Reading diary: May 2010

May must be my lucky month. I read the most number of books on May: 11 in all. Granted, most of them are short ones, but I was able to read for the first time authors like Ōe, Rulfo, and Lispector.


MAY 2010


24. Two Novels: J ; Seventeen by Ōe Kenzaburo, trans. Luk Van Haute

It's my introduction to Ōe and he certainly had an interesting take on the interplay of sex/politics and private/public life. The two novels deal with sexual perverts and how they become entangled with the politics of the day. They were said to cause a sensation when they were first published in Japan in the early 60s. They still maintain their shock value in terms of graphic descriptions. I'm hoping that Ōe will allow the publication of "A Political Youth Dies", the sequel to Seventeen, which he apparently suppressed because it angered extreme right-wingers and he was uncertain about the style and content of the book. He was like Murakami Haruki in the self-censorship aspect, but they have different motivation for censoring their own works. Haruki's motivation was aesthetic (he thinks his two early novels were too juvenile) while Ōe's was aesthetic and political (the rightists threw stones at his house, the leftists accuse him of betrayal).

My full review of this book can be found here.


25. The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald, trans. Michael Hulse -- reread

This novel is an amalgam of memoir, travel, and literary biography. On the surface of it, it recounts a man’s journey into Suffolk County, England, observing the destruction of countryside around him. The pervading tone is melancholia, but with small doses of black humor. A quirky novel and a sublime reflection on history. Its deeper currents intersect with horrible acts in history.

I wrote several blog posts and chapter summaries on this book:
  
The Rings of Saturn: The anatomy lesson
The Rings of Saturn: Somerleyton Hall
The Rings of Saturn: Herring, swine here, sand martins
The Rings of Saturn: Theater of war
The Rings of Saturn: Heart of darkness
The Rings of Saturn: Very the last stop
The Rings of Saturn: Silk


26. Maigret and the Madwoman by Georges Simenon, trans. Eileen Ellenbogen

Having sampled one of Simenon's romans durs (The Engagement), I tried one of his Maigret mysteries. It's a police procedural that courts the literary fence with its gritty portrait of human motives. Based on this novel alone, Inspector Maigret is a multi-layered character, without the foppish frills of a Monsieur Poirot. I would like to see more of Maigret on the page.


27. The Mirror of Ink by Jorge Luis Borges, trans. Andrew Hurley

This is one of those 70 Pocket Penguins anniversary editions which are culled from longer works. It's a sampling of a few short stories from Collected Fictions. Borges is better absorbed in small doses. Some of the memorable stories included here are "The Lottery of Babylon" and sudden fiction like "Ragnarök." It's just a pity that the name of the translator was not recognized in any of its pages.


28. The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr

It's about the search for the missing 400-year old painting "The Taking of Christ" by Caravaggio. I can't tear myself away from it as it's so full of suspense and revelations. Overall, a goodly entertainment for a nonfiction.


29. Poem Strip by Dino Buzzati, trans. Marina Harss

This comic strip has been called "avant-garde." It's a play on the myth of Orpheus descending. I like how the chorus of sexy girls suddenly break into poem and dance numbers.


30. Therefore Repent! by Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam

This completely lost me. A version of the end of times that is as depressing as its illegible drawings.


31. The Burning Plain and Other Stories by Juan Rulfo, trans. George D. Schade

Very exacting stories. Rulfo wrote only two books in his lifetime. The other is the acclaimed Pedro Páramo. This collection of 15 short stories is an excursion into an inhospitable environment. Rulfo immerses you into the ugly and banal side of human nature. It's full of conflicts and peopled by criminals, adulterers, and rebels. The strange thing is that despite the ugliness described, the beauty of the writing comes across very well. It must be hard to balance this kind of thing.

A collection of 15 well-crafted stories about the human-landscape nexus. The setting is the Plain of Mexico, a barren wasteland where the drama of human conflicts play out. It's man against man, often with ugly consequences. It's also man against the environment, where natural elements are impossible to tame. The writing is altogether beautiful even if the descriptions are of the ugly and banal side of human relationships.


32. Dreamtigers by Jorge Luis Borges, trans. Mildred Boyer and Harold Morland

A mix of short poems and sudden fiction that blend in a mysterious harmony. The writing of Borges in Dreamtigers is charged with the same fire as the flaming tiger of William Blake. Not a minor work by any means, it aspires to a fearful symmetry of ideas, the stripe of dreams.


33. Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolaño, trans. Chris Andrews

Early Bolaño that is not at par with the latter books. The book is soaked in an atmosphere of light and darkness, fear and dread. Disorientation.

I wrote a short review here.


34. The Stream of Life by Clarice Lispector, trans. Elizabeth Lowe and Earl Fitz

My first book by Clarice and I'm not impressed. Plotless. It's an experimental short novel about a painter writing whatever thought comes her way. One can interpret it as a manifesto on embracing freedom, happiness, and spontaneity. Well and good. Only this kind of stream of consciousness narrative can be a bit jarring. Yes, poetic, more like an outpouring of fine writing, a stream of soul. But in places it just registers empty words. It is very self-conscious and very aware of that fact. I don't like it. But I'm not closing my doors on Clarice yet. The Stream of Life is just an overwhelming introduction.

"The Slaughter of the Ponies" (João Guimarães Rosa)

     "I'll bet they're killing our ponies!"
     And the hell of it was, they were. The corral was full up with our mounts and the poor horses were trapped, hardy and blameless as they were; and they, the damned dogs, with no fear either of God or the law in their hearts, outdid themselves to torment and plunder—as if they were tearing our hearts from our bodies—firing into our ponies, to right and left! It made you sick to see such a sight. Bobbing up and down—somehow understanding, without knowing for sure, that the devil had been turned loose in their midst—the horses whirled crazily around and around, galloping in fits and starts. Some of them reared up on their hind legs and pawed the air with their front hoofs, and fell on top of one another, and tumbled in a whirling jumble. And some with their heads held high in the air beat the necks of others, shaking their stiff and prickly manes: they seemed no more than twisted, curved lines! Their whinnying came as it clutched at their hearts: a shrill, brief cry, if neighed out of rage; short also, but deep and hoarse, if neighed out of fear, like the shriek of a wildcat, blasted from flared nostrils. They spun madly about the enclosure, colliding with the stakes as they ran wild, kicking in frenzied welter. What we were seeing was like an infinity of wildly fluttering wings. They raised dust from the very stones! Then they began to fall flat on the ground, their legs widespread, holding up only their jaws or forelocks: their bodies rippled. They began to fall, nearly all of them, and finally all. Those that were slow to die whinnied in pain. From some it was a piercing, snorted groan, almost as if they were speaking. From still others a constrained whine in the teeth, uttered with great difficulty. That whinny was not breathed out as the animal gave up its strength; it was squeezed out as the animal gasped for its final breath.

This long quote comes from the first paragraphs of an excerpt published in The Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature, Volume II: The Twentieth Century – from Borges and Paz to Guimarães Rosa and Donoso (1977), edited by Emir Rodríguez Monegal and Thomas Colchie. The excerpt is titled "The Slaughter of the Ponies," one of the "Two Texts" by João Guimarães Rosa included in the anthology; the other is the short story "The Third Bank of the River."

The two texts are prefaced by a long introduction on the life and works of Guimarães Rosa. The introduction mentions near the end that: ' "The Slaughter of the Ponies,' is taken from Grande Sertão and is one of the episodes eliminated from the U.S. translation [emphasis added].' The U.S. translation is The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by James L. Taylor and Harriet de Onís, published by Knopf in 1963.

The text of the "Slaughter of the Ponies" (pp. 683-686 of the anthology) is attributed as taken from "Grande Sertão: Verédas (The Devil to Pay in the Backlands), especially translated by Jack E. Tomlins." It's not clear whether Tomlins was credited for the U.S. translation (a clear mistake) or to the excerpt itself (possibly a mistake too, according to Gregory Rabassa below).

In his memoir If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents (2005), Gregory Rabassa sustained the assertion that the text was left out in the U.S. translation:

[Grande Sertão] had already been translated but a lot had been slurred over and a lot had been left out. When Emir Rodríguez Monegal and Thomas Colchie were putting together their Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature they both agreed on the chunk of Grande Sertão that would give the best sense of the book as a whole. Since a good part of their anthology made use of extant translations they went to The Devil to Pay in the Backlands and found that their sought-after selection had been one of the many parts left out. Tom Colchie had to do his own translation, which stands out when held against the purported version. [pp. 71-72]

This claim, that the slaughter of the ponies was not included in the Taylor-De Onís translation, turns out to be false. The incident occurs in pages 280-284 of the book. The same opening paragraph reads:

     "Look, they are killing the horses!"
     Damned if they weren't. The corral filled with our good horses, the poor things imprisoned there, all so healthy, they were not to blame, and those dogs, with neither fear of God nor justice in their hearts, were firing right and left into that living mass, to torture and sear our souls! What an appalling sight. Realizing without understanding that the devil was at work, the frantic horses galloped around, rearing and pawing and coming down with their front hoofs on the backs of others, stumbling, colliding, their heads and necks stretched, their manes stiffly flying: they were just a lot of writhing curves! They were whinnying, too—high, brief whinnies of anger, and whinnies of fear, short, hoarse, as when a wildcat snarls through wide-open nostrils. Round and around they went, bumping into the fence, kicking, scattering, panic-stricken. They began falling, sprawled on the ground, spreading their legs, only their jaws or foreheads held upright, trembling. They were falling, nearly all, then all of them. Those slow to die were crying in pain—a high snorting groan, some as if they were talking, others whickering through their teeth, struggling with their last breath, gasping, dying.

This section is indeed one of the most memorable parts of the book and shows why Guimarães Rosa is considered a writer of descriptive power. The incident described runs for a few more paragraphs. In it, Guimarães Rosa evokes at once cruelty and sympathy—disgust at the suffering of animals at the hands of men, and men's genuine compassion for them.

Rabassa's observation that a lot had been left out may be true, but this particular incident at least is not one of them. However, it is clear from the length of the extracts that the Taylor-De Onís translation compresses a lot of the phrases and sentences compared to the earlier quoted Tomlins/Colchie translation. In the penultimate paragraph of the excerpt itself, the Tomlins/Colchie translation contains several sentences that are not present in the Taylor-De Onís translation. Other than that, the whole incident in the U.S. translation corresponds well with the Borzoi anthology excerpt, albeit in shortened form. This indicates that the U.S. translation possibly used a minimalist strategy that affected the lyricism and verbosity in the prose style of Guimarães Rosa. The minimalist prose has its charms but could alter the perception of a writer known for his verbal skills and wordplays.

To further illustrate whether the Tomlins/Colchie translation really stands out when compared to the Taylor-De Onís translation, perhaps it's best to quote the ending of the Borzoi extract and its counterpart to The Devil to Pay in the Backlands:

Tomlins/Colchie translation:

     The flow of time during those days and nights got choked and snagged in confusion: it was all directed toward one final horror. It was a block of time within time. We were trapped inside that house, which had become an easy target. Do you know how it feels to be trapped like that and have no way out? I don't know how many thousands of shots were fired: it was all echoing around my ears. The shots continued dizzily whining and popping and cracking. With walls and plaster still standing around us, the beams and tiles of another man's ancestral home set themselves up between us and them as our only defense. I can tell you—and I say this to you so you'll truly believe it—that old house protected us grudgingly: creaking with complaint, its dark old rooms fumed. As for me, I got to thinking that they were going to level the whole works, all four corners of the whole damn property. But they didn't. They didn't, as you are soon to see. Because what's going to happen is this: you're going to hear the whole story told. . . .


Taylor-De Onís translation:

     Those days and nights went by in sluggish confusion, directed toward one single terrible objective. Time took on a different rhythm. We inhabited a roofed and walled target. Do you know what it is to be holed up like that? I don't know how many thousands of rounds were fired—my ears were filled with the dizzying noise, the constant whining, popping, cracking. The plastered walls, the beams and tiles of the big old house, these were our shield. One could say—and I want you to believe me—that the entire house felt outraged, creaking complaints, and smoldering with rage in its dark corners. As for me, I thought it was just a matter of time before the whole thing would be razed and nothing left but the bare ground.  But it did not happen that way, as you will soon see. Because you are going to hear the entire story.

Brazil 50

The top 50 Brazilian novels of the previous century, as chosen by a panel of eight experts from Rio and São Paulo.

The list was compiled by Rio's weekly magazine Manchete in 1998.

This link gives a brief description of each book:

http://www.mafservicos.com.br/arquivos/Top%2050%20em%20separados.htm

The top 3 novels are:

Grande Sertão: Veredas by João Guimarães Rosa
Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade
Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma by Lima Barreto

I tried to track down the titles of English translations. Those I found online were given below the titles in Portuguese. It appears that some 12 books remain untranslated. I'm not sure I found everything, so I welcome any correction.


TOP 50 BOOKS FROM BRAZIL:


1. Grande Sertão: Veredas, João Guimarães Rosa
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, trans. James L. Taylor and Harriet de Onís

2. Macunaíma, Mário de Andrade
Macunaíma, trans. E.A. Goodland

3. Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma, Lima Barreto
The Patriot, trans. Robert Scott-Buccleuch

4. São Bernardo, Graciliano Ramos
São Bernardo, trans. Robert Scott-Buccleuch

5. O Tempo e o Vento, Érico Veríssimo
Time and the Wind, trans. L. L. [Linton Lomas] Barrett

6. Memorial de Maria Moura ("Memoirs of Maria Moura"), Rachel de Queiroz

7. Menino de Engenho, José Lins do Rego
Plantation Boy, trans. Emmi Baum

8. Fogo Morto ("Dead Fire"), José Lins do Rego

9. Memórias Sentimentais de João Miramar, Oswald de Andrade
[?]Sentimental Memoirs of John Seaborne, trans. Ralph Niebuhr and Albert Bork

10. Vidas Secas, Graciliano Ramos
Barren Lives, trans. Ralph Edward Dimmick

11. Angústia, Graciliano Ramos
Anguish, trans. L. C. Kaplan

12. Esaú e Jacó, Machado de Assis
Esau and Jacob, trans. Elizabeth Lowe

13. O Coronel e o Lobisomem ("The Colonel and the Werewolf"), José Cândido de Carvalho

14. O Quinze ("1915"), Rachel de Queiroz

15. A Bagaceira, José Américo de Almeida
Trash, trans. R.L.S-. Buccleuch

16. Quarup ("Quarup—Indian ceremony for the dead"), Antônio Callado
Quarup, trans. Barbara Shelby

17. O Encontro Marcado, Fernando Sabino
A Time to Meet, trans. John Procter

18. O Amanuense Belmiro, Ciro dos Anjos
Diary of a Civil Servant, trans. Arthur Brakel

19. A Menina Morta ("The Dead Girl"), Cornélio Pena

20. Os Ratos ("The Rats"), Dionélio Machado

21. Crônica da Casa Assassinada ("Chronicle of the Assassinated House"), Lúcio Cardoso

22. As Meninas, Lygia Fagundes Telles
The Girl in the Photograph, trans. Margaret A. Neves

23. Serafim Ponte Grande, Oswald de Andrade
Seraphim Grosse Pointe, trans. Kenneth D. Jackson and Albert Bork

24. Os Sertões, Euclides da Cunha
Rebellion in the Backlands, trans. Samuel Putnam
Backlands: The Canudos Campaign, trans. Elizabeth Lowe

25. Capitães da Areia, Jorge Amado
Captains of the Sands, trans. Gregory Rabassa

26. Incidente em Antares ("Incident in Antares"), Érico Veríssimo

27. Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha ("Recollections of Clerk Isaías Caminha"), Lima Barreto

28. Perto do Coração Selvagem, Clarice Lispector
Near to the Wild Heart, trans. Giovanni Pontiero

29. Terras do Sem Fim, Jorge Amado
The Violent Land, trans. Samuel Putnam

30. Jubiabá, Jorge Amado
Jubiabá, trans. Margaret A. Neves

31. Gabriela Cravo e Canela, Jorge Amado
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, trans. James L. Taylor and William Grossman

32. Mar Morto, Jorge Amado
Sea of Death, trans. Gregory Rabassa

33. O Vampiro de Curitiba, Dalton Trevisan
The Vampire of Curitiba and Other Stories, trans. Gregory Rabassa

34. A Pedra do Reino ("The Kingdom's Stone"), Ariano Suassuna

35. Maira, Darcy Ribeiro
Maira, trans. E. H. Goodland and Thomas Colchie

36. Ópera dos Mortos, Autran Dourado
Voices of the Dead, trans. John M. Parker

37. Avalovara, Osman Lins
Avalovara, trans. Gregory Rabassa

38. Mundos Mortos ("Dead Worlds"), Octavio de Faria

39. Canaã, Graça Aranha
Canaan, trans. Mariano Joaquín Lorente

40. Memórias de Lázaro, Adonias Filho
Memories of Lazarus, trans. Fred P. Ellison

41. Galvez, o Imperador do Acre, Márcio Souza
The Emperor of the Amazon, trans. Thomas Colchie

42. Os Corumbas ("The Forgotten"), Amando Fontes

43. A Paixão Segundo GH, Clarice Lispector
The Passion According to G.H., trans. Ronald Sousa

44. Zero, Ignácio de Loyola Brandão
Zero, trans. Ellen Watson

45. A Estrela Sobe ("The Star Rises"), Marques Rebelo

46. Quase Memória ("All But Memory"), Carlos Heitor Cony

47. O Púcaro Búlgaro ("The Bulgarian Mug"), Campos de Carvalho

48. A República dos Sonhos, Nélida Piñon
The Republic of Dreams, trans. Helen Lane

49. Sargento Getúlio, João Ubaldo Ribeiro
Sergeant Getúlio, trans. João Ubaldo Ribeiro

50. A Grande Arte, Rubem Fonseca
High Art, trans. Ellen Watson

Aphorisms of João Guimarães Rosa

The following link goes to my contribution to a contest ran by A Missing Book: On The Devil To Pay In The Backlands, or Grande Sertão: Veredas. It's about some great quotes from the Brazilian novel.

http://thedeviltopayinthebacklands.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/contest-winner/

The Makioka Sisters (Tanizaki Junichirō)

I recently finished The Makioka Sisters by the Japanese novelist Tanizaki Junichirō. It was translated into English by Edward G. Seidensticker. This was the second book of Tanizaki that I've read. I was on and off it in the last three months, following the schedule of Tanabata who hosted a group readalong at In Spring it is the Dawn.

After Some Prefer Nettles [review], I was eager to follow up my reading of Tanizaki. The Makioka Sisters was considered his masterpiece for its scope of characters and broad cultural canvas. I'm not going to give a full review of the book. All the images are still floating in my head. After putting down the book, I find myself spent on good writing, as if I was drinking cup after cup of saké. I was drunk with Japanese culture and with the intensity of feelings embodied by the characters. Let me just say that characterization is Tanizaki's greatest strength. He thrived on the quirks of his characters and every plot twist and development he pulled was tied closely to the actions of his characters. The beauty of the novel derived in part with the important period it covers--Japan right before the second world war. As with Some Prefer Nettles, we witness here a direct confrontation between the old and the new, the conventional beliefs and the modern temperaments. We get a front seat to the shifting mores of Japan at the eve of the war, of the transformations the characters undergo as they face significant events that define the course of their lives as members of an extended family. The portrait of Japanese aristocracy enacted by Tanizaki was a portrait in transition. It was a momentary glimpse of fickle destinies unfolding over time. It was an experience.

For the many cultural references in the book, I refer you to the three-part post at In Spring it is the Dawn [Book One; Book Two; Book Three]. In it you'll find some useful contexts contained in the book.