Two at Once
Reading two novels at once reminds me of eating chocolate covered cherries. The smooth creamy center is a shock compared with the thin exterior crumbling in my mouth. That's what this week's experience is looking like while I read Vladimir Nabokov's The Luzhin Defense (1930) and Berhard Schlink's Homecoming (2006). The first is the prize center. The second is a shell, nothing more. I'm not here to give a review, least of all on books I haven't finished. I just want to share the function of reading for a writer like myself.
I read the story just as anyone does. But I also read with an eye on the mechanics. My joy is when the story overtakes all my notice of the latter. I forget how I got there. I just thrill at where I am. Now, reading these two novels should be a fair race. Both were written in other languages - Nabokov's in Russian, Schlink's in German - which are translated into English. I don't know Michael Sammell who collaborated with Nabokov on his. I didn't notice that Michael Henry Heim translated Schlink's book. What Heim did with Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting was equivalent to a castration of its power. Thankfully, Aaron Asher made another translation, from the French version, which Kundera preferred. "I had the pleasure of seeing my text emerge in his translation as from a miraculous bath," Kundera said. "At last I recognized my book." I do not know what Schlink thought of Heim's translation of Homecoming. All I know is that its flatness of tone and lack of vigor makes reading an effort. Nabokov's writing could not be more different. It is charged as a lit line on a pack of dynamite.
In fairness, I've not completed either book yet. When I do, I might change my view. For now though Nabokov's is seamless. Schlink's is not. I can see too well what Schlink is doing. The seams gape with the effort as he tries to link his story with The Odyssey. It's smart of course. But I don't want that. I want a writer who trusts his story enough to let it ride. Then, I'll jump on and hold on tight as if it were a Harley.
I read the story just as anyone does. But I also read with an eye on the mechanics. My joy is when the story overtakes all my notice of the latter. I forget how I got there. I just thrill at where I am. Now, reading these two novels should be a fair race. Both were written in other languages - Nabokov's in Russian, Schlink's in German - which are translated into English. I don't know Michael Sammell who collaborated with Nabokov on his. I didn't notice that Michael Henry Heim translated Schlink's book. What Heim did with Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting was equivalent to a castration of its power. Thankfully, Aaron Asher made another translation, from the French version, which Kundera preferred. "I had the pleasure of seeing my text emerge in his translation as from a miraculous bath," Kundera said. "At last I recognized my book." I do not know what Schlink thought of Heim's translation of Homecoming. All I know is that its flatness of tone and lack of vigor makes reading an effort. Nabokov's writing could not be more different. It is charged as a lit line on a pack of dynamite.
In fairness, I've not completed either book yet. When I do, I might change my view. For now though Nabokov's is seamless. Schlink's is not. I can see too well what Schlink is doing. The seams gape with the effort as he tries to link his story with The Odyssey. It's smart of course. But I don't want that. I want a writer who trusts his story enough to let it ride. Then, I'll jump on and hold on tight as if it were a Harley.
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