Much has been made of Nicholas Spice's favourable article on Elfriede Jelinek in the London Review of Books. It is very much worth taking the time to read, very well informed and interesting. But people seem to have picked up on what is little more than an aside, Spice's criticism of Martin Chalmers' translation of Gier/Greed. In fact, Spice goes into barely any detail, condemning the translation without naming a single flaw by name - just as he fails to name the translator, perhaps out of a false sense of politeness.
If you're actually interested in the art of translating Jelinek, take a look at the website of the Elfriede Jelinek Research Centre at the University of Vienna. The site features essays in German by eight of the author's translators, including the irrepressible Lilian Friedberg, who has translated several of Jelinek's plays into American English. In fact, you can access several English translations (although none by Martin Chalmers) via Jelinek's own site (scroll down to 2007 and 2008 on the left). But remember - no quoting! Elfriede doesn't approve...
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Saturday, 7 June 2008
Robert Walser Fever
For those who prefer more intellectual pursuits than trying to follow sports they understand nothing about, you could do worse than join in the debate on Robert Walser's The Assistant at the Words Without Borders book club. Lots and lots of lovely resources, expert commentary from Sam "Golden Rule" Jones, the book's translator Susan Bernofsky, Tom Whalen, Damion Searls, Tamara Evans, Mark Harman, Millay Hyatt, Jonathon Taylor, Bernhard Echte, Peter Utz, James Tweedie and others.
I'm off to the seaside instead.
I'm off to the seaside instead.
Friday, 6 June 2008
EURO 2008
I am reliably informed that some large international football tournament starts this weekend. No British teams are in it, which causes a quandary. Usually, I just support England because that's what everyone expects me to do and it means we can have a bit of a domestic on the sofa when England plays Germany. It usually ends in tears, though, and I have to remind my young man of 1966 in order to retain a shred of self-respect.
But this year, as I said, things are a bit more difficult. But I note that the Polish press has taken on the time-honoured role of harking back to WWII to encourage the lads to beat the rotten Hun. Usually, of course, that's the domain of the British papers, but this year they've gone strangely quiet.
So in honour of all the Polish people living in my part of London, and of the fact that I had an imaginary friend called Macek as a child, and of the fact that I once tried to learn Polish and failed dismally, and of the fact that it will really wind all my German mates up, I have decided to support Poland. Plus they have quite a nice flag, and I happen to own clothes in their national colours.*
See also Markus Hesselmann, our man in London, and the Guardian's European Beer Championship.
* I was once dragged along to a public viewing of a football match between Brazil and Denmark, wearing a red and white shirt by pure chance. Denmark lost and lots of Brazil fans patted me generously on the back in commiseration. I didn't realise why until some time later.
But this year, as I said, things are a bit more difficult. But I note that the Polish press has taken on the time-honoured role of harking back to WWII to encourage the lads to beat the rotten Hun. Usually, of course, that's the domain of the British papers, but this year they've gone strangely quiet.
So in honour of all the Polish people living in my part of London, and of the fact that I had an imaginary friend called Macek as a child, and of the fact that I once tried to learn Polish and failed dismally, and of the fact that it will really wind all my German mates up, I have decided to support Poland. Plus they have quite a nice flag, and I happen to own clothes in their national colours.*
See also Markus Hesselmann, our man in London, and the Guardian's European Beer Championship.
* I was once dragged along to a public viewing of a football match between Brazil and Denmark, wearing a red and white shirt by pure chance. Denmark lost and lots of Brazil fans patted me generously on the back in commiseration. I didn't realise why until some time later.
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Baut Auf
If you're in Germany or follow this type of thing, you'll have noticed that the only major East German publishing house to have survived the fall of the Wall is now in trouble. Aufbau Verlag is more than a relic of the GDR, though. It was founded in August 1945, when Germany was struggling to find paper to print books on, in a spirit of constructing a new literary Germany - hence the name Aufbau, meaning "building up, rebuilding". And it became a home to many authors who returned to the East of Germany from exile - Anna Seghers, Egon Erwin Kisch, Arnold Zweig... But it has developed a very strong profile as one of the largest and most respected independent publishing houses in Germany today.
I won't go into great detail, but basically the managers and the owner have parted company. The owner withdrew his funding and told them to register the company bankrupt after a complicated legal case, as an outcome of which he now nominally owns all the rights originating prior to 1991, and the publishing house owns all the rights from after that date. So the owner claims Aufbau itself is now an "empty shell". The managers and staff see that very differently, as the major part of the company's income now comes from newer titles rather than the old backlist. I've worked with Aufbau before and found it a thoroughly positive experience. And they're continuing their operations, as a lawyer's letter informed me today,* so I hope to work with them again in future. Because the staff are hanging on for dear life, fighting to save the publishing house they hold dear.
There's a wonderfully vitriolic article explaining the events by the pre-1991 head of Aufbau, Elmar Faber, in Neues Deutschland. And you can read the current managing director's angry and upset open letter to the owner on the Aufbau website, linked above. He likens the situation to Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle, hoping that "what there is shall belong to those who are good for it."
So if you want to do your bit to save them, why not buy an Aufbau book - right now? How about a bit of French crime from Fred Vargas? Or some Socialist realism with that little bit extra from Werner Bräunig (rights acquired after 91)? Rush to get hold of Andreas Gläser's second long-player, DJ Baufresse. A bit of historical ham soon to be a major film - die Päpstin? I love this beautifully illustrated biography of Anna Seghers. Not to forget anything by Selim Özdogan. Or one of their beautiful children's books... The choice is nigh-on endless.
*They misspelt my name in an entirely novel way. I was most impressed.
I won't go into great detail, but basically the managers and the owner have parted company. The owner withdrew his funding and told them to register the company bankrupt after a complicated legal case, as an outcome of which he now nominally owns all the rights originating prior to 1991, and the publishing house owns all the rights from after that date. So the owner claims Aufbau itself is now an "empty shell". The managers and staff see that very differently, as the major part of the company's income now comes from newer titles rather than the old backlist. I've worked with Aufbau before and found it a thoroughly positive experience. And they're continuing their operations, as a lawyer's letter informed me today,* so I hope to work with them again in future. Because the staff are hanging on for dear life, fighting to save the publishing house they hold dear.
There's a wonderfully vitriolic article explaining the events by the pre-1991 head of Aufbau, Elmar Faber, in Neues Deutschland. And you can read the current managing director's angry and upset open letter to the owner on the Aufbau website, linked above. He likens the situation to Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle, hoping that "what there is shall belong to those who are good for it."
So if you want to do your bit to save them, why not buy an Aufbau book - right now? How about a bit of French crime from Fred Vargas? Or some Socialist realism with that little bit extra from Werner Bräunig (rights acquired after 91)? Rush to get hold of Andreas Gläser's second long-player, DJ Baufresse. A bit of historical ham soon to be a major film - die Päpstin? I love this beautifully illustrated biography of Anna Seghers. Not to forget anything by Selim Özdogan. Or one of their beautiful children's books... The choice is nigh-on endless.
*They misspelt my name in an entirely novel way. I was most impressed.
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
I just noticed Anthea Bell's translation of Saša Stanišic's Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert is due out any day now. Stewart at the World Literature Forum doesn't like it, but acknowledges it "seems tipped to be this year's translation success." So I thought I'd add a little more to what I bravely wrote in response.
First off, although I have friends and acquaintances from various former Yugoslavian states, my entire "knowledge" of the culture is based on Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday and Kurt Held's book Die Rote Zora. Incidentally, this is an absolute classic German children's book, written by a disillusioned Communist in Swiss exile and published under a pseudonym in 1941. It seems to have been published in English back in 1967 under the title The Outsiders of Uskoken Castle, translated by Lynn Aubrey. Time for a rediscovery, I feel, especially after the gorgeous film recently made of it. Bloomsbury, could Zora be the new Harry Potter?
But back to the soldier and the gramophone. Now I haven't read the translation, obviously, but I thoroughly enjoyed the original. I even enjoyed the meandering titles that got Stewart's goat - and which Ross Benjamin describes in Bookforum as "playfully mimic(ing) Cervantes and Grimmelshausen by providing brief, tantalizingly eccentric synopses: 'How long a heart attack takes over a hundred meters, how heavy a spider’s life weighs, why a sad man writes to the cruel river, and what magic the comrade-in-chief of the unfinished can work.'" In fact, at the end of each chapter I went back and checked if everything was included. Sometimes it isn't - deliberately.
The first half or so is a fairly straight-forward tale of a boy of unspecified age growing up in pre-war Yugoslavia. Here, it's the language that carries the novel - whimsical non-collocations and lists half a page long, no quotation marks but rapidly changing perspectives, stories upon stories. And the critics that don't like it say it's Balkan kitsch. They might be right - the rural summer party with a table groaning with hearty food and slivovitz, the enraged husbands, the speeches at grandad's funeral. You can often hear the accordeons in your minds ear - and in fact there is an actual band playing brass instruments every now and then. But the narrator Aleksandar Krsmanovic - a thinly veiled Saša himself - is a born storyteller, packaging all the everyday dramas into melodramas, adding just that little bit of technicolour to life.
And then comes the war. For Aleksandar, the war is a bit like a Kammerspiel - it takes place in a single setting, the cellar and corridors of his housing block. The soldiers arrive - sitting down at the impromptu communal dining table and asking what's for tea. The horror is never spoken out loud, we leave the room or close our eyes along with the narrator every time something bad threatens to happen. He protects a Muslim girl from the countryside seeking shelter in the building, then wanders the empty streets with his best friend and forgets about her again. As events reach a crescendo, the family packs up and leaves - a sudden interruption that divides the book into two.
The second part has another contents page, a very different style, and is almost a book about the book. This is where you realise that Stanišic studied creative writing on the renowned Leipzig University course - which has been churning out well-read young writers for a few years now. He didn't graduate, incidentally - too busy being a feted literary starlet. This is where the narrator, or Stanišic himself, grows up. In this section, Yugoslavia is no longer the paradise of the first half, peopled by smocked Titoists and emotional drunks. Whereas the harbingers of war were almost too subtle to notice before, now they are everywhere. We see the real events, no longer swathed in kitsch - or do we? Because Aleksandar is still the inveterate storyteller - only now, instead of his magic wand that makes everything better, "someone should invent an honest plane, which can rasp off the lies from the stories and the delusions from the memories. I am a collector of shavings."
Aleksandar returns to Bosnia from Germany, visiting his grandmother and his old home town. He searches for the little Muslim girl, but is she real or just a device in a plotline? In this second half, Stanisic really plays with his readers, picking up on countless tiny details from the first part, describing various possible realities, turning facts on their heads - the one that got away, the football match between the lines. The humour turns from light to dark, the characters from glittering to down-to-earth. Whereas before, I gladly suspended my disbelief, now that disbelief is the whole point. It felt like I had gone back to Bosnia with Aleksandar and been just as shocked by all the things I had refused to see beforehand. That, I think, is one of the great strengths of the book.
And although the structure of the second half could be tighter, I really think the book deserves to be a hit in English, as it has in German. As long as people can get past the Balkan kitsch.
Update: I finally found the outcome to that little cultural misunderstanding in Summer Holiday. Now that's Balkan kitsch.
First off, although I have friends and acquaintances from various former Yugoslavian states, my entire "knowledge" of the culture is based on Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday and Kurt Held's book Die Rote Zora. Incidentally, this is an absolute classic German children's book, written by a disillusioned Communist in Swiss exile and published under a pseudonym in 1941. It seems to have been published in English back in 1967 under the title The Outsiders of Uskoken Castle, translated by Lynn Aubrey. Time for a rediscovery, I feel, especially after the gorgeous film recently made of it. Bloomsbury, could Zora be the new Harry Potter?
But back to the soldier and the gramophone. Now I haven't read the translation, obviously, but I thoroughly enjoyed the original. I even enjoyed the meandering titles that got Stewart's goat - and which Ross Benjamin describes in Bookforum as "playfully mimic(ing) Cervantes and Grimmelshausen by providing brief, tantalizingly eccentric synopses: 'How long a heart attack takes over a hundred meters, how heavy a spider’s life weighs, why a sad man writes to the cruel river, and what magic the comrade-in-chief of the unfinished can work.'" In fact, at the end of each chapter I went back and checked if everything was included. Sometimes it isn't - deliberately.
The first half or so is a fairly straight-forward tale of a boy of unspecified age growing up in pre-war Yugoslavia. Here, it's the language that carries the novel - whimsical non-collocations and lists half a page long, no quotation marks but rapidly changing perspectives, stories upon stories. And the critics that don't like it say it's Balkan kitsch. They might be right - the rural summer party with a table groaning with hearty food and slivovitz, the enraged husbands, the speeches at grandad's funeral. You can often hear the accordeons in your minds ear - and in fact there is an actual band playing brass instruments every now and then. But the narrator Aleksandar Krsmanovic - a thinly veiled Saša himself - is a born storyteller, packaging all the everyday dramas into melodramas, adding just that little bit of technicolour to life.
And then comes the war. For Aleksandar, the war is a bit like a Kammerspiel - it takes place in a single setting, the cellar and corridors of his housing block. The soldiers arrive - sitting down at the impromptu communal dining table and asking what's for tea. The horror is never spoken out loud, we leave the room or close our eyes along with the narrator every time something bad threatens to happen. He protects a Muslim girl from the countryside seeking shelter in the building, then wanders the empty streets with his best friend and forgets about her again. As events reach a crescendo, the family packs up and leaves - a sudden interruption that divides the book into two.
The second part has another contents page, a very different style, and is almost a book about the book. This is where you realise that Stanišic studied creative writing on the renowned Leipzig University course - which has been churning out well-read young writers for a few years now. He didn't graduate, incidentally - too busy being a feted literary starlet. This is where the narrator, or Stanišic himself, grows up. In this section, Yugoslavia is no longer the paradise of the first half, peopled by smocked Titoists and emotional drunks. Whereas the harbingers of war were almost too subtle to notice before, now they are everywhere. We see the real events, no longer swathed in kitsch - or do we? Because Aleksandar is still the inveterate storyteller - only now, instead of his magic wand that makes everything better, "someone should invent an honest plane, which can rasp off the lies from the stories and the delusions from the memories. I am a collector of shavings."
Aleksandar returns to Bosnia from Germany, visiting his grandmother and his old home town. He searches for the little Muslim girl, but is she real or just a device in a plotline? In this second half, Stanisic really plays with his readers, picking up on countless tiny details from the first part, describing various possible realities, turning facts on their heads - the one that got away, the football match between the lines. The humour turns from light to dark, the characters from glittering to down-to-earth. Whereas before, I gladly suspended my disbelief, now that disbelief is the whole point. It felt like I had gone back to Bosnia with Aleksandar and been just as shocked by all the things I had refused to see beforehand. That, I think, is one of the great strengths of the book.
And although the structure of the second half could be tighter, I really think the book deserves to be a hit in English, as it has in German. As long as people can get past the Balkan kitsch.
Update: I finally found the outcome to that little cultural misunderstanding in Summer Holiday. Now that's Balkan kitsch.
GBO Rights List
The New York German Book Office has revamped its website - but I still don't find it all that user-friendly, I'm sorry to say. The best thing to do is fiddle around until you get to the pdf Fiction Rights List for Spring 2008 - which is a thing of beauty. Not just the whole presentation - it's a gorgeous shade of regal purple - the titles on the list look great too. There's Clemens Meyer, Ulrich Pelzer, Sherko Fatah and more. Plus mentions of Marcel Beyer's Kaltenburg, which I'm reading right now, and Karen Duve's Taxi, which I'll be picking up from the bookshop this afternoon. Schmakofatzki.
And Chad Post at Three Percent (why do people write "over at Other Blog X"? Is it to indicate that they're all big buddies who live round the corner from each other in the virtual hood? I'll try to avoid it in future) writes about a panel discussion with the Grand Fromage of the GBO, Riky Stock - on funding translation. Because this is something the GBO does too, and rather well, it would seem. Post writes:
One of the things that everyone seemed to agree on was that the next logical step in cultural funding was to help market these titles rather than simply paying for the translation. It’s important to get money to offset translation costs—that’s a huge additional cost and without subsidies I suspect a lot of translators would be paid an embarrassingly tiny amount for their work—but helping cultivate an audience for these works will pay off big in the long run.
Of course helping to promote books in translation is something English PEN, at least, already does. Five books a year may be a drop in the ocean, but it's a great start. One of them is Saša Stanišić's How The Soldier Repairs the Gramophone. More on that later...
And Chad Post at Three Percent (why do people write "over at Other Blog X"? Is it to indicate that they're all big buddies who live round the corner from each other in the virtual hood? I'll try to avoid it in future) writes about a panel discussion with the Grand Fromage of the GBO, Riky Stock - on funding translation. Because this is something the GBO does too, and rather well, it would seem. Post writes:
One of the things that everyone seemed to agree on was that the next logical step in cultural funding was to help market these titles rather than simply paying for the translation. It’s important to get money to offset translation costs—that’s a huge additional cost and without subsidies I suspect a lot of translators would be paid an embarrassingly tiny amount for their work—but helping cultivate an audience for these works will pay off big in the long run.
Of course helping to promote books in translation is something English PEN, at least, already does. Five books a year may be a drop in the ocean, but it's a great start. One of them is Saša Stanišić's How The Soldier Repairs the Gramophone. More on that later...
Monday, 2 June 2008
Wetlands Conquers the UK
Just in case you hadn't noticed, British publishers Fourth Estate have bought Charlotte Roche's Feuchtgebiete for "a decent sum". I'll bet. Thanks to Bowlserised for pointing it out.
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