Michelle Bailat-Jones

Writer, Translator, Reader

Posts from the ‘reading notes’ category

tuesday reading notes

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I finished up the last third of Anne Bragance’s Une Succulente au fond de l’impasse and it didn’t radically change my earlier impression of the book. Overall, very disappointing. But I am interested in several other Bragance titles and hope to find something on the same level as Casus Belli among her other books.

In the light of the current upheaval in publishing, I’m curious how this sort of thing continues to happen. I mean, how does a book this blah get published? Who is the lazy editor that doesn’t say, look, this needs some re-thinking, before publication? Bragance is an accomplished writer; I would assume she could handle it. I don’t think this is an issue of my reading in the wrong genre, or missing some deeply interesting or mysterious element of the book. (For what it’s worth, my entire book group agrees the book failed, so it isn’t just me and even if that’s only six people, we rarely come to such easy accord.) The book is touted as serious literary fiction but it reads like a first draft, or three first drafts. If it was meant to be three interconnected novellas, Bragance fails to work both the form and the stories to a satisfying conclusion. The three parts of the novel don’t speak to each other, except on a very superficial level. And as I mentioned before, the three first-person narrators could have all been the exact same person.

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The following most excellent and eloquent essay has been (s)linking around the web these days. The essay is on translation and written by Harvard University Press Editor Sharmila Sen. This bit will stay with me:

A translation is the original text’s wife. If too pretty, the translation must be cheating on her husband, the text. If faithful, the translation must not be very pretty.

I love that. And it was a timely sentence for me to read as I struggle with getting Ramuz into English. I recently got a disappointing rejection from a journal where an intern wrote, “I liked the French but the translation did not work”. Ouch. In the particular story I submitted, there were three POV shifts, a relatively unheard of use of a pronoun that doesn’t exist in English, unsettling shifts in tense and I won’t even go into Ramuz’s obsessional use of semi-colons. So, yes, she’s completely right, the translation doesn’t “work”. And maybe my translation fell short of resolving those issues so I’m more than willing to get back to the two texts and see what I can do to. But this is the struggle with translation…how to recreate/reflect the eccentricity of Ramuzian French in English to an Anglophone reader? I’ll just keep trying…

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My Virginia Woolf project is gaining momentum. I tucked into two of her earliest short stories over the weekend – Phyllis and Rosamond and The Mysterious Case of Miss V.  Phyllis and Rosamond is a detailed portrait of two women as well as a discussion of types. The story tosses the idea of freedom around, personal and intellectual freedom, amidst a discussion of marriage expectations. I won’t go into detail about The Mysterious Case of Miss V. because it was more abstract and less easy to describe, but it struck me while reading both stories that Woolf understood what the coming of modernity would mean for women, both the positives and the negatives, and already in her early work, she was trying to sort out the impending muddle.

And also, a small point, but I’m noticing how Woolf has several of her characters conflate hard, solid facts with the idea of comfort. It is a strange pairing. Yet emotions must have been shifting, unreliable things to get a grip on for someone like Woolf while facts were fixed, and dependable.  Comforting.

Woolf Project begins – The Voyage Out

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The Voyage Out, a fitting title to launch my Virginia Woolf read this year. And I do feel as if I’ve set out on a journey to discover and observe Virginia Woolf’s imagination and way of thinking. As I mentioned last week, her prose is so wonderfully distinctive that stepping into her fictional universe is quite an immersion. This is my first time reading The Voyage Out, and it’s Woolf’s first novel, published in 1915, but it contains many of the elements that would go on to become her signature style.

This is interesting to me – all writers develop and explore new fictional, thematic and stylistic territory but not all writers are so immediately and recognizably distinctive. Of course she had been writing for a long time already by then, and her upbringing was decidedly literary and artistic.

One of the more interesting aspects of this project for me is that I find myself, for almost the first time, wanting to know as much as possible about the writer’s life as I begin to experience the writing. I’m usually mostly interested in the work and what it does, how it affects me as a reader and writer, and ultimately, what the experience of reading it feels like. But with Woolf, there is a feeling that everything she wrote was intimately connected with who she was as a person, what her mind was processing and what happened to her on a day to day basis. Her “work”, as it were, is also “her.” Why I feel this way about Woolf compared to many other authors is something I’m going to have think about further as the project develops.

I am just about halfway through The Voyage Out. If I am allowed to use the term without belittling the work, this is very much a “coming-of-age” novel. And it is also highly reminiscent of a 19th century society novel in structure, except it is exceptionally modern in its preoccupation. What I mean by that is, that although the story of Rachel’s journey to South America and subsequent adventures follows a similar script of say an Austen, an Elliot or a Burney, it is much more intimately concerned with exploring questions about identity and existence and intelligence. One of the novel’s greatest questions seems to be: What are women really thinking? Why are they thinking it? Is it as worthwhile as what men are thinking?

Finally, just a general comment as I settle in to her writing. There is a thickness to her prose that I love, a layering of understanding and insight with respect to each of her characters and the setting in which they find themselves. She draws out her characters’ eccentricities but also the part of each individual that is fragile, and it is usually this fragility that manages to bring them into connection with each other.

I’ll finish here with a quote I think all readers will enjoy, taken from a scene in which Rachel is reading:

At last she shut the book sharply, lay back, and drew a deep breath, expressive of the wonder which always marks the transition from the imaginary world to the real world.

mid-read thoughts on Bragance's "Succulente"

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In 2007, I was introduced to Anne Bragance’s work through her novel Casus Belli about a dysfunctional family. That novel charmed me, both for the depth of its character exploration and because of Bragance’s lovely writing style. Afterward, I hunted out several of her other novels (she has over twenty) and was all geared up to continue getting to know her work but somehow other projects got in the way and I only got around to reading a second novel by her this week.

I am about fifty pages from the end, and curious to see such a huge stylistic difference between this book and Casus Belli. It’s almost like it’s written by another person.

Une succulente au fond de l’impasse, her latest novel, is the story of François and Emma. Forty-something François is going through a divorce when he meets Emma, a prostitute who used to be a champion swimmer. They become friends, nothing more, but very good friends, and then one day Emma disappears…

The book is written in three sections, all in the first person, beginning with François and then about halfway through it switches to Emma. (At the end is a final section in the voice of Emma’s childhood best friend Bénédicte, but I’m not there yet). So far, I find little difference between François and Emma. They each tell a different story, but their language, their emotional register and even their vocabulary is quite similar.

Also, both narratives seem more concerned with the interior reflections of the voice in question than creating a “story” as it were. I don’t always have trouble with an intense interior kind of narration, one which shuns action and the exterior trappings of story, but I suppose it must depend on how the voice works, and most definitely its intellectual and emotional tone. I’m thinking here of André Brink’s first person story The Rights of Desire, or either Eclipse or The Sea by John Banville, even Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – all these novels maintain a strict interior reflective voice, and even a little suffocating at times. And I loved them all. Perhaps I shouldn’t compare to only Anglophone writers, so I’ll mention Nancy Huston’s incredible Instruments des Ténébrès, again partly first-person and intensely interior.

So Une succulent au fond de l’impasse is disappointing so far, perhaps because I get the sense it isn’t trying very hard. Despite their situations, nothing about either François or Emma has managed to reflect on the larger human condition. “Human condition” sounds a bit weighty, but I think that’s what good fiction does – it touches the world beyond itself. Casus Belli dealt with difficult psychological territory, and raised interesting questions about the nature of emotional wounds. The language was also rich and textured and the whole novel was filled with interesting and complicated images.

I certainly won’t give up on Bragance because of this book; she has several others I’d like to try before I decide whether she’s a writer for me. And, who knows, maybe the last fifty pages of Une succulente au fond de l’impasse will reverse all this grumbling…I’ll let you know.

friday reading notes

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The mailbox offered up a wonderful present yesterday…a book I ordered MONTHS ago which finally became available. Nadine Gordimer’s Telling Times, a collection (1954 – 2008) of her non-fiction writing about politics and literature. I absolutely cannot wait to get started. Just need to clear a few projects off of my desk and I’ll be able to focus almost exclusively on this.

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I have narrowed my choices for my author read to three: Iris Murdoch, J. M. Coetzee and John Banville. Murdoch has 26 novels, Coetzee 12 and Banville 17. Coetzee would be the obvious choice, to be able to read one a month for 2011. But I’ve already ordered Murdoch’s first five novels and I have about seven Banville on the shelf waiting for me. I may just attempt the impossible and read all three writers. It means I wouldn’t really be reading anyone else in 2011 and that may drive me batty, but I so loved my complete Gordimer read, not just her books but the experience of reading them one after the other, that I’m inclined to attempt to recreate that reading mood.

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In an attempt to catch up with my 10-year reading project I am immersed in Euripedes at the moment…Medea, Hippolytus, and The Trojan Women. I’ll be posting on these next week but let me just say here that being a woman (or an innocent child) in Ancient Greece was no party.

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Am currently about halfway through Danielle Dufay’s Mon mariage chinois, a book which Smithereens brought to my attention (and then very kindly sent to me!). This is an interesting book, not only because of the style of the writing, which I found to be dense and formal (but in a good way), but also because of Dufay’s subject. The book is a collection of letters sent by Dufay’s grandmother Jeanne between 1922 and 1924 to her sister Laurence. Jeanne married a Chinese man in 1913 (an act which caused her to unknowingly lose her French citizenship), was separated from him by WWI and then went to China in 1922 to meet him again. Her letters begin on the boat from Marseille and are rich with images of the cities along the way to China and character portraits of the people traveling with her. Jeanne is going to China out of a sense of duty but she doesn’t love her husband and she has no idea what kind of life awaits her. Her impressions of the Hong Kong and China of the 1920s are fascinating. I’ll write more when I’ve finished.

19th century continues…

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I read Maria Edgeworth’s unique little novel, Castle Rackrent (1800) the other day, when I was in need of something Austen-esque but didn’t want to do any rereading. I’d never heard of Edgeworth (1767 – 1849) but went looking for an Austen contemporary, found her, got her work from Gutenberg and spent an enjoyable day with her style.

In Castle Rackrent, loyal steward Thady Quirk tells the story of four generations a noble Irish family. He is a devoted servant our Thady, and quick to overlook the vices and flaws of each successive Master. The book is really a nod to the working class and how much more efficient and intelligent they are, but it also illustrates how terrible it must have been to be a poor farmer on one of these estates, squeezed to the last drop by the irresponsible, careless or downright greedy nobility. It was a fun read, although the jumping through each generation made me wish for a contained story along the same lines.

Edgeworth has a rich collection of novels, treating various subjects like interracial marriage, absentee landlords, fallen women and so forth.  Gutenberg has a 10-volume collection of her Tales and Novels, which seems to include nearly everything. And they also have her letters; she corresponded with Sir Walter Scott for years. Treasure!

My search for an Austen contemporary gave me a few other names to try, including Fanny Burney (whom Austen liked) and Ann Ward Radcliffe (whom it seems she didn’t, if I am remembering correctly, Austen makes fun of Radcliffe’s novel The Mysteries of Udolpho in at least one of her books). I’ve got Burney’s first novel, Evelina, as well as The Mysteries of Udolpho, which sounds like a bit of fun.

projects projects

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Forget the fact that I am behind on almost all of my reading projects for 2010, I’m ready to start mapping things out for 2011. I never came right out and stated my projects for 2010, probably because I worried I wouldn’t be able to fulfill them, but I was hoping to move forward on two biggish projects: my 10-year reading plan and the Central and South American Reading Project. It’s July and I’ve been moving very slowly.

However, there are still five months left in 2010, so let’s hope I get back on track.

But on to 2011, because planning for a project is half of the fun. Starting in January, I’d like to get back to doing a start to finish contemporary author read. This is one of my favorite types of projects, but I’ve been having a hard time deciding who to do next. I’m favoring Iris Murdoch (over twenty novels to her name, so not sure I could finish in a year) but Coetzee and Julian Barnes (who I have never read) are also on the list. And secretly, secretly, I want to bury myself in Balzac to the exclusion of everything else. But I know I won’t do that. I’ll read more Balzac next year but not in any order and without any expectation of a ‘start to finish’.

tuesday reading notes

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Why is chick lit from 10th century Japan somehow acceptable to me? I am thoroughly enjoying Genji’s romp through the various social classes in Heian Japan. At the moment I prefer Koremitsu, Genji’s confident and manservant, to Genji. He is appropriately annoyed (though he hides it well) with Genji’s rather overexcited libido.

Beyond the chuckle factor, The Tale of Genji is fascinating. I love the intricate social stratification and the coded conversations. Imagine if people still spoke to each other this way, alluding to famous poems and stories in all exchanges. Well, okay, we do this, a little, but in The Tale of Genji, a vast population of courtiers and commoners routinely cite words and half-phrases from an extensive library of classic poetry. I’m impressed at their ability to just whip out a poem to communicate a delicate situation or feeling.

And again, I am in absolute awe of Royall Tyler’s translation work. It took him eight years. Which seems amazingly short for such an incredible undertaking.

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I’m still getting over Tess of the d’Urbervilles. I knew what had to happen, but I wouldn’t have minded Tess and Angel taking off to Australia instead. Those last few scenes were fantastic. In a literal sense – the blood dripping from the ceiling, the lovers’ hideaway, and then Tess’s exhausted nap upon the altar at Stonehenge…I loved it, all the while I imagined Hardy’s contemporary readers must have been absolutely shocked.

Hardy’s bold depiction of the sexual double standard surprised me; I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so explicit.

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On the schedule for this week is the third Agota Kristof but I think I might hold off and finish Le Rouge et le Noir, which I started randomly yesterday. And I am currently eyeing several Balzac. It’s going to be a 19th century kind of week.

Agota Kristof – La Preuve

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I’m about halfway through the second Agota Kristof novel, La Preuve. My reaction to the first novel is here. I read that book in two sittings, and I tore through it. I was insanely curious about where Kristof was taking the story, and continually surprised and shocked and horrified about her decisions. This gave me little time to think much about the details of the writing and Kristof’s style. Now, however, reading the second novel, I have a little more distance. I know, more or less, what to expect in terms of the story (not the details, but the tone) and so I’m finding myself more critical of Kristof’s style.

Essentially, she uses quite short, straightforward descriptive sentences, terse dialogue and simple action. And this is coupled with the fact that the narrator has zero access to the minds’ of the characters, and in particular, to protagonist Lucas’ mind. There isn’t a single “he thought”. Everything is movement and speech. (This isn’t a surprise if you know that Kristof does a lot of work in theatre.) The effect of this brusque style was quite successful in Le Grand Cahier because it kept the reader guessing what was really going on. By the second book, however, it actually makes me consider whether this is the only way Kristof can write. French isn’t her mother tongue, and perhaps she adopted this style in French because it works for her.

I don’t want to downplay its success. It’s an effective style. I feel the same tension and curiosity to figure out what’s happening, to try and understand what kind of a person the main character is, etc. And if she has selected this way of writing on purpose, her story and aesthetic project are an organic fit. (I suspect the English version, which comes as one book of all three novellas, is a better way to read it – all at once, so the style just flows from one book to the next).

Kristof’s choice for the narration is interesting. The distant omniscient gives the book a cinematic texture. The reader watches the characters, looking for clues in their words and gestures alone to explain their behavior. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that doesn’t let the reader in to at least one of the character’s minds.

I am planning to finish the book over the weekend and despite the bleakness of Kristof’s vision, which makes for rather unsettling reading, I’m looking forward to see what happens and where she’ll go with the third book.

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Related quick note: A friend of mine recently remarked on Agota Kristof sounding a lot like Agatha Christie, and she wondered whether it was a pseudonym. As far as I can figure out, it’s not. Funny, though.

Unrelated quick  note: I am two sections away from finishing Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. (Strike this off my Humiliations List!) I had no idea Hardy was so poetic (yes, I hazily knew somehow he was also a poet, I just wasn’t expecting his prose to be so, um, overtly poetic); many of his descriptions (countryside and character) are simply incredible. I fear for Tess, though, is there no chance for a happy ending?

friday reading notes

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Last night I met with my favorite book group to discuss John Updike’s 2003 novel Villages. I won’t go into too much detail here, but this was a good book to read in a group, mainly because despite Updike’s writing (which provides for endless study and admiration), the beginning-to-end story of Villages can be summed up like this: man living in suburban PA has a series of affairs.

Obviously there is more going on here. But it’s all densely packed into the characters, who are, strangely, unexpectedly, all types. Owen, whose story Villages is telling, is fairly stereotypical. He doesn’t have an interior life that would seem to merit so much scrutiny. Yet our discussion last night was all over the place – history, feminism, symbolism, marriage, parenthood, suburban life, and many more – so there’s a point to Owen and his careless, almost mechanical hedonism. I’d like to read more Updike because finishing Villages left me with more questions about his work in general. I suppose I will head to the Rabbit books, but I’m also interested in The Coup (1978) and The Scarlet Letter Trilogy (A Month of Sundays, Roger’s Version and S.).

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Several new books arrived this week. All wonderful. All very tempting. First and most exciting is the Royall Tyler translation of The Tale of Genji. I’ll be starting tonight, and hope to catch up with the Summer of Genji group read that began this week. On a recommendation from a friend, I ordered Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections and that arrived today. Looking forward to this. Also in the non-fiction category, I ordered Atul Gawande’s highly lauded Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science. Finally, I received the second two books in the Agota Kristof Twins’ Trilogy, La Preuve and Le troisième mensonge. Like the first book, Le Grand Cahier, these are slim little novels. If I can, I’d like to read them both this weekend.

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I’m curious these days about reader reactions to flash fiction. I’d be interested to hear some thoughts on this. Is this a meaningful/valuable literary form? Can it or does it accomplish something that other forms cannot? How is it different, if it is, from poetry?

bookish news

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The Quarterly Conversation and Open Letters Monthly have teamed up this summer for a group read of Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji. The idea is to read about 70-90 pages a week and they have selected the more recent Royall Tyler translation. I’ve decided to join in and ordered my copy of the translation last week. My only experience with Genji is the original and Seidensticker, so this will be a treat. For other language nerds like me, there exists a very cool website in Japanese of the original Genji Monogatari, with the classical Japanese, the modern Japanese and a Romaji transliteration in three interactive panes. So. Much. Fun.

And I just learned (a month late) that Amazon has decided to launch a translation imprint called AmazonCrossing. Using their ever-so-detailed sales and reviews data, they plan to pick up books which are likely to become big sellers and have them translated. On the whole I think this is fantastic news…more books from around the world making their way into English. The first book they’ve picked is from France, The King of Kahel by Tierno Monénembo. I’ll be very curious to see what other books get on to their list.