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Friday, May 14th, 2010
For the past few weeks I've been reading Raul Galvez' book, From the Ashen Land of the Virgin: conversations with Bioy Casares, Borges, Denevi, Etchecopar, Ocampo, Orozco, Sabato -- this is certainly the proper way to read this book, a bit at a time rather than sitting down and plowing through it; so that one does not become frustrated and throw it down in disgust. There is much about the book that I would characterize as self-indulgent and silly; but there are also interesting, rewarding nuggets among the chaff. The most enlightening two conversations (and they are for better or worse "conversations", not "interviews") are the first, with Bioy Casares, and the last, with Ernesto Sabato. (I had never heard of Sabato before, but want to learn more about him -- in addition to his novels he was an anarchist and a nuclear physicist, and the director of CONADEP.) I'm also grateful to Galvez for hipping me to the name of Olga Orozco, who sounds like a wonderful poet; and for his conversation with Borges, which while it imparts very little in the way of information, is a charming impressionistic piece about the man's old age.
posted afternoon of May 14th, 2010: Respond
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Thursday, May 13th, 2010
Jorge posts a picture of his dog taking some well-earned rest:
 Update: or rather, not his dog, but one of a group of strays that were in the campsite where he spent the weekend outside Santiago. Another one, guarding the lake:
posted evening of May 13th, 2010: Respond
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Here is a song John and I recorded last night, a medley of "Drowsy Maggie" and "Dancing Barefoot" -- we've been working on this for a few weeks and played it last week at the Menzel Violins open mic. I'm pretty happy with the way we've integrated the vocal melody with the fiddle melody.
 Oh and here is another song I recorded recently that I'm pretty happy with:
This is a Leadbelly song also performed by Hazel Dickens (and many other artists), but the version I learned it from and which I always think of when I hear it, is my friends' band Other People's Children, Liam and Malcolm.
posted evening of May 13th, 2010: Respond
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Monday, May 10th, 2010
In an essay in Perpetual Motion (the second piece down on the linked page), Monterroso talks about first reading Borges and about becoming slowly immersed in his thinking and his puzzles. It is a very nice introduction to Borges; I was surprised to see that the work which opened Monterroso's eyes was Borges' foreword to his translation (1938) of The Metamorphosis:
When I first found Borges, in 1945, I didn't understand him; he was frankly puzzling for me. Delving into Kafka, I found Borges' foreword to The Metamorphosis; and for the first time I saw before me his world of metaphysical labyrinths, of infinities, of eternities, of tragic trivialities, of quotidian relationships comparable to the worst hell imaginable. A new universe, gleaming, ferociously attractive. Crossing from that foreword to all the rest of Borges' work has been for me (and for many others) an activity as important as breathing, and at the same time as dangerous as walking too close to the edge of a chasm. Following him has meant discovering and descending into new circles: Chesterton, Melville, Bloy, Swedenborg, Joyce, Faulkner, Woolf; taking up old friendships: Cervantes, Quevedo, Hernández; and at last returning to his illusory Paradise of the everyday: the barrio, the movie-house, the detective story.
I'm surprised because that foreword does not strike me as among Borges' finest work; it's principally just a capsule biography/chronology of Kafka and his work, and a cursory discussion of some themes in his work. (Obviously discovering Kafka in 1945 would be different from my experience of discovering Kafka in 1985 or thereabouts; but it would still be "discovering Kafka", not "discovering Borges".) There is one paragraph that seems to me to move to a different level:
Critics complain that in Kafka's three novels, there is a lack of linking material; but they recognize that this material is not essential. Myself, I maintain that this criticism indicates a fundamental unfamiliarity with the work of Kafka. The pathos of these "inconclusive" novels arises precisely from the infinite number of obstacles which block, again and again, the paths of his identical protagonists. Franz Kafka did not finish them: their basic property is that they are interminable. Do you remember the first, the most clear of Zeno's paradoxes? Motion is impossible, because before arriving at B we have to cross the intermediate point C, but before we arrive at C, we have to cross the intermediate point D, but before arriving at D... The Greek did not enumerate all of the points; Franz Kafka need not enumerate all the vicissitudes. It is enough for us to understand that they are infinite, like Hell.
(I hope I am understanding correctly how Borges is taking issue with critics of Kafka -- I don't really know whom or what arguments he is referring to.)
As he closes his piece, Monterroso talks about what your encounter with Borges can do to you:
The great problem of reading Borges: the temptation to imitate him is almost irresistable; to imitate him, impossible. Some writers you can get away with imitating -- Conrad, Greene, Durrel -- not Joyce; not Borges. It will sound facile and obvious.
The meeting with Borges never takes place without consequences. I've listed here a few of the things that can happen, for better and for the worse:
- Pass him by without noticing (for the worse).
- Pass him by; retrace one's steps and follow him for a little while to see what he's doing (for the better).
- Pass him by; retrace one's steps and follow him forever (for the worse).
- Find out that one is a simpleton, that until this moment one has never had an idea worth one's while (for the better).
- Find out that one is intelligent, because one enjoys reading Borges (for the better).
- Dazzle oneself with the fable of Achilles and the Tortoise; believe that one has figured it all out (for the worse).
- Discover the infinite and the eternal (for the better).
- Mull over the infinite and the eternal (for the better).
- Believe in the infinite and the eternal (for the worse).
- Leave off writing (for the better).
(Note on the translation: "for the better" is benéfica, "for the worse" is maléfica -- I think these are about right; it is too bad that the English phrases don't match up nicely to the title, as the Spanish words do -- the title is Beneficios y maleficios de Jorge Luis Borges, "Jorge Luis Borges: Blessings and Curses" -- I guess it could be translated as "Jorge Luis Borges for better or worse", but that would sound pretty hokey.)
posted evening of May 10th, 2010: Respond
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Stephanie Wells of The Great Whatsit took a trip recently to Brazil and Colombia -- she brought back some great pictures of the rainforest; and today she posts an absolutely phenomenal installation in Bogotá: Colombian artist Rafael Gómez Barros has covered the Capitol building in giant ants. Wow: I have a soft spot in general for large public installations, especially this type of trompe-l'oeuille-y reality modification thing... But this just seems amazing. Looking at the photos I feel a very visceral connection to the work. The statement Wells quotes from Gómez Barros -- the ants “represent immigration, globalization and displacement” -- isn't making a lot of sense to me outside of context -- I look at them and see decay and the collapse of the persistence of memory -- but I am fine with that. I'm very happy this installation exists, and I wish I were in Bogotá to look at it.
posted evening of May 10th, 2010: Respond
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Sunday, May 9th, 2010
via cleek, a sign by the tiger cage: (Reminds me of The Life of Pi.)
posted afternoon of May 9th, 2010: 2 responses
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So I'm wondering something about legality or (I guess) just about what's ethical behavior. When I finish my translation of "The Prefiguration of Lalo Cura" (which is starting to look like more real of a possibility, and maybe will have a rough draft in place sometime this week?) I think I might like to post it in some form at readin -- it is too long for a blog post but maybe a linked page. I'd like to get people interested in reading this story and potentially talking about the sound of the narrator's voice and the crisp solidity of the characterizations. But I don't know how within my rights it is to do that with Bolaño's text, how far have I made it my own text in the process of translating it? (Should probably take a look at Edith Grossman's new book for guidance in this regard.) (And yes, clearly I've already posted a lot of long excerpts here, both direct quotations and my translations -- a whole story of this length and of this recent vintage seems somehow different.) And on a similar note, a question/reflection about my blogging process. It's generally been that I will post the first or second draft of a translation as I finish it, occasionally even as unfinished fragments -- and sort of make minor revisions in place over time, and major revisions when they occur as a new post. I'm not sure how effective this is in engaging dialogue, which is sort of my dream-readin, hasn't really worked out that way so far but hope springs eternal... Possibly if I waited until I had more of a complete, revised work and posted that, more people would be interested in reading and chatting about it. And following on that, maybe a second level revision process would kick in, take this literary translation stuff to the next level. Let me know what you think, I'd appreciate it.
posted morning of May 9th, 2010: 2 responses
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Slowly, slowly, it developed: the idea of finding real objects, then giving it to the imaginary people, which then would later be exhibited in the museum, then the love story began to develop in my mind. With this novel, I was also collecting objects, say an old lottery ticket; and thinking that I would in fact integrate this, make it a part of my novel.
So some of the novel came from the objects you were finding.
Some of it; and sometimes it would be the other way around, that I would write the novel (as of course stories have their own course), and then I would come -- I needed an object, but I don't have the object, and I would leave, since I didn't want to stop writing, enjoying writing the novel, I would leave it with dot-dot-dot, and look for an appropriate object, or wait for it. I was taking my time...
At the Guardian, Richard Lea interviews Orhan Pamuk about the process of composing The Museum of Innocence, and building the Museum of Innocence; Pamuk notes that "the Museum is not an illustration, will not be an illustration of the novel; and neither the novel is a description of the Museum. They are separate entities, intertwined, representing the same story."Embedding is disabled; but go watch the interview at the Guardian site, it's great.
posted morning of May 9th, 2010: Respond
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Saturday, May 8th, 2010
Something that is driving me a little batty about "The Prefiguration of Lalo Cura" (in Putas asesinas) is trying to work out the chronology of Connie's pregnancy. She was impregnated by the Preacher, who then left, and later she was a hooker in New York and met Bittrich and came back to MedellÃn and started acting in porn movies; but some of the movies are made while she is pregnant, and there's no indication that she has a child when she's in NYC. The only way that would work is if she lived with the Preacher and got pregnant after she had come back from New York and started working for Bittrich; but I thought the narrator said that was not the case. -- No that's wrong, he says "Abandoned by my imbecile father, here's Connie, with Doris and Mónica Farr" -- but that doesn't include anything about the abandonment (or the liaison) preceding the acting career. A couple of translation things -- I think this uncredited (uncredited? I cannot find the translator's name on it) English translation in the New Yorker does the story some violence by breaking it up into paragraphs and sections. The original story is all one paragraph and it's characterized by a really driving, insistent force of pulling the reader along -- really difficult to put down. I'm trying to do a translation all in one paragraph, don't yet know if I'll be able to communicate that effect in English. Is this a typo? When Connie and Mónica get together with Bittrich, echaron a rodar los dados por la Séptima Avenida, el artista prusianao y los las putas latinoamericanas. Ya no habÃa nada que hacer. Cuando sueño, en algunas pesadillas, vuelvo a verme reposando en el limbo y entonces oigo, al principio lejano, el golpe de los dados en el pavimento. -- I can only make sense of that if both instances of "dado" are actually "dedo".*
 * No, not a typo: As Rick points out in comments, "rodar los dados" and "golpe de los dados" both refer to the act of rolling dice.
posted evening of May 8th, 2010: 8 responses
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One of the nicest, most springlike days of 2010 so far. Here are some photos:
posted afternoon of May 8th, 2010: 4 responses
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