but enough for now. although i had every intention of expounding on that interview here today, i could only remember that i'd come across it via hyperlink at "maîtresse," and when i visited that blog to follow it again to esposito's, i came across a newer post on the orhan pamuk interview that was covered here last week (and on the same day as it was discussed at "maîtresse"). that post quickly consumed my attention. the take there:
the problematic part is that pamuk implies that the anglophone literary world is the only world that really counts, and if you don't publish in english it's as if you don't publish at all. "...their work is rarely translated and never read." as if to have one's work read only by other speakers of your native language is about the same as no one reading it at all...
so he's arguing that non-anglophone writers need to be translated into english to be "read" (by anglophones, who it would seem are the only readers that matter). but then he's complaining that once translated, those writers are treated as representatives of their countries in ways they find limiting...
but how can a work in translation not be treated as a work in translation, and therefore as a representative of another culture? especially if a plea is being made to translate more for the sake of translating more? to what extent is Pamuk suggesting we erase cultural difference in the service of literature?
i don't think that pamuk implies anything of the sort. the maîtresse reads and writes in french as well as in english. my own experience is in japanese. both of those languages get (widely construed) a wide variety of literature in translation. i've even lamented at this blog that i'm not able to share some of my favorite works of japanese literature with many of my friends in america because those works are only available in japanese or in french. the criticism shouldn't be that pamuk regards the anglophone book world too highly, but that the anglophone book world insulates itself too much in its own high regard. the problem is that less major writing from more marginalized sources goes completely unread here simply because of how relatively few books we translate and the decisions that are forced by that condition. as a reader, i'm certainly not trivializing the importance of a writer being read in his or her native language just because i'd like to be exposed to his or her writing. and that the writers we do translate are "provincialized" in reviews as nothing more than representatives of their countries is an unfortunate symptom of a book culture that may only know one or a few authors of a certain national origin.
what's more, pamuk was being interviewed by the guardian, an anglophone publication, and it seems obvious that he would react to what he saw as a fault of the dialogue on literature in the anglophone world. i suspect that his comments might have been different had he been speaking to le monde. i'll leave it to "maîtresse" to determine whether critics in france (quoting pamuk in reference to critics in the u.s. and britain), "say that this turkish writer writes very interesting things about turkish love," or allow pamuk's love to, "be general."
i did agree with "maîtresse" on one basic point (although, sadly, i don't think "the horse is dead" yet on the fundamental conversation on whether or not we should simply translate more, at least not in america): "we need new ways of thinking about world literature that don't presuppose the anglophone world to be the center of anything." indeed. but i don't understand why we can't agree that opening that world to more literature in translation would also further the dialogue that would give the lie to the problematic presupposition. unless, that is, we're to be ostracized and cut off from world literature entirely, in which case i might have to admit that we deserve it.
A very interesting response-- thanks for letting me know about it.
ReplyDeleteI think there are (at least) two different issues at stake in what Pamuk said, and you point out one of them here-- that the Anglophone world needs to translate more. Soit. But what I chose to highlight was the implication (which I don't think Pamuk intended, but then we are never the masters of our implications or our assumptions, are we?) that books *need* to be translated into English in order to be validated. Which is certainly true on a commercial level but which I disagree with in principal. It would be great for there to be more of a "dialogue" as you suggest, amongst people of different countries, but if we're going to make English the lingua franca (it de facto is already) then let's be honest about the ambitions of the writers who want to be read in English.
(This is a great piece, did you see it?
http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=3083 )
I also suggested instead of obsessing about how Pamuk is or isn't discussed in the press that we focus the conversation on addressing the problem of how to talk about writers from different cultures without reducing them to that culture. How can we really have a conversation in English that does not somehow "other" the discussants for whom English is not their native language? How can we acknowledge and celebrate difference without reducing down to it?
thanks very much for taking the time to read and respond! thanks also for pointing me to that letter at "three percent." i hadn't seen it.
ReplyDeletei definitely see your point on the assumed "need" for authors to be translated into english in order to be validated, and understand how that might tinge the work of authors with ambitions to enter that very commercial market. interestingly, i think that the simić letter highlighted not only that concern as it pertains to authors writing in "small languages" (as if writing to be appreciated by a "small" didn't fulfill the desire to write at all), but also spoke to your second point on "otherness." in the case of "my girlfriend," however, editorial decisions at dalkey erased a consciously "othered" identity (although not one of national or linguistic origin in this case) that apparently represented an essential theme of the story.
am i wrong to suggest that you and pamuk seem to agree on that second point? that his comments on the reviews of his work reflect the same concern for discussing writers from different cultures without reducing them to their cultures? (i am a pamuk fan, and maybe i'm being overly defensive.) regardless, i wholeheartedly agree, and was reminded by reading that article that, as a reviewer, i need to be vigilant in avoiding assumptions and essentializations when writing, especially on works in translation.
it's certainly tricky, the celebration of difference without reducing down to it, and, as you say, even more complicated and problematic when you're working in the language of the metropole -- my word there, and i immediately regret it because it's provincializing in itself. and then it's particularly complicated when discussing a work like "my girlfriend" in which the identification of "other" is a multi-layered issue.
anyway, i do hope that the more we translate into english the easier it will be to have the conversation that you mention. that translations are such a small fraction of the literature published in english contributes, i think, to the treatment of the translations we do see as something essentially different from the get go. we'll have to have our conversation in english, though, because, sadly, i don't know french.