Translation Is a Love Affair

by Jacques Poulin, Sheila Fischman (Translator)

“One of my favorite writers in the world is Jacques Poulin.”—Rawi Hage

“A short novel set in contemporary Quebec that is brimming with satisfying tales of friendship, hope and love between two unlikely and enchanting characters.”—John McFarland for Shelf Awareness

“We fall under the spell of this heartwarming, human novel, penned by Jacques Poulin at the summit of his art.”—Mieux Vivre

A vivacious novice translator, a novelist with a generous spirit and a bad back, and a stray cat with an "SOS" tucked into its collar cross paths. The result is a humorous, moving, and mysterious tale of friendship and the human condition.

Genres: Fiction, France, Canada, Literary Fiction, Writing, Language, Roman

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2006

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A quietly affecting modern fairy tale told with humor and warmth, Translation is a Love Affair is a slender volume of immense humanity. A Quebecois novelist with a bad back and his vivacious translator discover a stray cat with an SOS attached to its collar. They embark upon a search for its owner, and when they discover a young girl with bandaged wrists they are drawn into a mystery they don't dare neglect. The world Poulin creates is haunted by dark memories, isolation, and tragedy, yet it is one in which languageand love are the most immediate and vital forces, where one human being hearing a cry of distress of another is compelled to shed one's own inhibitions to respond.

My Review: What a joy it is to discover such a famous novelist, he said with irony dripping onto his keyboard. In a properly order world, Poulin would be as well known in the US as in Canada, and just as justly celebrated.

This tale was a joy to read from "Naked as a trout, I was stepping out of the pond..." to the last spoilery paragraph. I finished it in a few hours, and read about half of it a second time. I am a sucker for stories of made families, as opposed to birth families; I love the idea of the love affair consummated by the intimate connection and tender caring actions of both people despite the long lifetime's difference in their ages. (Well, I would, wouldn't I, being a single mumble fiver now?)

After work he often called me to talk about this and that, or because he'd forgotten a word or the title of a book, or to ask me a question, such as: 'How can I keep brown rice from tasting like shrimp shells?'

Simple and direct, no ornamentation, a short passage sums up the flavor of a deep and cherished connection. That is fine philosophizing as well as deep thinking.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

After I finished this slim volume, I took an intensely satisfying deep breath, savoring the sweetness of the story. I picked it up for the title and its size, but mostly its title. As I got into the second chapter I couldn't help the bubbling up of chuckles at the irony the translator must have felt, translating into English a French-Canadian author's book about a translator who, through the course of the story, translates into English a book by a French-Canadian author. I felt as though I were reading a double story. As I read, I imagined the translator imagining herself as the voice of the first person narrative.
The prose was elegant and sweet to read. It aroused an urgency to learn French completely (as a Canadian anglophone I have a certain level of proficiency that allows for only uncertain speech in French) so I can read the original and enjoy the pleasure of savoring the masterfully crafted sentences in two languages! But that will have to wait...
My only quibble with this book is its brevity, but perhaps that is akin to complaining that the Mona Lisa is too small.

[Friederike Knabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marine, a young Irish-Quebequoise and newly qualified translator, has returned from her studies in Europe to reconnect with her Quebec and Irish past. While she has already decided on her first big translation project, a novel by a well-known local author with the pseudonym Jack Waterman, she still has to find him and convince him of her abilities. Luck is on her side and not only does she meet him by chance, he, a seasoned writer in the autumn of his life, is enchanted by her seriousness mixed in with youthful enthusiasm and confidence. He agrees to give her a try...

Award-winning Canadian (Quebec) novelist Jacques Poulin, himself also an experienced translator, has a deep affinity to the meaning of words and phrases and how they are or can be transposed into another language: "Can one really communicate through the music of words? I don't know, but the translation is one of those means by which to create a bridge between two things..." *) he reflects in an interview about this unassuming, yet very charming short novel.

The story centres on Marine, the vivacious voice of the story. Settled in a summer cottage on the île d'Orléans (a small island just outside of Quebec City), she can pursue her translation while completely free to roam and to immerse herself in the natural beauty of her surroundings. The author spends his weekends at the cottage to escape from his tower block apartment in the City and the stresses of professional life. Interestingly, he soon addresses her in the familiar form of "tu", whereas for her he remains "Monsieur Waterman", thus not only reflecting the age difference but also the different perspectives within their growing relationship. All we learn of the author, however, is filtered through Marine's thoughts and descriptions. Their dialog is always brief and to the point. Only in her mind does Marine explore who Waterman is and how she can immerse herself into his way of thinking, which is necessary for her translation work. When he is away, she walks around in some of his clothes, she studies his notes: "Don't think that it is sufficient for us to find the words and phrases that correspond best to the original text. One has to go further, namely to sink oneself into the handwriting of the other like a cat nestles into a basket. One has to marry the author's style."

In her daily life, Marine is a born communicator - she not only befriends a young girl at the end of the path, she talks to horses, the fox and deer, and eventually adopts a black kitten to add to her old cat, Chaloupe. The black kitten, however, carries a secret message that leads the translator and the writer into a joint private detective venture. That pursuit not only disturbs their calm existence at the cottage and interrupts their work, in the end it reveals more about their individual needs and connections to each other than anything that could ever have been expressed directly between them.

Poulin gives Marine a very distinct voice: she writes in a precise and descriptive language, often addressing the reader with "if you are interested" or "you should know". While language and translation is clearly a theme in the novel, it is subtly woven into the narrative. Through her at times poetic descriptions, one is easily pulled into the landscape, whether on the island or the city. At times, however, the heroine comes across as younger than one would assume her to be, given her times abroad and professional training. Her character appears to have something unfinished about her, still in need to come to terms with her personal history and past. While this is makes for a fresh and lively character, one wonders how good her translations of an eminent older novelist can be in the final analysis.

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the atmospherics of Quebec French in this book, coupled with the author's flair for nature. The descriptions of the natural world around Montreal are infused with wonderful Quebecker vocabulary like ouaouaron for the North American bullfrog or quenouille for a fluffy-topped reed. That made the book a pleasant discovery as part of the LS Summer Reading Challenge, even though I cringed at the dyed-in-the-wool sexism that jumps out of every other page and is blatant enough to turn a mild-mannered and quietly feminist middle-aged guy into a Pasionaria raring to storm the barricades of the Patriarchy.

The main character and narrator, Marine, hews extremely close to the cliché known in the world of movies as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which, in the words of film critic Nathan Rabin, "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." In this case, for the young man on a journey of discovery substitute an aging writer and for the writer-director of a movie substitute a novelist with a fantasy for an April-to-November romance, and you have your stock character. Marine is a boldly independent wild child of a woman, complete with tousled flame-red hair, who in the first scene bathes naked in the pond outside her house even though her friend the elderly writer is staying over. It doesn't take a PhD in Women's Studies to detect the male gaze in Marine's first-person narration. When Marine describes the scene when an actual creepy uncle tried to abuse of her when she was a child, a cynical part of me could almost hear the author saying, "at least I'm not as bad as this guy, right?"

Even Marine's profession as a translator, I have to say as I sputter with indignation, seems to be about giving her a love of words that can provide the impetus for the romance with the old writer without giving her the full agency of being a writer herself, because despite the title the author doesn't actually have anything to say about translation. It's a device, just like the plot about an orphan girl that Marine and the old writer set out to rescue together, which strengthens their bond and causes it to blossom into love. It would take a heroic suspension of disbelief to buy either that silly plot or Marine's voice with its coy asides of "si je peux me permettre", and why would you want to suspend disbelief in service of some dumb middle-aged male fantasy?

[Darryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This beautiful novella centers around two main characters, Marine, a young woman starting her career as a translator, and Monsieur Waterman, a well regarded writer nearing the end of his career. The two initially meet at a cemetery where Marine's mother and grandmother are buried, in a neighborhood in Quebec City. She is fully alone, as she does not know her father, and her younger sister died tragically. Waterman is also alone, but after he reads the portion of one of his books that she is translating, he employs her as his official translator, and sets her up in a lovely chalet. The two become close and intimate friends, sharing weekends and frequent phone calls with each other.

The tranquility of this arrangement is interrupted when Marine discovers a young cat in her backyard. Attached to her collar is a note, which the two later discover is from a young girl who appears to be in danger. Marine desperately wants to help this girl, as she was unable to do for her younger sister. She and Waterman find the girl, and photographs taken by him seem to confirm that she is in trouble. They seek to rescue her from the pistol carrying old "witch" that she is living with.

This book was a pleasure to read, with a straightforward, musical style. The art of translation and the ability of words to express emotions and heal wounds is celebrated throughout the book. The tender love that Marine and Waterman share for each other was sincere and heartwarming. The ending of the book was a bit contrived to me, but it was otherwise an excellent read, and is highly recommended.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this novella more interesting to think about in retrospect than to read. I should have read it more like a poem, but it didn’t seem to call for that, mainly, I think, because of the narrator’s immature, anxious voice.

The best thing about this novella is the unconventional relationship at its center. But considering that the two protagonists consist of an old writer and his young translator, I was disappointed in how little there was about translation. However, there is very little about anything in this evanescent book. Most of it is descriptions of the area around the author’s chalet, in which the translator works, and her feelings and memories, but even these are sketchy and repetitious, like a dream, symbolic in a quiet way in this mostly quiet, but uneven histoire.

I agree with Douglas Messerli that an excellent way to explain the latter part of the novel is as a giving birth by intellectual rather than sexual intercourse. This certainly makes the novella more intriguing.

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marine may be a fluent translator of other people's writing, but it is painfully obvious that she has problems translating herself. Her diffident, awkward observations give us an oddly lucid perspective and the courage to change lives.

[Michelle Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely book to read before bedtime.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something intimate, in a muted, soft-focused sort of way, about books that are written in first-person and contain very minimal dialogue. I never noticed the beauty and warmth of this kind of style until I read "Translation is a Love Affair". Fischman's translation is almost flawless, and made me curious to read more of Poulin's work. That's the best thing about finding any good book, but especially a translation, that you'd never heard about before except by chance or, as in this case, because a dear friend bought you the book for your birthday. It's an unexpected treat, discovering an author you never knew about before.

But I'm getting carried away with myself. This little story is full of lovely moments of solitude with books, wood fires, a pair of cuddly cats, dictionaries, and moonlit lakes. It's also filled with quotes by or references to many well-known authors of previous generations. The relationships of the characters is underplayed, but perhaps deeper for its subtlety. Poulin allows the reader to surmise for themselves the depth of Marine's friendship with Monsieur Waterman through showing, rather than telling, of their affection for each other. And, yes, the two main characters are named Marine and Waterman. It made me smile when I first noticed the play on words.

All in all, this is one of those books that I will pick up and re-read all in one night when I'm feeling a bit bluesy or I just need something to soothe me. It's got a calming quality that I haven't experienced in a book ever since I was a little kid, and for that I shall cherish it always.

[Larissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely, multi-layered story which says more about human relationships in its thin volume than many more showy books do in double the page count. The prose is clear and simple, as is the story--at least at first. But Poulin manages to create very vivid worlds and circumstances for his characters, each of whom have very real back stories, quirks, and habits, and each of whom is seeking their own way of really connecting with other people.

Translation is a Love Affair is a novel which celebrates the deep and truly meaningful relationships that one forms unexpectedly--the family that one creates for herself. While its plot is somewhat whimsical--a translator and the author she translates find a cat with a mysterious message for help on its collar and track down the original owner--it conveys the importance of looking out for others, of taking on the responsibility of helping people you see in need, even those you don't truly know.

[Nathanimal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This really hit the spot.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, touching short novel about an older writer and the young woman who translates his work.

[Ive · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai utilisé un passage de ce livre dans la cérémonie de notre mariage, c'est tout dire. ;-) Quelle prose délicate!

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ni plus ni moins que les fantasmes d'un vieil écrivain.

[Romane Vaillant · Rating 4 out of 5]

C’est le titre du livre qui a piqué ma curiosité puisque j’étudie en traduction. Le concept d’une relation entre un auteur et sa traductrice me paraissait attrayant. C’est le genre de livre dont le style d’écriture et les mots sont plus important que l’intrigue. La lecture était agréable et fluide. J’ai apprécié les références à la traduction. Après avoir commencer la lecture, je n’étais pas sure que j’allais aimer la nature de la relation entre Marine et Waterman, mais finalement ça ne m’a pas déplu. En tant qu’amoureuse des chats j’ai apprécié que l’intrigue tournait autour d’un chat. Je vais peut-être lire d’autres livres de l’auteur avec le personnage de Waterman.

[ju · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Small structures high in the mountains where climbers can spend the night… In my opinion that was the best definition of a novel.”

Alice will have to help me with the French, but this book was so serene. It’s the kind of Tao of Pooh-esque literature that deceives you by it’s surface-level simplicity. I connected with Marine over her thinly veiled anxieties, and I found her affinity towards the cats a resonant metaphor for love and need.

Despite being a little novel abt concern, this book ironically brought me a lot of peace.

[Valérie Marcoux · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'aime la tendresse infinie qu'on retrouve dans les livres de Jacques Poulin. Quand j'ai vu le titre de celui-ci, j'ai cru que ce serait mon roman préféré de cet auteur de Québec. Puis, en lisant la première partie de l'histoire, je me suis dit l'inverse. Puis, vers la fin, je me suis surprise à être touchée par cette histoire, mais pas de la manière dont j'avais initialement pensé. Une belle surprise.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un petit livre à déguster, à dévorer! C’est une histoire d’amour, un roman policier, historique, une aventure mystérieuse… L’écriture de Jacques Poulin est coulante et tellement naturelle qu’on est dans l’histoire, on sent la brise sur notre peau, on voit la fillette sur le toit, on entend les chevaux… C’est magnifique et délicieux!

[AUTUMN · Rating 3 out of 5]

I often think books are like gifts; if they are small, they tend to be more impactful.

this was not one of those cases.

While I enjoyed the writing style, I was not invested in marine nor waterman to truly care about the story.

Side note: There were numerous literary or film references that went right over my head. Quotes were well placed in the way I think a translator would.

[Yustiniya Khokhlova · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice leasurely read. I enjoyed the mood it created. Maybe the reason is that I love cats, as crearly do the characters in the book. I would also like to mention the design of the print edition. It just somehow has a really nice feel to it.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

You'd think that, with a novel about a French-writing author and his English translator, written in French and translated into English, they'd be extra careful about the translation. Lots of grammatical errors in an otherwise charming read.

[belle · Rating 4 out of 5]

【4/5】★★★★☆

I really loved this little story. It's interesting how this story came to be thanks to a real-life author and translator (noted in my reading experience as I read this translated into English) just like Marine and Monsieur Waterman in the story!

[Karin Blomqvist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beau et touchant.

[Elizabeth OH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a cup of milk tea in a sunlit room.

[Madeleine Decker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un très petit 2.
J'étais pourtant enthousiaste au début. J'ai vite déchanté... Rien ne se tient dans cette histoire

[Maggie Boulton · Rating 2 out of 5]

story is boring, age gap is weird, writing has slight misogyny, bland characters, lack of tension for a “mystery,” and an abrupt and too-happy ending. some of the writing was good though!

[Greta Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this sweet little book read in a French class. Cats, books, fatherly old men are all recurrent themes in this short roman.

[Tonymess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Our cover flap advises that this work is “A quietly affecting modern fairy tale”, so what is a fairy tale? If you browse numerous online dictionaries you’ll come across words such as elves, fairies, giants, hobgoblins, dragons or folkloric fantasy characters. Or maybe “A fictitious, highly fanciful story”. Well I can categorically state the latest work I have read by Jacques Poulin, has no elves, fairies, giants, hobgoblins or dragons. However it does contain cats, isolation, and psychologically scarred individuals, just like “Mr Blue” and “Spring Tides” which I have previously reviewed here. This work is slightly different though, this time we have a “witch”.

Our small work opens with our female narrator explaining her story, she is single, finding it hard to love and is a translator. She is currently working on translating a French book into English for Monsieur Waterman:

Usually I don’t have much confidence in men, but for him I made an exception. Despite being twice my age he was my best friend though we hadn’t known each other very long. He’s a writer and he’d started a new novel.
As for me, I’d started to translate one of his novels, the one that talks about the Oregon Trail. If there was a way to get close to someone in this life – of which I was not certain – it might be through translation.

Our protagonist, Marine, and Monsieur Waterman come across a stray cat, with a collar and a phone number, however although she rings the phone number she decides not to leave a message. Later she discovers a hidden message in the collar “My name is Famine, I am on the road because my mistress can no longer take care of me, or of herself…”

This opens up a mystery, how to locate the owner as our heroes are concerned for her wellbeing. Knowing the phone number of the owner, that a “witch” dumped the cat outside of the property where Marine is living, and with the help of a private detective they go on a mission to “save” the young girl (with scars on her wrists) from the “witch”.

For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...

[rabbitprincess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marine is a translator living in a chalet on the Île d'Orléans, near Quebec City, where her friend, the novelist Monsieur Waterman, lives. She translates his novels and they both share a love of language and literature. There is a significant age difference between them but they get along very well. One day Marine encounters a black cat at the chalet -- it doesn't fare very well in a territorial spat with her own cat -- and discovers a message in its collar, asking for help. She and Monsieur Waterman decide to find out who sent the message and what they can do to help.

This is a very dream-like book -- one blurb describes it as "quietly affecting", and quiet is about the best word you can pick for it. Marine relates the circumstances of the story in a calm, matter-of-fact manner, and her sentences lull the reader along. There are spikes of humour or loud moments here and there, but for the most part this is a contemplative book. Despite being published in 2009, it feels like it takes place in a much earlier time, with Marine doing a lot of her translations by hand with paper dictionaries, and few or no mentions of cell phones or much other modern technology. And I liked the relationship between Marine and Monsieur Waterman, which was affectionate but not sexual (yes, men and women CAN be friends without sleeping with each other).

Overall I liked this book and found it a very quick read, but I may have overhyped it in my head because of the novelty of having a translator as a protagonist. And really, would I have been interested in the book if I did not share the protagonist's profession? Who knows. If this sounds like your cup of tea, go for it. It's a short book, less than 200 pages, and the Archipelago Books edition is a lovely little square thing that's a joy to read from.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I'm proud of myself for reading this book in French (with a lot of assistance from Google Translate for the vocabulary I didn't know). Given how much the narrator, a translator by trade, talks about language and word play, I do think I appreciated it more than I would have in an English translation.

As to the story itself, I found it very sweet. I liked the narrator, Marine, her love of her work, her honesty about her painful past, her connection to nature and care for the two cats. I liked the relationship between Marine and Monsieur Waterman, the writer, though I felt that a lot was glossed over between "I wanted to translate his books and he magically showed up and offered to let me stay in his chalet" and "We are now best friends." So there was a little bit more suspension of disbelief there than I would have liked.

I liked the mystery element of the book, but I thought the resolution was odd and anticlimactic. I expected them to somehow swoop in and rescue the girl from the old woman (though what the old woman was doing to her was never really clear; she was just assumed to be evil because she was ugly and owned a gun). But that ended up being unnecessary. And did she want to get rid of the cat because she couldn't care for him, like her note said, or was the cat taken away from her by the woman, who took it away in the taxi? Was she suicidal because the old woman was abusing her (as the main characters seemed to assume) or just because she was a suicidal person? There was a lot that was assumed or left unexplained, which lessened what was otherwise a very enjoyable book.

Ultimately, while I liked the book, I didn't like it enough to recommend it.