Tag: Women in Translations

Vernon Subutex, 1 by Virginie Despentes

Posted May 15, 2018 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 0 Comments

Title: Vernon Subutex, 1 (Goodreads)
Author: Virginie Despentes
Translator: Frank Wynne
Series: Vernon Subutex #1
Published: MacLehose Press, 2017
Pages: 352
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Paperback

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Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2018
Longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2018

Having read Virginie Despentes previously (Apocalypse Baby) I have to say I was a little worried about reading her Man Booker International Prize shortlisted book. I was worried that Despentes was aiming for to shock, but this novel seems to be a cutting-edge social novel looking directly at the punk sub-culture in France. The book is the first in the trilogy and it focuses on Vernon who is feeling ambivalent about his fast approaching half century. He started working at Revolver, a hip Parisian record store in his twenties but now he is reflecting on his own life. Vernon Subutex, 1 explores the rapidly changing social scene of music and the punk rock lifestyle.

The record store once boasted a legendary status but now, in the 2000s, it is struggling. However, in a throwaway comment, the internet believe that Vernon is in possession of the last filmed recordings of the famous musician Alex Bleach. Beach recently died from a drug overdose and now people from all walks of life are after Vernon and this supposed recording.

I view Vernon Subutex, 1 as the beginning of an epic journey. Often, we read an epic as a story that follows a family through their generations but this is more of a social epic. It follows both Vernon and the music industry as their worlds rapidly change. What drew me to this novel is the music references, there are so many bands and songs referenced in this book that I remember fondly. Before becoming a book nerd, I spent a lot of time listening to music, and the punk scene was one I closely followed. While I still listen to music, I do not have a finger on the pulse anymore. I have borne witness to the changes the internet brought to the music industry. Music stores closing everywhere as the rise of piracy and streaming quickly spread. However, it is important to remember that the revival of vinyl has helped indie record stores survive nowadays.

For me, there was just too much that I could relate to in Vernon Subutex, 1 and I found myself loving the reading experience. While I was never into the drugs and alcohol consumption that is associated with this sub-culture, I could identify with the social disconnect, music obsession and laziness that characterised Vernon. Then Virginie Despentes starts to dive into a darker side of the sub-culture, dealing with violent tendencies, racism and sexual identity. Despentes previously was a sales clerk in a record store and a freelance rock journalist, which plays a big part in helping shape this novel. Although her past careers as a sex worker and pornographic film critic have also influenced the plot. She seems to explore themes of youth marginalisation, the sexual revolution lived by Generation X, music and pornography within Vernon Subutex, 1 and Apocalypse Baby, which leads me to suspect this is common in all her novels.

Virginie Despentes may have found a place with French authors like Emmanuel Carrère and Michel Houellebecq and while I was not blown away by Vernon Subutex, 1, I will be continuing with book two when it is released into English later this year. I feel like there is still more of the story left to explore and I hope that it all comes together in the end. Right now, it feels incomplete and something I would not recommend to anyone, unless they love the music. There is a Spotify playlist which features all the songs and artist mentioned in the trilogy which has lead to discovering some new French bands. If it was not for the Man Booker International Prize longlist, I may have never given Virginie Despentes another chance, but I am glad I have.

The White Book by Han Kang

Posted April 15, 2018 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Poetry / 6 Comments

Title: The White Book (Goodreads)
Author: Han Kang
Translator: Deborah Smith
Published: Portobello Books, 2017
Pages: 161
Genres: Poetry
My Copy: eBook

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Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2018
Longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2018

Han Kang’s The White Book comes across as something different from this author’s Man Booker International Prize winner (The Vegetarian) but still feels very much the same. The White Book is a reflection of the colour White; part meditation, part poetry, Han Kang explores a range of connections with the colour. Weaving an autobiographical narrative, Kang is able to explore her feelings in this emotional book.

“At times my body feels like a prison, a solid, shifting island threading through the crowd. A sealed chamber carrying all the memories of the life I have lived, and the mother tongue from which they are inseparable. The more stubborn the isolation, the more vivid these unlooked-for fragments, the more oppressive their weight. So that it seems the place I flee to is not so much a city on the other side of the world as further into my own interior.”

When I think about these emotions, like grief and despair, I often then of the colour black. For Han Kang it is more “black waters shifting beneath the thick sea fog”. This fog is such an amazing metaphor, it is that looming cloud that shadows over our dark feelings. It is cold, if not chilling. The White Book, really challenged my thoughts on the colour white being warm and happy.

I like the way Han Kang was able to combine all her thoughts and emotions and associate it with the one colour. She led me on an emotional journey that was different to anything I have ever read. Yet, at the same time, it felt like her style and I cannot help but compare it to The Vegetarian. I would be interested to see if she is able to pull off something similar in the future, maybe with a different colour.

Despite the fact that I enjoyed the journey The White Book took me on, I do not think it is deserving of a place on the Man Booker International Prize shortlist. My main concern is that this blurs the line of fiction too much, this is an autobiographical meditation. While I appreciate everything it does, I wonder how it managed to meet the criteria for this prize. It is not just this book that blur the line between fiction and non-fiction, I just think this is one that is the furthest away from fiction. Having said that, this is a book that needs to be experienced rather than analysed; there is some literary merit here, but this is more an emotional journey.

The Dinner Guest by Gabriela Ybarra

Posted March 29, 2018 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 4 Comments

Title: The Dinner Guest (Goodreads)
Author: Gabriela Ybarra
Translator: Natasha Wimmer
Published: Harvill Secker, 2018
Pages: 160
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: eBook

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Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2018

In 1977, three terrorists broke into the home of Gabriela Ybarra’s grandfather, taking him by force. The first half of The Dinner Guest follows her research into what actually happened. This book blurs the lines between true crime and fiction to create a unique narrative. However, The Dinner Guest doesn’t stop there; the book is also centred around Gabriela Ybarra’s mother dying of cancer.

The story goes that in my family there’s an extra dinner guest at every meal. He’s invisible, but always there. He has a plate, glass, knife and fork. Every so often he appears, casts his shadow over the table, and erases one of those present.

The first to vanish was my grandfather.

I have a feeling that the judges of the Man Booker International Prize are focusing on unique narrative styles, particularly when it comes to exploring grief. Of the four books I have read so far from the long list, these have been the similarities. Whether or not we call this a memoir of grief with fictional elements or an autobiographical novel is not something that I choose to debate. However this book evokes too many similarities to War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans, with the latter being a much stronger book.

It is almost impossible to talk about this book without looking it as a piece of non-fiction. The fact her grandfather was taken at gun point is wrapped throughout the narrative. The rest of The Dinner Guest is around witnessing her mother’s heath deterioration and her eventual passing. The two tragic events shapes the majority of the book. Evoking many powerful images but ultimately I never felt it really came together.

There is an idea that seemed to stick with me that never played out to my satisfaction. That was the idea of a person viewed differently, not just after their passing. For Gabriela Ybarra, her mother stopped being her mother long before her death. Her identity was stripped away and all that was left was cancer. There is a line in the book that says, “The last time I saw her, she had already stopped existing.” Even after her death, the press suddenly became interested in her.

At first I couldn’t understand why my mother’s death was of interest to the press. Then I was frustrated, because some of the reflections shared had nothing to do with the way I remembered her.

If it was not for the Man Booker International Prize longlist, I may have never have picked up The Dinner Guest. There is some interesting and notable parts within this book but the more I think about it the less I am satisfied. I love trying to read through the longlist to join in on all the conversations but you cannot expect me to like all the picks. I doubt this will make the shortlist, so instead of reading this one, may I recommend War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans which was translated by David McKay.

Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz

Posted March 28, 2018 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 4 Comments

Title: Die, My Love (Goodreads)
Author: Ariana Harwicz
Translator: Sarah Moses, Carolina Orloff
Published: Charco Press, 2017
Pages: 128
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: eBook

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Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2018

Ariana Harwicz’s book Die, My Love is the type of novel that will leave you emotionally drained. Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff, this is a powerful portrayal of a woman trapped in motherhood. Having recently given birth to her second child, all she yearns for is freedom. Never have I read a novel that is so raw with emotion.

Whether or not this woman is suffering from postnatal depression or not is not something I wish to debate. I wonder if trying to diagnose her would sell this book short. She is going through so many different emotions and never holds back with her feelings. Die, My Love feels like a gut punch of emotions. A novel that is to be experienced more than analysed.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is an autobiographical novel. I cannot imagine Ariana Harwicz being able to write this without living the experience. There is an intensity in the writing that never feels fake. The conflicting emotions of yearning for freedom mixed with her motherly instincts hold the narrative together. The connection with nature stems from her constant desire to be free but also a reference to a child’s carefree nature.

“I think about how a child is a wild animal, about another person carrying your heart forever.”

The narrative that Ariana Harwicz is able to weave is so affecting; we are able to follow this vivid portrayal of a mother and experience every single emotion and thought, no matter how dark or disturbing it may be. There are many times where I feel like this protagonist is over sharing but that just adds to the raw and intense honesty. I was left in awe and have not been able to get the images from this novel out of my head. It will be a book that I will come back to again and again.

I have been going down a rabbit hole of Argentinian literature and Die, My Love seems to invoke a common style, often found in recent novellas from this great literary scene. It pleases me to see how many Argentinian women writers are getting their moment to shine and I expect to see more in the future. There is something about these books that are able to explore so much in such a short novel. For great Argentinian books by women including Die, My Love, look no further than Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez, Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin and Savage Theories by Pola Oloixarac.

The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich

Posted March 19, 2018 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Non-Fiction / 2 Comments

Title: The Unwomanly Face of War (Goodreads)
Author: Svetlana Alexievich
Translator: Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky
Published: Penguin, 1985
Pages: 331
Genres: Non-Fiction
My Copy: Paperback

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Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich has a unique take on exploring literature. Her books are all oral histories of an event, where she interviews different people and gets their side of the story. Her background in journalism lends a hand, but what stands out is her willingness to share the different experiences of the people. In Secondhand Time, the people had a range of different opinions about the Soviet era and its collapse. While in The Unwomanly Face of War we get to explore the different roles Russian woman had in World War II and the reactions men had toward them.

The Russian title У войны не женское лицо translates to War Does Not Have a Woman’s Face. This should give you a sense of the attitudes women faced. Wanting to serve their country or help in any way possible, these women were often met with opposition from men. Ranging from ‘War is man business’, to a willingness to fight alongside the women but refusing to marry them, and the list goes on and on. The attitudes of these men constantly made me angry, even though these women were constantly proving they are capable and in many cases better at the tasks than the men objecting.

I expected to find a lot more physical sexual harassment in the book but it turns out that men are fragile creatures and once emasculated they just resort to verbal abuse more than anything else. The women in The Unwomanly Face of War have amazing stories and it does make me wonder why more stories like this are not written down. Oh, that’s right, the publishing world was dominated by men for far too long and history is just that, his story.

“I am writing a book about war… I, who never liked to read military books, although in my childhood and youth this was the favourite reading for everyone. Of all my peers. And that is not surprising – we were the children of Victory.”

Svetlana Alexievich starts this new translation of her book The Unwomanly Face of War with a reflection on her motivations. I am unsure if this was included in the original 1985 books as there are references on how she would have done things differently. But then again an introduction is probably the last part of a book you would write. I do not have a copy of the 1988 English (translator unknown) so I am unable to compare. The reason I bring up the introduction is because this feels like the first time I have read anything about Alexievich’s thoughts on the book and what she would have done differently if she could do it again. Not vital to the book itself but I appreciated that personal touch.

The 2017 edition of The Unwomanly Face of War has a new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. While not my favourite Russian translators I could not turn down the opportunity to read another Svetlana Alexievich having previously loved Voices from Chernobyl and Secondhand Time. There is one final book translated into English, Zinky Boys, which is subtitled Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War, which I hope to be able to read soon. Leaving two more yet to be translated into English, The Last Witnesses: A Hundred of Unchildlike Lullabys and Enchanted with Death.

Svetlana Alexievich is only the second non-fiction writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (the first being Winston Churchhill) “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time”. After reading her books, it is not hard to see why she was chosen. She has a unique ability to craft and piece together a narrative from a collection of interviews. She is able to get these people to open up and tell their story (whether she coaches them or not is a different story). I find myself drawn to her books not just because I am interested in Soviet history and the experience of the people but simply for the way she stitches her narratives together.

I am so glad I picked up The Unwomanly Face of War, while there was never any doubts about me reading more Alexievich, I was hesitant because of the translation. This is a book that has stuck with me and I am constantly thinking about it. I think about the treatment of women and their stories, but never about who translated this book. If you have never read Svetlana Alexievich before than I would recommend starting with The Unwomanly Face of War.