The Unsung Translators

I recently learned that one of my sister's poems entitled Vocation: Abel Speaks is going to be translated into Russian. This got me thinking about all the books I have read in English that were translated from another language. Books such as One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Brothers Karamazov and Lolita. The first time I paid any attention to the role of the translator was when I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. This was the spring 2006 pick in the One Book One Chicago program. I started reading a 1970s translation that I found in my parents' basement (no, I wasn't living there). The book was simply awful, or so I thought. I was having a really tough time getting into it and the language was stilted. Mercifully, I accidentally left the book in a hotel room on a business trip. I then went to my local Chicago Library branch and picked up a copy of the book. This version was translated by a different person. It was like I had picked up a completely different book. The storytelling was engaging and the language was crisp. The light bulb went off in my head: the translation made all the difference. I never realized just how significantly the quality of the translation could impact the final product. It seems obvious in retrospect, but if the translation is well done, one doesn't focus on it. I guess it took a really poor translation for me to appreciate it. Perhaps if the Russians don't like my sister's poem, she can point the finger at someone else.

The Greatest Books I Have Never Read

Amy and I were at the local library branch yesterday and I confessed to her that I had never read any Tolstoy. She was incredulous. The truth is there are a lot of "great books" that I haven't read. Of the great 19th century novels, I have never read Moby Dick, Great Expectations, Tale of Two Cities, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Last of the Mohicans, Huck Finn, Little Women, anything by Jane Austen, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Of the 20th century novels, I have not read anything by Hemmingway or Steinbeck, Faulkner or D.H. Lawrence. I should be embarrassed by this, but I am not. Many people read these books in their teens or early 20s. During those years, I read mostly science fiction. I hope to read these great books eventually. I will read them for pleasure and I won't have to write a paper about them.

Check out the 100 best novels recommended by the board of the Modern Library. I have read 14 of these. (http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html)

OK, I have called myself out. What "great books" have you not read. I have read Hamlet, how about you?

What Narcissism Means to Me

I have not read much poetry. In fact, other than the poems I was forced to read in high school, I have read almost no poetry in my life. The only exceptions are poems written by my sister and brother-in-law, and a small collection of poems by Sylvia Plath. I guess I should count The Odyssey as well. It says something that our book club waited until pick #98 to discuss a collection of poems. My wife (I'll call her Amy), selected a book of poems written by Tony Hoagland called What Narcissism Means to Me. We had an excellent discussion that explored the themes of the poems (anger, anxiety, love, ego). Amy did a nice job of setting the tone for the discussion with some well thought out points. We all really enjoyed the book and agreed that what was masterful about Hoagland's style was his ability to create an impression of a story, establish characters, and create vivid moods, all while employing beautiful if spare language. Reading these poems was actually enjoyable and did not feel like work. I can feel the poets just cringing at this sentiment, but so often, reading poems can be a chore. This collection has really opened me up to exploring poetry further.

This was crystallized for me when each of the four of us (one of our members could not attend) took turns reading our favorite poems. As I listened to my friends read the poems aloud, I appreciated the humor, anger and pathos of the poems more intensely than when I read them. Poems are meant to be heard.

Junot Diaz - A Great American Writer

One of my favorite writers is Junot Diaz. I just read a short story he wrote in the current issue of The New Yorker (March 22 issue). Junot was born in the Dominican Republic and emigrated to the US when he was 5 or 6. He is best known for the novel "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2008. His stories explore the tension between the old country and new; what it means to be an urban American in the modern day. His language is raw and peppered with Spanish. He perfectly captures the cadence and rhythm of the urban/Latino experience. The story appearing in The New Yorker is called "The Pura Principle." I highly recommend it as a starting point. If you like his storytelling, please read Oscar Wao.

98 Books (More or Less)

I reviewed the list of all the books that my book club has discussed over the past 14 years. Including the book to be discussed this weekend, we are up to #98. Technically, we have read over 100 books because two of the discussions involved multiple books. Anyway, below is the list. It is a mixed bag of fiction, non-fiction, contemporary, classic, popular writers, obscure titles, etc. We tend to read books that have been around for at least a little while. I don't think we have any of the Oprah books on our list (not that there is anything wrong with that...)

Title - Author

A Lesson Before Dying - Ernest Gaines
The Beauty Myth - Naomi Wolf
Strange Pilgrims - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Dinosaur Man - Susan Baur
Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner
American Tabloid - James Elroy
Long Day's Journey into Night - Eugene O'Neill
Blood Sport - James B. Stewart
Shards of Memory - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
The Storyteller -Mario Vargas Llosa
Vineland - Thomas Pynchon
Naked - David Sedaris
A Scientific Romance - Ronald Wright
Winter Wheat - Mildred Walker
Hearts in Atlantis - Stephen King
Independent People - Haldor Laxness
The Fall - Albert Camus
Night Train - Martin Amis
The Seventh Son - Orson Scott Card
Foreigh Affairs - Allison Lurie
Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
A Man in Full - Tom Wolfe
The Adventures of Auggie March - Saul Bellow
Another Supposely Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again - David Foster Wallace
The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
The Fixer - Bernard Malamud
Bullet Park - John Cheever
World's End - T.C. Boyle
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
The Red and the Green - Iris Murdoch
To the White Sea - James Dickey
American Pharaoh - Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor
Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
Disgrace - James Coetzee
The Intuitionist - Colson Whitehead
Emotional Coaching - Author's name and exact title lost in time
Being Dead - Jim Crace
Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
Dancing After Hours - Andre Dubus
For the Love of a Good Woman - Alice Munro
In the Heart of the Sea - Nathaniel Philbrick
The Debt to Pleasure - John Lanchester

THE GENESIS CYCLE
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
The Counterlife - Philip Roth
Supertoys (stories)/Pinocchio - Brian Aldiss/Carlo Collodi
Genesis - God
Gilgamesh - Anonymous

Arabian Sands - Wilfred Thesiger
The Odyssey - Homer
Family Matters - Rohinton Mistry
The Life of Pi - Jan Martell
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Diagnosis - Alan Lightman

THE VIETNAN WAR MINI-CYCLE
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
The Best and the Brightest - David Halberstam
Reflections of a Warrior - Miller/Kureth

THE BOOKS AND FILMS CYCLE
The Third Man - Graham Greene
The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
The Orchid Thief - Susan Orleans
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
The House of Sand and Fog - Andre Dubus III
Orpheus -Anonymous

A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
Herzog - Saul Bellow
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
White Noise - Don Delillo
Memories of My Melancholy Whores - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Unconditional Parenting - Alfie Cohn
Saturday - Ian McEwan
The March - E.L. Doctorow
The Moor's Last Sigh - Salman Rushdie
Chronicles: Part 1 - Bob Dylan
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Twilight of the Superheroes - Deborah Eisenberg
Brick Lane - Monica Ali
The Master - Colm Toibin
The Dark Night Returns/Ice Haven/Maus - Miller/Clowes/Spiegelman
What is the What - Dave Eggers
Yiddish Policeman's Detective Union - Michael Chabon
Later, At the Bar - Rebecca Barry
Absurdistan - Gary Shteyngart
No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
Out Stealling Horses - Per Petterson

THE RELIGION CYCLE
Settings of Siver - Stephen Wylen
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Quarantine - Jim Crace
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Jefferson Bible - Thomas Jefferson

The Great Depression and the New Deal - Eric Rachway
The Beet Queen - Louise Erdich
Dangerous Laughter - Steven Millhauser
Einstein Walter - Isaacson
So Long, See You Tomorrow - William Maxwell
Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami
Netherland - Joseph O'Neill
What Narcissism Means to Me - Tony Hoagland

And So it Goes

I have been a big reader all my life. I enjoy reading books, discussing books, recommending books, and knowing what others are reading. This blog is an attempt to extend and continue this thread. In 1996, I founded a book club with my wife and two other couples. We rotate the book picks, and the person who picks the book hosts a dinner party. We get together roughly every 5 or 6 weeks. We have read and discussed around 100 books. The best of which (we all agree) was Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose." The book I hated the most was "Herzog" by Saul Bellow. This project has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life. It is the cornerstone of my social life, and the members of the book club are my closest friends in the world.

One interesting sidebar: As this book club is a mixed gender book club, I did not immediately realize that most book clubs are women only. It was only many years later when I founded a book club at work that I realized this gender bent. My male colleagues were just as prolific in their reading as the women. For whatever reason, my male colleagues were not interested in discussing what they have read to the same degree as my female colleagues.

From time to time, I will post my thoughts regarding books and stories I have read. I am currently reading a book of poems by Tony Hoagland called "What Narcissism Means to Me." I am a third of the way through the book and I find the poems to be extremely accessible. I do not read much poetry, preferring the linear and logical progression of most narrative prose. Poetry always seemed more about style and sound over meaning. I am sure my sister, a published poet, would have a few things to say about this. It will be interesting to see how my preconceptions are impacted by these poems. The colllection will be discussed by my book club on Saturday. My wife picked this collection and has prepared a number of discussion points. I will let you know how it goes...