pleasure in what's lost (bolaño pt 1)
it's been three weeks. too long. my only excuse is the summer. now that the school year has started it's time to get on with work, even though i'm not in school and have been avoiding it, the teaching in it mostly. but i will keep up with my writing and reading. my summer reading has been such a companion and it is kinda wrong that i have only turned to it in this space now but here i am with it. the savage detectives, roberto bolaño.
i am at page 422 in the english which is pg 449 in the spanish version i was so generously given by inkaquatic. a real gift in the middle of the summer. this book took almost ten years to come out in this country. it was huge in spain and latin america in 1998. i don't think i would have been ready for this voice then. the latin voice that dominated in this world at that time was junot and i find it interesting that it took the same decade for him to put together his recent opus. i'll read that when all the hype dies down, perhaps when it goes paperback. i find it interesting because i think my tastes have changed in that time. i've been craving a contemporary latin american voice more than an american latino one. there i said it. i have a million reasons for that statement but mostly let's just say i don't always feel inspired or renewed by that american voice. i feel like it can often be the same old conversation, the same old sound over and over. i've been in the mood for a larger sound, bigger than this place, not just this country but this city i'm in that can so dominate with its voice, something that transports me outta here.
i heard some of that new sound, new voice in latin american movies, like y tu mama tambien and duck season, all the almodovar from the eighties to recent times, but i haven't gotten a chance to read it really until now. and i'm behind, a decade behind. and i still can't really read the spanish.
even here i didn't know about this dude till this year and americans told me about it. the new yorker had a big piece on him and i had just spent a month in spain when i read it. i ate it up. i knew from the review that i was ready for him. and then i got two copies at a book sale, cheap, two, cuz everyone was sleeping on it. i was awake for it.
so since the piece is so huge and i can barely begin to describe i'll attempt something and deal with where i'm at in it now. i am about to start the 21st chapter of the second part of the book. it has three parts. the first and the third are written as a journal, all entries dated, by one character, a minor poet in big-ass mexico in the '70s. the second part is made up of 26 chapters each containing first-person testimonies of a sort, all of them are dated and they list the name of the character and the place in the world they're speaking from, mexico city, tel aviv, barcelona, paris, san diego, madrid, london, and so on. the structure is smooth. i still wonder who they are speaking to though. in only one entry so far is there a direct address to one of the main characters. i have paid attention and that is the only time so far. they are all talking about their interaction with two lost poets who themselves started out wandering in search of another lost poet. that alone is enough for me to ride these almost 600 pages all the way through. i don't think i've been through anything that long in a long time. if ever. i am excellent wanderer though and this author was too. he can ruminate and a half.
he's writing about writers and writing mostly and i read some review talking about how he mocks all of it by making it some kind of detective novel, as if it were as important as real crime or something, this literature business. i have to say though, as much as i enjoy the cheeky voices in here, i take them kinda serious too. like some advice book about this writing thing. for instance, i felt this next passage sincerely: "Do you know what the worst thing about literature is? said Don Pancracio. I knew, but pretended I didn't. What? I said.That you end up being friends with writers. And friendship, treasure though it maybe, destroys your critical sense." i felt this, doesn't mean i'm wholly ready to agree, but i felt it, seriously, and somewhat absurdly. it's not groundbreaking but it's well-said. and with a million other well-said lines, i stay travelling with this.
right now, i was in a testimony as i call it, of this lawyer actually from barcelona but in rome. he is a literary mogul, rich enough to own his lit mag and be the main contributor to it as he says, a big fat blowhard constantly quoting shit in latin. i have decided to read a chapter in spanish and a chapter in english. i decided that about a week ago, more than halfway through the book. i have this beautiful paperback from barcelona where it was originally printed. and that has a table of contents which for some reason the english version does not. i don't know why that was decided upon that way. it makes the english more mysterious which, as a foreign novel, it doesn't need any more mystery. americans will barely pick this up as is, much less without a map. garcía márquez had the family tree in hundred years. bolaño had a table of contents filled with all the acquaintances and lovers and inner circle frienemies connected to the main characters. that is one of the many differences between that definitive universe of marquez that i so once loved and this fragmented planet of bolaño's that speaks so much to what i understand now.
back to the latin-quoting lawyer and the spanish version. when i read it at home i can have the two books at my side. i can't carry both when i'm on the train, it's too much. so i got to look up this passage in spanish: "Then I gave him a copy of my most recent book of poetry and let him know that he should limit himself to revewing verse, since the fiction reviews were penned by my colleague, Jaume Josep, a divorce expert and homosexual of long standing, known by the hordes of ass peddlers in the dives off the Ramblas as the Little Martyr, in reference to his shortness and his weakness for rough trade." in spanish it is: 'Después le regalé mi último libro de poesía y le advertí que sus reseñas debían circunscribirse a la disciplina poética, pues las de narrativa las pergeñaba mi colega Jaume Josep, experto en divorcios y pederasta de larga trayectoria, conocido en los tugurios anexos a las Ramblas por las hordas de chaperos como El Enano Sufridor, en alusión a su debilidad por las macarras de natural violento e irascible.' Instead of "homosexual" it says "pederast" in the spanish and "chapero" in an online spanish dictionary is "hombre que se prostituye con otros hombres," man that prostitutes himself with other men, but clearly ass peddler is the superior term. "tugurios" is "dives," learned a new one there. "El Enano Sufridor," "the Little Martyr" is literally "The Suffering Dwarf." and "macarras de natural violento e irascible" is handled much more deftly in english with "rough trade" cuz english has a term for it i guess where as spanish often has to explain something with many more words, as my american spanish translator friend in madrid pointed out to me. he was the one who challenged me to take on the spanish. i was given it but was letting it collect dust cuz i was afraid of it for a minute but his words and an article about the book in the washington post that mentioned how hard the translation was cuz there were spanishes from several different countries to deal with (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/07/AR2007040701186.html.) made me face it.
it's interesting to me that it took americans to make me face the spanish. and in the book itself there is of course discussion about translation as it is in voices from america and europe. as i was wading knee deep in the book with all its trancontinental voices, my translator friend from madrid was staying with me here in new york and inkaquatic was in barcelona blogging. i have spent much of this last summer month tweaking poems and ordering them and wondering where they fit, how they might be published and this book has addressed a lot of the gray areas that i feel i'm wandering into, the shady characters i feel i have to deal with and might have become myself, as i put the writing together in some public way. i looked up more about bolaño on spanish google, google.es, and found something he said about writing, just that it takes patience, a lot of it. i think publishing takes it as well, moreso even. the website i think i read it on was pretty hot. spanish though for those of you who don't speak. maybe there's a translator on it: http://www.clubcultura.com/clubliteratura/clubescritores/robertobolano/index.htm. manifestos and his computer portraits are on the site if you poke around. he was wandering for years. left college early i think and had a million odd jobs like night watchman in a park, an occupation that shows up in the book. i would like to see his poetry. that is another mission as it's not published in english at all, at least not in the us. it might not be much published at all, lost poems from a lost poet.
i will write more as it strikes me. i still have much left on the book. so many more things i'm sure i haven't said. for now, i'm gone, a lost poet happy to accompany this wandering book.
i am at page 422 in the english which is pg 449 in the spanish version i was so generously given by inkaquatic. a real gift in the middle of the summer. this book took almost ten years to come out in this country. it was huge in spain and latin america in 1998. i don't think i would have been ready for this voice then. the latin voice that dominated in this world at that time was junot and i find it interesting that it took the same decade for him to put together his recent opus. i'll read that when all the hype dies down, perhaps when it goes paperback. i find it interesting because i think my tastes have changed in that time. i've been craving a contemporary latin american voice more than an american latino one. there i said it. i have a million reasons for that statement but mostly let's just say i don't always feel inspired or renewed by that american voice. i feel like it can often be the same old conversation, the same old sound over and over. i've been in the mood for a larger sound, bigger than this place, not just this country but this city i'm in that can so dominate with its voice, something that transports me outta here.
i heard some of that new sound, new voice in latin american movies, like y tu mama tambien and duck season, all the almodovar from the eighties to recent times, but i haven't gotten a chance to read it really until now. and i'm behind, a decade behind. and i still can't really read the spanish.
even here i didn't know about this dude till this year and americans told me about it. the new yorker had a big piece on him and i had just spent a month in spain when i read it. i ate it up. i knew from the review that i was ready for him. and then i got two copies at a book sale, cheap, two, cuz everyone was sleeping on it. i was awake for it.
so since the piece is so huge and i can barely begin to describe i'll attempt something and deal with where i'm at in it now. i am about to start the 21st chapter of the second part of the book. it has three parts. the first and the third are written as a journal, all entries dated, by one character, a minor poet in big-ass mexico in the '70s. the second part is made up of 26 chapters each containing first-person testimonies of a sort, all of them are dated and they list the name of the character and the place in the world they're speaking from, mexico city, tel aviv, barcelona, paris, san diego, madrid, london, and so on. the structure is smooth. i still wonder who they are speaking to though. in only one entry so far is there a direct address to one of the main characters. i have paid attention and that is the only time so far. they are all talking about their interaction with two lost poets who themselves started out wandering in search of another lost poet. that alone is enough for me to ride these almost 600 pages all the way through. i don't think i've been through anything that long in a long time. if ever. i am excellent wanderer though and this author was too. he can ruminate and a half.
he's writing about writers and writing mostly and i read some review talking about how he mocks all of it by making it some kind of detective novel, as if it were as important as real crime or something, this literature business. i have to say though, as much as i enjoy the cheeky voices in here, i take them kinda serious too. like some advice book about this writing thing. for instance, i felt this next passage sincerely: "Do you know what the worst thing about literature is? said Don Pancracio. I knew, but pretended I didn't. What? I said.That you end up being friends with writers. And friendship, treasure though it maybe, destroys your critical sense." i felt this, doesn't mean i'm wholly ready to agree, but i felt it, seriously, and somewhat absurdly. it's not groundbreaking but it's well-said. and with a million other well-said lines, i stay travelling with this.
right now, i was in a testimony as i call it, of this lawyer actually from barcelona but in rome. he is a literary mogul, rich enough to own his lit mag and be the main contributor to it as he says, a big fat blowhard constantly quoting shit in latin. i have decided to read a chapter in spanish and a chapter in english. i decided that about a week ago, more than halfway through the book. i have this beautiful paperback from barcelona where it was originally printed. and that has a table of contents which for some reason the english version does not. i don't know why that was decided upon that way. it makes the english more mysterious which, as a foreign novel, it doesn't need any more mystery. americans will barely pick this up as is, much less without a map. garcía márquez had the family tree in hundred years. bolaño had a table of contents filled with all the acquaintances and lovers and inner circle frienemies connected to the main characters. that is one of the many differences between that definitive universe of marquez that i so once loved and this fragmented planet of bolaño's that speaks so much to what i understand now.
back to the latin-quoting lawyer and the spanish version. when i read it at home i can have the two books at my side. i can't carry both when i'm on the train, it's too much. so i got to look up this passage in spanish: "Then I gave him a copy of my most recent book of poetry and let him know that he should limit himself to revewing verse, since the fiction reviews were penned by my colleague, Jaume Josep, a divorce expert and homosexual of long standing, known by the hordes of ass peddlers in the dives off the Ramblas as the Little Martyr, in reference to his shortness and his weakness for rough trade." in spanish it is: 'Después le regalé mi último libro de poesía y le advertí que sus reseñas debían circunscribirse a la disciplina poética, pues las de narrativa las pergeñaba mi colega Jaume Josep, experto en divorcios y pederasta de larga trayectoria, conocido en los tugurios anexos a las Ramblas por las hordas de chaperos como El Enano Sufridor, en alusión a su debilidad por las macarras de natural violento e irascible.' Instead of "homosexual" it says "pederast" in the spanish and "chapero" in an online spanish dictionary is "hombre que se prostituye con otros hombres," man that prostitutes himself with other men, but clearly ass peddler is the superior term. "tugurios" is "dives," learned a new one there. "El Enano Sufridor," "the Little Martyr" is literally "The Suffering Dwarf." and "macarras de natural violento e irascible" is handled much more deftly in english with "rough trade" cuz english has a term for it i guess where as spanish often has to explain something with many more words, as my american spanish translator friend in madrid pointed out to me. he was the one who challenged me to take on the spanish. i was given it but was letting it collect dust cuz i was afraid of it for a minute but his words and an article about the book in the washington post that mentioned how hard the translation was cuz there were spanishes from several different countries to deal with (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/07/AR2007040701186.html.) made me face it.
it's interesting to me that it took americans to make me face the spanish. and in the book itself there is of course discussion about translation as it is in voices from america and europe. as i was wading knee deep in the book with all its trancontinental voices, my translator friend from madrid was staying with me here in new york and inkaquatic was in barcelona blogging. i have spent much of this last summer month tweaking poems and ordering them and wondering where they fit, how they might be published and this book has addressed a lot of the gray areas that i feel i'm wandering into, the shady characters i feel i have to deal with and might have become myself, as i put the writing together in some public way. i looked up more about bolaño on spanish google, google.es, and found something he said about writing, just that it takes patience, a lot of it. i think publishing takes it as well, moreso even. the website i think i read it on was pretty hot. spanish though for those of you who don't speak. maybe there's a translator on it: http://www.clubcultura.com/clubliteratura/clubescritores/robertobolano/index.htm. manifestos and his computer portraits are on the site if you poke around. he was wandering for years. left college early i think and had a million odd jobs like night watchman in a park, an occupation that shows up in the book. i would like to see his poetry. that is another mission as it's not published in english at all, at least not in the us. it might not be much published at all, lost poems from a lost poet.
i will write more as it strikes me. i still have much left on the book. so many more things i'm sure i haven't said. for now, i'm gone, a lost poet happy to accompany this wandering book.
Labels: los detectives salvajes, roberto bolaño, the savage detectives
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