Jonathan Ball's Blog, page 58
August 14, 2013
Jason Freure on The Politics of Knives
Nice to see the new book on someone’s “summer reading list” over at The Puritan– a breezy summer read about assassination and terror!
Aaron Zeghers on John Paizs
I was interviewed about John Paizs, the subject of my forthcoming book John Paizs’s Crime Wave (U of Toronto P, 2014), by Aaron Zeghers at Cineflyer. Zeghers reports that Paizs has taken a “vow of silence” — I have been talking to Paizs to complete this book, so I don’t know about any of that, but it’s always great to see some discussion of Paizs and Crime Wave. Zeghers sneak-previews a bit of my book in there:
August 12, 2013
My Proposal for SCP-001 (at the SCP Wiki)
Some time back, Christian Bök introduced me to the SCP Wiki, a collection of imaginative “Special Containment Procedures” that can be likened to a crowd-sourced archive-book. In the words of the site:
SCP artifacts pose a significant threat to global security. Various agencies from around the world operate to maintain human independence from extra-terrestrial, extra-dimensional, and extra-universal threat. In the past humankind has been at the whim of these bizarre artifacts and similar phenomena, but we have now reached a point in history where we can begin to control and contain these defiances of natural law.
I quickly devoured the site, and then developed this idea for SCP-001. You can discuss it and vote for or against it at the SCP Wiki, and also check out the other proposals for SCP-001.
Derek Beaulieu voted “for” this by releasing it as a chapbook/broadsheet through No Press. I have a few left if you want one.
***
Item#: SCP-001
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: To date, no adequate containment procedure has been developed to deal with the possible threat posed by SCP-001. This is due, in part, to the controversial nature of the item and debates concerning the necessity of its containment. This controversy is reflected in the item’s changing object class and varying procedures utilized in its containment. The current administration, despite charges of paranoia, has classed the object Keter, while requesting permission for a higher object class to be created and applied uniquely to this item, considering it to be the most dangerous of all known or possible items.
At the current time, SCP-001 is located in a code-locked briefcase fashioned of lead alloy and reinforced with titanium. The room and briefcase are monitored at all times by security cameras. The briefcase cannot be opened without unanimous special clearance from all current O5 officers. The briefcase itself is stored in a small, fully lighted, single-room building erected in ███ ██████ ██████. Class D personnel are posted to guard the room but may not enter without the aforementioned agreement from the O5 officers, under threat of military execution. This off-site building exists for the sole purpose of housing SCP-001 and is wired for detonation in an emergency situation.
It is the opinion of the current administration that SCP-001 represents the greatest known threat to national and global security. Nevertheless, due to special circumstances regarding its mode of function, further research on the item is disallowed, despite encouragement of same in the past, when SCP-001 was contained in minimum security conditions.
Description: SCP-001 is a simple sheaf of papers, stapled together in the top-left corner. The top paper is a covering sheet reading simply, “Confidential Report on Special Items—Classified.” The number of subsequent papers stapled to this covering sheet is indeterminate, and has ranged from three to thirty. The report is unsigned and its origin is unknown.
The first appearance of this report was on ███████ █, ████, when it appeared on the desk of ████████ █████ (deceased). The report at that time described “The ‘Living’ Room” (SCP-002). Shortly after reading the report with incredulity, ████████ █████ was contacted by phone regarding said item. The next time ████████ █████ perused SCP-001, it described not “The ‘Living’ Room” but “Biological Motherboard” (SCP-003). ████████ █████ immediately closed SCP-001, thinking it was a different report, and searched for the original report on SCP-002. Not finding it, he again opened SCP-001, and this time it described not SCP-003 but “The 12 Rusty Keys and the Door” (SCP-004). ████████ █████ closed the report once more and opened it immediately, to read of “Skeleton Key” (SCP-005). It is not known what the next actions of ████████ █████ might have been. At varying times following this incident, the aforementioned items were discovered.
Insufficient research exists concerning the correlation between SCP-001 and all other known items. However, it has been established that every event regarding the discovery of a new SCP item has followed a report on that same item appearing beneath the cover sheet of SCP-001. The current administration regards this coincidence as proof of causal connection.
Additional Notes: Whether SCP-001 is to be regarded as an advance-warning system or whether SCP-001 itself is to be regarded as the creator of the items requiring special containment remains to be seen. However, the distinction is unimportant in the eyes of the current administration. The fact remains: no new SCP items appear unless SCP-001 is opened and read. It is for this reason that the current administration refuses to repeat the mistakes of the past, mistakes that have resulted in over 1000 SCP items coming to the knowledge of the SCP unit.
Arguments concerning the non-lethality of SCP-001 itself, its theoretically beneficial use as an SCP warning system, or its use as a progenitor of advanced biological and non-biological weapons have not swayed the current administration. Nor have arguments criticizing the extreme containment procedures employed in respect to an item that displays no nefarious qualities and is not animate as such. Critics are reminded that these procedures are intended not to contain the item itself, but to isolate it from human interaction, which is to be regarded as the true threat.
Although the current administration refuses to remove the object from isolation barring special authorization as noted above, past administrations have counseled daily consultation with the item, and future administrations will no doubt counsel similar behavior. Nevertheless, it is the opinion of the current administration that, barring the destruction of SCP-001, which is not currently possible for political reasons, it is to be contained until such a time when responsibility for its containment falls upon future administrations.
August 7, 2013
On the Set of Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World
Originally published in the Manitoban 90.26 (26 March 2003): 12-13 (as “The Saddest Article in the World”). I have added an interlude here. I also interviewed Maddin and co-writer George Toles about writing the film.
Sunday: The Press Conference
Despite a long drive (to downtown and then along some fractured street into the industrial heart of Winnipeg), I manage to arrive a few minutes early, which works out well since it takes me a good five minutes to find the door of the building. After following a series of signs seemingly designed to protect Maddin from inept interviewers by steering the less intelligent into a pit of cruel stakes and poisonous vipers, I avoid a hellish fate and ascertain the proper entrance.
There are a few people milling around the bottom of a staircase, and one of them is Isabella Rossellini. I am star-struck for the first time in my life, and it is a good thing that she melts away into another room before I have a heart attack. I stand stunned for an instant, gathering my bearings and trying to remember why I am here in the first place. I notice I have been turned around somehow by Rossellini’s presence and there is a door in front of me now; it opens and Maddin himself steps out from the darkness beyond. Mist curls in along with him and gives Maddin the appearance of having materialized from some other dimension.
Maddin recognizes me and looks surprised, greeting me with a hearty “Hey!” One of the things a lot of people don’t know about Maddin is that he is quite possibly the nicest Guy in the world. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here as press,” I reply.
“Wow!” Guy seems more impressed by the fact that I am writing about the film than the fact that he is making it, as if hoping to be so lucky as to write about it himself one day. He becomes distracted, face darkening, troubled and confused. “I have to … put make-up on?” he states, almost asking.
“Sure,” I say, not knowing what else to say. Guy nods solemnly and disappears into a nearby room. Later he confides to me that this is the first press conference he has been to, which I don’t believe.
Leslie Stafford, the woman who appears to be in charge of everything, introduces herself and herds me upstairs to where the conference is about to begin. I chat briefly with fellow Tobanites Erin Haluschak and Joel Trenaman before sitting down beside Uptown film reporter Peter Vesuwalla, whom I know. He introduces me to some woman whose name I promptly forget who works for the Winnipeg Sun and who is both amused and sickened by her boss’s orders to “stalk” Rossellini, snapping pictures whenever possible.
After a short time, the room has filled with reporters and camera crews. Robert Enright, who is facilitating the conference, takes a seat at the front along with Mark McKinney, Isabella Rossellini, Ross McMillan and Maddin himself. Guy is pleased to discover that there is water available for him to drink, and makes a display of discussing the fact and pouring glasses for others — but then he doesn’t drink any.
Enright opens the conference with a few remarks introducing the participants and the movie itself, while Guy examines the microphone in front of him as if he had never seen one before. A lot of people see Guy do things like this and assume, wrongly I think, that he is putting on a show. However, watching his films, I take what others view as surrealism to be a form of “extra-realism” — that is, it seems to me that rather than present a symbolic world, Maddin presents a representational world which appears only to him, blessed with a fantastical vision which spills over from his film life to his “real” life both in his consideration and constant re-consideration of everyday objects and events. This isn’t to say that he is some sort of naïf, but that when cornered or in reverie he seems to retreat into a childlike re-discovery of things.
The conference goes well. Rossellini has a lot of wonderful things to say, and Guy himself is a sound-bite factory, consistently brilliant. He remarks that the film is about the tendency of groups or individuals to make their sadness or suffering into a theatrical event. “Haven’t you all been at the funeral of a family member that you were close to and had to pretend to cry?” he asks, eliciting a round of nervous laughter. The press conference itself ends in howls, with McKinney riffing off a reporter’s question and pretending not to know about the existence of film festivals.
Afterward, Maddin and his actors are whisked away for brief one-on-one interviews with the national media, but not before George Toles hijacks Isabella Rossellini. Toles appears to have flown in from sabbatical in New York for the sole purpose of talking to the legendary actress and observing her on set, and although he’s a relatively seasoned veteran of the film industry, I think he’s just as star-struck as I am. In addition to being Maddin’s frequent collaborator and the screenwriter of The Saddest Music in the World, Toles is an English and film professor at the U of Manitoba, and my friend and thesis advisor as well. I visit with him for a little while, offering my congratulations on the project and the stellar cast.
George and I agree that things look promising, and that Maddin seems to be bursting with a newfound creativity following The Heart of the World — and shows no signs of flagging. Chatting with Enright just prior to leaving, I am shocked to hear that Maddin shot the hour-longCowards Bend the Knee, which I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing, in a mere five days. Guy seems to be reaching his artistic peak, and I am excited to be around to see the fruits of his labour. I leave reluctantly, excited and inspired, as I always am following an encounter with either Maddin or his films.
Interlude: On Meeting Maddin
I’d like to interject here to offer the anecdote that I tell everyone whenever they ask me what Guy Maddin is like. Talking to people over the years, I’ve come to understand that Maddin has a bit of a reputation as somebody who can be difficult and overbearing, and who has a pomposity to match his profile.
This impression has never been my impression. Although I’m not as close to Maddin as many, I feel this notion is a media construction, due to well-publicized spats with George Toles (the two reconciled before writing The Saddest Music in the World) and Deco Dawson, and a lesser-publicized rivalry with John Paizs. I know all these parties somewhat, and so I am careful not to contribute to discussion or take sides whenever the topic comes up (usually raised by some third party in a gossipy way — it seems to me that those involved don’t care much to rehash old news). In any case, I have had nothing but wonderful dealings with Maddin, and my first two encounters with him set the tone for my personal impression.
I met Maddin briefly at the University of Manitoba, where (as mentioned above) I was completing a Master of Arts degree with George Toles as my supervisor. I happened to run into Toles and Maddin and Toles introduced me as one of his students. Maddin chatted for a few moments and then took off. I was thrilled, but it was hardly a memorable interaction — even I don’t remember anything about the encounter, other than it being brief.
The next time I saw Maddin was weeks later, at the premiere of his film Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary, held at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg (this isn’t a movie theatre, but a hall reserved normally for symphonies and so forth: I watched R.E.M. play on the same stage). I was seated about fifteen or so rows up, with my friend Patrick Short (the guitarist from This Hisses).
Maddin and his party entered and made their way to seats near the front of the venue, but before sitting Maddin turned to survey the crowd. His face lit up and he began frantically waving at somebody. I pointed him out to Pat — “That’s Maddin, the guy waving” — and then started wondering who he was waving at. I turned to look but nobody was waving back.
Then I realized that he was waving at me — some student he met for a minute weeks ago. I offered a small, shy wave in response. He was satisfied and sat down.
That, to me, sums up Guy Maddin.
Thursday: The Set
After days of virtual begging (that’s actual begging via e-mail), I have managed to wrangle a visit to Maddin’s set from Leslie Stafford. There wasn’t much wrangling, I suppose, though a lot of begging; she’s been rather graceful and helpful concerning the whole thing. I learn later that there has been a problem with visitors to the set — the amicable Maddin has been allowing too many to frequent the place during shooting and it has become a bit of a bother. (In retrospect, I should have just asked him directly! But I hate asking Maddin for things, although I do later ask to visit the sets of his short films Sissy Boy Slap Party and Sombra Dolorosa, which were fascinating visits deserving their own article.) In the end, just as it seems that my request is about to be denied, it is granted and I find myself waiting for Leslie in the dressing area, resisting the urge to steal food from a table laid out for the cast.
The dressing area is quite a mess, rags heaped atop rows of tables with more rags hanging against the walls. Some Viking helmets lie beneath a rack of dresses, their cruel horns apparently carved from plastic. A small dog runs through the room, in one door and out the other, followed by Maddin’s girlfriend. I say hello — I know her as well — but she is chasing the dog and rushes past.
Leslie appears and escorts me to the set. “You picked a good day to come,” she says.
It seems that what I’ll see this morning is the shooting and reshooting of the musical finale. For those not in the know, The Saddest Music in the World takes place in Depression-era Winnipeg and tells the complicated story of the Kent family against the backdrop of an international music competition sponsored by beer baroness Lady Port-Huntly (Rossellini) to determine which country has, well, the saddest music in the world. This scene is basically a song-and-dance number involving a concert given by some of the sadder countries, playing together.
Leslie walks me by an old set, miniatures of the town which are no longer in use. I take a moment to examine them; this is the Winnipeg of Maddin’s imaginings, a Grimm place half-buried in snow and populated by Orthodox crosses, looking simultaneously like an F.W. Murnau set and a drawing by Dr. Seuss. This is all located in a very cold and dismal warehouse with a large black curtain located at its far end, which appears to be our destination.
When we arrive at the curtain Leslie pulls a portion of it back for me to step inside, revealing the set, and an explosion of colour, sound, and light. The first thing I notice is a stage upon which is situated a large throne-like structure consisting of blue-white shards of cardboard or some other building material. It looks almost like a cross between an iceberg and a flame. Some pretty girls in bluish garb and exaggerated Inuit gear stand around it, while to the far left a dismal black-draped man with a sinister moustache sits solemnly (later I am told this is Ross McMillian, barely recognizable). Below the stage an orchestra pit is filled to bursting with musicians, small groups representing different nationalities, dressed in exaggerated, stereotypical fashion. (Maddin’s cult classic, Tales from the Gimli Hospital, featured comic relief in the form of an actor in blackface — offensive at first, this character’s subsequent death and the solemnity of his funereal proceedings speak to a deep-seated respect for him and of a great value placed on his life and being. In like manner, Maddin de- and re-constructs stereotypes constantly, allowing him to navigate within film discourses that appear outmoded and inject them with a contemporary relevance, reviving old forms while also critiquing them to avoid an empty nostalgia.)
Leslie positions me near the curtain on its inside and I wait for the cameras to roll. Members of the crew scuttle to and fro, placing beer-filled mugs atop every level surface (beer abounds in the film, and even the legs of Rossellini’s character have been amputated and replaced with beer-filled glass legs). Maddin cuts his way through the chaos, the otherwise docile man in polite but firm command. A voice calls for quiet and the cameras begin to roll, followed by a series of melodious clicks and the voice of Mark McKinney (who plays the conductor) counts upwards to four.
A transformation occurs. All of a sudden the music gives the chaos form; the strains of a sitar ring out an ethereal progression of notes, dying into silence. McKinney’s baton points away from the sitar player toward a banjo-toting man who, as counterpoint to the sitar line, begins a meat-and-potatoes rhythm. Other instruments join in, and in the middle of this cacophony the Inuit girls begin to dance. They spear fake fish and offer them to the iceberg/throne — except for one girl, who hoards her catch. The music darkens, and the blue-white structure begins to move, to turn, revealing Rossellini, radiant with anger. The dancing resumes, Rossellini intermittently casting icy stares and warm smiles upon the revellers gathered at her feet. Every time she smiles she sheds twenty years.
The music ends and I return to the world. There is a moment of perfect silence following the song and before the order to stop the cameras is given, and in that moment I think that I hear the real song, infinitely sad and filled with inexpressible longing. Then noise explodes around me as the work resumes; Maddin proposes new angles, actors are moved, the lighting is altered, and, of course, more beer is brought in.
I talk briefly with Robert Enright and Meeka Walsh between takes as the same scene is shot and reshot. Enright fills me in on the scene’s context within the film to a greater degree (the particulars of which I will not divulge here) and I begin to see the hidden apocalyptic aspects of the scene as it is played out again and again. Each time the scene is enacted it is a new experience, fresh and distinct from its previous incarnation.
Leslie politely informs me that my time is up and I have to leave. Before I head off I return to the miniature town and take a closer look at it. It’s a fantastic place, and walking through its streets I feel like a giant. I wish I could shrink, dwindle down to scale, find a cold corner in which to sleep. Something in this fabricated Winnipeg make it feels like the real Winnipeg, only sadder and more still, a place where something significant is about to happen.
Then something does: as I am leaving I stumble across the baroness herself, taking a short break away from the set. I decide that this will be the only chance I get to say anything to her, and so I had better take it.
“I just wanted to say that you’re wonderful, Miss Isabella Rossellini,” I offer, shaking her hand.
“Oh!” she replies, surprised and maybe a bit embarrassed. She smiles broadly, and on my list of Things to Do in Life I check off “Make Isabella Rossellini smile.”
Without another word I leave the building. It rains on the drive home, a gentle, cleansing rain, scouring the streets. I listen to my car stereo in perfect happiness, singing along with the saddest of songs.
July 31, 2013
The Repetitive Adventure of Penguin-5
Google says that the dumb little game I sort-of made (modified the skin of a Mario rip-off game) is still online, and operable though corrupted. It works in the Explorer browser: you use the arrow keys and “Z” to jump. Here’s the backstory: Penguin-5 is the Emperor (Penguin) of Mars. He hates America and loves Kool-Aid. He also collects the logos of his favourite band, my former grunge group MHTA (Mars Has The Advantage). Enjoy!
July 28, 2013
“Page 42″: A Visual Poem
derek beaulieu edited a chapbook anthology years ago (Lego 50-15, Calgary: No Press, 2008), in which a number of writers celebrated Lego. I remembered and dug out my contribution recently, while organizing files.
July Poetry Reviews
My monthly poetry review column is online at the Winnipeg Free Press, this month featuring:
Unknown Actor by Jason Christie
The Last Temptation of Bond by Kimmy Beach
Moments Notice by Nico Vassilakis
The Grey Tote by Deena Kara Shaffer
Nico Vassilakis’s work is of course hard to describe in the print column, since I can’t run photos, but you can see some of his work online. He kindly left a note about the review on the site already, but since this post didn’t exist you can find it in the comment field of last month’s review column post.
July 24, 2013
CWILA Reply by Gillian Jerome
As a follow-up to my previous post about CWILA: Gillian Jerome has replied to me, and clears up most of my concerns. (As she notes, in retrospect I should have simply e-mailed CWILA to ask about how they arrived at the number 13. I am still a child of the small, isolated town in which I was raised, and it rarely occurs to me that one can do things like this in the Internet age.)
I am particularly interested in this idea of “influence” and how it might be quantified — I should note that I am not trying to criticize Moss here, so much as wonder openly how one might actually articulate and quantify how “influence” operates in a limited field like Canadian reviewing. Jerome raises some interesting questions (literally, a list of questions) that might be of use in terms of moving towards an answer.
Jerome has an interesting question about whether or not somebody like myself, who reviews 40+ books a year, might in fact receive more reviews. I can’t really compare, but I am under the impression that I do receive more reviews than others. Certainly, Clockfire received a lot of reviews for a poetry book, and was even featured as a lead story in the National Post‘s books section. Interestingly, my latest book, The Politics of Knives has received few reviews by comparison, although I have become more active as a reviewer in the time between the two books. (I believe this is because its core concepts cannot be summarized in a line the way Clockfire can be called a book of “plays that are impossible to produce.”) However, it has still probably received more reviews than most poetry books.
And now, while it’s fresh in my head, I need to remember to join CWILA!
Nicole Brossard on Translation and the Landscape of Possible Thoughts (Interview)
This interview was conducted in English, on 25 Sept. 2007, in person at the Hampton Inn, Calgary, and published in dANDelion‘s special issue on “Radical Translation,” which I co-edited with Mike Roberson. I’ve cut the last paragraph so that it reads/ends better — I will restore it and add some bonus footage in a future post. Here’s the original citation: Ball, Jonathan. “‘The Landscape of Possible Thoughts’: An Interview with Nicole Brossard.” dANDelion 33.2 (2007): 59-63. Print.
“The Landscape of Possible Thoughts”: An Interview with Nicole Brossard
You’ve worked with a number of different translators, and often with the same people more than once. To what extent do you select your translators, and to what extent do they select you?
Well, maybe in the beginning they were selecting me. Very earlier Barbara Godard knew about my work and it was a great chance for me. It seems that it has always been possible for me to recognize translators who would be in tune with my work. This is why I have been working with most of them for at least three books. Each translator has a specific approach needed to the book they are translating. Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood translates both from French to English and from English to French, and somehow she has a French touch, there is French rhythm in the way she translates me. So it’s much easier for me to read from her translations. I can also think of Patricia Claxton translating my most delirious novel, French Kiss. Barbara Godard has brilliantly translated, among other books, These Our Mothers, Lovhers and Picture Theory, difficult books. Robert [Majzels] and Erín [Moure] have translated three of my poetry books and I keep crossing my fingers that they will always be there to translate my poetry. So it depends on the text and also on the availability of the translator. It’s interesting to notice that writers are, in a way, dependent on the private lives of translators, what happens in their lives. I remember, for one novel, it took five years to get the translation, because something important was happening in the life of the translator who was unable at that time to concentrate on a translation. So, in a way, the life of a book in another language may depend on the life, the real life, of the translator. I am a very privileged writer to have been able to work with the translators I have just mentioned.
You mentioned that you like the translations by Suzanne because they feel more natural when you are reading them aloud in English. Is it strange to read your own writing, in another language, the words not having been placed on the page by you?
It is difficult and sometimes it feels strange. In fact, it is another way to breathe, to organize and distribute meaning in the visual space (when you read silently) and in the voice (when you read aloud). Nevertheless I can say that because I have read so often excerpts of Mauve Desert it sometimes seems to me like the original text. Reading in English has nothing to do with speaking English because when I speak I make the choice of the words and create my own rhythm but when I have to pronounce words in English in a special sequence, then it can be difficult unless I rehearse.
What is it about Robert and Erín’s translations and their approach to your poetry that’s led you to work with them on different books?
Well, for example, when I received Notebook of Roses and Civilization, it was as if I was rereading my own text, and I said to myself, “I guess this is a good book, it’s exactly the kind of writing that I like”, probably because I recognized in it an image, an echo of what is at stake in my writing. I also like to work with Erín and Robert because we talk about the possibilities of the words, the way we relate to English, to French, even to other languages, to words in general and to the possibilities offered in a sentence or within a sound. We also talk about the future life of the book. So it’s a mixture of pleasure and of stimulation, which in return I will take back to my own writing, and probably they take back to their own writing. In a sense, it’s very specific, and maybe it’s specific to the relation poets have to language. In their own work, Erín and Robert are already so involved in that process of displacement, recognition, transformation which is beyond just simple passage [*] from one language to the other, or from meaning to another. Their works are somehow related to transcreation and transformance.
Recently, I was talking with Anne-Marie Wheeler, who translated some of my texts in Fluid Arguments. I talked to her about Si Sismal, a transcreation that I read from yesterday [†] made by Fred Wah a long time ago, and she asked me, “Do you see any difference between a translation, a transcreation and a transformance, or is it simply words?” And I thought that there was a difference. With a translation, I believe somehow that there is the very specific responsibility to make sure that the passage into the other language is realized. In a transcreation, I would say that the subjective ludic creativity of the translator is involved and accepted as part of the trans-action. Risks, blurs and smiles are accepted. And with the transformance, I would imagine that the less responsibility toward the tangible meaning of the text is compensated by complicity with the text and recognition of its open structure.
What responsibility, then, still exists in the transcreation, in that kind of middle-ground, in that liminal area?
I’d say that responsibility is also related to this passage, but it’s not simply following the passage. It’s really finding a new posture and a new form of transmission. Because no matter how much we like to play with language, we cannot get rid of the meaning. And we don’t want to get rid of the meaning—politicians have already messed up with meaning, we don’t want to do the same.
How involved are you in that process of translation? When you and Erín and Robert work on a book, how involved are you in that process? Will you ever insist on a particular approach to a poem or make particular edits?
Not a particular approach. Normally they would work together, trying directions and possibilities, then we would meet over a first version and I would try to answer their questions. They would think about it, make changes then send me a manuscript. Then, it would be my turn to ask questions, they would find answers and solutions and if necessary we would “negotiate” a solution. For example, in the last poem of the book, “Soft Link 3,” Erín wanted to make a blink, like that, how do you say….
A wink?
Yes, a wink.
She likes winks. She signed my book with a wink.
Yes! And so she wanted to have a wink to Galician. [‡] And then a Romanian wink with the word “stradă”—in my text it is “strauß,” in German. She explained to me that it was a tradition for translators to make winks. So how could I refuse …
So you allowed those winks.
Yes! I find them interesting, somehow. Well, I miss a little bit “strauß,” because German can be meaningful in my life—but they are examples of little things which are done in the spirit of joy and conviviality.
Have you done much translation of your own work?
No. I have translated one text which is “Polynesia of the Eyes.” I have written directly in English a lecture which was about fifteen to twenty pages long, and I also wrote a few texts in English—I’d say three or four, mostly in prose. In poetry, well, even in the French version of Notebook of Roses and Civilization, there are some English lines. I was living in New York at that time and sometimes sentences or expressions which I thought were poetics would come out already shaped in English.
There are a few French words and phrases. I wonder if they translated your English into French.
Yes, but not systematically. In other books as well, sometimes there are a few lines that I wrote directly in English. And there is also that strange thing, which is when I am being asked for text that I know will be published in an English magazine, I tend to hesitate between French and English. Do I write in French and then have it translated, or do I write directly in English? I go nuts when I have to make that kind of decision. And so one day I started writing in French, but immediately I started translating those four or five lines into English, and of course when they were in English I could see if I had made mistakes in French. And then I was chopping words in the French text, using that English translation to revise the French. Finally it was not a translation but I guess a transformance as in performance. I say performance because it was like designing a tension between and within French and English. Since I was the author, I could do whatever I wanted—it’s the same thing when you read a poem of your own aloud, it is your privilege to edit it live.
Why is it that you haven’t done more translation? Why not translate your own books yourself, if you are capable of doing so?
In L’horizon du fragment, a book in which I talk about my writing and my relation to translation, I relate the fact that every time someone asks me that question I always reply: “Well, I want to spend my time writing other books, not rewriting them.” I don’t know if this is a good answer because the work I would be doing in translating a book of mine would definitely be creative, and I would learn a lot. You always learn much and quickly when you try to translate yourself. You detect how you behave in your mother tongue. So maybe saying that I do not have time to translate my own books is not a good excuse. Probably I still use it to postpone a fascinating and troubling experience.
On the other hand, I believe that if you translate yourself you remain with yourself and with your habits in language as well, no matter the language. Somehow I think that it is preferable to use my time to conceive a new novel or a new book of poetry. As you can see I am still very ambivalent about that question.
Translation reoccurs again and again as a subject in your writing, not just something that is done to your writing, and I’m wondering when this became a major concern for you?
I think it probably started in the 1980s. I remember looking with a vivid curiosity to a copy of my book after it had been read by my translator’s—passages underlined with different colours, notes in the margins, question marks and so on. Also, I’ve always been interested in passages—how a thing is transformed into another thing—this has always interested me. How fiction is transformed into reality, and how reality is transformed into fiction. So translation is one of the major mathematics of what we lose and gain in the passage from the linguistic reality of one tongue to another. Translation also fascinates me because there is the mystery of what I can say in French and what cannot be said in English, or whatever I can’t say in my language, what I will never be thinking because I don’t have the language, because it’s not in the landscape of possible thoughts—this is what, I guess, triggered my interest for translation. Who would I be if I was to speak Italian, Japanese, and so on? Who would I have been? Who will I become if I learn Chinese or Arabic? It still fascinates me.
Notes
[*] When I talked to Brossard, she seemed to use this word passage in a number of ways at the same time: to indicate the passage from one language to the next; to refer to the path taken by text in the process of being translated; and to refer to the phenomenon of language “finding its way” into another tongue. I have italicized the word throughout, to indicate its non-traditional meaning. [back]
[†] When Brossard says “yesterday” she is referring to an event at the Nickle Arts Museum in Calgary, Alberta, on 24 Sept. 2007. The event featured readings by Brossard in conjunction with Moure and Majzels, and was hosted by dANDelion, Coach House Books, and the University of Calgary, with generous financial support from the Canadian Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Calgary Arts Development, and Canadian Heritage. [back]
[‡] The translated poem reads: “It’s words that swallow fire and life, who knows now if they’re Latin French Italian Sanskrit Mandarin Galician Arab or English” (Notebook 81). [back]
Nicole Brossard is a poet, novelist and essayist who has published more than thirty books since 1965, including These Our Mothers, Lovhers, Mauve Desert and Baroque at Dawn. She co-founded La Barre du Jour and La Nouvelle Barre du Jour, two important literary journals in Quebec. She has won two Governor General’s Awards for poetry, as well as le Prix Athanase-David and the Canada Council’s Molson Prize. Her work has been translated into several languages. She lives in Montreal.
