The girls are out flaunting their Summer plumage but you're stuck inside, reading. What?

(but did read a bit of Kleist: didn't really get on with him before, but enjoyed 'Michael Kohlhaas' as much as anything I've read in ages. Maybe it's the different translation this time around - Constantine rather than that Penguin Classics one)

What I really love about that story is how awful things end up happening even though no one is actually invested in having them happen - the nightmare of bureaucracy. He's a very modern writer in that sense, his short stories should get more play.

Goethe's Italian Journey (likeable, this).

I envy you your trip and your reading. Haven't read that Goethe, but his 'Italian Notebooks' (the much shorter raw diaries from which he wrote the Journey) was very enjoyable.

I love the Kleist Penguin translations, but I've never compared them against the others (and can't read German). Barthelme mentioned Kleist a lot in interviews and I think you can really see that he learned a lot about pace from him, particularly "The Marquise of O". Anybody read or seen the plays? I've never been able to make it through Prince Friedrich of Homburg, which is the only one I've ever found in English.

Just finished Leonard Michaels' The Men's Club. It was alright, but nowhere near as good as the short stories. I'm also not really sure why he decided to publish this of all things as a novel. It's novella-length and the structure and time-frame don't strike me as particularly novelistic.

Frances Yates - was it The Art of Memory? so interesting! I've read part of it.. had no idea such a field even existed (mnemonics), nor that it told you anything about theater.

The Yates book was Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, so there's some overlap, but it's a bit more broadly philosophy-theology-magic in the Renaissance, plus biography of Bruno.

On Kleist, yes, I love the pacing: the speed with which things escalate in Kohlhaas, till everything is this huge mess (a favourite of Kafka's I think I read) is fantastic; also love the way it flips into the fortune-telling/locket stuff & so goes folktaley in the middle of this bizarre tale of the Holy Roman Empire shaken because of a horse dispute.

The plays are in the selected writings, which is what I've been reading this time. I haven't read them yet. You also get the essay on the Marionette Theatre in there, which is great. Still don't think I've quite got my head round what an odd figure he is.

I've nearly finished rereading U&I!

I'm not so stunned this time round but still believe it must be a special little book. It makes me wonder why I didn't make a point of reading everything else Baker has ever written, in order. I've had a copy of ROOM TEMPERATURE unread on my shelf for about 7 years. Maybe I'm saving it up for the day I think babies are interesting.

Very little of Room Temp is actually about babies, from memory, if that helps.

I think Room Temp may be the key NB text!

And I thought that before I had a baby!

That's interesting. Why do you think it's the key NB text, ahead of The Mezzanine and U&I?

The Recognitions: although Gaddis doesn't make it easy for you to connect the lines (not that you'd want it any other way) I was expecting to give this up by now.

This is really enjoyable so far, 400 pages in, with one or two moments of 'wow this was written in the 50s, did he have a crystal ball or what?' moments. This is also mixed with a few moments with the book (as well as myself) showing its age.

Also reading 10 pages here and there of Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat

"Stopped reading central European gloom because I went on holiday"
How about Central European tragic (?) comedy? I scored a cheap copy of The Good Soldier Schweik yesterday. Only read the intro so far.

richard hoggart's the uses of literacy. and alfred bester's the deceivers.

Reading Vanity Fair for the first time ever. 200 pages in, my response is "God, this is a blast!"

I suspect I'll either take on either Sterne's A Sentimental Journey... or Bester's The Demolished Man next.

Memo: In re audio book experiment.

A qualified failure. I listened to the McPhee book for several nights, derived some enjoyment from it, but it was strangely annoying to have the voice I heard not be the voice I supplied in my head.

If my concentration wavered for a moment, I either had to lose a sentence or two (preferred option) or rewind to relisten (too too awkward). With a real book I can just lay it down on my chest until I am ready to start again, or scan back and reread if I realize I wasn't concentrating.

Lastly, it was difficult to choose a stopping place, since I never knew when a chapter, or a paragraph, or even the current sentence would end. All I could do was stab the Stop button somewhat at random.

In the future I will resume printed books. Aw, well.

Richard Stark's The Hunter

Started Through Black Spruce, by Joseph Boyden, this morning. Follow-up to Three Day Road which I liked a couple of years ago.

finished the deceivers. fun, but bester's attitudes viz. sex and race are a bit harder to take when the novel was nominally a product of the 80s rather than the 50s. i just looked at my copy of golem100, that one seems the most out there in terms of diversions from 'prose' of all of them. (starting to wonder about the dismissal of his post-50s work generally, i think.)

finished george orwell's down and out in paris and london. i really want someone to make a film of it.

started celebrated cases of judge dee. what an odd little book it is.

Chester Himes: The Big Gold Dream - my first Himes, well written and atmospheric, but a plot too convoluted for me to entirely follow
Mohan Senapati: Six Acres and a Third - Indian satirical novel
Justin Evans: A Good and Happy Child - ace novel about a lonely boy who becomes demonically possessed. Creepy and well-written.
Percival Everett: I Am Not Sidney Poitier - I love Everett, and this is one of his odder books - a young boy named Not Sidney Poitier by a mad mother is semi-adopted by Ted Turner, goes on Candide-style adventures through USA

hey, tell me more about everett! i read erasure as grist for my undergrad dissertation and it left me curious about what he might have written in a less pissed off mood. also love the idea of 'a history of the african-american people, by strom thrumond, as told to percival everett and james kincaid'; haven't read it yet

I love his stuff (except for 'Glyph', which is about a hyper-intelligent baby and is a satire of postmodernism, a topic I know not enough about to enjoy the jokes).

His non-pissed-off, realist books are probably my favourites: 'Wounded', about a black horse breeder/dealer; 'Watershed', a sort of detective/environmentalist/Native American literary thriller; 'Cutting Lisa', a novel about reasonable, kindly people which ends up with one character performing an illegal and not-agreed-to abortion on another without this seeming at all unrealistic. 'A History...' is very funny, and I suspect I'd have found it even more so if I was American and got all the jokes, but it was still great. His books are much more wide-ranging than anyone else I can think off off-hand, and I've really enjoyed them all, 'Glyph' aside.

thx james. for some reason i thought you were american, don't know why.

my internet connection has been down for two days and i have read a half dozen more mediocre SF novels.

i also found a copy of frank norris's 'mcteague' on the way back from the dentist. i always thought david foster wallace had invented this book. anyway, it's amazingly bad.

ha, finding mcteague on the way back from the dentist is pretty funny!

Post to Aimless:

I 'do' audiobooks a lot, while I'm driving. I have a subscription to download one a month. I think they're great, but your basic point is correct: they are much harder work than real books. As a result, I have worked out a few rules to enhance the experience:
- I need to concentrate, so it only really works on motorways or roads I know well. I didn't realise how much more difficult city driving is until I tried it while appreciating the subtexts of White Noise.
- stick to fiction. Understanding how a narrative works does a lot of the work for you. Non-fiction can be very bitty and, like you say, you only have to zone out for a moment and the thread is lost.
- avoid experimental fiction for the same reason.
- simplicity is good. A few characters are better than a host. I tried a biography of Oppenheimer, with a cast of hundreds, and without the facility of skipping back a few pages to refresh who someone is it just doesn't work.
- narrators are important. A comfortable voice really helps. A skilled actor giving different voices to each character is a useful signpost, but more importantly turns the experience into an intimate, real pleasure. Revolutionary Road was outstanding. Beloved, read by Toni Morrison herself, was turgid.
- a straight first-person narration probably works best of all. Netherland enhanced the voice to I felt quite a remarkable level.

Perhaps the best use of all is to get a new perspective on a book you've read before. I finished American Pastoral yesterday, which ticks most of the boxes above, and the experience was every bit as intense and dreadful as reading the original.

Thanks for the tips.

I am leaving tomorrow for two weeks of backcountry trekking. The books I am taking are Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions to read on a five day hike, and Henry James's Spoils of Poynton to read on a seven day hike. The first book is 5 1/2 oz., while the second is 4 oz. - an important consideration for this kind of reading.

I started listening to audiobooks via genre fiction (figuring, perhaps a bit snobbishly, that books in this area would be more centered on plot than style, and as such less prone to sounding "wrong" when read out loud by someone else); have had very good experiences in fantasy and (to a lesser degree) sci-fi. The Audible books of the A Song Of Ice & Fire series are superb - nothing beats a few hours of playing Civ while listening to Lannister exploits. Crime fiction works less well - very hard for voice actors not to fall into total 40's noir caricatures.

I have a friend who enjoyed the Obama autobio, read by same.

I actually really like 'McTeague'! The situation in which the title character finds himself at the end of the final page is the perfection of hopelessness.

The first few chapters of The Spoils of Poynton are howlingly funny!

Just finished White Noise, grudgingly. Starting the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation of Notes from Underground, although I'm not a big fan of P & V in general. Searching for books from my shelf which I'll have no trouble finishing before I head off again in two weeks.

i also found a copy of frank norris's 'mcteague' on the way back from the dentist. i always thought david foster wallace had invented this book. anyway, it's amazingly bad.

― thomp, Saturday, July 25, 2009 10:18 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Thomp, you should be ashamed! McTeague is incredible. Especially the last page. Frank Norris rules.

I actually really like 'McTeague'! The situation in which the title character finds himself at the end of the final page is the perfection of hopelessness.

― When two tribes go to war, he always gets picked last (James Morrison), Saturday, July 25, 2009 7:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

^^ This.

I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with Pevear and Volokhonsky, but their Notes From Underground (which was the first of their translations I read) remains excellent.

bernard, why are you disillusioned with them?

guys it is possible the cumulative effect of mcteague will add up to something greater than what it creates page-by-page, but the parade of caricature working-class 'types' / ethnic minority 'types' is deeply uncomfortable (although fairly often funny, as with the female lead's dad, who is ehtnically german or dutch or transylvanian or something in a way the rest of his family aren't) ("dyew vill der gvatest whipping off dyour live reseef!", etc) - i mean not funny for the reasons it's meant to be funny so much. i mean, it's very effective on a level of total melodrama: i think the introduction that tries to sell it earnestly as an underrated realist classic was going a bit too far

i just got to the one scene that got suppressed from the first edition. it's the one where nazi dad's kid wets himself

recent reading: 'space lords' cordwainer smith, 'star smashers of the galaxy rangers' hary harrison, 'the two-timers' bob shaw, 'timepiece' brian boll, 'the unteleported man' pkd ... think i'm forgetting some.

picked up james baldwin's 'notes of a native son' again today. his approach as an essayist is surprisingly like to orwell's: anyway, it's great

xpost: I don't know if 'disillusioned' was exactly the right term... it's just, while I'm sure they really are faithful to the idiosyncracies of the original language and all that, I'm starting to realize that fidelity is not the conditio sine qua non for my enjoyment of a translated work. Several times recently, I've picked up a P&V Dostoevsky translation and found that, on a sentence-by-sentence level, it's just unpleasant to read. Then I go to the library and check out some older translations, which I guess might be more 'compromised', but not in ways that I feel obscure or alter the meaning.

Maybe not the best example, but grabbing the nearby copy of Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and flipping to George Bird's 1958 translation of "The Double", I read:

It was a little before eight when Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, a minor civil servant, came to, yawned, stretched, and finally opened his eyes wide after a long night's rest. For two minutes or so he lay motionless in bed, like a man as yet uncertain whether all at present going on about him is reality or a continuation of his disordered dreams. But in a short while Mr. Golyadkin's senses began recording their usual everyday impressions more clearly. Everything looked back at him familiarly: the messy green walls of his little room, begrimed with soot and dust, his mahogany chest of drawers, his imitation mahogany chairs, the red painted table, the reddish oilcloth-covered ottoman patterned with sickly green flowers, and lastly the clothing he had hastily discarded the night before and thrown in a heap onto the ottoman. And then the foul, murky, grey autumnal day peered in at him through the dirty panes in such a sour, ill-humoured way, that Mr. Golyadkin had no longer any possible ground for doubting that he lay, not in some distant fairy realm, but in his own rooms on the fourth floor of a large tenement house in Shestilavochnaya Street, in the capital city of St. Petersburg. Having made a discovery of such importance, Mr. Golyadkin twitched his eyes shut again, as though regretting his recently-ended slumbers and wishing to recall them for a moment. But an instant later, having in all likelihood at last stumbled upon the one idea about which his scattered and inconsequent thoughts had been revolving, he bounded out of bed, and ran to a small round mirror standing on the chest of drawers. Although the sleepy, weak-sighted and rather bald image reflected was of so insignificant a character as to be certain of commanding no great attention at a first glance, its possessor remained well pleased with all that he beheld in the mirror.

Then I hit up Google books and find P&V's:

It was nearly eight o'clock in the morning when the titular councillor Yakov Petrovich Goliadkin came to after a long sleep, yawned, stretched, and finally opened his eyes all the way. For some two minutes, however, he lay motionless on his bed, like a man who is not fully certain whether he is awake or still asleep, whether what is happening around him now is a reality or a continuation of the disordered reveries of his sleep. Soon, though, Mr. Goliadkin's senses began to receive their usual everyday impressions more clearly and distinctly. The dirtyish green, sooty, and dusty walls of his little room, his mahogany chest of drawers, the imitation mahogany chairs, the red-painted table, the oilcloth Turkish sofa of a reddish color with little green flowers, and finally his clothes, hastily taken off the night before and thrown in a heap on the sofa, all gazed at him familiarly. Finally, the gray autumn day, dull and dirty, peeked into his room so crossly and with such a sour grimace that Mr. Goliadkin could in no way doubt any longer that he was not in some far-off kingdom but in the city of Petersburg, in the capital, on Shestilavochnaya Street, on the fourth floor of a quite large tenement house, in his own apartment. Having made this important discovery, Mr. Goliadkin convulsively closed his eyes, as if regretting his recent dream and wishing to bring it back for a brief moment. But after a moment he leaped out of bed at a single bound, probably hitting finally upon the idea about which his scattered, not yet properly ordered thoughts had been turning. Having leaped out of bed, he ran at once to the small round mirror that stood on the chest of drawers. Though the sleepy, myopic, and rather bald-pated figure reflected in the mirror was precisely of such insignificant quality as to arrest decidedly no one's exclusive attention at first sight, its owner evidently remained perfectly pleased with all he saw in the mirror.

Regardless of fidelity, I just don't think the second reads as well. Take, for example, "the messy green walls of his little room, begrimed with soot and dust" vs. "The dirtyish green, sooty, and dusty walls of his little room". Basically the exact same image, except that one makes you wait until after all the modifiers to discover that what is being modified is, in fact, the walls. Without being able to see or understand the original Russian, I can only speculate, but my guess is that P&V's reproduces its structure more closely... but when the end result is both clunky-sounding and harder to parse, what exactly is the point? Why use "bald-pated" instead of "bald"? Is there really anything lost by rejiggering two sentences that begin "But after a moment he leaped out of bed" and "Having leaped out of bed" to make them flow more smoothly together? Again, I'm sure that what they're doing is quite valuable in some respects; but for me, the cons of having to read a phrase like "precisely of such insignificant quality as to arrest decidedly no one's exclusive attention at first sight" would seem to outweigh the pros.

(of course, I hasten to add that I've yet to read an entire novel in two different translations, so it is of course possible that the cumulative effect would be significantly different; but then again, when the individual sentences are well-written, it's a bit easier to get through the whole novel...)

Nice post, interesting to see the two lined up like that. Agree with all you say.

Slightly off-topic, I've seen a couple of times recently people who claim to have learned another language so as to be able to read Proust or Tolstoy in the original. It sounds like the most pretentious, and implausible, thing in all the world.

Any reason to read a language is a good reason! I mean yeah it sounds insufferable but hey. I know I'm glad that I've brushed up on my high school french, and practiced spanish, enough to read Camus and Borges in the original language. Since I also speak german (born there), portuguese (grew up there) and english (like everyone else), I'm sort of spoiled enough to avoid translations alltogether, which accounts for my serious gaps of knowledge in russian literature. That being said, I've read enough translated japanese lit this year to be able to overcome that, hopefully.

Yeah, as a lover of books, literature, and language in general, I can sympathize with their motives. But I agree with Ismael Klata on the "implausible" part, and I think a lot of these people probably didn't really think their decisions through.

When a native French speaker tells you that reading Proust in English can't compare with reading him in the original French, it's like... well, duh, English isn't your first language! It seems unlikely that anything you reads in English will affect you as strongly as Proust in French, simply because you have a longer and richer personal history with the French language. And so yeah, "native French speaker reading Proust in French" may beat "native English speaker reading Proust in English translation", but does "native English speaker reading Proust in French"?

I'm sure that, if I studied French very seriously, for a long time, not only reading books but writing, talking, going to the store, having love affairs, reading newspapers, all in French -- yeah, at some point, I'd have a strong enough connection with the language to really appreciate Proust. But that's gonna take, what... 5 years? 7? 10? No book is worth that much of my life. If I learn French, it'll be because I want to learn French, because I'm interested in the French language, its discourse, its tradition -- not just because I want a Rosetta stone for Proust.

'anything you reads in English' -- urgh, sorry, I think I've made it clear that I'm not actually fluent in any language whatsoever

agree with what bernard snowy said -- I'll just add that Pevear's predilection for poetic turns of phrases, for le mot juste, seems too pat. I do admit that maybe part of my preference of older translations of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy may lie in the desire for something that reads a little closer to a nineteenth century Victorian novel! I think it's for the same reasons that I preferred the Fitzgerald translation of The Odyssey to Fagles'. I feel that when I read a P&V translation I can see Pevear's hand hovering over the work, and it's distracting.

I support polyglotism in the pursuit of literature, but really only take someone seriously in this regard when they also have a deep and thorough experience with the culture that produced the language in question. Not that that guarantees fidelity (what does?), but it gets closer to the aim of learning another language in the first place.

There is some magic in reading a language that you're just mastering too, though - your brain takes a bit longer to assimiliate what's being said so if it's expressed in a particuarly creative way you're more likely to savour it. But yeah, obviously it won't give you the decades of cultural context etc.

I do admit that maybe part of my preference of older translations of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy may lie in the desire for something that reads a little closer to a nineteenth century Victorian novel!

(the 'this' I'm referring to, since I didn't make it totally clear, being a desire to read old translations of old books, so that I can better place them in some sort of historical continuum)

That side-by-side translation post is great, bernard. It's actually kind of astonishing how--despite their obvious differences--the two translations are so similar.

is 'mcteague' as good as von stroheim's 'greed'?

finally about to finish 'sophie's world.' it's ok, i guess, but i wish i'd spent my time reading something like bertrand russell.

Is 'Greed' the 8-hour film? I'd loved to see McTeague: the Movie, but I'm not sure I have the stamina.

finished 'PopCo', reading 'The Song is You' by Arthur Philips and Bill Bruford's autobio.

Kusamakura by Natsume Soseki

most of 'greed' was cut by the studio -- the version that survives is only about 2 hours. still great and worth seeing, particularly the (terrifying) ending.

Recently finished Roger's Version, my first full-length Updike. I liked it more than I thought I would - an odd mix of theological argument and frank depictions of sex, with occasional flashes of a wicked sense of humor.

I'm now reading Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, which is what good 19th century pop history should be - long on colorful anecdotes of dubious provenance.