A Diptyptic on Love

The White Lilies

As a man and woman make a garden between them like

a bed of stars, here

they linger in the summer evening

and the evening turns 

cold with their terror: it

could all end, it is capable

of devastation. All, all

can be lost, through scented air

the narrow columns

uselessly rising, and beyond

a churning sea of poppies--

 

Hush, beloved. It doesn't matter to me

how many summers I live to return:

this one summer we have entered eternity.

I felt your two hands

bury me to release its splendor.

 

~ Louise Glück, The Wild Iris (London, 1992)

I remember you best as the man

asleep on my chest, warm breath somehow

the exact opposite of sex. How I came

 

to know you take your tea with honey 

if I got any. Sugar? Then nothing. It's true

we teach each other how we want

to be held. You brimming hot--another mug

I had to shuffle-step up a narrow stair. Once

right after waking and always again, but decaf

before turning in. Because loving you

was another impossibility, who was I

to notice when it happened? When it did,

it bloomed in me, milk in the steeping dark.

~ Robert Wood Lynn, Mothman Apologia (New Haven, 2022)

Learning New Words with Lymond: L is for Lithless

Learning New Words With Lymond is back! This series wends its way through the alphabet in an attempt to understand and appreciate the intersection of word choice and character development in the work of the Scottish historical novelist Dorothy Dunnett. By thinking about how and why Dunnett does what she does with words, I aim to become more inventive, playful, and precise in my own use of language. Or, as Ellen Kushner put it,

 "Ever since I first read them in college, as a writer I've been in dialogue with the Lymond books...I kept trying to figure out, 'How did she just do that?' I learned a lot." ~ "All the Writers You Love Probably Love Dorothy Dunnett," Alyssa Dawn Johnson, NPR

We continue our journey through The Game of Kings with words beginning with the letters 'h,' 'i', and 'l'...

hagioscopic

"You have an entrancing and hagioscopic view of my character that is entirely your own." p. 298

Ever needed a adjective that describes someone (or something) with a small and limited view of a much larger whole? Enter hagioscopic, from the noun, hagioscope, which is an opening or window that allows Christian worshipers to see the elevation of the Host during the sacrament of the Eucharist. (OED) We the readers, together with Lymond's sister in law Mariotta, to whom this comment is directed, have a very hagioscopic view of his character at this point in the narrative.

 Hanno

 "Unless like Hanno you wish to sail by streams of fire. Unbuckle your sword. The suicide impulse is strong in the air." p. 336 

Lymond displays here his classical education. Hanno is the hero of an ancient Greek text called the Periplus which recounts his leadership of a large expedition of Carthaginian explorers and settlers along the Atlantic coast of Africa, c. 480 BCE. Towards the end of the journey, the party encountered a land where streams of fire fell into the sea. (Dictionary of African Biography, Oxford, 2012). 

Heliades

Despite almost tearful threats from Bowes, he sat amber-headed in the April sunlight, melting as the tears of the Heliades, and tore them to shreds. p. 315

The word play here is typical Dunnett--the Heliades were the daughters of the Greek son-god Helios, whose tears, when their brother Phaethon tried and failed to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky, fell into the river where he died and became amber (Wikipedia). One of the sources of humour is surprise--after such an innocent-seeming description, Lymond's subsequent words and actions are a delicious contrast.

Hippocrenes

"Did you do that?" snapped the Lord Lieutenant, and jerked a finger towards Acheson's prone body. Lymond turned his head. "Gushing Hippocrenes at every joint. No. Strictly speaking, the blame belongs to a strawberry roan." p. 427

Hippocrene (no s) was in mythology the spring of the Muses, said to inspire creativity in those who drank from it; by extension, the word means creative inspiration or a source thereof (OED). Lymond improvises brilliantly under pressure several times during this scene, with both words and weapons.

imbrocatta

In the middle of an imbrocatta he dropped his left hand, exposing his whole flank momentarily to Lymond's right blade. p. 417 

Finally, I found the historical fencing resource I was looking for! I once saw a post, somewhere on social media, about how intensely annoying it is that those invaluable late-1990s/early 2000's era websites, where some passionate enthusiast collected information on some obscure topic in minute detail without pictures, are rarely surfaced by modern search engines. Here is one such: an amazing glossary of historic fencing terms. Thus, what Richard is doing is an "attack over the adversary's blade, hand or dagger. It travels in a downward direction with the knuckles up." It looks--according to the Carolina Historic Fencing Association--something like this:

Surely there must be HEMA enthusiasts who are also Dunnett fans? My faith in Lady Dunnett's research prowess is sufficiently profound that I am sure her description reflects a realistic fight, but I would be interested to see how someone with actual knowledge of swordfighting would respond to this scene. Also, I would be wildly curious to see how a Bob Anderson-level fight choreographer would stage this scene and interpret the character work this fight does.

insifflating

It was not in the mind of Lord Grey, riding his bones loose between town and town, insifflating the precious troops and horses, the pikes and powder and footmen, the rolls and matches and demilances and oil and flour and money, the working tools and men, men, and more men into the feverish maw of the fort. p. 421

More usually spelled insufflate, this verb means "to blow or breathe in"; during certain Christian ceremonies, the celebrant sometimes blows on a person or thing to imitate the breath of the Holy Spirit (OED). Here, the word is used in an extended sense of "taking in," but the literal mean, "breathing in," also evokes what all this activity in the height of summer might smell like.

inspissate

The world vanished in a bloody mist, reappeared inspissate with pain, disappeared. Playful, inhuman fingers rested on his collar, hooked below it, and methodically began to flay his head against the high gloss of the tiles. p. 129

Marked as obsolete in the OED; means simply "thickened." (OED) As a verb, it means either to thicken or condense, or to become thick or dense. One of the many pleasures of Dunnett's writing is how she gives incredibly detailed descriptions of violence (here we see Lymond systematically--in the modern parlance--beating the crap out of Sir Andrew Hunter) without ever slowing down the narrative. 

Live footage of me reading a fight scene in Game of Kings

Kassidas

 "Go back and lie down. I don't want your coddled features singing Kassidas over me." p. 351

Initially, I though this was a misspelling of Kaddish, a Jewish prayer sanctifying the name of God; one form of which is associated with mourning the dead. It might also be a variant spelling of qasida, a "classical Arabic or Persian monorhyme poem in uniform metre, consisting of ten or more distichs set in a usually tripartite episodic structure, frequently with a panegyric or elegiac theme." (OED)

lapping

Will was ready for lapping. He picked up the waxed thread and glanced at the ruined Peel Tower, their present headquarters, which he controlled during Lymond's current absence. p. 98

Will Scott seems to be maintaining his bow by wrapping it with waxed thread. (OED) Rather than describe what the character is doing, Dunnett focuses on what he is thinking, which gives us a wonderful insight into the contrast between what Scott thinks he knows and how little he actually does.

Leibethra

"God, I've whined for ten minutes. Bury me at Leibethra, where the nightingale sings." p. 460

In mythology, Leibethra was where Orpheus was buried. Nightingales sang over his grave. (Wikipedia; also referenced in the Dorothy Dunnett Companion, vol 1, p. 262). This passage is from one of the many conversations between Lymond and his brother Richard during the former's convalescence. The development of their relationship and the revelation of their shared history is one of my favourite parts of Game of Kings.

lithless

He had seen these tarots several times in Scot's possession since he had come to Edinburgh. They were gruesome, Gothic, and graced with a kind of lithless malevolence all their own. p. 512

Lith is an old Scots word meaning a limb or body part--by extension, lithless means stiff or inert (Dictionary of the Scots Language). "Lithless malevolence" has a wonderfully evocative sound--I can picture the kind of grim and terrifying fifteenth century art that would have adorned Scott's cards.

lockfast

Instead, he bent his mind to weaving a fabric of steel: a case so massive, so intellectually secure, so lockfast that no man, however fluent and however gifted, should break it. p. 529

Not a hard word to guess in context, but still so delightful I had to include it on this list. It, too, is Scots, meaning "fastened by a lock, shut and locked, secured under lock and key against interference" (Dictionary of the Scots Language). Repetition in writing has fallen out of fashion, hasn't it? Most recent novels in the swashbuckling style would not allow the three parallel clauses beginning with so to qualify a single noun ("case") let alone the twice-repeated "however". There is a subtle, but important, difference between "however fluent and gifted" and "however fluent and however gifted."

Snowdrops

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know

what despair is; then

winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,

earth suppressing me. I didn't expect

to waken again, to feel

in damp earth my body

able to respond again, remembering

after so long how to open again

in the cold light

of early spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again

crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

~ Louise Glück, The Wild Iris (London: Carcanet, 1992), p 6

Books in Translation 2024 -- A Reading Roundup

To my great surprise, I completed the 2024 Books in Translation Challenge having read ten books translated into English from nine different languages. That puts me, accidentally, in the "Linguist" category, the upper level of the challenge.

Six of the books I picked up browsing the English-language collections of Utrecht's fantastic public library; one book I requested the librarians purchase for me; one book was purchased in Utrecht's fabulous feminist bookshop, Savannah Bay, and the other two came from the historical fiction section of the Skidompha Secondhand Bookshop in Damariscotta, Maine, which raises funds for the town's public library, and is an absolute must-visit if you are ever in the area. 

Before we get to the books, allow me to climb up on my soapbox: local libraries, and local bookshops, are a wonderful place to find books in translation. Please consider going to these sources first rather than places like Amazon. As a former librarian, I particularly want to emphasise that good usage stats are critical for libraries' health and futures, and are something you as a patron can actively contribute to by checking out books and ebooks, using interlibrary loan services and making requests for new purchases. Finally: if you are based in the United States, or curious about the experiences of librarians there, Lisa Bubert's magnificent essay "Safety Net" is well worth a read.

Books in Translation Reading Challenge

 Sermon over--on with show!

The Snail on the Slope by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, translated from Russian by Olena Bormashenko (London, 2019)

The Snail on the Slope

I wrote about this book here, so I won't recap that other than to say I am a huge, huge Strugatsky brothers fan. If you like your science fiction weird, twisty, and slow; and your political and social commentary honed to a razor's edge and in the service of the narrative, you may want to give the Strugatskys a try. Snail on the Slope might not be the book to start with--Hard to Be a God, which is faster-paced and easier to follow, makes a better point of entry.

The Prophets of Eternal Fjord by Kim Leine, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken (London, 2016)

The Prophets of Eternal Fjord

Hallucinatory (a word I am borrowing from Liz Jensen's Guardian review) and without hope, this novel follows the story of a Norwegian priest, Morten Falck, and his interactions with Danish colonists and Inuit residents at the colonial outpost of Sukkertoppen, in Greenland. Not a book to read if you are not prepared to deal with the very worst humanity has to offer, but you will be rewarded with arrestingly beautiful writing and imagery.

Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang, translated from Chinese by Karen S. Kingsbury (London, 2014)

Half a Lifelong Romance [Image Source: Women Writers Worldwide]

Half a Lifelong Romance tells the story of the doomed relationship between Shen Shijun and Gu Manzhen against the backdrop of Shanghai in the 1930s. Recommended if you like tragic love stories and crystalline evocations of the barriers that class and gender can put in the way of two people who want to be together.

In a Dark Wood Wandering, Hella S. Haase, translated from Dutch by Lewis C. Kaplan, revised and edited by Anita Lewis (Chicago, 1989)

In a Dark Wood Wandering

I have a new personal and professional favourite historical novel set in the Middle Ages, and it's In a Dark Wood Wandering. This magnificent novel follows the life of the poet and duke Charles d'Orleans (1395-1465), against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War, and through decades of captivity in England. Haase manages to be charming without being cloying, and sharp yet sympathetic in her portrait of historical figures. This is a book suffused with the delights of art, music, and literature, in the footsteps of its central figure, who was both a very fine poet and a noted patron of the arts. If you pick up one book from this list, I urge you to try this one.

Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim (London, 2023)

Whale

The book blurb described this as a South Korean Great Expectations. I don't see the parallel, myself, but thoroughly enjoyed the book, which traces the interwoven stories of three women: the entrepreneurial and ambitious Geumbok; her giant, gentle, mute daughter Chunhui, a friend to elephants; and a cantankerous old woman who keeps bees. I read this book in print, but suspect it would be an absolute delight as an audiobook--the writing has a rhythmic, oral, quality with a repeated phrase ("this is the law of...") that would be wonderful in the resonant voice of a really fine actor. There's a folkloric, almost fairytale, quality to the story--the characters are both archetypes (mother, maiden, and crone) and very human and fully real. 

The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories by Nikolai Leskov, translated (from Russian), annotated, and introduced by Richard Pevear and Larisa Volokhonsky (London, 2013)

The Enchanted Wanderer & Other Stories

The second book I read translated from Russian. So far, the only nineteenth century Russian fiction I've read has been short stories and the haunting, bizarre A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. The beautiful cover on this translation drew me in. Pacy these stories are not, but their meanderings reward the reader many times over. Reading "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" makes me determined to see the opera it inspired; "The Toupee Artist" was also anthologised by W. Somerset Maughn in his delightful 1939 anthology Tellers of Tales (one of my long term reading projects). So I can say with some confidence that Pevear and Volokhonsky's work, as translators, is superior to previous versions. Many of Leskov's stories have a frame structure--a typical structure is a brief exposition setting up a character telling his story aloud to an audience--so if orality appeals to you, Leskov might too.

Simpatía by Rodrigo  Blanco Calderón, translated from Spanish by Noel Hernández González and Daniel Hahn (London, 2024)

Simpatía

This appeared on the new books table in the translated works section of the Bibliotheek Neude. (My participation in this challenge would not have been possible without the time and talents of Utrecht's amazing librarians! My gratitude to them.) The novel follows the (mis)fortunes of the somewhat hapless Ulises Kan, whose wife, Paulina, decides to leave their marriage at the same time his father-in-law's will bequeaths him the task of turning the palatial family home into a shelter for abandoned dogs. (Readers sensitive to stories where animals are mistreated may want to give this book a miss.) The task has stakes, and a deadline: if he succeeds, Ulises inherits the luxurious apartment he and Paulina had shared; if he fails, the inheritance goes to someone else. Of course, not everyone connected to Ulises wants him to succeed. The book thrums with the unease and tension of the Venezuelan political situation after the fall of Hugo Chavez, and asks unsettling, unanswered questions of what one person can do when the odds are against him.

The World is not Enough by Zoe Oldenbourg, translated from French by Willard R. Trask (New York, 1948; reprinted 1998)

The World Is Not Enough

Originally published in 1940, The World is Not Enough is an epic family saga following the married life of two twelfth century nobles--Alis of Puiseaux and Ansiau of Linnieres. Realistic about the challenges of medieval life without pandering to modern stereotypes of medieval brutality, Oldenbourg pays detailed attention to the rich tapestry of networks of friendship, kinship, and dependency, that made up the medieval social world. And, like my beloved Dorothy Dunnett, she has a gift for describing settings, with all their sounds, smells, and seasons, and of illustrating the inner lives of her characters through their actions and choices. A particular delight of the novel is its fine-grained and sensitive treatment of women's lives and experiences--Alis's struggles to manage her family's estates are treated with just as much detail as the experiences of Ansiau and their sons during the Second Crusade. A 1948 reviewer sniped that "The author meanders along on the theory that an unselective detailing of life histories is a satisfactory substitute for dramatic construction;" for me, the close attention to both ordinary and extraordinary moments in characters' lives was one of the principle delights of reading this book.

Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell

Tomb of Sand

Without meaning to, I read three books associated with the International Booker Prize: Simpatía was longlisted in 2024; Whale was shortlisted on 2023; and Tomb of Sand won in 2022. With the caveat that the Venn diagram between books that one enjoys reading, and books that win major literary prizes is rarely a perfect circle: I can see why this won. It is relentlessly, infectiously playful in its language; wildly creative and experimental in its narration and points of view (do not miss the parts of the novel told by doorways); and hilariously pointed in its critique of the way that older women can be dismissed, ignored, and infantilized by supposedly loving families. The book's biggest laughs come early: it takes the main character, Ma (whose name, we later learn, is Chanda) the first 100+ pages of an over 700-page novel to get out of bed after the death of her husband, but once she does, watch out! No one's life, least of all hers, will ever be the same. A wise and profoundly humane account of an older woman's determination to reckon with her past at the end of her life, Tomb of Sand was an absolute joy to read.

Also: the story is told in three major sections, each consisting of very short chapters, which made it the perfect book to read over the busy holiday season. If you're looking for a big book suited to situations where you have only short bursts of reading time, I'd urge you to consider this one.

Land of Wooden Gods by Jan Fridegård, translated from Swedish by Robert E. Bjork (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1989)

Land of Wooden Gods

Alas, we end with a book that was, for me, the reading equivalent of a sad trombone (for sound effect, click here.) Land of Wooden Gods tells the story of Holme and Ausi, two people enslaved in a Viking village, and their fight to obtain freedom for themselves and their child. Unfortunately, Friegård seems to have forgotten a key fact: women are people. Women are, in fact, people who think about things other than what the men around them want from them; who worry about things other than what the men around them might think of their actions; and who have rich interior lives in which--sit down, I may shock you--men are not the central object. 

A particularly egregious (and representative) passage:

He [Holme] didn't want her [Ausi] walking around town alone. Some powerful man, perhaps the king himself, might see her and force her along with him. When summer came, they would leave, and he'd build a better house than this one in a good forested area somehwhere. He'd see to it that he had various kinds of tools with him, and they would own some cows or at least some goats so Ausi would have something to do. (p. 89)

The author's social and political commitments to the plight of the proletariat (or the male half thereof) could be seen from outer space--and I don't mean low-earth orbit, I mean somewhere around the planet Neptune. Which is a pity, because Jan Fridegård's artistic commitment to grappling with the brutality and banality of Sweden's system of statare, the forced indenture of agricultural labourers, as briefly discussed in Robert Bjork's translator's note, actually seems quite interesting. That interest is sadly absent from this book. Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli; this book might be for someone, but that someone is not me.

And finally...

My sincere thanks to Jen of the Introverted Reader, the kind host and organiser of the 2024 Books in Translation Reading Challenge. I hope this post makes plain the great delight reading translated books brought me in 2024. Very much looking forward to taking part in 2025!

I'd love to hear from other readers of translated books--do any of these sound like books you might try? What are your favourites; what would you recommend I read next?