks in, presumably an after-effect of the adrenaline, and yes, that guy's ignoring you, and no, nobody important wants to talk to you, and yes, that other guy really did just ask your fellow panel person standing two feet to the left of you to join them all in a restaurant and looked straight through you.
And then you join them in a restaurant even though you'd rather either curl up in a ball in bed or go on a raging drunken tour of strip clubs and karaoke bars and pick up Mormons on the street and seduce them. And a collossal bad mood creeps up on you, unsurprisingly seeing as you haven't eaten in hours, but the thought of food turns your stomach and you're trying to talk to the two people you genuinely like at the table without revealing the extent of your foul temper like in a Louisa May Alcott novel - shit, probably not like in a Louisa May Alcott novel, but at this point who cares?
And you leave and walk home and write angry adrenaline-fuelled emails and can't sleep because you keep sitting up in bed and shouting. Which doesn't happen in any of the books you read as a child so you don't have a frame of reference to deal with it.
Shit, if I did this all the time I'd have a heroin habit.
Update: There is photographic evidence. I'm the one with the nice shoes.
Followed by half an hour of outright irrational terror as you stand around politely with your fellow panel people and assure each other you all have no idea what you're talking about. And then you're up there and everyone's looking at you and yes, you are the token woman, and people take your photo and your mind goes blank as soon as any question refers back to a previous comment because you're operating on pure adrenaline and charm and you're smiling and nodding and thinking, how on earth can I phrase this completely erudite thought in fucking German, so you have a two-minute delay operating and by the time you've worked it out the conversation's moved on and you make your entire profession look like a bunch of monosyllabic morons with fixed grins.
And then it's over, and being a well brought-up kind of girl who wants to be good and kind like in a Susan Coolidge novel, you stick around and smile a bit more. And presumably you've managed to appear not entirely terrified, because nobody reassures you that you were great, or you were fine, or you were better than the guy on the right, or your shoes looked nice. At which point the post-panel paranoia kicks in, presumably an after-effect of the adrenaline, and yes, that guy's ignoring you, and no, nobody important wants to talk to you, and yes, that other guy really did just ask your fellow panel person standing two feet to the left of you to join them all in a restaurant and looked straight through you.
And then you join them in a restaurant even though you'd rather either curl up in a ball in bed or go on a raging drunken tour of strip clubs and karaoke bars and pick up Mormons on the street and seduce them. And a collossal bad mood creeps up on you, unsurprisingly seeing as you haven't eaten in hours, but the thought of food turns your stomach and you're trying to talk to the two people you genuinely like at the table without revealing the extent of your foul temper like in a Louisa May Alcott novel - shit, probably not like in a Louisa May Alcott novel, but at this point who cares?
And you leave and walk home and write angry adrenaline-fuelled emails and can't sleep because you keep sitting up in bed and shouting. Which doesn't happen in any of the books you read as a child so you don't have a frame of reference to deal with it.
Shit, if I did this all the time I'd have a heroin habit.
Update: There is photographic evidence. I'm the one with the nice shoes.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Gratuitous Iconoclasm
I'm all for a spot of classics-bashing, so my gratitude goes out to Isa for pointing out a magnificent piece in the ZEIT, in which writers under the random age of 35 bitch about German and American classics. Hemingway's way too sweaty for Paul Brodowsky, Brecht wrote too many darn poems for Nora Bossong, Thomas Klupp just doesn't get Döblin. And more.
With plenty of gratuitous exclamation marks!
With plenty of gratuitous exclamation marks!
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