opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 30 April 2006

21 April: Philip Roth's Everyman | On fiction in translation | Interview with Ficowski translator | Mysticism fascination ? | How to Cure a Fanatic review
22 April: Kertész profile | Catalan or what ? | NBCC weblog | Pitol picks up Cervantes Prize | The Scent of your Breath review
23 April: Things Fall Apart in Igbo ? | Creative writing programmes in the UK | An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter review
24 April: Sophomoric plagiarism ? | More books, less readers in China | Brazilian literature overview | PEN World Voices | Measuring the World due in November | The History Boys review
25 April: Overlooked books | Voices from Chernobyl | My Father's Notebook review
26 April: Reading the World | Kadare profile | Orange Prize shortlist | Cold Skin review
27 April: PEN report: Faith & Reason: Writers Speak | PEN-pods | Encouraging reading in Lebanon
28 April: PEN report: Salvayre and Moody | Int'l festival purpose ? | Booker gossip
29 April: PEN report: translation panels | Banville on Everyman | Consequences for Handke
30 April: PEN report: The Radical Loser | Another book editor starts a weblog | TEV at LA Times Festival of Books | Saramago interview | Authenticity

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       PEN report: The Radical Loser

       One of the Friday evening events at the PEN World Voices festival was The Radical Loser: A Public Interview with Hans Magnus Enzensberger, which drew a good crowd at the Goethe Institut (a full house, albeit in a too-small room). The event pitted Philip Gourevitch against German writer (and leading public intellectual) Hans Magnus Enzensberger in a discussion about an essay Enzensberger first published in Der Spiegel in the fall of 2005 which is now also available in English translation -- as The Radical Loser -- at the excellent signandsight.com-site. (Enzensberger has since apparently expanded his work into a small book, but the evening focused on the original essay.)
       The Goethe-Institut helpfully had copies of the essay available; to my considerable regret the printed PEN program-guide had not made clear that the interview would be based on this piece -- and that the essay was available on the Internet -- and so, not having read it beforehand, I felt unprepared. Nevertheless, the basic thesis is a fairly simple one, and Gourevitch and Enzensberger managed to convey the gist of the argument well enough so that familiarity with the text wasn't a necessity.
       Gourevitch noted that the evening was billed as a conversation, but he hoped it would be more a "dynamic discussion" of Enzensberger's text and thesis, and it certainly proved to be fairly lively -- indeed almost testy. I said above the evening pitted Gourevitch against Enzensberger, and that's what it seemed like at times, since Gourevitch sounded far from convinced -- and took exception to quite a few of Enzensberger's statements in the text.
       The discussion began with Gourevitch asking what Enzensberger meant with the concept of the 'radical loser'. Enzensberger explained that the world is filled with losers, but only some are radicalized. What makes a loser radical ? Well, he's not only a loser (as so many people are) but also one that accepts the judgment of the outside world that he's a loser, and he internalizes it, meaning he can't work his way out of it -- which ultimately leads to an explosive situation, doing away with self-preservation. (This, then, is the guy who appears on the back pages of the newspapers as the father who went on a rampage and killed his family -- or the suicide bomber.)
       There is also the political variant, the coalition of radical losers -- whereby he see Nazis as the perfect example. Gourevitch noted that 'losers' also implies 'winners', but in the essay found only globalization described as winning, and wondered: who are the winners in Enzensberger's theory ? Eventually, Enzensberger suggested that, for example, the failure of Hitler and the Nazi program had left a variety of winners -- Gourevitch interjecting that it's the first time he's never heard Jews being described as winners of World War II. Enzensberger pointed out that Hitler had not succeeded in getting rid of the groups he had meant to (though Gourevitch noted that for all intents and purposes he had wiped out the Jews in Europe). Still, Enzensberger was optimistic about the death of Nazism -- it's old hat, he said, and the neo-Nazis have no idea of actual Nazism.
       Gourevitch also wondered about the lumping together of liberation organizations and the like all as "loser-collectives" as Enzensberger does in his essay -- and which he claims all degenerate in a very similar way. Gourevitch read out the entire list of 57 acronyms that Enzensberger lists as examples (MLC, RCD, SPLA, ELA, etc. etc.), and said that he saw differences among them in their approaches and methods. It put Enzensberger somewhat on the defensive -- he wrote an essay, he maintained, not a treatise; it was not meant to be exhaustive. An essay is meant to be an attempt, starting "a train of thought that might be useful".
       Asking whether Enzensberger could identify any group that was engaged in fighting the winners with a sense of sacrifice that is meaningful, Enzensberger suggested the PLO -- there was a purpose there, he thought, a rather clear cut idea in their minds. As Gourevitch dryly countered: killing athletes in Munich ?
       Much of Enzensberger's essay focuses on the Arab world and radical Islamism, and Gourevitch also took exception to that pretty wholesale damning of the entire Arab world. (Looking over the essay, this was probably worth a closer look; Enzensberger emphasized that the radical loser is a minority in all these societies, but he clearly sees special problems in the Arab world.)
       A decent Q& A round touched on several of these points -- including Enzensberger's over-simplification of seeing the Arab world as one -- but Gourevitch's closing remarks were among the most interesting. He suggested that there's nothing bizarre about the phenomenon of the suicide bomber (and the like): terrorism is effective, and the suicide bomber phenomenon shouldn't be so perplexing. He cited in particular the Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka -- a Hindu movement whose techniques have also been adopted by al-Qaida.
       Enzensberger's idea of the 'radical loser' does appear to have some value -- as long as it's not simply a dismissal of the people who he means (the American-English connotations of "loser" seem to be weighted considerably more in this direction than the German -- something that was not addressed that evening). The essay did prove a good starting point for discussion -- though with Enzensberger largely on the defensive the audience was ultimately perhaps less receptive to his ideas. Gourevitch had some good points of attack -- but the essay itself is also worth a second (or first) look.

       Note that Ian Buruma wrote on Enzensberger's essay in The Guardian a few months ago, in Extremism: the loser's revenge -- where he found: "The only thing missing in Enzensberger's analysis is the sexual factor, the psychology of the great masturbator, the murderous gay thug, the drooping despot", something also not addressed at the PEN event.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Another book editor starts a weblog

       Joining the ranks of such editors as TLS-man Peter Stothard and the Philadelphia Inquirer's Frank Wilson, the News & Observer's J.Peder Zane has jumped on the literay weblogging bandwagon, with Off the Books.
       So when will Sam Tanenhaus launch his ?

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       TEV at LA Times Festival of Books

       While half the literary webloggers on the East Coast seem to be reporting from the PEN World Voices festival, it's good to see that The Elegant Variation --- usually quiet on weekends -- has the West Coast event of the week, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, well covered (live, most of the time, too !).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Saramago interview

       In The Observer Stephanie Merritt talks to José Saramago, in what they claim is "his first interview with an English newspaper", Still a street-fighting man. (Given that he's talked to everyone from Bomb to Mass Humanities (!) it's pretty astonishing (and pathetic) that no UK paper previously bagged him.)
       Anyway, we're now planning a pilgrimage, after learning that:

The architecture of José Saramago's purpose-built library, as it rises from a parched hillside on his adopted island of Lanzarote, creates the impression of a modern cathedral. Sunlight splinters through high, narrow windows of opaque glass that stretch the full two storeys; the clean, white walls and cool flagstones contribute to a sense of hushed reverence in the presence of so many volumes, ancient and modern, in so many languages. Here is a shrine to literature, an alternative religion for Portugal's only Nobel laureate

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Authenticity

       An interesting piece in The Observer, as Sarfraz Manzoor asks: Why do Asian writers have to be 'authentic' to succeed ?:

The media demands diversity and authenticity but writers are rarely capable of fulfilling this expectation. When a writer emerges who appears to be giving us the real deal they are immediately lionised, and when it is revealed that they are not they are criticised. The publishing world wants Asian writers it can promote as authentic. Can they not be allowed to have imaginations ? Can they not be allowed to simply tell stories ?

       Well worth thinking about.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       PEN report: translation panels

       Thursday afternoon and evening there were two translation panels at the PEN World Voices festival, one on Translation and Globalization and then Mixed Media: Writers on Their Languages -- with a few of the panelists (Boris Akunin, Raymond Federman) doing double-duty.

       The Translation and Globalization panel was moderated by former Los Angeles Times Book Review-editor Steve Wasserman, and consisted of Boris Akunin, Roberto Calasso, Raymond Federman, Amanda Hopkinson, Richard Howard, and Elizabeth Peellaert.
       Their translation credentials are formidable: Howard has done some 150 from the French; Akunin -- before achieving such great success as a mystery writer -- was a translator from the Japanese; Calasso, as founder and head of the great Italian publishing house Adelphi (check out their list ! -- from year to year 50 to 70 per cent translated works, he said !), brought the publishing perspective to the table; Elizabeth Peellaert is a translator (principally into French); and Amanda Hopkinson is director of the British Centre for Literary Translation.
       Without too clear direction, the first round of responses ranged from the panelists describing their early embrace of literature and language (Howard describing learning French on the long vacation car-trips to Florida, for example, or Peellaert, from a family of Moroccan Jews who emigrated to France, describing the languages in her childhood household), to some reaching considerably farther. Calasso, in particular, moved more towards what was surely meant to be the topic of the day, assessing the current situation, including the very flat picture of culture that results from the limited availability of classical and foreign literature, specifically in the US.
       Throughout the afternoon, Calasso repeatedly brought up the role of the book business, and how publishers fail in their duty -- as particularly in the US there is changed idea of what a publishing company should be: he sees a policy of one-shots, the very opposite of how publishing should be done. A publishing house, he suggested, is like a book made of many books, which must fit together. He mentioned several unlikely success stories -- how when he first published Karl Kraus someone told him he'd sell 20 copies, and that while sales began slow he's now gone through 15 printings. Similarly, Joseph Roth was (so he believes) a totally forgotten writer even in Germany and his native Austria 30 years ago, and Adelphi now boasts of sales of half a million of his works. (As it happens, I picked up my first Roths almost exactly 30 years ago, and don't recall him being particularly out of favor or fashion .....)
       Amanda Hopkinson brought up the interesting point that there is a 'high' literature which does get translated, the major writers, generally writing in widely-spoken languages, but that while some 300 languages are now spoken in British schools it is these, and their literatures, that go almost entirely overlooked and to which there is almost no (translated) access. Raymond Federman, too, complained about the difficulty of getting access to books (speaking also from the experience of being an often out of print author).
       Much of the focus of discussion was on a subject that had apparently come up at lunch, as they wondered what could explain the current vogue of new translations of previously translated works (since there have been several high profile re-translations of classic works in recent years, from several Tolstoys to Don Quixote and Thomas Mann). (Peellaert noted that it's also in vogue in France.) Wasserman offered the obvious explanation: because these are already established names there's reader recognition (so the publishers' hope, no doubt), and they'll get reviewed (it certainly seems to improve the odds at The New York Times Book Review ...).
       Richard Howard didn't think highly of the trend, not sensing any sigh of relief from readers whenever a great new translation appeared. Amanda Hopkinson added some interesting points about re-translation, noting that one of the problems with it is that the original does not change, and so there's the question of to what extent new translations are of use to readers. She focused on the Constance Garnett problem: the famous translator did all the great Russians -- and so they all sound like Constance Garnett. But how much is gained in retranslation ? She also didn't sound convinced that it was that valuable.
       (The re-translation issue is an interesting one, but seemed sort of off-point. One of the panelists noted that it was a bit odd that it was this subject that took up most of their time, too .....)
       The panel began punctually at 4:00 (praise be ! all the others I've been at started nowhere near the scheduled time, to my considerable annoyance), but was only scheduled through 5:30, and Wasserman emphasized the time-limitations several times, making for a somewhat hurried atmosphere that probably wasn't that conducive to allowing discussion to unfold. Anticipating audience questions, he moved things on to the Q & A portion -- allowing for some interesting points to be raised, but not helping keep things anywhere near, for example, the globalization aspect.
       As part of the Q & A Akunin described the changing Russian situation. He noted that Russians have always loved translated fiction, and that especially perestroika was a euphoric period. Working as an editor at the Soviet journal Foreign Literature, he noted at that time they were constantly discovering new authors, and every issue was a sensation (after years when only carefully selected authors were permissible). He also mentioned that in 1989 all twelve issues of the journal were devoted to the first Russian translation of Ulysses -- though he also joked that they lost half their readers that year (surely a telling outcome worthy of more discussion).
       Among the more interesting points that came up was Calasso noting that if the originals are not available -- the work of Thomas Bernhard was the example he used -- then the local market will instead be forced to fall back on the imitations -- American authors doing their best to imitate Bernhard, for example, with predictable results.
       Wasserman also shared the story of what happened when he put an Octavio Paz review of a translation of the works of Sor Juana de la Cruz on the front page of the LATBR -- incomprehension from his bosses, tons of mail from grateful readers. And there was some mention of all that we're still missing in English translation -- most of the works of Quevedo, for example.
       In summary: some interesting ideas and opinions, some good anecdotes -- and far too little about globalization. Yes, some of the panelists tried to slip it in every now and then, but it never seemed to take hold.
       (See now also Chad Post's take in his day three post.)

       The second panel was: Mixed Media: Writers on Their Languages. David Damrosch moderated, and Boris Akunin, Bernardo Atxaga, Raymond Federman, Yiyun Li, Agi Mishol, Hwang Sok-Yong, and Dubravka Ugresic were the panelists.
       Two of the writers are bi-lingual writers (i.e. actually write in two languages), Atxaga (Basque and Spanish) and Federman (French and English), offering a particularly interesting perspective. Federman noted that he is also a self-translator (like Beckett, whom he admires greatly) -- and noted that an author translating his own work can take more liberties with the text, since it belongs to him. He also spoke of some of how his bilingualism affects his writing -- and offered an enjoyable little tour-de-force with a reading of a brief passage demonstrating something he dreams of doing: writing a book in both languages, the two merging into one as he switches back and forth within even the sentences.
       Dubravka Ugresic spoke of writing in a language that's like a marginal, small currency, subject to heavy inflation: Serbo-Croatian (or Croato-Serbian), which is now (artificially) divided into Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian -- with Montenegrin likely soon to follow. She mentioned -- more in resignation than anger -- the ridiculous war criminals in the Hague who demand their statements be translated into Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian -- and (more angrily) the criminally-minded linguists who argue these are three distinct languages. She read a bit from her recently translated novel, The Ministry of Pain, noting that while she originally thought it was about exile and love she now finds it really is about language and the trauma of language.
       Hwang Sok-Yong related some personal experiences of the misunderstandings he has faced, beginning with an American soldier he met in during the Viet Nam war who was stunned to see him writing, not aware that there was writing in Korea. He also spoke of the North-South divide in Korea, which also affects language, and some of the efforts being made in that regard (they're working on a unified dictionary, for example). He noted that his book, The Guest, contains a great deal of vernacular and is based on a shamanistic exorcism ritual, and he read such a piece in the original Korean.
       Poet Agi Mishol focused on the particulars of Hebrew, suggesting what a writer could do with them (and what they couldn't). She also read a poem in Hebrew.
       Yiyun Li described her switch of languages, from her native Chinese to English, which occurred when she discovered she wanted to write (she was originally a scientist). She maintained that she keeps the languages separate, and never writes in Chinese -- and wouldn't even translate her own work into Chinese.
       Akunin spoke of the two tiers of literature in Russia, and how he had moved from one -- being a serious writer, of essays and the like -- to the other -- being a belletrist, a writer of entertainments. So serious is the divide that he adopted the pen-name 'Boris Akunin' to hide behind -- and even now he gets grief about not devoting himself to serious literature from his mother.
       The panel at least lived up to its title, with a variety of fairly interesting takes on the question. It was also a nice mix of writers, offering takes on smaller languages (Basque, Serbo-Croatian, Hebrew) and a widely-spoken language like Korean that isn't that well-known in the US, as well as interesting personal approaches to language (including Federman's all-pervading bilingualism versus Yiyun Li's narrow focus on her adopted writing language).
       Curiously -- perhaps because it was also not a debating panel -- the audience seemed oddly deflated by the end, unable to come up with a single question to pose (something I've never seen happen at any literary gathering of this sort).

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Banville on Everyman

       We collected links to some of the early reviews for Philip Roth's Everyman, but the flood of reviews has since gotten out of hand. Still, we can't resist linking to John Banville's review in The Guardian.
       And while we're at it, we might as well mention Angel Gurria-Quintana's review in the Financial Times, and David Ulin's profile in The LA Times (latter link likely only short-lived).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Consequences for Handke

       Peter Handke's support for Slob Milosevic -- and his speaking at his funeral -- have not gone over really big. The Comédie-Française apparently only got wind of it recently, but they've decided it's reason enough to axe one of his plays from their programme.
       Not much English-language coverage -- and only brief mentions in the French and German press -- but you gotta love the French headlines:

• Peter Handke déprogrammé à la Comédie-Française
• La Comédie-Française renonce à une pièce de Handke, pro-Milosevic
• La Comédie-Française annule une pièce de Handke
• Peter Handke est interdit de Comédie-Française

       Deprogrammed, renounced, annulled, forbidden ! It's the next best thing to actually getting your play produced -- and probably gets you more attention (though Handke might have his fill of notoriety for the time being).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       PEN report: Salvayre and Moody

       On Wednesday afternoon the PEN World Voices festival offered a Conversation: Lydie Salvayre & Rick Moody.
       In writing about the PEN festival (and international literary festivals in general) Dalkey Archive Press' Chad Post noted that the goal is to get people to attend, and that: "the trick is to pair a very recognizable and loved author (e.g., Margaret Atwood) with a lessor known foreign author". Possibly that was the formula here as well -- I understand Moody is a 'name' in the US -- but the heavily Francophile audience (which, alas, probably amounted to less than three dozen) seemed largely drawn by Salvayre. (While I'd heard of Moody before coming across Salvayre, I've since read three of her books and still none of his, and she was definitely what brought me there too.)
       Each author claimed not to understand the language of the other, so a translator mediated -- though the language-barrier proved fairly flexible (and probably ultimately made it a bit difficult going if you didn't understand French). (See also Chad Post's new post mentioning his take on the event -- and the language-issues.)
       The format was to have each author read something from their work, then Moody ask Salvayre some questions, and then to get some audience questions -- though it only roughly worked out that way.
       Moody read first -- Grocery List, a story recently published in Salmagundi (Issue 148/9) --, then Salvayre read from her newly-translated The Company of Ghosts (she read in French, and then someone read the English translation). Moody is a big fan, recommending that anyone who hasn't gotten their hands on it buy it immediately (as they could, since well-organized Dalkey Archive Press had set up shop by the door, offering books for purchase at the event). He was certain we'd find it to be one of the best books we'd read all year, calling it awesome.
       The conversation that followed did not start too smoothly. Moody was well-prepared with questions that appeared to be meant to help introduce the French author to an American audience, but Salvayre had ideas of her own and it was slightly rough going until the two got on the same page, i.e. just let an exchange more naturally develop.
       Moody's first question was about the influence of Salvayre's parents and background (they were political refugees from Spain who came to France in 1939). Salvayre eventually came round to that, but in a very roundabout way, first speaking about what the two authors had in common, including that they had both slipped 'disasters' into titles of their books -- an observation that did not translate well and left Moody befuddled, since he was apparently not aware that the French edition of his collection, The Ring of Brightest Angels around Heaven, was titled L'Etrange Horloge du désastre.
       She clearly finds (literary) appeal in disastrousness -- revealing also that the title she had originally selected for The Company of Ghosts was 'Inventory of Disaster' (which, come to think of it, is both more appropriate and clever -- but her editor wouldn't have it). She finds in Moody's writing a focus on the small, internal disasters, of family in particular. In her own work, she said, she is trying to some extent to counteract the world of disaster: a world where disaster is so regularly exhibited and transformed into a spectacle, making for a substitute for actual understanding.
       The subject did bring her back to Moody's original question, as she noted that her parents arrived into a disaster, a France under Pétain where they, like so many others, were immediately and always suspect. It is also this, to some extent, that is the 'secret heart' of The Company of Ghosts (with the true secret heart being the Holocaust, but that being something she left entirely secret, believing that to make it visible would have been obscene). The book gives witness to a doubled-disaster: she did not want to write a historical novel, but presenting it in this way -- the mother haunted by that past -- she also was bringing the issue (specifically of collaboration) into the present -- and asking whether any or all of this was still possible now. (It seems to me the book makes her position pretty clear: damn right it could -- and is.)
       She emphasized what she believes to be the important questions (and the ones raised by her books): Have we thought that period of history through enough ? Do we have to rethink it ?
       Moody then had another go at a question, asking this time whether she thought the French student movement and, in particular, the recent riots were disasters that contemporary French writers would address in the same way as she had dealt with disaster in The Company of Ghosts. Salvayre asked: Are French authors interested in reality ? -- clearly believing they're not. She finds that currently French authors are suspicious of political engagement in literature -- the opposite of (and presumably a reaction to) the time of Sartre's influence, when you had to be engaged.
       Moody moved on to the World Voices festival theme, 'Faith and reason' -- finding, interestingly, too much focus on reason and not enough on faith, and revealing that the "mystery and assault on empiricism implicit in faith" seems important to him. (Empiricism, he also said, seems to be so good at telling its side of the story that it has won the war, but he's not sure he likes living in that world.)
       Salvayre tackled this issue to some extent in her recent novel -- not yet available in English --, La Méthode Mila, and it would likely have made for an interesting example. (As Warren Motte notes in his recent review, it is: "Cast as an unrelenting indictment of Cartesian philosophy".) Salvayre did bring it up and discussed it -- particularly what she sees as an obsession with meaning -- but only went so far.
       At least the discussion got Moody to express more of his own opinions, rather than merely trying to serve up questions for Salvayre: he sees, for example, American literature (and culture) marked by a capitalism run amok and dependent on materialism and rationalism -- and naturalism and realism as a PR wing for materialism. He also tossed out that he thinks that over the past 50 years American fiction has relied on the idea of the epiphany: it's hard to find an American story whose last three paragraphs don't offer one (which, obviously, is a limited and limiting approach which authors might want to think beyond).
       Salvayre's work as psychiatrist in an immigrant-dominated suburb was also touched upon.
       Interesting stuff, but between the language-confusion and the lack of direction actual constructive discussion rarely emerged. A firm-handed middleman might have been able to direct the event, as Moody was put in a difficult position (and proved far more interesting when he got to debate the issues, rather than just try to elicit information and opinion from Salvayre). As it turned out, the audience seemed fairly Salvayre-savvy anyway, so the 'introducing the author'-aspect probably wasn't even that necessary.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Int'l festival purpose ?

       In his first report from the PEN World Voices Festival Dalkey Archive Press' Chad Post considers what such international gatherings are good for -- and specifically the crowd-attracting aspect: do the big draws really help ? After all:

The real test is how much the audience grows because of this. Is there a difference between drawing a crowd of 1,000,000 people to an event and getting ten of them to read a book from Hungary, versus attracting only a crowd of 20 and getting the same 10 people to read the book ?

       I forgot to ask him how many of Lydie Salvayre's book they shifted after Wednesday's event (see report above); certainly that turnout was somewhat disappointing. But otherwise, the Festival seems to be drawing very well: I've been to four other events, and for the most part the crowds have impressed. Pamuk's speech and the big Town Hall reading (see report below) both drew full houses (though Town Hall emptied at a rather alarming rate as the evening wore on) -- and two translation-focused events yesterday (reports should be up tomorrow) were both very well attended.
       But will new readers be found in these audiences ? Considering solely their performances -- generally brief readings from their work -- Jeanette Winterson is the only one where, had I been unfamiliar with her work, I would have been intrigued enough by her performance to seek out her work. (Though a double-dose of Raymond Federman at the translation-panels has also piqued some interest.) Part of the problem is that the events that serve up half a dozen or more (14 at Town Hall !) authors just doesn't let you get much of a feel for them individually. Fortunately, there are also smaller events, focused on fewer authors (readings and conversations), and one advantage of the festival is that most authors do appear at more than one event, allowing (potential) readers to get a better idea. (Potential readers who have the time to seek out all these events, that is .....)
       I do hope others in the audience are more easily seduced -- there are a lot of fine authors here, deserving of larger readerships.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Booker gossip

       In The Independent John Walsh profiles Booker-man Martyn Goff -- and offers some of the good gossip about the prize.
       A lot isn't surprising: "Goff reserves his profoundest dislike for John Berger", or:

So -- had any writers struck him as especially dim, philistine or generally nasty ? "I did find DBC Pierre odd, to say the least.

       But there's also some juicier stuff:

A checklist reveals that yes, some Booker judges didn't read the books. "Norman St John Stevas didn't read everything, or possibly anything," he jokes.

       (Ha ha)
       And apparently the: "Worst year on record was 1994" -- when John Bayley chaired (and James Wood was one of the judges ...).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       PEN report: Faith & Reason: Writers Speak

       The 2006 PEN World Voices Festival offers over 50 programs, but Wednesday night's Faith & Reason: Writers Speak at Town Hall surely was the star-studded centerpiece. Only one of the Nobel laureates made it (the other, Nadine Gordimer, unfortunately had to cancel for personal reasons), but the company she (Toni Morrison) was in was still impressive: Chinua Achebe, Martin Amis, Gioconda Belli, Roberto Calasso, E. L. Doctorow, David Grossman, Elias Khoury, Yusef Komunyakaa, Zadie Smith, Duong Thu Huong, Ayu Utami, and Jeanette Winterson, with Salman Rushdie opening and closing the show.
       Town Hall was packed -- at least at the beginning. Somewhat disappointingly, the crowd thinned as the night progressed, leaving the place at best two-thirds filled by the end. It was a fairly long affair -- over two hours -- but those who left during the lull of the middle-speakers missed out on some of the best performances.
       The whole PEN festival centers around 'Faith and reason', and that was the highlighted common thread on this night. The focus was definitely more on faith, with reason as the afterthought or occasional counterweight. Most authors chose to read from previously published works -- some leaving it at that, others offering a bit more.
       Salman Rushdie opened the program: thrown a bit off course by Gordimer's cancellation, he shared some of what she had planned to present (though declining to read the sections in which she praises him). He then went on to read from Shalimar the Clown -- the section in which Shalimar convinces the Iron Mullah that he's joining the ranks for the right reasons (i.e. has been won over by faith -- though, of course, he hasn't). Good stuff, and, as always, Rushdie does all this -- from semi-MCing to reading -- very well.
       From there the authors appeared one after the other in alphabetical order, each alone on the stage (except for Vietnamese writer Duong Thu Huong briefly sharing it with her translator). The lack of interaction was a bit of a disappointment: it was emphatically individual viewpoints on offer, the only debate whatever each writer chose to put on the table (some challenging themselves, others allowing their work simply to speak for itself).
       First up was Chinua Achebe, who followed-up a reading from Things Fall Apart by reading two letters he had recently received from readers asking and commenting upon that section of the book, sharing their reactions -- a useful juxtaposition (and a nice nod to the reader's role in completing any written work).
       Martin Amis offered a few pieces on Islamism -- light (humorous) parts of serious pieces -- as well as a bit of relevant Joseph Conrad.
       Gioconda Belli was among the few who wrote something especially for the evening, offering a Latin American perspective and discussing in particular how she had been hopeful before the events of September 2001 that the eyes of affluent society might, in the post-Cold War world, turn their attention to what Fanon called the wretched of the earth -- and her disappointed at the newly divided world that has come instead, the poor remaining suspect in a world where terror has become so central.
       Roberto Calasso more directly addressed the question of 'faith and reason' -- two words that are subjected to abuse every day, as he noted. He cited Confucius, finding the 'rectification of names' as an essential step in righting society. In the contemporary world, he argued, there are few terms which are not in need of rectification -- 'faith' and 'reason' in particular.
       E.L.Doctorow looked at the American situation -- a nation of infidels, as some would now have it, and yet so obviously one of the most faith-ful in the world. In his 'secular humanist canticle' Doctorow argued that it was precisely that separation church and state, making religion a matter of the private sphere, that allowed for the particular American situation.
       David Grossman read from The Yellow Wind, and got some laughs for suggesting that that where he comes from they should charge royalties for every debate of faith and reason, colliding as they do constantly and more extremely than most everywhere else.
       Elias Khoury read from the newly translated Gates of the Sun; he also explained why he would not be participating in 'A Dialogue on Literature and Peace', a dialogue with David Grossman, scheduled for Sunday (and now transformed into A Conversation with David Grossman). He had been unaware that the event was being co-sponsored by a local Consulate General until he saw the program, and explained that in order to maintain his integrity as a writer he could not participate in any government-sponsored events (regardless of the government).
       Yusef Komunyakaa read two poems, Toni Morrison read from Paradise, offering two views of faith, and Zadie Smith -- who offered a disclaimer, noting that she is unqualified to hold forth on any abstract nouns -- read from On Beauty.
       Duong Thu Huong was for the most part represented by her translator, but did recite the Vietnamese version of one poem. Indonesian author Ayu Utami offered a clever faith-variation with her story Smell.
       Utami had raised the energy level again (yes, things did sag a bit in the middle), and then Jeanette Winterson took center-stage -- literally, not taking a stand behind one of the two lecterns on either side of the stage that the other readers (save wheelchair-bound Achebe) had used. No notes, no reading, just a few relevant stories from her life -- an expert performance, and captivating (and relevant) stuff. She told of being adopted into a strict religious household, where there were only 6 books (the Bible and five books on the Bible) and where, when her mother read her Jane Eyre, it came to quite a different ending. Her mother was a smart woman, she acknowledged, and among the basic truths she taught her was: the trouble with books is you never know what's in them until it's too late. And that and other experiences taught Winterson that the one way no one can take a text away from you is by memorizing it
       Rushdie finished off things with a clever bit from The Satanic Verses.

       All in all, quite a success. Many of the other festival programs involve panels and debate, so the one-by-one, no-questions-asked approach on this evening is only a somewhat lost opportunity. There was an interesting variety, mostly fairly on point -- and a couple of the performers stood out (Rushdie and Winterson, in particular -- but there were also pleasant surprises such as Ayu Utami).
       PEN seems to have taped and covered the event well, so it looks like you'll be able to see and/or hear it in its entirety on their site soon -- worth checking out.

       (Updated - 29 April): See now also Maud Newton's for the most part even more comprehensive report on the event.

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       PEN-pods

       PEN did a great job of archiving many of last year's festival panels, and it looks like they're going to do the same this year -- so even if you're not in New York you can listen in. PEN podcasts allows you to enjoy World Voices (and other PEN events !).
       Already available: Tuesday night's Orhan Pamuk event. (See also James Marcus' account, as well as much additional World Voices Festival coverage conveniently collected at MetaxuCafé.)

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       Encouraging reading in Lebanon

       In the Daily Star Daniella Matar reports on Encouraging young bookworms in Lebanon.
       Apparently some encouragement is needed:

"We as a culture are not avid readers. We are more the visiting type, the talking type, the socializing type," observes Julinda Abu Nasr, president of a 31-year-old organization called the Lebanese Board on Books for Young People (LBBY).

       Always interesting to hear what ideas people come up with:

To wit, there will be a puppet theater performance on Saturday, a number of reading hours and storytelling sessions and a special program called "Picture Book Cinema for Children" on May 2, replete with books projected on screens, accompanied by live readings in Arabic.

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       Reading the World

       All attention -- including ours -- is focussed on the PEN World Voices Festival in New York, but it's not too early to start thinking about the far more far-reaching (coming to a town near you !) Reading the World-project, which kicks off in May -- especially since they finally have set up an official website.
       It's a:

collaboration between booksellers and publishers to help bring international voices from around the world to readers like you.

       It's already expanded greatly from last year's first run, and now includes ten publishers and forty titles -- a wonderful variety of stuff.
       We have thirteen of the titles under review, so far, but hope to get in a couple more before things heat up -- and we'll certainly be providing you with more information as it becomes available.
       (Alas, we haven't found any reports from last week's Reading the World Festival, but we hope some of those who attended and participated do eventually publish accounts.)

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       Kadare profile

       In the Sunday Telegraph Duncan Fallowell talks with Ismail Kadare, in Will the real Mr Kadare please stand up ?.

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       Orange Prize shortlist

       The shortlist for the Orange Prize is out -- not available at the official site, last we checked (god forbid they'd utilise that resource ...), but all the British papers have all the necessary information: see, for example, Commerce complements art in final lineup for Orange prize by John Ezard in The Guardian.

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       Cold Skin review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Albert Sánchez Piñol's Cold Skin.
       Michael Eaude's review from The Independent offers two interesting titbits:
       Apparently: Cold Skin is "is the first contemporary novel translated into English from Catalan -- a language spoken by seven million people -- since 1994." 1994 ! Even the Basques get better treatment ! (Recall also our mention of the coming Catalan/Spanish clash surrounding guest-of-honour status at the Frankfurt Book Fair next year -- with Sánchez Piñol a staunch Catalan-only proponent .....)
       Almost as shocking: "some 15 early pages explaining the narrator's background as an IRA volunteer in the 1920s have been left out". What the ... ?!??! (Equally shockingly, there's no mention anywhere in the US (or, apparently, the UK) edition that readers are not being presented with the full version .....)

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       Overlooked books

       UK bookseller Waterstone's has come up with a list of 30 books that deserve to be rediscovered and 25 books recommended by authors and celebrities that: "they love but that have failed to gain the public attention they deserve".
       We have five of the 30 under review:

• Death and The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
• Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson
• Journey By Moonlight by Antal Szerb
• Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
• The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll

       Meanwhile we only have one of the celebrity-25 (David Mitchell's pick, The Following Story, by Cees Nooteboom).
       Most of this stuff isn't exactly obscure -- though maybe some of it did better in the US than the UK.
       At The Guardian's weblog, Culture Vulture they're also discussing the lists -- and offering more suggestions.
       See also Louise Jury's report on Dusting off the forgotten gems in The Independent.

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       Voices from Chernobyl

       Lots of coverage for Svetlana Alexievich's National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Voices from Chernobyl as the twentieth anniversary of the nuclear catastrophe there approaches. As Maud Newton has mentioned, there will be a reading tomorrow (26 April, 19:00) at the Housing Works Used Books Cafe in New York, which sounds like it'll be pretty impressive. (Stiff competition from the PEN World Voices Festival events, though .....). Maud also has an interesting interview with Keith Gessen, who translated the book.
       Meanwhile, you can now also listen to Melissa Block's NPR-report.

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       My Father's Notebook review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Kader Abdolah's My Father's Notebook.

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       Sophomoric plagiarism ?

       We haven't dwelt on Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan’s half-million dollar debut, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life (sorry, but except for the big-bucks contract it didn't sound very interesting) -- though it has certainly gotten enough coverage elsewhere. Such a great story, right ?
       Well, perhaps it turns out to be a bit too good to be true: in The Harvard Crimson David Zhou reports that Sophomore’s New Book Contains Passages Strikingly Similar to 2001 Novel -- and the samples on offer are pretty damning. Apparently:

A recently-published novel by Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan ’08, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, contains several passages that are strikingly similar to two books by Megan F. McCafferty -- the 2001 novel Sloppy Firsts and the 2003 novel Second Helpings.

       Wonderful stuff -- especially since the plagiarism seems so utterly pointless. God, we love the American publishing industry and what it leads to !
       The story was quickly picked up by AP (see, for example, here) and will, no doubt, be much-discussed the rest of the week. (We hope that all the appropriate heads will roll, but presume that everybody has an excuse (don't they always ?) and business will continue as usual.)

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       More books, less readers in China

       In China Daily Liu Weifeng reports on Survey: Fewer readers, more books.
       Depressingly:

Starting in 1999, the survey has found people's inclination for reading has been shrinking year by year. The reader ratio has been steadily declining, from 60.4 per cent in 1999, to 54.2 per cent in 2001, 51.7 per cent in 2003, before plummeting to 48.7 per cent in 2005.

       And this while: "the number of different books available has increased, from 14,987 varieties on offer in 1978, to 208,294 different kinds to choose from in 2004".

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       Brazilian literature overview

       At Brazilmax.com Tom Moore reports on Brazilian Literature: Lost Without Translation:

Brazilian literature abroad, and particularly its reception in the USA, suffers from a number of factors.

       He notes that:

It is certainly true that most literary works worldwide are never translated, but in the case of Brazil it is striking that major authors with decades of publication in Portuguese have never had a single work translated (or at most, one or two).

       There's also a useful run-down of some of the major overlooked Brazilian authors -- though quite a few of these have, indeed, had at least a few works translated into English.

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       PEN World Voices

       The PEN World Voices Festival starts tomorrow (and we should be covering a few of the events, both here and at MetaxuCafé).
       One of the cool opportunities available to even those who can't make it to New York is at the BenettonTalk blog, where you can

join the conversations, posting questions and generating debate, some days before they happen. Authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Lethem, Rodrigo Fresan, Helen Oyeyemi and many others will answer you.

       Go for it !

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       Measuring the World due in November

       The surprise German literary success of the past year -- which must have topped half a million in sales there by now -- is Daniel Kehlmann's Die Vermessung der Welt.
       The English translation -- Measuring the World, translated by Carol Brown Janeway -- is now listed at Amazon.com as being due 7 November. (See also the Pantheon publicity page -- not that there's much there yet.)

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       The History Boys review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Alan Bennett's The History Boys -- just in time for the Broadway premiere.

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       Things Fall Apart in Igbo ?

       Chinua Achebe wrote his classic novel, Things Fall Apart, in English, but Vanguard report that Achebe approves translation of Things Fall Apart into Igbo -- though apparently: "a number of (other) efforts are currently underway or are planned for the translation of Things Fall Apart into Igbo."
       Given the Igbo-setting of the novel, it seems surprising that it hasn't been made available in that language yet, but apparently Achebe had issues with the standard (literary) version of the language; see his explanation at this study guide (scroll down to 12), where he is quoted explaining that:

Igbo exists in numerous dialects, differing from village to village. Formal, standardized, written Igbo -- like many other African languages -- came into being as a result of the Christian missionaries' desire to translate the Bible into indigenous tongues. (...) The resulting 'Union Igbo' bore little relationship to any of the six dialects -- "a strange hodge-podge with no linguistic elegance, natural rhythm or oral authenticity" -- yet the missionaries authorized it as the official written form of the Igbo languages. Achebe would not consent to have his novel translated into this "linguistic travesty" Union Igbo.

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       Creative writing programmes in the UK

       In the Sunday Telegraph Julie Henry writes that Students search for literary fame, describing the explosion of creative writing programmes at UK universities: "with 85 offering postgraduate creative writing courses, compared with fewer than 10 a decade ago."
       Depressing news.

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       An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of César Aira's An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter.
       It comes with a (very) brief Preface by Roberto Bolaño, who writes that Aira: "is the author of four memorable novels". New Directions is bringing out one of them next year (How I became a Nun), but the one that we want to see translated is The Literature Conference, in which, according to Bolaño: "he recounts an attempt to clone Carlos Fuentes".

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Kertész profile

       In A man apart in The Guardian Julian Evans profiles Nobel laureate Kertész Imre.

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       Catalan or what ?

       In The Times Stephen Burgen looks at A question in Catalan. This could turn out to be a lot of fun:

Catalan culture is also the "guest of honour" at next year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, following on from India this year. This straightforward and indeed flattering invitation has provoked rows about how the nation should be represented at Frankfurt and has exposed the frailties of the national psyche. It has also raised some interesting questions about language and identity.

       Fortunately the politicians got involved:

To the chagrin of many, the Catalan parliament took it upon itself to debate the issue and ruled that the Catalan language is "the only identifier" of Catalan literature. (...) What the ruling means is that almost none of the best known Catalan writers will be officially represented -- because they write in Spanish.

       Yeah, the Frankfurters are going to love that. (Look for some none too subtle pressure to be exerted very soon ....)
       But it is an interesting example of a sort of 'minority' literature -- and what the consequences of artificially propping it up can be:

Catalan publishing is heavily subsidised by the state, and yet one of the ironies of this policy is that it has actually debased the literature.

"The business of subsidising Catalan literature has not only distorted the market by printing more books than are ever going to be read, it has harmed the image of the literature itself, by promoting second and even third-rate work simply because it is in Catalan," Manzano says. "And then people here wonder why Catalan literature doesn’t have the world reputation they think it deserves."

The final irony, of course, is that no one here reads anyway.

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       NBCC weblog

       Books, Inq. points us to Critical Mass, the brand new weblog of the National Book Critics Circle board of directors, which plans to offer: "Commentary on literary criticism, publishing, writing, and all things NBCC related."
       We heard about this at the NBCC annual meeting last month, and are thrilled to see it's now online. The NBCC Blogging Committee consists of Jane Ciabattari, John Freeman, Ellen Heltzel, Laura Miller, David Orr, Rebecca Skloot, Marcela Valdes, and Art Winslow, and if everyone pitches in this could be pretty damn good.

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       Pitol picks up Cervantes Prize

       They announced that he'd won a while ago, but Sergio Pitol finally got to pick up the premio Cervantes 2005. See, for example, Mexican writer Sergio Pitol receives Cervantes Prize at eitb.

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       The Scent of your Breath review

       We know you're thinking: what were they thinking ? Melissa P.'s horrific 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed is one of the worst books we've covered -- so why in the world have we now reviewed her follow-up, The Scent of your Breath ?
       Oh, there's simply no justification, except perhaps that masochistic instinct that draws us to see, every now and again, how low we can sink. But, damn, this is low !
       Sure, we could tell you it's because once we've reviewed one title by an author we like to see what else s/he gets up to, or that we were curious to see whether she was maturing as an author. But really, there's no excuse -- and we apologise. (Though we do note that her début remains among the most popular reviews at the complete review -- so shame on you too !)

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       Philip Roth's Everyman

       Philip Roth's much-anticipated Everyman is due out in a few weeks ((updated): as several readers have pointed out, it is in fact already available and in bookstores now), and A.S.Byatt's review in the New Statesman is among the first to discuss it. She describes it as: "a brief and uncompromising account of one man's death", and calls it: "A human story for our times." It all sounds a bit grim to us, but we'll probably try to get our hands on a copy. (See also the Houghton Mifflin publicity page, or order your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.)
       Joseph O’Neill also apparently reviews it in the May issue of The Atlantic Monthly, but that's not available online. But there are a few other reviews: Tim Auld's at The First Post and a Spanish review at Página/12 (where we particularly like their use of the ARC cover to illustrate the article ...). (There's also a mention in The Jewish Week.)

       (Updated - 22 April): See now also Douglas Kennedy's review in today's issue of The Times.
       (Updated - 23 April): See now also Peter Kemp's review in today's issue of the Sunday Times.
       (Updated - 24 April): See now also reviews in Newsweek and Scotland on Sunday.
       (Updated - 25 April): See now also reviews in the Financial Times and The New Yorker.

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       On fiction in translation

       Last week in The Bookseller Suresh Ariaratnam wrote on Fiction in translation: An English obsession (sorry, we missed it until now).
       He takes the recent Bloody Foreigners author tour as a starting point, noting that:

The irreverent tour title hints at an underlying discomfort with the book trade's current approach to foreign writing. "Whilst there's more visibility nowadays, there's still a good deal of resistance [to works in translation]," Gary Pulsifer, publisher of Arcadia, says.

       Lots of interesting (and some disturbing) stuff, including:

Lee Brackstone, Faber editorial director for fiction, acknowledges that as territorial borders become increasingly porous, books from non-English speaking cultures are important tools for navigating society. He adds that it is vital to move away from "the sense of worthiness and staidness" that once characterised this market sector.

One way to achieve this aim is to remove the translator's name from the book jacket, as Faber has done and Orion did for Carlos Ruis Zafón's bestseller, The Shadow of the Wind. But by adopting such marketing strategies, are publishers downplaying the foreign-ness of books in translation, and reinforcing an inward-looking reading culture ? Amanda Hopkinson, director of the University of East Anglia's British Centre for Literary Translation, believes that a monolingual culture leads people to believe that they can "read the world in English."

Rodney Troubridge, Waterstone's fiction buyer, affirms: "I don't think that publishers want to acknowledge that books are translated -- they want people to assume that everything's written in English."

       The issue of translators' names on book jackets is a contentious one. On the one hand, it's an obviously deserved attribution; on the other hand, it can be seen as a scarlet letter warning readers off (ughh, a translation ... -- though who is really fooled ?). We're afraid Troubridge has got it exactly right. (It should be noted that throughout Europe omitting the translator's name on the jacket is a widespread practise -- but then again reading books in translation there isn't considered anything out of the ordinary .....)
       (Recall also that in the US publishers -- even big name publishers of very prominent books -- have gone so far as to completely omit any mention of a translator or that a book was written in a foreign language (see, for example, this example) .....)

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       Interview with Ficowski translator

       Twisted Spoon have just brought out Jerzy Ficowski's Waiting for the dog to sleep (see their publicity page, or get your copy form Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk).
       Now the useful Polish Writing site offers a lengthy interview with one of the translators of the book, Soren Gauger.
       Fairly interesting -- as well as some enjoyable digs at the Old/New World differences:

How much of an impact has living and working in Poland had on your writing ?

Vast, mainly because Vancouver offers a fairly oppressive creative climate.

       We were also glad to read him stating the obvious:

Who else would you like to translate ?

I've been enjoying the futurists and catastrophists a great deal lately, Wat's essays and My Century (the English translation of which was butchered to half-size)

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       Mysticism fascination ?

       Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt recently was at one of the seminars marking the 30th anniversary of the Egyptian Writers' Union, and among other things he discussed his novella, Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran. Magdi Youssef reports on that, and wonders about: "the West's continuing fascination with mysticism" in Resistance and escape in Al-Ahram Weekly.

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       How to Cure a Fanatic review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Amos Oz's How to Cure a Fanatic.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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