Last night, I saw Edith Grossman, writer, translator, and critic, speak in conversation with Mary Ann Caws. The talk was fascinating–it was on the occasion of Grossman’s recent book “Why Translation Matters,” a collection of essays on the practice of literary translation. (Grossman has translated “Don Quixote,” many of Gabriel García Márquez’s works, and much more.)
The most interesting conversation of the evening came from a question posed by Kamy Wicoff, author and founder of the website SheWrites.
Wicoff talked about being stumped at how works have many lives–many iterations–in translation, while the original work in the original language doesn’t get revisited or updated for contemporary readers in that original language. Jane Austen will never be translated into contemporary English while there is probably a new Spanish edition every generation.
I think Wicoff has a great point. And one that I can’t quite wrap my head around.
I think it’s awful strange that non-English readers may have a better sense of Shakespeare than I do. They read translated versions that may be written in a contemporary version of their language, one that doesn’t sound foreign to them. I, on the other hand, read Shakespeare in Early Modern English, which means that as a high schooler, it was like reading a foreign language. Perhaps international readers can have a greater appreciation of Shakespeare than I can.
What does it mean that literary works (and plays, and poems, and memoirs for that matter) are resuscitated and revised and revisited only in translation while they only have one form, one life, in their original language? Should we be updating Old English texts into Modern English?
Today I had the pleasure to attend Book Expo America (BEA), the largest book conference in America. Geared toward publishing professionals, booksellers and educators, BEA is probably the only opportunity you’ll have to see the number of men come anywhere close to the number of women in publishing. (Seriously. There were men there. And they like BOOKS.)
Though this wasn’t my first time around the BEA dance floor, I am reminded about a few things every year. Here are the highlights (and lessons relearned) today!
1.) Pounding the Javits Center hurts. A lot. Today’s heels means tomorrow will be spent in flip flops. As in other years though, I am sure that by the time Thursday comes around, everybody will be in sneakers and jeans, and they will be much more selective about the amount of swag they want to carry.
2.) About swag. It’s heavy. Free ARCs (advanced reader copies) freaking rock! At the next pub party, you get to talk about all the books you’ve read that the general public won’t even get to touch, let alone finish reading, for another two to six months. But they are still made of paper (at this point), and so by the third day, you become a little more picky about what swag you want to carry out with you. Book with a three page sex scene between woman and monkey, yes. (It’s literary fiction, it actually looks quite good!) Book that’s being handed out at self-publishing booth, perhaps not. (Lesson here — less free books handed out on Tuesday, so if you are a self-published author at BEA, go then. Less competition for bag space, and generally more excitement for the free.)
3.) Industry panels. Today’s panels were all about social media. Authors, aspiring authors, publishers — it comes down to Nike’s infamous slogan — just do it. (It was perhaps said more eloquently than that. But another thing I’ve learned about panels is that brevity is key. Especially when chances are, your topic is going to overlap with another panel your audience sat through just an hour or two before.)
4.) It’s still kind of odd to approach your favorite authors for signings. At BEA, authors are like celebrities, but more accessible and with a slightly more awkward following. In fact, last year, my colleague and I said to Jonathan Lethem as he signed our books, “we are extremely awkward.” That, of course, made things even more awkward.
5.) It’s becoming increasingly difficult to remember who you’ve met in real life, and who you recognize from their Twitter handle. Is that an editor I’ve met before at a lunch? Or someone who happens to tweet very frequently in my feed? Oh wait, I must know them from Twitter because I’ve seen pictures of their cats! And speaking of Twitter, now as the speaker you can see in real time if your audience thinks your panel sucks. Talk about pressure!
6.) Book parties. Book nerds know how to party. We really do. Last year, I managed to rip a hole in my shirt at a tweet-up. A tweet-up! So far, my shirts remain intact. But BEA is young. There are still two more days of swag collecting, Twitter stalking and pub partying.
I’m exhausted! But it’s true guys — BEA is like Christmas in May. (If you habitually go to happy hours during Christmas.)
“This book is presented as a work of fiction and is dedicated to nobody.”
So begins Bukowski’s debut novel Post Office, which, as the dedication implies, is a reluctant and drunken stagger through Bukowski stand-in Henry Chinaski’s tenure at the US Postal Service. Bukowski had a knack for writing hilarious and fitting dedications like these, yet another reason why he’s so awesome (you can also throw this song on that pile of awesome as well). Ham on Rye, for example, is dedicated to “All the fathers,” which seems benign until you actually read the book and see that Bukowski’s dad was a cruel and abusive douchebag. Pulp is optimistically dedicated to “Bad writing.”
Bukowski actually got me thinking about other memorable dedications, those oft-overlooked little prefaces that are really like literary tattoos: they stay with you for life, so perhaps you should think twice before ascribing your current flame’s name on there in big bold letters. A quick browse through my bookshelf revealed some memorable finds between all the For My Mothers and To My Beloved Whomevers. Because I’m so wonderful I’ve shared a few of them below:
I have a friend who’s read almost every classic piece of literature there is, on her own. A few of them we had to read in school, but all those others…yeah, she read them on her own time. For enjoyment.
I hear a lot of people do this sort of thing; pick up an old, thick book that’s been embedded in the literary canon for centuries and read it in a hammock or by the fire, soaking up the famous words for their own benefit. It sounds impressive. Especially to me – because almost every classic novel I’ve read has bored me into a coma.
It occurred to me that this was going to be an issue among my peers as soon as I hit high school. While all my other writing / book nerd buddies found Jane Austin to be a delightful romp, I had to virtually skim the chapters because it annoyed me too much to read slowly. And while they were all recieving A’s on their essays about The Awakening, I was busy getting the lowest essay grade of my life, because all I could stand to write about was how much I hated the protagonist and good lord why was she so selfish?! My teacher told me I missed the point of the story. Maybe I did. But whatever. That book pissed me off. Big time. Read more »
I consider myself a well learned, words-loving person. I even spent an infinite number of dollars to get a graduate degree in the field of words, so obviously, I’m a fan of writing and reading the writing of others. When I was a kid, I used to read so voraciously that I could speed my way through half a book a night, and would routinely stay up much later than was advisable just to get in that one last chapter. So yes, I love words. I love to read.
I just hate the bookstore.
For some reason, buying a book at a store (be it a cute used Mom and Pop thing or a huge Barns’N'EveryBookEverWritten) is an immensely stressful process for me. Maybe all the choice just freaks me out. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I’ve developed my own way of picking out a new literary escape, a way that the New York Times Book Review may frown on, but that nevertheless keeps my blood pressure where it should be. Read more »
For the last few months, we’ve been working hard with the good folks over at Anthology Media to put together a spiffy new web video series for you. The concept is pretty simple: we get writers, musicians, actors, and other creative types to summarize their favorite novels. In 60 seconds or less. With no time to prepare.
One of most the interesting aspects we found about this project was how it reflected the sorts of things people take away from fiction. We had each participant summarize a couple of stories, and everyone seemed to have a theme. Carolina, who you’ll see in a few weeks, managed to end each of her 60-second summaries with the concept of love. Morgan somehow related everything back to prostitutes and redemption. Other themes? Dinosaurs and aliens. This was all the more interesting when the stories in question contained neither dinosaurs nor aliens.
We’re kicking off the project with Matt Mazur, a NYC-based folk and comedy musician. He composed this little diddly about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby off the top of his head. Enjoy and, if you like it, please share:
that picture is awesome, b/c authors no longer get angry. everyone is looking coy & smart in their jacket photos. not since hunter thompson looked angry, yelling & shooting stuff. mailer looked angry sometimes, yelling & swinging his fists. maybe william vollman is now ticked off.
The photo at left was taken by two, in Salinger’s words, “shitty literary kids,” who essentially ambushed him for the sake of the photograph. “The wonder is that I have any kind of face at all left, grim or otherwise,” he said. “Piss on ’em all.”
There’s definitely a certain appeal about the “angry” writer. I don’t think I’m the only one intrigued with this idea; the Examiner recently put out a much talked about list of the best “author vs author put-downs of all time.” Maybe the “angry writer” appeals to us because in an oblique way the idea reminds me of some of the literary greats–yes, Salinger, and also Hemingway and Vonnegut and Twain, among others–writers who generally didn’t give a damn about what people thought of them and weren’t preoccupied with their sales ranking in The New York Times Book Review. If only we could be so free.
Times have changed, I guess, and like deckfight said, no one really gets angry anymore. But I still get a kick whenever authors “let loose” and refuse to censor themselves. Accordingly, I’ve put together a few of my favorite “angry writer” quotes. Hope you enjoy: Read more »
It’s time for a history lesson. In 1815, Mount Tambora, a composite volcano on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia, reached a cataclysmic eruption that killed scores of people with its eruptive fallout and tsunamis. It also threw the Earth’s seasons out of whack, creating a long-term negative effect on the global climate.
North Americans and Europeans were acutely affected, and livestock deaths resulted in the worst famine of the 19th century. 1815 became known as The Year Without a Summer, the Poverty Year, and, the ever popular, and Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.
1815 was also the year that Mary Shelley had planned to spend the summer of 1815 in a cabin on Lake Geneva with her husband, Percy, and close friend, Lord Byron – every English major’s fantasy sleepover. But because of the fluke in weather, the party was forced to spend the entire summer in doors, ultimately leading to the creation of Frankenstein, one of the most heralded science fiction stories ever written. Read more »
Out of personal interest, I’ve been keeping a running list of all novels entitled The [ ]’s Wife. I tend to think the titles are unimaginative, patriarchal, and, in the cases of books like The Greek Tycoon’s Unexpected Wife, a little absurd. However, they’re also apparently ubiquitous, as my list is now about 100 titles and counting. I thought I would share them with you: Read more »
In honor of April Fools’ Day, I was going to write about (in)famous literary hoaxes: historic incidents of made-up memoirs when an author manages to trick the entire reading public.
There are already a number of Top Ten Lists of these kinds of hoaxes, including one from the Guardianand another from ABC News. They include a handful of Holocaust memoirs and James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces.”
But then I started to think more about it. What is a hoax, anyways, when dealing with literature? Why do people allow themselves to feel betrayed by an author? I’m going to hesitantly posit an idea: The whole concept of a literary hoax is a dying one because of the advent of postmodern literature.
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Last night, I saw Edith Grossman, writer, translator, and critic, speak in conversation with Mary Ann Caws. The talk was fascinating–it was on the occasion of Grossman’s recent book “Why Translation Matters,” a collection of essays on the practice of literary translation. (Grossman has translated “Don Quixote,” many of Gabriel García Márquez’s works, and much more.)
I have a friend who’s read almost every classic piece of literature there is, on her own. A few of them we had to read in school, but all those others…yeah, she read them on her own time. For enjoyment.
I consider myself a well learned, words-loving person. I even spent an infinite number of dollars to get a graduate degree in the field of words, so obviously, I’m a fan of writing and reading the writing of others. When I was a kid, I used to read so voraciously that I could speed my way through half a book a night, and would routinely stay up much later than was advisable just to get in that one last chapter. So yes, I love words. I love to read.
Last week Vol 1. Brooklyn 
It’s time for a history lesson. In 1815, 
