Pan

Again on the Red Hand Books site - Red Hand's founder Richard Eccles talks about his new edition of W.W. Worster's 1921 translation of Knut Hamsun's Pan:

It was the first translation of this novel in to English and is in many ways still the most striking. Like Hamsun in Norwegian, Worster writes in a way that is old-fashioned, from a bygone age, in English. I wanted to celebrate those turns of phrase, the spelling conventions, the simplicity of his achievement for a new audience. For me personally, I remember reading the novel late into the night for the first time – the Norwegian original – and being by turns delighted, baffled, intrigued, astounded and utterly enamoured by this visionary writer and his poetic, ‘Danishified’, sparkling and obscure language. So, on a personal level, it feels such a culmination of a long-held dream to contribute to a new edition.

Vinduet 2/2011

The new issue of Norsk Gyldendal's literary magazine, Vinduet, is now published, and as its leading editorial proclaims it's something of a mixed bag (the phrase is used in English). The atmosphere of the magazine is as curious as ever - in the articles and associated graphics and photos there are occasional eerie cultural echoes of the 1960s and 70s, and one sometimes has the impression that in literary terms, at least. Norway has a secret hankering for that ground-breaking but also traumatic period in the country's history.

Britain's Poet Laureate (in Norwegian this becomes hoffpoet) Carol Ann Duffy is the subject of a fairly long article by author and journalist Jostein Sæbøe, who recently published a Norwegian translation of Duffy's collection Mean Time, and there's a version of her poem 'Oslo'. Dag Solstad, who is 70 this year, receives extensive treatment from several  authors, including Trond Haugen, who contributes an interesting  review of Espen Hammer's  Solstad monograph. For Hammer, Haugen suggests, Solstad's progression from the literary absurdism of the 1960s to the Marxism/Maoism of the 1970s was not a major break, but in some senses merely represented an extension of the 'absurd' into the political realm. There's a tribute to Gunvor Hofmo, who is now 90, and a long feature on the Iranian writer Mahmoud Dowlatabadi. Christopher Hitchens, Lorrie Moore and Russian novelist Andrei Gelasimov are the focus of other prominent items in the issue.

Poems - 1

by Morten Øen

overcome I build myths, time’s crystal wave, diverse
days’ correctness, the dream of inside, low sun, the feeling of
past, like structural elements, loved forth and earlier
seen: Towers of stone and glass. Oceans to disappear in. Forests against
oblivion

I build bridges, corners of the world, all material things. My
mirror-image is: blue eyes, a wrapped-up minute, ceded warmth, and I
rise like a survivor who almost lost his chance
and you say we are bodies, breathing machines, bought time. Floating
falling. misleading

*

it is I or the darkness. Experimentally meet over deeper seas
the flight you catch me at time after time

and from the mouth: Like that you lose sleep, sun, loss, but are more intensely
loved

it is here it bleeds. Ineffective in this undone attempt
obeying like neutralities, and hidden in everything that is physical

*

other evidence exists. Others exist
and are granted to you

inexhaustible body
sand
possible crossing
from lifelessness to reflection
and human
signs

*

I think: the Ocean’s thermohaline circulation
the weight of the trees on the forest floor

direct answers, temporary solutions

that in this swarm nothing is lost
nothing is forgotten

that from the gate to the stone stairway
it is your back that convinces

several pictures from the same time


translated from Norwegian by David McDuff

In search of an antihero

In the Guardian British actor Antony Sher, who is currently rehearsing Enemy of the People, writes about his quest to find Henrik Ibsen. Excerpt:

Nearby stood ­another statue of the playwright – a ­giant figure, striding forward with bearded chin held high, heading for the history books. It looked preposterous, particularly as, along with Chekhov, ­Ibsen invented the theatrical antihero.

Nordic fingerprints

Reviewing Don Bartlett's translation of The Consorts of Death (Dødens drabanter), the thirteenth of Gunnar Staalesen's sixteen Varg Veum novels, in the Independent last month, Tone Sutterud relayed the news that Arcadia Books intend to publish all sixteen novels in English. This is welcome news, although I wonder why it has taken so long for Staalesen's work to reach an English-speaking public, when other Nordic crime writers, several of them somewhat less talented than the pioneering and innovative Staalesen, have fared so comparatively well. I have to confess an interest here: back in 1985 I translated an earlier novel in the Varg Veum series - At Night All Wolves Are Grey ( I mørket er alle ulver grå) - which attracted some favourable reviews in the British press, but  is now, more than two decades later, out of print.

I'm still equivocal about the rise of Nordic crime fiction in the Anglo-U.S. publishers' lists. When so little serious Scandinavian new writing and poetry is published in English translation, it seems wrong that quite so much attention should be given to what's really, in spite of attempts to characterize it otherwise, an escapist entertainment genre.  Also, when raising this point, I've constantly been struck by the intensity of the negative reaction that usually follows. There's a defensiveness in the reaction which suggests that some of the more central issues concerning the crime genre and the effects of its popularity are being avoided, and I feel that there's a reluctance to discuss those issues in public (though much is said in private).

The Discoverer

During the week of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Chad Post's Three Percent blog is serializing excerpts from Barbara Haveland's translation of Oppdageren (The Discoverer) by Jan Kjærstad. The first part of the series can be read here.

"Tough Vikings"

At the U.N. General Assembly last week Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman criticized Norway for, among other things, its recent commemoration of Knut Hamsun, the Jerusalem Post reports:

In response, [Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr] Støre denied the allegations of anti-Semitism, explaining that the commemoration was not political in nature and that a distinction was made between Hamsun's work and his world view.

However, former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel told Army Radio that "Norway is trying to send us messages on different fronts" through its talks with Hamas and "intolerance toward settlements."

"They are tough Vikings and are not intimidated, not even by Lieberman," concluded Liel. "[Norway] is an ideological opponent which has decided to teach us a lesson."

A book comes home

The Independent has a review of Don Bartlett's translation of Beatles, the 1984 novel by Lars Saabye Christensen:

Unbelievably, Beatles was almost lost to the world. Having written the entire tome by hand, Saabye Christensen thought it might interest his old schoolmates at most, and carelessly stuffed the script in a suitcase travelling from France. The suitcase got lost, but found its way back to Oslo after a two-week European round trip that took in London. "Which was only right and fitting," the author says. "Now the book has come home, so to speak."

Short memories

The Independent's Boyd Tonkin on Norway:

Here we have a country whose foreign minister, part of a "red-green" coalition, not only writes a reflective and strong-selling book about his country's global responsibilities. He turns up at a literary conference to affirm the central role of authors and translators in his nation's life. British Euro-scepticism has only one political meaning: knuckle-headed, foreigner-scorning insularity. In Norway, it can mean the exact opposite. Would our Brussels-bashers really feel at home in Oslo?

Elsewhere, the news (pdf) that Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World is to be reissued in the U.K.

Some people apparently have short memories.

Tarjei Vesaas: a poem

Tarjei Vesaas (1897-1970) is best known for a series of novels set in the Norwegian countryside including The Ice Palace. He was also an accomplisehed poet. In 2000 a selection of his poems was published in English translation, translated by Roger Greenwald, entitled Through Naked Branches. Vesaas' poetry has a slightly mystical flavour.

Here is one of my own attempts at translating a poem of his:

WHERE THE FLAME WAS BURNING

By the long grey road
there is ash after a fire gone out
and signs of departure
in dust and heat.

That is all.
But the flame that burned
in the circle of the travellers
whirled only before the eye
in unextinguished longing.

They were travelling for a dream
and could give all,
and must go on in their searchings
and their unease,
and the bonfire burned on
in every edge of sight,
whilst new searchers dug in the ashes
and in the ground under the ashes,
and it is dream
that is happiness
for those journeying.

*

Translated from Norwegian (nynorsk) by Eric Dickens

Questions

The spring issue of Norway's Vinduet magazine is out, and with it come questions: What is a poet? And is Shakespeare easier to read in Nynorsk?