Eva Wichman: Five Poems

Eva Wichman (1905-1979) is something of a neglected Modernist. There is virtually nothing about her in English on the Internet, and precious little in any other language. Wichman began her career as a doll designer in a factory, not the most usual start for a Modernist poet.

Her first books were in fact prose. Her early novels, starting with the novel Mania (1937), were about young artistic women carving out a place for themselves in life. Her first collection of poetry Ormöga (Snake’s Eye) appeared in 1946.

She joined the Communist Party in the 1950s, after which, it has to be said, some of her poetry deteriorated into agit-prop, though she never quite lost touch with Modernism, and later in life returned to more tranquil waters. By the mid-1960s, her poetry was poetry once more and had lost its shrillness.

The poems I have chosen to translate here come from various decades, before, during and after her “conversion”.

ANGRY QUESTION

Will the roses bloom forever?
Now autumn is here, listen –
you see the grass has yellowed, a rotting
smell emerges from the fallen leaves,
chilled breath enters
the shrunken breast,
and glances sail calmly
over the indifferent surface of the leaden lake.

The swallows flew off. The ducklings
now swim around alone
and damp seeps in everywhere.
But the roses:
are blooming glowingly red
crazily!
Soon will fall the first night frost:
all be prepared
for decline to come!

(From the collection: Ormöga, 1946)

*

SATURDAY IN MOSCOW

Seething, splashing, rushing –
rush hour wandering home.
A whiff of petrol –
a huge caravan of traffic
proceeds into the thundering city.

Stop!
At that very moment
exactly, precisely
lorries, like mastodons splashing
overtook.
As if all given the signal –
huge white Zims
and Volgas, ordinary Pobedas
engines, cycles, carts –
they all stand still:

for now a man,
an ordinary worker
in soot-stained overalls
crosses the road.
His arm around several loaves
– quite calmly –
walks across the sixty metres breadth of road.

They are holding their breath, everyone
: for someone in working clothes
calmly going home
with his burden of bread.

(From the collection Dikter, 1960)

*

A DROP OF POISON

(A wasp
drowned in a coffee cup
and the night rain on top)

Sun, that gets up
one blinded autumn day
gives my puzzled ego
a glimpse of terrace
of shining white breast of bird.

Woe, muddled ego
who does not glance up. What
is it I have downed!
Poison of an old wasp
in stagnant liquid –
What disgusting medicine
I ended up swallowing
(what a dirty drink
on a clear autumn day
humiliating
must spit it out!)

The little drop
of contrast –
(solace?)
Without that
I would perhaps never
have fathomed – guessed: the greatness
of the autumn dawn

– glimpse of blinding white breast of bird.

(From the collection Det sker med ens, 1964)

*

Chance?

O chance, what are you then –
if not the struggle
between many grey
to snatch the prey.

If not the game itself
– urged by strong insights –
suggests: from desperation light!
The grip released
makes his way towards it.

(From the collection: Det sker med ens, 1964)

*

Illustrations

They lie spread out
in an ancient city
Districts where cats
sneak around and live
have their paths in
the sign of the sun
with cheerful click-on-
click-signals
from backyard washing

At night they have got up
And darker
than the dark over the city
a black massif
huge houses of giants
stand conjured up from the depths
And only at midnight
a grim light can be seen
in the vaulted windows
high up under the roof



What unknown being
is now awake?
Who came who
went – for whom
was the light switched on – what
parley was there
What vibrations
knock the house out
towards the city
In the morning grey
it is taken down We again
see: the peaceful district.

(From the collection Orientering, 1967)

***

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Absinthe

Absinthe is a U.S.-based magazine of new European writing, much of it in translation. Edited by Dwayne David Hayes and Jessica Bomarito, the magazine appears twice yearly. The forthcoming issue includes a survey by Copenhagen-domiciled novelist, critic and translator Thomas Kennedy of new developments in contemporary Danish writing.

In Translation

The Brooklyn Rail is a U.S.-based magazine publishing "critical perspectives on arts, politics and culture". Recently it opened a new Web-exclusive section called In Translation which aims to expose its readers "to writers and writing they might not otherwise see, and translators, by making samples of their work accessible to those who may wish to publish it."

Hat tip: Brave New Words

Inga-Britt Wik: Three Poems

From what people who knew her have said, Inga-Britt Wik seems to have been a loner with feminist convictions. A strange combination, perhaps. And as a young woman she moved from the provinces to the capital to get an education. These qualities are hinted at in these poems:

*

When the telephone rings
she flicks back her hair
and answers: no he’s not at home
and stares absent-mindedly
into space as if listening.
Yes, she’ll be the same one
to come back to
with his nearness like torrents
in the blood and she is the same one
dully clattering the washing-up for
the world rests on necessities.
What the blood leaves as traces
in the mouth must be washed away daily.
The dark furrow of trust. Creased brow.
While ironing she kneads life
the heat emptying her mind.
Trapped in
the indifferent disaffection of the afternoon
she wanders through the backyards of memory
lays out their faces,
one by one, till she has discovered
another one she could have loved in order to
let the sudden fire quietly
deny its origins.

(From the collection: Fönstret, 1958)

*

PS from Mother Human Being

I’m the one that lives with you all
the one that is born with a feeling for the dark rooms
where life begins

you do all you can to get rid of me
lift me up onto pedestals
where I must stand and listen

it’s lonely to be worshipped
one is shut out
from ordinary life

one can’t take part in your
simple and impetuous arrangements
one is too “good” for that

I can take part in your festive days
but you are kidding yourselves
it’s not me standing there on your

pedestals – it’s only a childish copy
I myself am out there in life
with you all
it’s there you can find me

(From the collection Jack’s café, 1980)

*

Whether it was early or late
I don’t remember.
We ate grilled trout in a wide open
world,
read Runeberg’s Idylls and Epigrams
to our coffee.
It seemed like the first time,
the resurrection poems speak about.

(From the collection: Skriver I dagarnas book, 2008)

These three poems come from a selection of ten, published in the literary magazine Horisont, 1/2009.

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Going Google

The Bookseller's managing editor Philip Jones writes in his blog that the UK Publishers Association held seminars this week to explain to members why the Google Settlement matters to them:

As is becoming increasingly clear there is no easy option available to non-US publishers. (I'm not sure there is an easy route for US publishers either, but at least they got to have a say in the drawing up of the Settlement.)

Perhaps most bizarre is that all publishers must actively opt out, otherwise they will find themselves bound by the agreement. As publishers are finding out, there is almost no good reason to opt out, since Google could then carry on its digitisation process, and opting out would put the onus back on the individual publisher to pursue its own legal challenge—hardly advisable. Even objecting to the settlement at the Fairness Hearing, set for New York on 11th June, means you are bound by the agreement.

Those publishers who do decide to opt out will have to do so by May 5. At the seminars it was announced that Google could start advertising a digitized book offer consumer service in the United States via the Google search engine as early as July.

See also: The Digibooks Row

Horisont 1/2009 - Inga-Britt Wik

The Ostrobothnian-based literary magazine Horisont has been around for decades, and still now in 2009 four further issues are planned after the first, which appeared recently. The theme of this issue is the Finland-Swedish poet Inga-Britt Wik who died last year. To give some idea who she was, I will translate the small biographical note from Horisont:

Inga-Britt Wik was born 18th December 1930 in Vasa. Both parents were brought up in the countryside, her father as the son of fisherfolk and smallholders from the island of Replot in the Vasa archipelago. Her mother was the daughter of a so-called "America widow" from Vörå. (An America widow was similar to a "grass widow", except that the husband was living in America.) Her father Arvid Wik worked as a customs officer during the 1930s, while her mother ran a small grocer's shop. During the war years, her father was called up, and spent time in the army first in Hangö then, during the Continuation War, in the Karelian Isthmus.

Inga-Britt Wik moved to Helsinki in 1950, and graduated in philosophy in 1956. In 2003 she returned to Vasa. She was principally a poet, and all her books appeared with the Schildts publishing house in Helsinki. Key themes in her poetry are various women's rôles, love, feminism, the environment, but the basic tone of her poetry reflects nature.

She was married to the author and film producer Jörn Donner from 1954 to 1962, later marrying the children's psychiatrist Gustav Amnell. The marriage and separation from Donner caused her to write the books Ingen lycklig kärlek (No Happy Love; 1988) and Bryta upp (Breaking Up; 1996). She was also the editor of poetry by Solveig von Schoultz and Lars Huldén.

I shall be translating a couple of her poems from this issue of Horisont later in a new thread.

Gösta Ågren: Three Poems

THERE IS NO JOURNEY

Life is not a straight line
between those blind wells
birth and death; it is
a moment by their verge
before eternity grows
together again.


BUT TO

To grow old is not
to leave anything, but to
turn round under the present's
pillar of cloud and look out
across one's life, a book
still unread. All
that it contains
is yet to come!


FROM A FINAL CONVERSATION

My friend, it is so pointless
to be afraid. When death comes,
it is mild as solitude.
A storm of birds from the north
moves between past and future
into the south wind, a warm,
invisible angel who receives them
without demand or victory.


translated from Finland-Swedish by David McDuff

See also: Bothnian Wayfarer

Jac. Ahrenberg on Julius Krohn

Some days ago I wrote about the resident of Viborg, Jac. Ahrenberg, who had written a series of biographical sketches in Swedish about people he knew personally. Here are a few excerpts from his article (1914) about Julius Krohn. Krohn (who may well be a distant ancestor of the Finnish poet Leena Krohn) was an ardent proponent of the Finnish language. But at home he spoke German and Russian. Like Snellman and Mannerheim, some leading Finns did not always speak Finnish well! But Krohn persevered and became a revered promoter of Finnish.

For a translator, it is important to know which other languages are spoken in any given area; background languages, in other words. As Viborg (aka Viipuri and Vyborg) was very cosmopolitan, there are plenty to choose from. Areas of mixed language have fascinated me for a long time. And mixed language implies mixed background.

*

But first a few words about the family history of the Krohns. Three families came to Viborg in 1814 from Rügen, on the Pomeranian coast, then part of Sweden: the Sattlers, the Bützows and the Krohns. Julius Krohn’s grandfather, Abraham, came in 1795 to Saint Petersburg on a Swedish passport, and began to work there as a baker and brewer. In time, he managed to acquire a plot of land at the end of Nevsky Prospekt. This global thoroughfare stretched, during the reign of Catherine II, out to where Gostinni Dvor and the arcade now stand. When the street was to be lengthened and widened, the value of plots of land rose enormously, and this was the basis of the large fortune that the Krohn dynasty managed to amass.

Abraham Krohn had several children, two of whom moved to Madeira in order to improve their weak health. They started the world famous wine company called "Krohn and Brothers". The next youngest, Leopold Vilhelm, moved to Viborg, applied to become a Finnish citizen and became one from having been, via Russian citizenship, a Swedish citizen. He married the eldest daughter of a businessman called Dannenberg (who was married to the daughter of a Finnish clergyman from Ingria or Ingermanland) who was, by the way, a very eccentric gentleman. He was very musical, and occupied his time, among other things, with building sounding boards made of glass (from Rokkala foundry) for the fortepianos of the day, whose sound was rather weak; and also with chemical experiments. All these experiments were inherited, on his death, by his son-in-law, the incredibly many-sided genius Johan Gabriel Fabritius. He wasted a good deal of his inherited Dannenberg fortune on them.

Dannenberg owned Kiiskilä manor, whose main building (karaktärshus) was nearer the road to Helsinki than the present one. The original house is still intact and is now a tavern. (...) The Dannebergs spoke neither Swedish nor Finnish. Nor have I heard the Krohn couple speak a word of Swedish. The mother-tongue of their son Julius, as was often the case in the upper circles in Viborg in those days, was Russian and German. [Julius Krohn was named after his mother, née Dannenberg, who was called Julie and inherited the Danneberg property. Julius Krohn went to school in Viborg.] Whatever language you would hear him speak later in life, you could always hear the soft "y" and "s", which reminded you that he had had a Russian nyanya (nanny). As a boy he was taught by Russian, then German, then French tutors, and when he finally decided to go to school in Viborg, the Swedish language was added to these. (...)

Julius Krohn grew up at this crossroads, Viborg, where three races, Karelians, Slavs and Scandinavians, had fought for space for over five hundred years, in this language chaos, with German, Russian, French, Swedish and Finnish. He did not have one drop of Finnish blood in his veins, even though he became a fiery fennoman. (...)

The Swedish language had gradually found a foothold in two of the exceptionally good German schools in Viborg. The Swede, the outsider, had gained the upper hand regarding the church and the legal system, which had always been German up to then, so that Mrs Julie Krohn became an enemy of the Swedish language. Like many others, she regarded the German language as representing a higher form of culture. But these people were not afraid of all change. The language of the people in the area was the Karelian dialect of Finnish, of which Julie Krohn did have some knowledge. She, like many others, presumably wondered what the fate of the people of the Karelian isthmus would be once the Russian language, which was spreading beyond Saint Petersburg, pushed out the two languages of culture, German and Swedish. Presumably things would end up as they had done in Ingria. One should not forget that the Finnish language was once spoken right down as far as Nizhny Novgorod. Julius Krohn’s fennomania had increased subconsciously by way of his mother’s opinions and, I wish to express myself as mildly as possible, her lack of sympathy for the Swedish language. (...)

The language question is a question of emotions. Emotions are the bastion of conservatism, inaccessible to violence, power, and, yes, even to common sense. Feelings are untouchable... The fact that I [i.e. Ahrenberg himself] never joined the Finnish language camp was not only a matter of temperament. I have never – and I must say unfortunately – regarded the Finnish tribes as having the capacity to form a state. What exists now is a result of what once was, and what was then supports my case. There has never been a Finnish state. (...)

We all (i.e. the Ahrenbergs) spoke Finnish at home, even my father – although his Finnish was rather like that of Mrs Julie Krohn – and we often made fun of him. But now we had to start writing the Finnish language ourselves. My brother immediately picked out an illustrated Negro and Indian book in order to translate it. I, who tended to revolt more, tried my level best to avoid having to do such things language exercises at all. (...)

The plots of land around Viborg had been divided a long time before by the land assessor, so that everyone would have "forest for fuel and timber" as well as "a beach for fishing". Both Vainikka (the Ahrenbergs’ manor) and Kiiskilä (the Krohns’ manor) consisted of kilometres of land in broad rectangles right into the ancient forest of Mustakorpi. The forest part of Vainikka was some 7 kilometres in length. On the other side, and at an equal distance from the main plot, we owned two rocky islets, the so-called Neulorna "The Nails". You had to sail a long way through the sound in order to reach what we called "our property abroad"; and because of the crosswinds, this could be quite a hazardous enterprise.

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Star Without Land - 3

‘I dared to catch a glimpse of the man. I was curious, for as I said, I had no idea that I was able to cause such strong emotions in a complete stranger... He was blocking a part of the window. The young woman withdrew her hand and pressed herself back in her seat, as though in an attempt to give us more room. Even though she was trying to disappear, she had a dazzling aura.

'The man looked at me. He was dark-haired, with the beginnings of grey temples, and he had dark eyebrows and grey-blue eyes which followed my movements, chiselled features, with a jutting chin... But I’m sorry, you already know him!’

She puts her hand to her head, and continues:

‘I’m actually rather shy, but I also looked across at him... We didn’t say anything. Then he sent me a smile, which made me lower my gaze. At that moment the flight attendant was standing behind me. The man asked for red wine, while the woman between us didn’t want anything. The man had a deep voice. He made a remark about the strike that had been called off the previous day. He asked the flight attendant questions, including one about how long they could expect to remain in the job these days. The flight attendant was soon about to be sixty, it was her last month at work. She had stuck it longer than most people do, she admitted, as she passed him a glass and bottle. A lot of people gave up around fifty, because the unstable hours of work were so stressful.

‘Now a new gentleman, very determined-looking and also cheerful, was suddenly sitting over in the window seat. This confused me... Or did it also make me even more inquisitive?

‘I saw the man fill his glass, but decided not to drink, as I was going to meet my boyfriend. Dino, he’s called... The man’s voice was calm and controlled. I put my book aside. I couldn’t possibly concentrate on reading about exile and imprisonment.’

She stops abruptly and says:

‘You’re smiling?’

‘I certainly am.’

It gives me a sinking feeling to hear Andreas described by Rebecca, even though I know that she wants to visit him. Her encounter with him on the plane takes me by surprise.

She continues:

‘His voice touched something inside me. It was strange. Feverish.’

She is suffering an unbearable inner tension, something she can’t conceal. She watches me furtively, before resuming her narrative.

‘I don’t recall ever having heard a man’s voice like that before. He began to talk to me, but I felt extremely dizzy, even though I hadn’t had a single glass. I remember at first I didn’t reply, and thought he must think I was slow-witted.

‘I could hear the noise in the cabin. Faint coughing. Other people talking to one another in a distant hum. Words that were wiped out as soon they were spoken. But the man went on talking in the same comfortable voice. His voice I could hear...

‘I kept the book on my lap. From his seat, he asked me what I was reading.

‘”Camus,” I replied, in order to avoid having to hurl the title in his face.

‘”What by Camus?”’ he wanted to know, of course.

‘The woman who was balanced between us pressed herself even harder against the back of her seat, so that the man could talk to me.

‘”The Plague!” I shouted back... I felt a stabbing pain in my head. The man had turned to one side in order to hear me better. He also liked Camus, it transpired. He had thought The Outsider was great, but The Myth of Sisyphus was the book that had really meant something to him. At that moment the book in my lap slid to the floor under the seat in front, but I managed to retrieve it with my foot, and picked it up.

‘The cat woman suggested I exchange seats with her, so the man and I could talk. I declined. After all, what would I talk to him about? I could feel that something was going on but didn’t know what to do about it. The man really seemed to want to talk to me. As though it were the only thing he could think of, even though he was on his way to Barcelona with his girlfriend.’

For a moment Rebecca sinks into herself.

translated from Danish by David McDuff

Star Without Land
Star Without Land - 2

Bothnian Wayfarer

Söderströms of Helsinki have published a new collection of poems, Bottniska nätter (Bothnian Nights) by the Finland-Swedish Ostrobothnian poet Gösta Ågren (b. 1936), his twenty-eighth in sequence.

At some point I’ll hope to present one or two of the poems in translation.

My English versions of Gösta Ågren's autobiographical trilogy are still available online.

Art, Men and Magic

This month's issue of the Finnish magazine Hiidenkivi, published by the Finnish Literature Society, has an interesting item on the life and work of the Finnish-American newspaper artist Art (Arthur) Huhta (1902-1990), who collaborated with S. L. Huntley on Wild West-inspired comic strips like Mescal Ike and Lolly Gags, and later produced the artwork for Dinky Dinkerton and Wild Rose. Born to a Finnish emigrant couple, Huhta grew up in Chicago, where in the 1920s he worked in the studio of the animator Wally Carlson, helping to make the Disney-emulating Bad Bears cartoons.

Among other literary features, this issue of the magazine also contains a survey of the new Finnish "men's poetry", a study of witches in children's literature, and an essay on Eemil Arvi Saarimaa (1888-1866), the philologist and folklorist who compiled and edited the early collected works of Aleksis Kivi and Minna Canth.

Literary values

Also on the Bookseller site this week, author Anthony Horowitz writes in his blog about the place of literary fiction in the new world of publishing, where books are viewed largely as commodities, and the market is led by titles written by celebrity chefs. He quotes from an interview with Giles Foden, professor of creative writing at UEA, who says:

"The idea of what constitutes literary value has changed or become less consensual. It's harder to establish what is good and what is not, and that is one of the things that forms the canon. Barnes, Amis, McEwan were the last people through the door, and then the door closed, and then the building fell down."

As Horowitz points out, although writers of literary fiction and other genres account for one third of all book publishing revenue, "literary values now end with a lot of noughts."

Changes at Harvill Secker

In news that may be of interest to translators of Nordic fiction, The Bookseller reports the announcement of  a new editorial team at Harvill Secker. The team will be led by Liz Foley, who will take the post of publishing director:

Foley joins Harvill Secker from Vintage, an imprint she joined in 2002 and where she has been editorial director since 2006. She will report to publisher Dan Franklin. 

More details here.

Jaan Kross: "Uncle" - excerpt

Jaan Kross (1920-2007) was undoubtedly one of the most significant Estonian authors of the 20th century. His numerous novels have been translated into many languages, including English. Kross even wrote around a dozen short stories.

My chief work-in-progress at present is the forthcoming story anthology The Dedalus Book of Estonian Literature for the Dedalus publishing house in Sawtry, UK. This will contain 15 stories by various Estonian authors from the 1890s to the present day, plus an excerpt from Karl Ristikivi's novel Night of Souls, as described elsewhere on this blogsite.

Here is a short excerpt from the draft translation of a Kross story called Uncle (1989), which will be included in the anthology. The main part of the story tells of Estonia just after the Soviets have occupied the country for the second time in 1945, but reaches back in the excerpt here to the German occupation in 1941, when the Germans were picking all the goodies out of Estonian libraries and museums, to send to the Reich as war booty. The excerpt deals with the way the Estonians sought to confuse the German efforts at theft, by muddling the numbers on the crates of, in this instance, books.

The rest of the story tells the fates of Hilda Meigas and her husband, two fairly ordinary Estonians caught up in the maelström of the war and postwar Soviet life. By 1945 Hilda is working as a village schoolteacher, the schoolhouse being what was once Mardimäe manor house, because she was disgraced in Soviet eyes when her late husband changed sides and fought for the Germans. But here we go back to 1941, to a description of book storage as one method of preserving the national heritage.

Nazi Reichskommissar Karl Sigismund Litzmann was running Estonia in 1941. His surname, if not his actions, caused much hilarity in Estonia, as "lits" is the Estonian for "whore". The style of this excerpt is typical of Jaan Kross.

*

The chain led back to the spring of 1941, that is to say when the order had arrived in Tartu from a certain adviser to Herr Litzmann at the General Commission in Tallinn to swiftly pack together and transport, in part to Tallinn, in part to country manor houses, such-and-such valuable collections housed in the University Library. Those items most valuable from a German cultural (and, consequently, global cultural) point of view were to go to Tallinn, those of lesser importance to the stone cellars of suitable manor houses throughout the Province of Tartumaa.

The order to set to work the appropriate librarians plus those assistants they had come from the Vice-Chancellor of the university. Carpenters had begun (swearing as always) knocking together crates, heads of department (anxious as always) bustling about and directing operations, bibliographers (critical and whispering as always) making book inventories and packers-cum-bearers (sweating and sniffing as always) lugging piles of books and manuscripts down creaking flights of stairs. Each, of course, according to his nature. Perfunctorily and smoothly, assiduously and laboriously, thoughtlessly and twitteringly, inquisitively and mutteringly. Some hurried, others dawdled, some made sure the order was carried out to the letter while others again tried to find the easiest way of wriggling out of it. For there were two, even three attitudes for the order and as many reasons for carrying it out.

Some wished to do everything correctly. More rapidly or more slowly but above all, correctly. Others were indifferent to results as long as they got the mark notes and penni coins at the end of the day to pay for the items printed on their ration coupons. A third group which formed after much cursing and whispering among themselves, a group which grew even larger after the thin cigarettes and dishwater coffee of the lunch break, well, this third group began to hatch their own plans. Why should the most valuable items be packed in the first place? To save them from air raids? All well and good. But not only for that reason. To also send them out of Estonia at the first opportunity! And why the hell should they have any interest in that? To rescue them from the impending battles in Tartu. Fine. But encouraging their theft?! No! The order the librarians had received was a monolithic order from a monolithic robot. Like the majority of orders at the time. Any attempt to sabotage it could in itself prove deadly. But a deadliness which may, in fact have spurred on rather than scared off. Lord knows. The order came from Berlin to Tallinn and Tallinn to Tartu like a vehicle speeding along on caterpillar tracks. Armoured, targeted and utterly merciless. Like most orders at that time. Resistance to the order shot up like so much grass (weeds, they would have said in the other camp). Victorious grass. Whose existence always presented the risk of a thickening of the blood, but which thrives and grow rank over everything. The result: the contents, numbers and addresses of the crates became all of a jumble.

Where what ended up, whether in Germany, Tallinn, Haapsalu or in the manor houses of the Province of Tartumaa, no one there ever found out for sure. Even now, in August '45, no one had a complete overview. But one thing was clear: some of the crates, about two or three lorry loads, had ended up at Mardimäe Manor in the cellars of the present schoolhouse. And now that the order had been given to return evacuated books to Tartu, these too had to be returned. Lorries drove out, to that end, from locations in Tartu, including the University, to seven or eight places that week. So the chain split off in seven or eight different directions. It was therefore pretty unlikely that anything had been left to chance.

Translated from Estonian by Eric Dickens

Star Without Land - 2

I remember Rebecca at the moment she was telling me about her meeting with Andreas on the plane to Barcelona, where she was going to visit her fiancé who was on tour there. I remember I thought: Rebecca ‘s so young, she can't possibly know what an aura she possesses. She’s so nobly built. Full of grace. But now I’m writing this: Rebecca shines. Rebecca fills a room as very few people do. So I could well understand that Andreas had reacted strongly to the sight of her. And yes, Rebecca, she looks like Sonya as she looked when Andreas met her.

What is that guides human beings and makes them act the way they do? Why is Rebecca so intent on seeing Andreas again? And why do I let her encroach on my life by saying she is welcome to visit me? A woman I don't know at all.

'The young woman who sat between me and the man on the plane took his hand and held it calmly in hers,' Rebecca continues. 'The woman could have been his daughter, she was about my age. She didn't hold his hand as if he was her fiancé, and it wasn't a motherly sort of grasp, but there was a cautiousness about it which surprised me. I'm sure I have never held a man's hand like that... What was the relation between them? That was what I sat there speculating about, instead of reading about how an entire city makes light of an outbreak of plague as if it were just a few isolated fatalities.'

A smile spreads across Rebecca's lips. Then she says:

'I don’t know how I’d managed not to notice the woman when I was taking my seat or fastening my seatbelt. The woman was probably in her mid-twenties. There was something catlike about her. She was slim, almost as tall as the man who was now rubbing tears away with his sleeve. She was dressed in designer clothes. Her skin was well-cared-for, and there was a beauty spot on her left cheek. Her blond hair was cut so that it fell in an elegant wave when she moved her head towards me, or the man by the window. I usually find it hard to be interested in someone who uses all their energy in resembling a doll, but her I couldn't take my eyes off. Two deep dimples came to her cheeks with the slightest little smile, and she had a way of raising one eyebrow that gave her a charming expression when she was listening.'

It must be Irene Rebecca was describing to me. The beauty spot, the dimples, her general manner and bearing make me think of Irene, my colleague’s daughter, whom I often saw during the years she lived at home. We have run into one another several times since. In her young years she had a habit of throwing herself eagerly into large projects. Irene’s problem is that many people react with irritation to her external appearance, just as Rebecca did, but when you encounter her she imparts interesting bits of news like an explorer, and it is she who inquires what one does and how one is – something for which very few people of her age have the energy.
Rebecca gives me an intense glance. Perhaps because it’s the first time we have talked, she follows my reactions constantly.

‘I think that as I sat there on the plane my jaw dropped when I realized what a beautiful woman I’d been put beside. The woman couldn’t help laughing at the sight of me... As I still couldn’t utter a word, she volunteered the information that she wasn’t the man’s fiancée, just a girlfriend who was accompanying him. They were going to have a week’s vacation, as her friend needed some rest. She didn’t want him to travel alone. He could get so depressed sometimes, and she hadn’t been to Barcelona before, so now they were both going there... She sounded a lot older than me when she spoke, even though she didn’t look older at all, and that was something I couldn’t help noticing.’

Rebecca stops short and puts a finger to her lips. Then her hand falls back into her lap.

‘Do you feel able to listen to all this?’

I nod. I can see that it means a lot to her to share the episode with me, but I understand her uncertainty. It’s also something special that she accepted the invitation to come here, after we met by chance the other day.

‘It’s late, forgive me for having popped up at such a sensitive time.’

‘It’s all right. Just tell it...’

translated from Danish by David McDuff

Star Without Land

Star Without Land

Star Without Land (Stjerne uden land, Gyldendal, 2008) is Pia Tafdrup's second novel. We present some excerpts from the early part of the book.



I

'It was the sight of me that made him cry,' says Rebecca, who is sitting opposite. 'That's what the woman on the plane said.'

Rebecca catches my eye, searchingly. Follows me closely as though she wants to be sure that I'm listening.

'You can't just go on reading when someone's crying, can you? Not even if it's a stranger. I’d carefully asked the woman who sat next to me if there was something wrong with the man. Even though she spoke the words clearly, I couldn't work it out when she replied that it was because he’d been looking at me… It wasn't fear of flying, it wasn't physical pain, it wasn't ordinary desperation. I evidently had an effect on that man that I wasn't aware of.'

Rebecca shakes her head. She doesn't give me time to say anything, but I think my own thoughts.

'I was immersed in Camus, Sophia. I'd been one of the last passengers to step on the plane, because I'd been sitting at the departure gate finishing the first chapter of The Plague. I stuffed my coat and backpack up in the luggage rack and then flopped down into my aisle seat. I immediately started on the next chapter without really noticing the two people who were already sitting there.'

She gives a wry smile.

'I hadn't taken any of it in, but I suddenly noticed the man in the window seat…'


Even when Rebecca was still down at the front door asking for Andreas Falkenland because she didn't dare to ring the buzzer, I found her worthy of note. I’m not in the habit of inviting just anyone into my apartment without knowing who they are, but she appealed to something in me that I didn't have time to reflect on. I offered to talk to her one day, if she felt that she needed that.

So now she is here. I have an article about the changed consumer habits of young people which, though it's rather irritating, will have to be revised again, and an interview with a young man who has enlisted as a soldier. The latter I shall cut, but for once a deadline must be a deadline.

Rebecca declares:

'You look worried.'

'Do I?… Listen, would you like a cup of tea?'

'Tea would be great.'

When I enter with the teapot, she is sitting quite still, non-committal.

'Would you like something else as well?'

'No, thanks. Do you have any honey, though?'

I fetch the honey and watch her take her time as she stirs the glass mug in which the amber-yellow clump dissolves.

Then she asks:

'What do you do, actually?'

Has she been able to read my thoughts in advance?

'I'm a journalist.'

'How exciting!'

'I'm really just a spectator by profession. The job is a bit overhyped. Practically every crime novel nowadays has a central female character who's connected with the world of the media.'

'Perhaps that's because if you’re sitting on the sidelines of society it's always possible to uncover something important?'

'One shouldn't be too involved.'

'What do you mean? Isn't commitment a good thing?'

'Yes, but – for example – one shouldn't treat other people as game to be hunted. There are too many sadists in my line of work who are only too glad to see their victims suffer and who delight in thinking up the next step. One should deal with the story, but be aware of the victim's pain… It's people we're dealing with, after all.'

'Yes, of course…'

Rebecca looks surprised to hear my torrent of words. Why am I saying this, anyway? She asks me about my world, and I immediately launch into a scathing critique of it.

'What was your last piece about?'

'It was an article about how young girls are increasingly resorting to violence. They attack one another physically.'

'I recently heard of a girl who worked off her aggression by doing prone rifle practice.'

Rebecca mimes the action of firing a rifle, and continues:

'I don't know if it helped to cure her self-hatred. Girls like that come across as self-assured and in control, but they bite their fingernails and fight one another to for attention. Oh, they ignore me in town!… And what about the article before that?'

'The one before? It was an interview I did with the author of the books I Told You So and Men Aren’t What They Used To Be, a raving mad woman of my age who believed she was right, no matter what she said or did. Wearing everyone out, and a parody of my generation.'

Rebecca giggles.

'And what else?

I shrug my shoulders slightly. Why are we talking about this? After all, it's Andreas she really wants to meet.

'Just now I'm working on an interview with a young man who is so tired of sitting at the checkout in a supermarket that he's signed up for the army so he'll be sent abroad to a war zone. He’d rather risk losing his life than be bored.'

Rebecca shakes her head, setting the dark mass of curls in motion. She has a high forehead. A forehead on which a small wrinkle appears now and then when she's surprised or worried.

When she pressed the buzzer of the door phone, I was about to cast a glance at the mail I’d pushed to one side during the last few days, because a normal working day eventually becomes so abnormal that there is no time for oneself. But there was nothing interesting. No one who wanted anything from me except to make me pat what I owe or tempt me with more offers. I had stopped in the middle of my work when someone down in the street shouted so loudly that I had to go over to the window and see what was happening. An elderly woman was walking along stooped forward, as though she were fighting her way in the teeth of a gale. She was shouting right and left, ranting and raving. Apparently not at anyone in particular. At life, perhaps? People were trying not to notice her. After she passed, one of them turned and watched her as she went, as I was doing from behind the window pane up here. I didn't have the energy to return to the articles at once, so I put the computer on standby and began to examine the pile of mail instead.

translated from Danish by David McDuff

On translating Jac. Ahrenberg, author, architect, and cosmopolitan

Jac. Ahrenberg (1847-1914) was a Finland-Swede avant la lettre. The term finlandssvensk was only used after the language reform of 1906, when the status of the Swedish language was weakened within the Grand Duchy of Finland, then part of the Russian Empire. By that time, Ahrenberg had written many of his novels and stories.

However, his major achievement was, in the opinion of many, the series of six volumes of biographical sketches about people he had known personally, entitled, fairly predictably Människor som jag har känt (People I Have Known; 1904-1914). Here Ahrenberg writes in lively and by no means old-fashioned style about many of the people he met in Viborg, Helsinki and elsewhere. His descriptions are gems of clarity and insight, sometimes funny, sometimes wistful, sometimes tragic in tone. The people he knew ranged from Finnish generals in high positions in the Russian Empire to painters such as Fanny Churberg and Albert Edelfelt, a cardinal, a composer, and so on. Plus the now notorious Count Gobineau, then French Ambassador to Stockholm, whose theories about ethnicity and development have been frowned upon for decades, associated with ultra-rightist thinking.

As an architect - his main profession - Ahrenberg designed the city hall and a girls' school in Oulu, the post office in Viborg, churches in Hangö and Kajaani, a wing of what was then the Governor's Palace in Helsinki, and the synagogue, also in the Finnish capital. He acted as art adviser to various important people.

*

But what makes Ahrenberg fascinating, beyond what he wrote about, was the language he used. He was brought up in Viborg, not only when it was still a part of Finland, but also a cosmopolitan city rather than the almost exclusively Russian-speaking backwater it has now become. So Ahrenberg's use of Swedish was not entirely pure, by Stockholm standards, or even those of Helsinki. In those days, everyday life could involve using or hearing Finnish, Swedish, Russian and German. Whatever your mother-tongue was, it became affected-infected by the other languages.

As the Swedish scholar studying at Åbo Akademi Julia Tidigs has pointed out, the fact that Ahrenberg allowed himself to use local colloquialisms here and there in his writings, plus foreign phrases and other non-standard language items, led publishers' editor to "normalise" his spelling and usage in subsequent editions of his works. Use of language also has a bearing on the translator.

His central story dealing with language is Utan modersmål (No Mother-Tongue; 1890) where the narrator meets a shabby man, a former schoolmate, who now speaks a muddled mixture of German, Russian and Swedish, and his clumsy use of language has cost him his fiancée. As Tidigs clearly recognises, language is more than stringing words together. Language is part of our identity. So using Russian and Finnish phrases in Swedish and German introduces a sociological, even ethnic, dimension. The very fact a word is translated or not points to the status of the language in the context of the novel or story.

When translating that story myself into English, I had to tackle a macaronic use of language that was all part of the plot. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. When the hapless Fritz Nikolaievich von Dravershausen Kaporien - his name exemplifying his mixed background - proposes, he says: "Vill du vara mitt hustru". This grammatical gender disaster ruins his chances. But the translator into English has a problem: English has no noun genders. Instead, I substituted the archaïc "mine wife". Also, when Fritz expresses regret, Ahrenberg has him say "tjuvärr", i.e. "sorry" in Swedish, but with a Russian accent. I tried with "unfawtunately". And so on.

*

I came across the works of Jac. Ahrenberg quite by accident in the mid-1990s at UEA, Norwich. I was staying at the BCLT, and one day, browsing in the university library, I found books by him. This was ironically thanks to the fact that Scandinavian Studies had been closed down at Newcastle University, and all the books shipped down to UEA. Nowadays, UEA has lost all its Scandinavian connections as well. So I have bought my own set of Ahrenberg's books, in case those at UEA suffer the skip treatment.

*

Julia Tidigs wrote a fascinating pro gradu (roughly: MA) dissertation in 2003 and posted me a copy in 2007. This deals in detail with the language aspects of the Ahrenberg novel Familjen på Haapakoski. Inspired by what I read there, I included a section on Ahrenberg in my talk last year at the Nordic Translation Conference in London. At the end of April 2009, Tidigs herself will be giving a talk on Ahrenberg and Karelia at the SASS conference in Wisconsin, entitled: "Beyond the Margins of Finland-Swedish Literature - Jac. Ahrenberg and the Karelian People".

In a world where multilingualism is the norm rather than the exception, and people move from country to country as part of their career, Jac. Ahrenberg is still as topical as ever. When I've checked through my translation of the story Utan modersmål again, I will post it up here.

Kiiltomato / Lysmasken - reviews site

Visitors to this blog who are translators and are able to read both Finnish and Swedish will find quite a few useful reviews on the Kiiltomato / Lysmasken website. If you are not sure whether the latest work by some known or unknown author may be worth translating, you can search there for reviews. Both Olli Jalonen's and Heidi von Wright's latest works feature.

The website dates back to 2000, so there are a large number of reviews already available. And not only of Finnish or Nordic literature. You can see reviews of works by such authors as Le Clézio, Lispector, Reich-Ranicki, Turgenev, Pessoa, C.S. Lewis, Pirandello, Yourcenar, Kertész, etc., when these have been translated into either Finnish or Swedish.

Estonian Literary Magazine

The Estonian Literary Magazine is already listed in the Links column to the right of the screen on this blog. But I feel it merits a small introduction. Because when you first access the website you are confronted with a bare list of 19 issues. This doesn't immediately reveal the full scope of this magazine.

Firstly, it's in English, which makes it widely accessible. Secondly, it cover classics, modern classics and contemporary Estonian literature. So anything written by any significant Estonian author between about 1890 and the present day could feature in an article or two. Prose excerpts and poetry, biographical articles, poems, a list of translations into other languages, and so on. And both exile Estonian authors and those that lived in the ESSR are discussed, plus all those that have emerged since independence. Articles are written both by Estonian scholars and foreign translators.

Only issues 8-27 are available online, starting with Spring 1999 and up to Autumn 2008, but that is more than enough to be getting on with.

For example, Issue 14 has an article about Swedish translations of Estonian literature, which is of course one way for Scandinavianists to access that literature, if an English translation does not yet exist. And Issue 17 mentions the biggest history of Estonian literature available in any larger European language: Geschichte der estnischen Literatur by Cornelius Hasselblatt, Walter de Gruyter, 2006.

The best way to find out the range of topics and authors is to click each issue and look at the various articles listed in the left-hand column. But the website does also have a search function, if you know what you're looking for.

Hjärnstorm - Swedish literary magazine

Hjärnstorm is one of those Swedish literary and cultural magazines that have survived against all odds. Smaller circulation literary magazines do not always last for more than a decade, but owing to a combination of subsidy and good editorship, Hjärnstorm (i.e. Brainstorm) has been going since 1977.

The issues of the magazine tend to be theme-centred, the latest (issue 96-97) being focused on the topic of suicide, which I hope does not presage an imminent departure from the Swedish literary scene. But the themes have been many, including psychedelia, Duchamp, Nietzsche, art criticism, pessimism, photography, Finland, the Sixties, Folkhemmet, the Weimar Republic, plus quite a few others. As can be seen, the magazine has an international outlook, but by no means neglects Sweden itself. So it can be a good windvane for translators who want to keep up with Swedish cultural trends.

As you can see from their website, it is sold at a number of outlets, scattered throughout Sweden, but mainly in Stockholm.

Heidi von Wright - minimalist poet

Heidi von Wright [born 1980, pronounced Heydi fon Vrickt] is something of a contrast to Catharina Gripenberg, although both poets have lived in Ostrobothnia. While Gripenberg, in the collection shown in David's last posting here, deals in complex intertextual issues, von Wright hones hers right down to the basics.

Thanks to the swift work of Schildts literary editor Mari Koli, I requested Heidi von Wright's latest collection dorren öppnar rummet (The Door Opens the Room) on 8th April and received a copy this afternoon, three days later, Finland to the Netherlands. So I've been able to translate several poems from that collection to show her style. As each section forms a unity of sorts, it seemed logical to present one of these units. The poems therefore comprise the first section of the collection. After the epigram, the first poem. Each poem has a title in italics and is separated by seven asterisks.

sister. sister. brother


the key to the house locked in the house

a gate.
on the other side of the gate a yard.
in the yard a house.
the house has openings.
one opening is a door.
inside the door a hall.
inside the hall a kitchen.
from the kitchen doors to other spaces.
other spaces are other spaces.

the house has two entrances one exit.

*******

misty labyrinth

sunshine goes through cloud.
cloud goes through cloud.

roofing tile next to roofing tile.
brick under brick.

it is wallpaper.
it is paint.
it is renovation.

a room in the room’s room.

*******

sleep scream suffering

wake up late
breakfast doesn’t come
into it.
nor is breakfast
an answer.

*******

how quickly does a bed cool

there’s a lot inside your body.
sitting on the bed.
feet on the floor.

next to the bed stands a chair.

*******

diverse reflections

spend the day
in front of the mirror.
trying to understand how
a face works.

*******

double movements

talking and suddenly.
the temperature rises.
bursts the pipe.

weak life.
remains.
weak life.

*******

regularity

kitchen window.
hot coffee.
repetition.

the stove is on.
one dinner in the oven.
later. lying in bed.
the dinner lying in your stomach.

**************

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Songs of One's Own

In the latest issue of the Finland-Swedish literary magazine Ny Tid, the poet Catharina Gripenberg talks to Katarina Gäddnäs about herself and her work. Here are one or two excerpts from the interview, in my impromptu translation:

Now Catharina lives in Amager, a district in south Copenhagen, near Kastrup.

“It’s not chic or trendy, and that feels good. Ordinary people live there, workers and all kinds of nationalities, people go around in shell-suits. And there are lots of bodybuilders with boxer dogs,” she says, puffing out her cheeks and mimicking a beefy style of walking. "There’s also a long windy beach you can stroll along. I like the thought that I live near an airport. Airports are a sort of no man's land where I feel as though I belong, they have departure gates that show the names of cities where you could also live. Your identity is more open at an airport, you don't need to have a home there, you’re on the way somewhere, you have a destination.

“Living between countries, on the borders, being in between or on the margins, can also be rewarding. A rootlessness that roots me deeper and deeper in writing.”

She also plans to look for part-time work, apart from writing.

“It could be anything, and preferably something that's not writing and literature. I think this is something I was brought up with at home, or perhaps it’s an Ostrobothnian trait, not being able to just sit there and think you’re a writer or some kind of artist all day, but feeling that you probably also ought to have a "real" job."

In her most recent poetry collections there is a swarm of different voices and pitches. The voice is important when she writes. She has always been fascinated by how people express themselves. How people present themselves through language, how one speaks to others.

“One starts to exist when one begins to talk, or write, it’s as though one were blowing life into oneself. Like in Beckett plays, where they talk and talk in order to come to the realization that they don’t know what to do, with life that’s silent and transitory. When I write, it’s often a voice speaking out, someone clearing their throat and starting to express themselves in an elegant, urbane sort of way, but the words come out of the corner of their mouth, trickling and oozing."

Catharina Gripenberg's latest collection Ta min hand, det vore underligt (Take my hand, it would be strange, 2007) has received several prizes and awards. The criticism was mixed, in particular one or two Swedish reviewers who said she had massacred Edith Södergran in some sort of act of matricide. I myself read the book as a dialogue with Södergran's work, a conversation with serious undertones.

"I'd never even imagined that anyone would read the book that way. Why would one write a book with the aim of massacring Edith Södergran, that just sounds sad ... To me my Edith poems are a conversation with her poetry, with the writing of poetry; how should one write nowadays? What is a poem? For me it was about turning to a master or myth from literary history who possessed a key to the poetic landscape, and about walking among her lines and poems as if through rooms, and touching objects and words and feelings. For me it's as if the poetic persona or the people in my Edith poems have read Södergran's poems, and are trying to remember them, as if they were trying to remember how to speak, how to write poetry, how to explain and describe. They're trying to build a life of their own, and they're using the poems of a master in order to do that, and then they climb out of those poems, and begin a kind of pilgrimage towards a poetry of their own and a country of their own, because they have to find their own songs."

See also: Broken Nose During Dinner
Ny Tid

Olli Jalonen: 14 Knots to Greenwich - 6

[pp. 311-314]
We would have passed through Zvezda anyway, not because of Petr, but because it had already been planned, the whole of the route through Chukotka had already been prepared on the coast at Meinepilgyno. Graham had done his share, carried the plan through and thus paid off a bit of the cost.

We were in the distant Arctic, after all. There had not been much snow yet, but the whole of the Orphan Factory’s yard was covered in white, not so much as a tree nor a stunted bush rose higher than the rest of the landscape. It was even colder now, 20 degrees below zero.

It was Graham’s wish that while we were waiting for transportation we should try to procure a coffin or even just a crate, so that we didn’t need to move Petr in the sleeping bag. We roamed around the sheds and looked for some sort of base platform or large ready crate.

At last we found a crate that had been used for transporting Gasum gas cylinders. When the internal separators were removed and its height was increased with a few boards, the space was sufficient to make a narrow coffin into which we put Petr with his sleeping bag arranged around him. Graham hammered the lid shut with nails. The hospital’s caretaker who was helping us watched from the side, looking as though he were uncertain of the rights and wrongs of transporting a body in this way. When the lid with its grating had been firmly fastened, he made the sign of the cross from forehead to chest and shoulder to shoulder, but did not say anything.

Und sagte kein einziges Wort, do you remember that, Maaria? Have you read it?

I cannot lie, and claim that I mourned long and deeply. Instead, I was numb, weary from the journey and simply told myself that that was how it was bound to be. Several times I noticed that for a moment I forgot that Petr was dead. I would think about something that had happened in the past and turn to ask him about it, but he wasn’t in the vehicle.
The crate was fixed to the roof-rack with rubber fasteners and netting.

We made the final journey to the hangars of the airport in a single trip, near the coast there were settlements nearly all the way. The dashboard thermometer showed that the outside temperature had fallen to minus 28, but there was no longer any wind.

During a short stop we boiled some water by connecting an electric kettle to the spark plugs of the engine, and mixed some coffee powder and fructose granules in it. When I stepped outside, I could see the veils of the northern lights rising on the rim of the sky. The gauzy, greenish-yellow vortices swept and fluctuated upwards from one side of the sky to the other. In Finland I have never seen them as big and as suddenly moving, not even in Lapland. At home we saw them sometimes but they stayed low and shimmered above the horizon like a mere echo or reflection of the real ones.

In the swaying of the four-point seatbelts and the seats themselves it was easy just to sit and be. Outside the northern lights were sweeping as though watercolour paint had flowed down on both sides and downwards from an illuminated globe. Now and then there were moments like the ones that had followed the death of my father, when I had tried to forget the earlier days, left the arrangements and inquiries and just gone skiing to the bright lake so that there would be something else.

Memory and reflection must be constituted in such a way that parts of them must rest at times so that there isn’t an overload. Thus it is possible to even leave difficult and awkward matters for a few moments and fall into something else.

Petr was dead, but at times I merely had the same confused feeling I remembered from January, of being free from something that had existed before. I tried to explain to myself that one must be inwardly ready for all kinds of things to emerge to the surface, like bubbles and mud from a hot spring. All people are a one, as a person is a one, and even if he’s in the midst of others, he is separate, and for that reason he is not obliged to explain himself to anyone. An act is not yet more than a choice made from a store, and a bad word to someone is moving bad moments out of oneself, or attempts at moving, because they don’t move but grow and stiffen into a sort of sediment that starts to be visible on the outside and draws around one something which to others is an aura.

In January, when my father had died, after my bright and exhausting ski trips I had always gone to take a sauna and as I sat there I began, perhaps for the first time, to give longer reflection to such basic human concerns. Although at the juvenile home there had also been much talk about good and evil and choice, the others had spoken of them more when it was a question of dealing with the rows and stealing and fighting of the pupils and temporary residents, I had not gone into those concerns myself before, though they were ready within me, and all the choices for my actions awaiting suitable time.

I don’t know whether it was right that we decided to keep Petr with us to the end. It felt right at the time, and also that Petr would have wanted it that way. Who can know such a thing? One sets out to believe and make other believe as well, everyone thinks the same for a while.

The electronics in Graham’s, and also Petr’s, neckbands kept a split-second accurate record of their movements and the places they visited. The Memorial Society was not informed, it did not necessarily need to know, because the control devices carried on with the communication and the journey was continuing, the contest was continuing. Graham continued the log as though nothing had happened, but when I later read those pages very carefully, Petr was no longer really in them, Graham had not been able to do much more than what was necessary, or had felt that he had to see to it that the cover-up was not exposed later on.

translated from Finnish by David McDuff

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich - 2

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich - 3

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich - 4

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich - 5

Akateeminen

If you're looking for a source of books in Finnish, Finland-Swedish or Swedish, Helsinki's Academic Bookstore (Akateeminen Kirjakauppa/Akademiska Bokhandeln) is hard to beat. Since 1969 the store, which was founded in 1893, has been housed in one of the most highly regarded interiors by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, next door to the Stockmann department store on the corner of Keskuskatu and Aleksanterinkatu, of which it now forms part. There is also a large English-language section. The sales and display area is constructed in the form of a three-level piazza, lit by geometric crystalline glass skylights and surrounded by white marble, and a visit is also an architectural experience. There are two cafés, including the famous Café Aalto, which makes its own sandwiches and cakes, and has table service.

The Academic Bookstore has an efficient mail order department, and will ship books overseas. However, the website's mail order facility is intended for use within Finland only -- ordering from abroad needs to be done by email, which should be sent to tilaukset@akateeminen.com.

Bror Rönnholm - From a Hollow in Summer

Bror Rönnholm (born 1949) lives in Åbo (aka Turku) in southwestern Finland and is the author of five poetry collections. His latest one Från en grop i sommaren (A Dip / Hole / Hollow / Depression in [the] Summer), Schildts, 2007, contains only prose-poetry. Prose-poetry is a genre in itself. The pieces tend to be as short as poems, but there is no typographic "shaping" of the outline of the words, and sentences run to their normal length. It appears to have arisen with Rimbaud and Mallarmé, then spread further afield. Rönnholm's first prose-poem from the collection runs like this:

The Hollow

He opened the letter and read: Am writing to you from a hollow in summer. That's putting it rather poetically, he thought, but the rest was crass and unsettling. There was no signature, and he hadn't a clue who it was. Did however think he knew which hollow was meant and drove out to the sand quarry, but nothing could be seen there beyond the stupidity of his own inkling.

Everyone knows very well that summer is a peak, not a hollow, he thought. A hill down the other side of which prams and trailers, bottles, balls and roundly generous promises roll till they are stopped by autumn storms, waterlogged ditches, unmown lawns and the laws of inertia.

He went back home, rummaged among his rubber stamps, and stamped no action to be taken on the letter. Didn't however find the right file to put it in.

You will note that in English, the word "grop" can have several different, subtly different meanings. It can even mean "dimple". This is where the translator agonises about tone and meaning. I shall be posting up more of Bror Rönnholm's prose poems in due course.

Poem by Pia Tafdrup

SPOT FIVE MISTAKES

Such simple objects as the wallet
are spirited away,
and the hat and the gloves have vanished
traceless as rain on water.
The light falters.
And where are the address and telephone number
of my mother’s parents?
               (they are dead, after all).
The mirror is so still, so indecisive,
when my father glances into it.
The whole room spins backwards
around a word
in a silent sentence.
Logic has fled
          over the mountains of norms,
even simple obvious words
                    have flown away
on distended wings.
Everything whirls in towards the centre,
stretches itself ―
          in waves towards the infinite.
But grammar still dwells here,
and the pulse beats.
The emotions survive miraculously,
                     gesticulate with hands. 

translated from Danish by David McDuff

Nordic Voices Reviewed Again

Blowing our trumpet and banging our drum, we note that we received another favourable review - this time from BiblioBuffet:

Nordic Voices in Translation is a wonderful blog devoted to “the English translation of the literatures of the Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. And also Estonia.” Their translations include not only literature but pieces from new works be they fiction, drama, poetry and criticism. This is a rather impressive site.

Thanks, BiblioBuffet.

See also: Nordic Voices Reviewed

The List

Some time ago Eric posted a comment to this blog in which he outlined a list of points that reflect his views on the role of the literary translator. I added point 8, but essentially the other points are ones with which I'm in general agreement. I thought it might be worth reposting the list, as Nordic Voices has a few more readers now, some of whom are professional literary translators, and they may like to reflect on the contents of the list, and possibly even comment on it here. Also, with the approach of the London Book Fair, when translators will be contacting publishers and meeting with them, it occurs to me that publishers might also like to take a look at this (though probably most of them won't).

Eric wrote (and I added a point at the end):

1) The literary translator should be an ambassador of interesting serious literature written in the languages he or she has a good command of. By serious literature, I mean straightforward or experimental literature written to examine life, rather than make money.

2) The translator should not be the extended arm of the profits end of the publishing industry. I too will gladly accept subsidies, and even translate a crime novel when I need the money. But my real aim as a translator is to introduce interesting authors to an English-speaking readership.

3) For that reason, I feel that literary translators should cultivate tastes of their own, not merely wait for publishers to contact them and suggest assignments on a "take it or leave it" basis, with the hint that if they don't take this one, they will be regarded as belonging to the awkward squad.

4) Publishers should treat translators like normal clients or employees, not people who are called up in indecent haste to do a job, then dumped when a cheaper, or more docile, alternative comes along.

5) Translators should not be strung along. When you agree (by gentleman's agreement) to translate a book, the contract should be forthcoming within a shortish amount of time. No promises, followed by promises, and stretching over two years or more, should be made.

6) While I like conferences, receptions and workshops (not necessarily in that order, as Eric Morecambe and Lee Mack would say), the schmoozing aspect should not override the translation work itself.

7) Poetry should not eternally remain the poor relation to prose, in publishing terms. Those who naïvely think that poetry is easier to translate, just because it's shorter, will have another think coming, once they start doing some real translation work, as opposed to theorising about it.

8) Authors should not expect their translators to act as literary agents for them.

I'm particularly struck by points 4 and 5, and wonder whether anyone has some further thoughts on these difficult and thorny issues.

Olli Jalonen: 14 Knots to Greenwich - 5

[pp. 308-311]

On the morning after our arrival I was in one of the clinic’s communal kitchens. Two Korean women were cooking. One was in the last stages of pregnancy and the other had perhaps just given birth, as she had to pick her steps slowly with her legs apart. In a very large aluminium stew-pot rice was bubbling, and on the other gas ring pieces of chicken were frying in a pan. We had enough Russian in common for me to be able to ask questions and I understood that the women had lived or were still living in a camp for hired lumberjacks who had been brought from North Korea to Kamchatka. When I asked if they worked there or with their families, one of the women pursed her lips and smiled in such a way that I understood and felt embarrassed, they were slaves of the slaves, comfort women for the hard-currency lumbermen, who were sent from Kamchatka even further north to give birth to the fruit they had sold to other. I turned and looked out at the yard, where other women were piling up garbage and plastic on a pyre, sweeping shreds of cardboard into the flames and with a curved metal rod and burning their old belongings.

I saw Graham go round to the rear yard and approach the shed to which we had moved Petr in the evening as though we had been told to. One of the compartments into which the shed was divided had previously been used as a mortuary, and it had a low, narrow platform covered with pasteboard. As some of those hundreds who gave birth and having done so died, this compartment with its outdoor cold was the place they occupied before being buried in Zvezda cemetery.

I couldn't leave Petr in Chukotka. In the night I had thought about taking him back to Finland, how one arranged such things in an outlying area, whether there might be a consulate in Anadyr or Magadan or Vladivostok. The only thing I could think of at first was something I had read in a guidebook which said that in the event of a death one should telephone one’s consulate or embassy, if there was one, they would be able to help, they would be able to make arrangements and would know where one could order a zinc coffin. Why did it have to be zinc, it had kept me awake in the night, wondering whether it was just a figure of speech or did zinc stop the body from decomposing? Without that, transporting the body was impossible, it had be soldered in so that no diseases or the smell of death could spread.

As the mortuary was in the maternity clinic’s back yard, it was not necessary for the deceased to be taken there on a bier or in a silently gliding black limousine from the cold of the chapel. Through the corridor windows Graham and I were watched as we carried Petr wrapped in a sleeping bag out to the yard.

The body had stiffened almost into a foetal position, and as we carried it, it felt as though during the night it had somehow hunched up smaller. Graham carried the head end, and I the legs. The carrying was awkward, the weight was distributed unevenly. The frost had hardened even further, but as we carried the body sideways I felt so hot that I had to stop halfway and undo both the zips of my arctic jacket.

Isla walked beside us, women were watching us from above through the windows of both storeys, all young women, who were either going to give birth or had already done so, one held in her arms a bundle wrapped in white cloth. I looked around me enough to reflect that it almost felt good that everything in life passes and the days that are over just flow away.

People worry most about themselves. If they mourn, it is themselves that they are mourning for, and even though it may look as though they are mourning someone else, in a roundabout way it is for themselves, for the fact that an empty place has been left inside them.

This is not said in cold blood, I probably didn’t think like that in the Orphan Factory yard. In that sense, writing is being wise after the event. One can’t jot down the moment as it occurs, one is always too late and compares the past later on when it isn’t the same any more, but part of it exists, not all of it has evaporated and been swept away.

I remember that I went a little further to one side of the gate and looked around me. Graham was standing beside the body, Isla a few steps away. Women were still watching from the corridor windows, but there were not so many as when we had been carrying. Almost above us was the window of the communal kitchen where I had chatted with the Koreans in the morning. One of them, or perhaps just one who resembled them, was looking out, not at us and not at the yard but further away at the road and the other houses on the edge of the clearing.

I kept wondering about things like how long they stayed here before and after giving birth – Vera, the doctor, had not been very specific about any of the details, not even about the fact that the women who had given birth left the clinic but the newly born infants remained, and only because they required care and wet-nursing did some of the mothers have to stay, looking after their own infants and those of others.

Graham brought identities into it. I only understood properly later what the sheets of paper with printed rows of numbers and places and people’s names meant, the identities of those who had perhaps gone missing or died at birth, those who were given private emergency baptism, unregistered, whose identities some of the children born at the Orphan Factory received. It was easier that way, the transits and transportations went more swiftly, advance arrangements were not necessary at Russian airports, no bribes were required, and no one at Larnaca or Palermo needed to ask about visas.

translated from Finnish by David McDuff


Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich - 2

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich - 3

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich - 4

Undoing the Curse

The news that Norwegian author Per Petterson's novel Jeg forbanner tidens elv ( I Curse the River of Time, Aschehoug 2008) has taken the 2009 Nordic Council Literature Prize (see Literary Saloon for April 4) returns us to the question of the non-Nordic reading public's exposure to Scandinavian writing that can't be classified as crime writing - increasingly the only Nordic literary genre that seems to be able to make it overseas. Last year the English-language rights to Petterson's book in the translation now being prepared by Anne Born with the author were quickly grabbed by the ever watchful Harvill Secker (partnered with Graywolf Press in the US), which promotes works by heavyweight Nordic crime authors Arnaldur Indridason and Hanning Mankell.

As James Campbell pointed out in his article/interview published in the Guardian earlier this year, like the author's earlier books (including the Anne Born-translated Out Stealing Horses) this one claims no affiliation to the techniques and procedures of crime writing, but relies for its appeal on a literary style that owes something to Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. Yet, as with the earlier novel, there still remains a question-mark over the degree to which such writing may compete in marketing and sales terms with the runaway success of the burgeoning Nordic crime series:

Gina Winje, who runs Norla, the government office for promoting Norwegian literature abroad, says that "the last few years have seen an increased interest in the English-speaking world". With his new imprint, [Christopher] MacLehose [director of Harvill Secker former director of Harvill Press] is enjoying the current popularity of Scandinavian crime writers. "Whether literary writers will follow Per in such numbers is open to question. But it is undoubtedly the case that Norwegian writing is at a high point."

Certainly, with the bad press Norway has been receiving with regard to one or two controversial aspects of its foreign policy lately, the presence of some decent Norwegian books in English may play an important role in improving the country's image around the world - and so one wishes this new Harvill Secker venture all the best.

Olli Jalonen: 14 Knots to Greenwich - 4

[pp. 306-308]

Petr died in the back seat of a six-wheeled Land Rover, somewhere near Zvezda, where there must have been a hospital, and doctors. And it's possible that he didn't die of pneumonia, as the death certificate says, but perhaps by falling, when he struck his head. And the hospital was not a hospital but a maternity clinic which the locals called The Red Star Orphan Factory, Sirotskii zavod Krasnoi Zvezdy. That was how I translated it, but of course it didn’t have an official name, and on newer maps the village isn’t called Red Star but just Zvezda. Star, the little village of the Star with its maternity clinic-cum-kindergarten, one doctor and a midwife and some porters and night staff. Almost up to that point Petr held on to life, but never managed to get to the stage of beginning medication and an intravenous drip.

We got there in the TradChannel Travels high wheeled Land Rover. It had been built on a Ural chassis, the size of a small truck on the outside, and insulated with boards and leather on the inside to make it warmer. We sat under the rollbars, held in place by four-point seatbelts, and made the final stretch of the journey as straight across the rocky, snow-sloped landscapes as Pyotr-Pavel dared to drive.

Petr must have died right at the turning-off point to the road that led to the clinic, but none of us noticed at once. I suppose that is often how a person dies, alone. Graham held Petr by the shoulders and sobbed. Isla sobbed. I turned away and looked past them, out at the universal snow. I felt hot and cold at the same time, but I couldn’t cry, there was an absence of what had been there only a short time ago.

I would not have managed it by myself. Graham showed me how to bind up Petr’s jaw in the way that this is done for dead people. I unfastened the zipper of Petr’s jacket, loosened his scarf and tied his jaw with it from below. I pressed his eyes gently, and they remained closed.

Although as he grew older Petr had increasingly come to look like my mother, I remembered my father, now almost a year ago, it had also been winter then, only with more snow, and real night.

The Zvezda maternity clinic was relatively large and clean, a two-storey section-built establishment with plaster surfaces that had remained almost white. Within its corridors and communal kitchens one could not fail to notice that the inmates were exclusively young women and very small children. There was a preponderance of Russian-looking types, and there were also more Koreans than Chukchi. The name Red Star Orphan Factory suggested that women went there to give birth but soon left it again, and without their children.

Some of the women did remain there, and they had to nurse the children of the rest for as long as their breast-milk could be made to last. Children under one year old were sent to other establishments to await adoption by wealthy Muscovites or foreigners from Asia or Europe.

I got caught up in the place, and wandered around the corridors looking and asking questions and trying to forget Petr. The doctor who wrote on the death certificate that the cause of death was pneumonia came straight to the point and replied shortly and succinctly that it was still better that the organization saw to it that the children who were born came into the world under decent conditions and that the mothers who gave birth were kept alive rather than be pricked by the needles of some charlatan and give birth to miscarried foetuses in a corner somewhere, or leave their newborn infants blue with cold at the doors of various institutions.

It was hard to think of any riposte to that. The Orphan Factory doctor, whose name was Vera, explained that the local people had produced more children only because of Russia’s history. In the large cities of Tsarist Russia there had sometimes been many enormous maternity hospitals which needed thousands of professional wet-nurses, both there and in the orphanages, divided into children's dormitories, which had grown up beside them. Those places had been needed then, and after the revolution no one had wanted to get rid of them. Some of them had begun to experiment with the educational methods of the new society, because abandoned children did not carry the burden of the erroneous prejudices of their parents but were open to the future, and their minds were a genuine tabula rasa on which it was easy to write new things.

translated from Finnish by David McDuff


Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich - 2

Olli Jalonen - 14 Knots to Greenwich - 3

The Digibooks Row

In a new move on a topic that may be of direct interest to readers of this blog, especially translators whose titles frequently go out of print, Google is currently preparing to finalize and fully implement its book digitization program. Having reached a $125m agreement with the US Authors' Guild and the Association of American Publishers aimed at finally settling the class action suit that raised serious charges of copyright infringement in relation to Google's Book Search, the company is now waiting for the court decision which will allow it to go ahead. As The Register notes, not everyone in the world of Web 3.0 (aka the "Data Web") is happy with the likelihood of Google acquiring what they see as a virtual monopoly on international library digitizing:

Having settled with the authors and publishers, it can exploit its financial power from within a protective legal barrier, for the class action suit covers the entire class of authors and publishers," [Harvard University libraries head Robert] Darnton wrote. "No new entrepreneurs will be able to digitize books within that fenced-off territory, even if they could afford it, because they would have to fight the copyright battles all over again. If the settlement is upheld by the court, only Google will be protected from copyright liability."

Since trumpeting Darnton's words hither and yon, the press had been all but quiet on the matter. But then, early last week, Wired tossed up a blog post entitled "Who's Messing With the Google Book Settlement? Hint: They're in Redmond, Washington." The New York Law School recently asked the court for permission to voice its concerns on the matter, and Wired took enormous pleasure in pointing out that the law school's Google Book Settlement project is funded solely by Microsoft.

Stories

Having worked as a translator in the field of Nordic literature for the past three decades or so, it occurs to me from time to time that the work has definitely had an influence on the way my life has developed over that span of time. It has taken me to places both geographical and intellectual which I might never have visited had I become involved in some other area of endeavour. I have met people who have told me things and given me insights that I would never have seen and heard if I'd stayed at home within the confines of the English language. And above all, I've had an opportunity to get acquainted with a part of European cultural identity and history that often remains hidden from the world of Anglo-Saxon culture - a view from the North that is often clearer and less encumbered with ingrained national preconceptions about issues that relate to international co-operation and co-existence, for example.

On the other hand, the world of Nordic writing is rather a small one. As a translator of Finnish, Danish or Finland-Swedish authors, one can easily become inadvisably involved in the tensions that affect these literary communities, and are often acted out in the columns of newspapers and journals, or on radio and TV. Also, because the languages of the Nordic countries are not widely known outside the Nordic area, the English-language translator is placed in a special position that he or she does not necessarily have in relation to languages like French or German. Authors in the Nordic countries have a particular motivation towards getting their work known and read outside the Nordic region, and translators are perhaps the main conduit for such aspirations. There can also be peculiar nuances of protocol and etiquertte - I can recall authors present at a Norwegian seminar for foreign translators insisting that they had no interest at all in being translated: among them it was simply considered indecent to be seen promoting oneself by seeking the translation of one's work.

And then there are the stories - the incidents and events and happenings that inevitably occur in the course of a translator's career. Many of these narratives are of a personal nature, and should probably never be told in public - they probably are akin to the experiences of members of the consulting professions in that they often involve deep-seated emotional responses on the part of their clients. After all, a translator working with a living author is frequently put in a position analogous to that of a counsellor or a confessional priest - and doubtless has the same obligation of confidentiality, though this is nowhere set down or defined.

My own feeling is that most of such stories should probably not be told. Yet from time to time it's possible that one or two of them may be posted here - and if that happens, we'll do our best to see to it that identities remain obscured, and that at least the authors, if not the translators, are protected by a cloak of anonymity.