Category: translated
Villain
So the first couple of pages of Villain don’t exactly make you want to jump into the fray. Because it reads like a rather boring travel guide, written by somebody who is rather into transportation and roads. You can know all you need to know about the tolls for vehicles between Nagasaki and Fukuoka, Nagasaki and Hakata.
I went along with it, and then comes the trigger. The last paragraph (of the first section) tells the reader of an arrest, of a crime, essentially spelling it out for you.
And that’s the thing I realise about Japanese crime fiction, at least the three that I have read so far (Out, The Devotion of Suspect X). That it is not about the mystery, it’s not technically a whodunnit, because you already know whodidit. Because it’s right there in your face, in the first few sections, the first few pages even. These books are more about the ‘why’, and the effect the murders have – on the murderers themselves, the victim’s family and friends, the other suspects.
Villain, by Shuichi Yoshida, brings out a different part of Japan, one of love hotels and online dating, and ageing seaside villages full of elderly residents. It is a quite ugly, rather lonely view of Japan.
“The scenery flowing past changed, but they never seemed to get anywhere. When the interstate ended, it connected up with the prefectural highway, and past that were city and local roads. Mitsuyo had a road atlas spread out on the dashboard. She flipped through the maps and saw that the highways and roads were all color-coded. Interstates were orange, prefectural highways were green, local roads were blue, and smaller roads were white. The countless roads were a net, a web that had caught them and the car they were in.”
Told from multiple viewpoints especially towards the end of the book, Villain shines when the focus is on the victim’s father, who struggles to come to terms with his daughter’s death, and his painful realisation that he didn’t really know his child at all.
Villain was an engrossing, thought provoking read, and leaves you wondering, who – or perhaps what – is the real ‘villain’ here.
Library Loot (25 April 2012)
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.
That wondrous smell of oxtail stew cooking in my crockpot is wafting around the study as I type this and it’s making my mouth water. So erm, I shall go and see whether it’s ready to eat. Meanwhile, here’s what I got at the library this week.
The Book About Blanche and Marie: A Novel
From one of the world’s most acclaimed authors comes a tale that explores the complex relationship between Blanche Whitman, the famous hysteria patient of Professor J.M. Charcot, and Marie Curie, Polish physicist and Nobel Prize winner.
A Celibate Season
It seems like ages since I’ve read anything by Shields, and this one sounded pretty interesting.
Carol Shields, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and Blanche Howard, winner of the Canadian Booksellers’ Award, teamed up to write this delightful epistolary novel that probes the inner life of one couple’s rocky marriage. Faced with a job-related ten-month separation, Jocelyn and Charles choose to maintain contact through letters — an economic decision that paves the way for two very different and very entertaining sides of the same story. As the months progress, the couple’s letters grow less frequent and more revealing — and their “season of celibacy” becomes more of a challenge than either Jocelyn or Charles had imagined. Posing important and timely questions about commitment, monogamy, and the pressures of career and money, this insightful novel by two extraordinary writers offers a perceptive and hopeful look at how men and women really communicate.
The Lions of al-Rassan
This will be the second book of Kay’s to grace my shelves, and I just loved the first (Tigana) so I can’t wait!
The ruling Asharites of Al-Rassan have come from the desert sands, but over centuries, seduced by the sensuous pleasures of their new land, their stern piety has eroded. The Asharite empire has splintered into decadent city-states led by warring petty kings. King Almalik of Cartada is on the ascendancy, aided always by his friend and advisor, the notorious Ammar ibn Khairan — poet, diplomat, soldier — until a summer afternoon of savage brutality changes their relationship forever.
Meanwhile, in the north, the conquered Jaddites’ most celebrated — and feared — military leader, Rodrigo Belmonte, driven into exile, leads his mercenary company south.
In the dangerous lands of Al-Rassan, these two men from different worlds meet and serve — for a time — the same master. Sharing their interwoven fate — and increasingly torn by her feelings — is Jehane, the accomplished court physician, whose own skills play an increasing role as Al-Rassan is swept to the brink of holy war, and beyond.
Hauntingly evocative of medieval Spain, The Lions of Al-Rassan is both a brilliant adventure and a deeply compelling story of love, divided loyalties, and what happens to men and women when hardening beliefs begin to remake — or destroy — a world.
An Overdrive e-book
The Iron King
I’m not really liking Meghan Chase but am having fun exploring the faery world.
Meghan Chase has a secret destiny—one she could never have imagined…
Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan’s life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school…or at home.When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she’s known is about to change.
But she could never have guessed the truth—that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she’ll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face…and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.
Wee reader’s loot!
Clifford Cares
Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z
Hey! Wake Up!
Mama, Where are You?
Grandpa Green
Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?
What did you get at your library this week?
Library Loot (18 April 2012)
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.
I had four books waiting for me on the hold shelves and managed to pick up a good number of books for wee reader today, as the board books area was stocked with fun books. And wee reader just couldn’t get enough of those books – he kept wandering out of the area where the baby programme was and heading over to the board books to pat them.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 7: Twilight (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Dark Horse))
And it’s the last two books in season 8! Sad but true.
Buffy Summers and her Slayer army have suffered heavy losses throughout Season Eight and faced scores of threats new and old, but the one mystery connecting it all has been the identity of the Big Bad Twilight! In this penultimate volume of Season Eight, New York Times bestselling novelist and comics writer Brad Meltzer (The Book of Lies, Identity Crisis) joins series artist Georges Jeanty in beginning the buildup to the season finale in the story line that finally reveals the identity of Twilight! In the aftermath of the battle with Twilight’s army, Buffy has developed a host of new powers, but when will the other shoe drop, and will it be a cute shoe, or an ugly one? Still reeling from the losses of war, Willow goes looking for missing allies, and discovers a horrifying truth about several of the Slayer army’s recent ordeals. Adding to the mayhem is the unexpected return of Angel, in his Season Eight debut! This volume also features two stories from series creator and executive producer Joss Whedon! In the Willow one-shot, Whedon and Fray artist Karl Moline reveal for the first time what Buffy’s witchy best friend was up to between Seasons Seven and Eight, with a mind-blowing cameo by a frequently requested character. And in “Turbulence,” Joss spotlights the complicated relationship between Buffy and Xander with a conversation that changes it forever.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 8: Last Gleaming
The Season Finale is here, and Buffy must face the ultimate betrayal! Seems like a perfect time for Spike to come back.
Series creator Joss Whedon writes the final story arc of Buffy Season 8, taking his greatest characters to places only he can! Teamed with series artist Georges Jeanty, Joss reunites the dysfunctional gang of Buffy, Angel, and Spike, in the thick of it together for the first time since Season 3, and gives the Scoobies their gravest challenge ever – defending reality itself from an onslaught of demons. It’s the biggest Buffy finale ever!
Villain
After reading The Devotion of Suspect X, I was interested in reading this book, thanks to JoV.
A chilling and seductive story of loneliness, desperation, and murder, Villain is the English-language debut of one of Japan’s most popular writers.
A woman is killed at a ghostly mountain pass in southern Japan and the local police quickly pinpoint a suspect. But as the puzzle pieces of the crime slowly click into place, new questions arise. Is a villain simply the person who commits a crime or are those who feel no remorse for malicious behavior just as guilty? Moving from office parks and claustrophobic love hotels to desolate seaside towns and lighthouses, Shuichi Yoshida’s dark thriller reveals the inner lives of men and women who all have something to hide.
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
In recent years, cultural commentators have sounded the alarm about the dire state of reading in America. Americans are not reading enough, they say, or reading the right books, in the right way.
In this book, Alan Jacobs argues that, contrary to the doomsayers, reading is alive and well in America. There are millions of devoted readers supporting hundreds of enormous bookstores and online booksellers. Oprah’s Book Club is hugely influential, and a recent NEA survey reveals an actual uptick in the reading of literary fiction. Jacobs’s interactions with his students and the readers of his own books, however, suggest that many readers lack confidence; they wonder whether they are reading well, with proper focus and attentiveness, with due discretion and discernment. Many have absorbed the puritanical message that reading is, first and foremost, good for you–the intellectual equivalent of eating your Brussels sprouts. For such people, indeed for all readers, Jacobs offers some simple, powerful, and much needed advice: read at whim, read what gives you delight, and do so without shame, whether it be Stephen King or the King James Version of the Bible. In contrast to the more methodical approach of Mortimer Adler’s classic How to Read a Book (1940), Jacobs offers an insightful, accessible, and playfully irreverent guide for aspiring readers. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of approaching literary fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and the book explores everything from the invention of silent reading, reading responsively, rereading, and reading on electronic devices.
Invitingly written, with equal measures of wit and erudition, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction will appeal to all readers, whether they be novices looking for direction or old hands seeking to recapture the pleasures of reading they first experienced as children.
Wee reader’s loot:
Animals (Baby Touch and Feel)
Peter Rabbit: Show Me Your Ears
One Blue Fish: A Colorful Counting Book
Pony Brushes His Teeth
Commotion in the Ocean
Move!
Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?
What did you get at your library this week?
The Yellow Wind
“One morning, soldiers came to the house and notified her that she had fifteen minutes to get all her belongings and her daughters out of the house, after which the house would be leveled. Sometimes, when I hear about the destruction of houses in the West Bank, I wonder what I would remove from my house during that quarter hour – the basic necessities, I suppose; bed linens and cooking utensils. But what about the photograph albums? And my manuscript? And books? And old letters? How much can you get out in a frenzied fifteen minutes?”
In 1987, Israeli novelist David Grossman spent three months on the West Bank, journeying to Palestinian camps and Jewish settlements, talking to university students, army reservists, villagers, prosecutors, everyday people, ordinary people living divided, exiled lives. As he explains:
“I wanted to meet the people who are themselves the real players in the drama, those who pay first the price of their actions and failures, courage, cowardliness, corruption, nobility. I quickly understood that we all pay the price, but not all of us know it.”
The ‘Yellow Wind’ refers to “the wind that will come from the gate of Hell (from the gates of Paradise comes only a pleasant, cool wind) – rih asfar, it is called by the local Arabs, a hot and terrible east wind which comes once in a few generations, sets the world afire, and people seek shelter from its heat in the caves and caverns, but even there it finds those it seeks, those who have performed cruel and unjust deeds, and there, in the cracks in the boulders, it exterminates them, one by one”.
It is an emotional, painful read and as with Grossman’s fiction (at least with To The End of the Land, the only other of his works I’ve read) well written.
Hitting the beach
It’s grey and dripping outside and it’s been this way pretty much the whole day. What a contrast to the warm and sunny weekend we had in Pismo Beach with wee reader and his grandparents.
Unfortunately we had forgotten that it was spring break/Easter weekend and the place we stayed at was pretty packed with youthful patrons. Which meant people moving around throughout the night and in our case, a little fella not adjusting well to his new environment and decidedly not sleeping through the night. I felt like I needed a holiday from this holiday! But it wasn’t just about the sleep (or not-sleep), we explored the coastal towns of Pismo Beach and Morro Bay, and had plenty of great seafood.
And of course I got to do some reading!
I started and finished The Devotion of Suspect X, which was a fast, interesting read. The plot (saying anymore would probably ruin it for you, but as you can guess, there’s a dead person and it’s a who-dunnit) and the intellectual skirmishes between mathematics genius Ishigami and his university schoolmate Yukawa are engaging. The climax is quite gasp-worthy as is the character of Ishigami. But I have to say that the writing is nothing much to shout about – I keep comparing it to Natsuo Kirino’s Out (the only other Japanese crime novel I’ve read so far) and just felt I got so much more out of that one, a greater sense of character and place, for starters. There is such a coldness about The Devotion of Suspect X. Everything seemed so sterile and it just seemed like it needed a bit more meat. Still it was a fun read (if you find it fun to read about murders and cover-ups).
Library Loot (28 March 2012)
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire fromThe Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.
Under the Poppy
I thought this sounded like a rather interesting novel, plus it’s set in Belgium, a place I’ve visited but don’t think I’ve read much about.
From a wartime brothel to the intricate high society of 1870s Brussels, Under the Poppy is a breakout novel of childhood friends, a love triangle, puppetmasters, and reluctant spies.
Under the Poppy is a brothel owned by Decca and Rupert. Decca is in love with Rupert, but he in turn is in love with her brother, Istvan. When Istvan comes to town, louche puppet troupe in tow, the lines of their age-old desires intersect against a backdrop of approaching war. Hearts are broken when old betrayals and new alliances—not just their own—take shape, as the townsmen seek refuge from the onslaught of history by watching the girls of the Poppy cavort onstage with Istvan’s naughty puppets . . .
Under the Poppy is a vivid, sexy, historical novel that zips along like the best guilty pleasure.
Nominated for the IMPAC Award. Winner of the Gaylactic Spectrum Award.
The Devotion of Suspect X
(I’m not going to copy-paste the blurb here as I don’t really want to know what this book is about!). Instead, I’ll just say that I first heard of this book from Bibliojunkie, who said: “The story is a puzzle embedded in a bigger puzzle. A story that challenges the reader’s blind spot.” And I was like, ooh!
Photographing Fairies
For Once Upon a Time VI
It all begins in the 1920s, when a blustering country policeman, Constable Michael Walsmear, literally punches his way into American photographer Charles Castle’s London studio. Walsmear has what he claims are photographs of fairies. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whom Castle approaches to verify the pictures, offers a large sum of money to have Walsmear’s photographs destroyed. But even more than cash, Castle wants the truth. His quest takes him to Burkinwell, a seemingly peaceful country village seething with secrets. Armed with a camera, he encounters gypsies and wild dogs, the innocent girls of the photos and the murderous thieves who threaten them, a beautiful garden and unspeakable sexual practices. He also discovers the most shocking truth of all: that absolute purity and utter depravity are folded together in the human heart.
The Yellow Wind
I loved Grossman’s To the End of the Land and have been interested in reading some of his non-fiction.
The Israeli novelist David Grossman’s impassioned account of what he observed on the West Bank in early 1987—not only the misery of the Palestinian refugees and their deep-seated hatred of the Israelis but also the cost of occupation for both occupier and occupied—is an intimate and urgent moral report on one of the great tragedies of our time. The Yellow Wind is essential reading for anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of Israel today.
An Overdrive e-book
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy)
For Once Upon a Time VI
Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother’s death and her family’s bloody history.
With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Yeine will learn how perilous it can be when love and hate – and gods and mortals – are bound inseparably together
For wee reader:
Curious George Color Fun
All of Baby, Nose to Toes
Spot Goes to the Farm
Paddington Bear All Day
Maisy’s Train
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?
See more Library Loot here.
All Quiet on the Western Front
“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”
What I thought as I read this book: ‘What took me so long to get to this book?’
The answer – it’s a war novel.
Gulp.
That makes no sense because I read – and really liked – Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
And Erich Maria Remarque has written a heartbreaking, unforgettable story of World War One, from the eyes of German soldier Paul Bäumer.
“But when we go bathing and strip, suddenly we have slender legs again and slight shoulders. We are no longer soldiers but little more than boys; no one would believe that we could carry packs. It is a strange moment when we stand naked; then we become civilians, and almost feel ourselves to be so. When bathing, Franz Kemmerich looked as slight and frail as a child. There he lies now – but why? The whole world ought to pass by this bed and say: ‘This is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old, he doesn’t want to die. Let him not die!’”
There is little need for me to tell you about this book, for you have probably heard of it – or maybe read it in school. But if you, like me, have been hesitant to get hold of this book, let me tell you – go for it. It is a war novel, yes – and maybe for you that’s also a gulp, but it is a must-read. You cannot help but feel for these men – boys rather – as Remarque opens the book with discussions about food, a constant thought on their minds amid all the carnage and misery. And you feel all that wretchedness and agony. And as I type “wretchedness and agony”, I wonder if those are the right words to describe it, because that just doesn’t seem adequate. All the pain, all the suffering, all that fear, and those damn rats. How could anyone live through that? That is a huge part of Remarque’s tale, how these men-boys emerge from this experience, this incredibly traumatic experience, back into the world again.
“We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.”
Title: All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues)
By Erich Maria Remarque
Translated from the German by A.W. Wheen
First published in 1929
Source: Library
This is my first read for the War Through the Generations Challenge
I was curious to see what else Remarque has written, and just in case you are too:
Novels
(1920) Die Traumbude. Ein Künstlerroman; English translation: The Dream Room
(1928) Station am Horizont; English translation: Station at the Horizon
(1929) Im Westen nichts Neues; English translation: All Quiet on the Western Front
(1931) Der Weg zurück; English translation: The Road Back
(1936) Drei Kameraden; English translation: Three Comrades
(1939) Liebe deinen Nächsten; English translation: Flotsam
(1945) Arc de Triomphe; English translation: Arch of Triumph
(1952) Der Funke Leben; English translation: Spark of Life
(1954) Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben; English translation: A Time to Love and a Time to Die
(1956) Der schwarze Obelisk; English translation: The Black Obelisk
(1961) Der Himmel kennt keine Günstlinge (serialized as Geborgtes Leben); English translation: Heaven Has No Favorites
(1962) Die Nacht von Lissabon; English translation: The Night in Lisbon
(1970) Das gelobte Land; English translation: The Promised Land
(1971) Schatten im Paradies; English translation: Shadows in Paradise
Other works
(1931) Der Feind; English translation: The Enemy (1930–1931); short stories
(1955) Der letzte Akt; English translation: The Last Act; screenplay
(1956) Die letzte Station; English translation: Full Circle (1974); play
(1988) Die Heimkehr des Enoch J. Jones; English translation: The Return of Enoch J. Jones; play
(1994) Ein militanter Pazifist; English translation: A Militant Pacifist; interviews and essays
Library Loot (8 March, 2012)
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire fromThe Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.
This month’s goal is to read more non-fiction! So here’s some from the library.
Travels with Myself and Another: A Memoir
“Martha Gellhorn was so fearless in a male way, and yet utterly capable of making men melt,” writes New Yorker literary editor Bill Buford. As a journalist, Gellhorn covered every military conflict from the Spanish Civil War to Vietnam and Nicaragua. She also bewitched Eleanor Roosevelt’s secret love and enraptured Ernest Hemingway with her courage as they dodged shell fire together.
Hemingway is, of course, the unnamed “other” in the title of this tart memoir, first published in 1979, in which Gellhorn describes her globe-spanning adventures, both accompanied and alone. With razor-sharp humor and exceptional insight into place and character, she tells of a tense week spent among dissidents in Moscow; long days whiled away in a disused water tank with hippies clustered at Eilat on the Red Sea; and her journeys by sampan and horse to the interior of China during the Sino-Japanese War.Now including a foreward by Bill Buford and photographs of Gellhorn with Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Gary Cooper, and others, this new edition rediscovers the voice of an extraordinary woman and brings back into print an irresistibly entertaining classic.
A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness
(Via Eva)
An acutely nuanced and original study of a state-sanctioned mass murderer. Not since Dead Man Walking have we seen so provocative a first-person encounter with the human face of evil.
Eugene de Kock, the commanding officer of state-sanctioned apartheid death squads, is currently serving 212 years in jail for crimes against humanity. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who grew up in a black township in South Africa, served as a psychologist on that country’s great national experiment in healing, the Truth and Reconcilation Commission. As this book opens, in an act of inescapable, multilayered symbolism and extraordinary psychological courage, Gobodo-Madikizela enters Pretoria’s maximum security prison to meet the man called “Prime Evil.” What follows is a journey into what it means to be human.
Gobodo-Madikizela’s experience with and deep empathy for victims of murderous violence, including those killed by de Kock and their families and friends, become clear in arresting scenes set during the TRC hearings, in which both perpetrators and their victims are given voice. The author’s profound understanding of the language and memory of violence, and of the searingly complex issues surrounding apology and forgiveness after mass atrocity, will leave a mark on scholarship as well as on our emotional lives. Gobodo-Madikizela’s journey with de Kock, during which she allows us to witness the extraordinary awakening of his remorse, brings us to one of the great questions of our time: What does it mean when we discover that the incarnation of evil is as frighteningly human as we are?
Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
Yeah so I read that excerpt and that other excerpt and I figured I would put a hold on it. And here it is!
When American journalist Pamela Druckerman has a baby in Paris, she doesn’t aspire to become a “French parent.” Yet, the French children Druckerman knows sleep through the night at two or three months old. And while her American friends spend their visits resolving spats between their kids, her French friends sip coffee while the kids play.
Motherhood itself is a whole different experience in France. French mothers assume that even good parents aren’t at the constant service of their children and they have an easy, calm authority with their kids that Druckerman can only envy. Of course, French parenting wouldn’t be worth talking about if it produced robotic, joyless children. In fact, French kids are just as boisterous, curious, and creative as Americans. They’re just far better behaved and more in command of themselves.
With a notebook stashed in her diaper bag, Druckerman sets out to learn the secrets to raising a society of good little sleepers, gourmet eaters, and reasonably relaxed parents. She discovers that French parents are extremely strict about some things and strikingly permissive about others. And she realizes that to be a different kind of parent, you don’t just need a different parenting philosophy. You need a very different view of what a child actually is
-Jacques Tardi
Both a rip-roaring adventure series set in pre-World War I Paris and a parody of same, Adèle Blanc-Sec has been enchanting, thrilling, and puzzling readers worldwide through four decades.
With various American attempts to publish Adèle having dribbled into nothing decades ago, Fantagraphics Books, fresh from its triumphs with Tardi’s West Coast Blues and You Are There, launches a spectacular, newly re-translated, hardcover series that intends to collect every one of its nine (soon ten) volumes. In this premiere installment, Adèle becomes involved in an interlocking series of mysteries that involve a revived pterodactyl, a frightful on-stage murder, a looming execution by guillotine, and a demon from the depths of hell — plus of course moronic gendarmes, loyal (or perhaps traitorous?) henchmen, and a climax atop the Eiffel Tower.
The Adèle Blanc-Sec series is currently being adapted into a series of films by the renowned action director Luc Besson (The Professional, The Fifth Element), bringing this quirky, very French series to a new worldwide audience.
Wee reader’s loot:
A Book of Sleep
Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night
(recommended by Gavin)
1 Is One
In 1492
Cloudette
(too cute!)
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?
See more Library Loot here.
Is that a Fish in your Ear?
“Give a hundred competent translators a page to translate, and the chances of any two versions being identical are close to zero. This fact about interlingual communication has persuaded many people that translation is not an interesting topic – because it is always approximate, it is just a second-rate kind of thing.”
Indeed, I have never thought much about translation. Even while reading all these translated works this past month, I’ve never thought about the actual act of translating, and how incredibly difficult it must be.
And Bellos’ book makes me respect this job, this science, this art of translation.
And David Bellos knows what he is talking about. For he is a professor of French and comparative literature at Princeton University, and also the director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication. In this book, he sets out to investigate:
“What is it that translators really do? How many different kinds of translating are there? What do the uses of this mysterious ability tell us about human societies, past and present? How do the facts of translation relate to language use in general – and to what we think a language is?”
One of the biggest eye openers was the seemingly simple Asterix comics. In the book, Bellos reproduces a single cell from the strip, where Asterix meets ‘Anticlimax’, who is in the original French called ‘Jolitorax’, a pun on “fair chest”, “pretty thorax” which doesn’t mean anything to English-speakers, but would to someone who speaks French. Translator Anthea Bell substitutes ‘Anticlimax’ for ‘Jolithorax’, and Bellos quips: “If you thought translating Proust might be difficult, just try Asterix”. For cartoon translators have to make it fit the picture, and the speech bubble, among other issues.
Of course translation of graphic novels is just a teeny weeny part of this book. Bellos discusses all aspects of translation, from dictionaries to oral translation to translating humour.
Quite a lot of this is out of my league, way over my head, or just too much information. And it all got too much towards the end of the book – I skipped the chapter on Language Parity in the European Union (seems to belong more in a textbook), and skimmed most of some other chapters like the one on automated language-translation machines.
But Bellos did make me think more about translation, translators, and their effect on language and the world.
An interesting example is that of a junior trader in the Dutch East India Company who translated the Gospel of Matthew from Dutch into Malay, using words from Arabic, Portuguese and Sanskrit when he knew no corresponding term. However, when the Dutch version talks of a fig tree, the translator used the Malay word ‘pisang’ or banana tree, which he justified by the fact that there are no fig trees on Sumatra. So it makes one wonder about the translations that we read, how much of it is interpreted in a different way for us, for those who may not understand that culture, that society, that style of humour, for instance. It goes to show much translators put of themselves into what they translate. As with the first quote right at the start of this post, no two translations will be identical. It is quite fascinating!
I could continue with many more examples from the book. I found myself sticking post-its all over this library book (of course I’ll remove them before I return it).
“English, for instance, doesn’t possess a designated term for the half-eaten pita bread placed in perilous balance on the top of a garden fence by an overfed squirrel that I can see right now out of my study window, but this deficiency in my vocabulary doesn’t prevent me from observing, describing, or referring to it.”
Is that a Fish in Your Ear? is incredibly informative, and far more humorous than I expected it to be, and the parts that I didn’t skip over were great reads, peppered with great examples. But while this book started out so strong and made me so interested in the act of translation, it’s a bit disappointing how it ended – a little too tedious for the everyday reader. However, as David Bellos says at the end of the book about translation, “We should do more of it.”
And as readers, we should read more of it.
Title: Is that a Fish in your Ear?
By David Bellos
Published in 2011
Library Loot (February 29, 2012)
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire fromThe Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.
Ok I know it’s the end of February but I decided for one last effort at works in translation, this time with some graphic novels!
Blacksad
Interestingly, this series is published in French first, then in the authors’ native Spanish.
Private investigator John Blacksad is up to his feline ears in mystery, digging into the backstories behind murders, child abductions, and nuclear secrets. Guarnido’s sumptuously painted pages and rich cinematic style bring the world of 1950s America to vibrant life, with Canales weaving in fascinating tales of conspiracy, racial tension, and the “red scare” Communist witch hunts of the time. Guarnido reinvents anthropomorphism in these pages, and industry colleagues no less than Will Eisner, Jim Steranko, and Tim Sale are fans! Whether John Blacksad is falling for dangerous women or getting beaten to within an inch of his life, his stories are, simply put, unforgettable.
Buja’s Diary
Another graphic novel in translation!
From Korea comes a collection of incisive observant short stories by a leading artist. Reading these thirteen exceptional stories is an experience similar to appreciating a touching poem or watching a series of stills from a silent movie. Combining the traits of different artistic genres, O has indeed created his own world of comic art. While eloquently presenting a universal human experience, O also brings a delightful and exotic insight into Korean society. Whereas Manwa (Korean comics) can be much more than we expect.
Winter’s End
In a gripping dystopian novel, four teenagers risk impossible odds to fight against tyranny in a world of dangerous choices — and reemerging hope.
Escape. Milena, Bartolomeo, Helen, and Milos have left their prison-like boarding schools far behind, but their futures remain in peril. Fleeing across icy mountains from a terrifying pack of dog-men sent to hunt them down, they are determined to take up the fight against the despotic government that murdered their parents years before. Only three will make it safely to the secret headquarters of the resistance movement. The fourth is captured and forced to participate in a barbaric game for the amusement of the masses — further proof of the government’s horrible brutality. Will the power of one voice be enough to rouse a people against a generation of cruelty? Translated from the French, this suspenseful story of courage, individualism, and freedom has resonated with young readers across the globe.
The Winter Queen: A Novel (An Erast Fandorin Mystery)
Another point for the BBC World Book Club, which is where I first heard of Boris Akunin.
Moscow, May 1876. What would cause a talented student from a wealthy family to shoot himself in front of a promenading public? Decadence and boredom, it is presumed. But young sleuth Erast Fandorin is not satisfied with the conclusion that this death is an open-and-shut case, nor with the preliminary detective work the precinct has done–and for good reason: The bizarre and tragic suicide is soon connected to a clear case of murder, witnessed firsthand by Fandorin himself. Relying on his keen intuition, the eager detective plunges into an investigation that leads him across Europe, landing him at the center of a vast conspiracy with the deadliest of implications.
And of course for the little fella, who patiently waited while I grabbed my books.
Round Trip
Not a board book but when I looked inside, I knew I had to pick up this book with the striking black and white illustrations.
Oliver Finds His Way
Bears on Chairs
Mouse’s First Fall
Teeth Tails and Tentacles (Animal Counting Books)
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?
