On the Whole - 2

Books from Finland magazine has now published my translations from Gösta Ågren’s new collection I det stora hela. There's also a short introduction to the poems, written by me.

Nordic Voices in Print

I uploaded the contents of the Nordic Voices in Print blog to a new website format. The site is fairly primitive at present, but perhaps I'll develop it a bit in the months to come.

On the Whole

Gösta Ågren’s new collection - I make it his twenty-eighth - I det stora hela - is published by Söderströms. Books from Finland magazine intends to publish my translations of some of the poems in the volume, and these should appear in their site fairly soon. Meanwhile, Jenny Wikström has published a sensitive review of the book, which she rightly characterizes as "ett ambitiöst diktprojekt där [Ågren] prövar att koppla ihop de allra minsta beståndsdelarna av ett liv – en människas högst personliga minnen – med de allra största – de tankar om döden som förenar civilisationer."

Autumn's archive

In Hbl, Clas Zilliacus writes about Bo Carpelan's posthumously-published novel Blad ur höstens arkiv (Schildts, 2011, 204 pp.), which takes the form of a semi-autobiographical reflection contained  in 101 diary entries. Commenting on this form, with reference to the Danish poet Paul La Cour, Zilliacus makes some topical observations about the history of the European novel, a genre which included not only the romance, but also the picaresque and the epistolary diary, neither of which was characterized by plot:

Hela genreproblemet är omdebatterat. Att Urwind fick Finlandia­priset 1993 vann allmänt gillande. Men att samma författare fick priset för Berg 2005 var oerhört i sig. Dessutom – priset hade snävats in till ett romanpris – utlöste utkorelsen en principfråga: Var detta verkligen en roman? Skön var Berg, och poetisk, men intriglös; den saknade den spänningskurva man har rätt att kräva av sina lässtunder.

Det var trångsynta invändningar. Romangenren hade en av sina första stora perioder under tidigt 1700-tal, då det kryllade av dagboksartade ting. Då kunde man ha trott att genren var bestämd att vara just fingerad dagbok. Visst blev det mer intrig efterhand, men vem säger att just intrigen var romanens bestämmelse? Är det dagens vurm för thrillerns whodunit som har skruvat in romanen i ett så litet hål?

The whole problem of genre is the subject of much debate. The award of the Finlandia Prize to Urwind in 1993 gained general approval. But that the same author won the prize for Berg in 2005 was unheard-of. Moreover - the prize had been narrowed down to a novel prize - the choice triggered a fundamental question: was this really a novel? Berg was beautiful and poetic, but had no plot: it lacked the tension one curve had the right to demand of one's reading hours.

Those were parochial objections. The novel genre had one of its first major periods in the early 18th century, when it swarmed with diary-like things. Back then one might have thought that the genre was precisely designed to be a fictional diary. While it is true that a greater element of plot gradually developed,  who will say that plot was the novel's designation? Is it today's craze for the thriller and the whodunit that has forced the novel into such a small pigeon-hole?

It's also significant that, as Zilliacus also aptly points out, in addition to his diary-like works of fiction, Carpelan also produced a traditional historical detective novel, showing perhaps that while he was perfectly capable of working in that form, he did not consider it the most suitable medium for the realization of his artistic  intentions.

Eyewitness to C.O. HULTÉN

by Pia Tafdrup

Your earth is a space
  for horror and revolt.
Your house is built from force and gravity,
  so you easily get lost,
it has more than a thousand entrances.
Your mind in storms has even more,
when it burns all the bridges 
or hungers for life.
Not to speak of the dreams,                 
which in the living grow and search
for beauty, send out
  new roads
from memory's labyrinths.
Colours rumble
- Flame yellow, rust red and royal blue -
like African drums
in tears and laughter.
It is NOW
  that matters.
Earth is a space
  for horror and revolt,
but Europe is a dancing woman.
There are also forest women 
  and demons’ games.
And the city's lonely woman who kisses
  a bird.
The bird has swallowed a fish,
it swims at its full length
  in the bird's belly,
both free and trapped.
Birds are seen in flight, alone and in flocks,    
seen in battle, seen in plunging
into the dream-lake, from which eyes staring up
between submerged leaves
and drowned insects.
Staring up at cockleshells  
floating like heavenly bodies  
on the night sky between   
lovers' wing-beats,             
their rhythm forward through the air
  to meet.     
Fabulous creatures, doomed to an eternal dream journey
in a space that opens 
febrile on all sides, transforms itself
into all colours, in deep secrecy opens a heart.


ØJENVIDNE TIL C.O. HULTÉN
 
 
Din jord er et rum
   for rædsel og revolte.
Dit hus er bygget af kraft og tyngde,
   så du let farer vild,
har mere end tusinde indgange.
Dit sind i uvejr endnu flere,
når det brænder alle broer
   eller hungrer efter liv.
For ikke at tale om drømmene,
der i den levende vokser og søger
efter skønhed, skyder
   nye veje
fra erindringens labyrinter.
Farver buldrer
- ildgul, rustrød og kongeblå -
som afrikanske trommer
i gråd og latter.
Det er NU,
   det gælder.
Jorden er et rum
   for rædsel og revolte,
men Europa er en dansende kvinde.
Også skovkvinder findes
   og dæmoners spil.
Og byens ensomme kvinde, der kysser
   en fugl.
Fuglen har slugt en fisk,
den svømmer i sin fulde længde
   i fuglens bug,
både fri og fanget.
Fugle ses i flugten, alene og i flok,
ses i kampen, ses i styrtet ned
i drømmesøen, hvorfra øjne stirrer op
mellem sunkne blade
og druknede insekter.
Stirrer op på muslingeskaller
svævende som himmellegemer
mellem planeter på nattehimlen,
mellem elskendes vingeslag,
deres rytme frem gennem luften
   for at mødes.
Fabelvæsner, dømt til evig drømmerejse
i et rum, der åbner sig febrilt
til alle sider, transformerer sig
i alle farver, i al hemmelighed åbner et hjerte.
 

translated from Danish by David McDuff

Jussi R.I.P.

Jussi (14.10.2004-31.8.2011) has passed away. He was a brave, kind and noble cat, and he will be remembered for a long time.