jørgen leth

Just less than a week to go before this year's Tour de France kicks off with the traditional short individual time trial in Monaco. Just less than a week to go before the much-awaited return of Jørgen Leth as Tour de France commentator for Danish TV. A national event, no less.

Jørgen Leth. Poet, filmmaker, bon viveur.

A short selection of Leth's poems under the title Boredom will be published in my translations in The Literary Review this coming spring. A lengthier collection will hopefully be appearing in Canada some time next year.

In the meantime, here's an extract from a sample I did for Gyldendal from Leth's recent book Tilfældets gaver - tekster om at lave film [Gifts of Chance: Texts on Filmmaking].

Oh, and you can watch the trailer for De fem benspænd [The Five Obstructions] here>>

The Five Obstructions

DEAR DUMB LARS

It started with Zentropa Real’s chief executive, Carsten Holst, saying that Lars von Trier wanted to make a film with me and suggesting that we meet next time I was in Denmark.

We met at Lars’ bungalow. Lars wanted to know what I found trivial. I mentioned a few things. He nodded and said he would think. He would come up with something.
I returned to Haiti. During the time that followed we exchanged a number of short mails. Lars wrote that he still needed to “think a bit”, but that he would soon be in touch again.
A couple of months later he wrote that he now believed he had an idea. He called it Obstruction. He wanted me to make a film based on a number of hindrances.
What follows is an excerpt of our correspondence (December 2000):

“The challenge/film you are to make/solve is called: The Five Obstructions.
I’d like you to show me a film to begin with, and to talk about it, after which I set up a number of restrictions, orders or prohibitions that require you to remake the film. This we do five times … hence the title. I think it would be natural for our discussions to be included in the final film … plus of course the six small films.
Hope you like the challenge. Perhaps the subject for the first film could be something we agreed on? Obviously, it would be best if the subject were to allow as much progression as possible between film one and film six. [In our initial correspondence he referred continually to six films, although we ended up doing only five.]

Tell me what you think.

Hope the depression’s doing fine. I actually understand you now … the whole Haiti thing. A place where you’re allowed and expected to go to the dogs!!! You sure figured that one out.

All the best, Lars.”

I replied the same day:

“Re. The Five Obstructions.

Dear Lars

I find the challenge appealing. I can see an interesting progression between films one and six, the pathway around the obstacles, the discussions. I can see us making something out of it. A compelling prospect. I look forward to facing your obstructions.
(I’m reminded of Michael Laudrup, who so elegantly avoided being injured by the brutal challenges to which he was always exposed.)
I really like the idea of having to change, adapt, pare down according to stipulated conditions. Progressively.

But how do we get started on the first film you want me to do?
If I’m expected to devise it, alone or with you, and then shoot it here in Haiti, then obviously it would be on DV, with all the built-in restrictions, especially as to sound.

Or should the first film simply be a note? I’m sure that if I pull my head out of the morass in which it’s immersed – spurred by your brilliant idea, I’m certain I can – then I might be able to think up a simple story to tell which can be filmed here. Maybe.

Is that how you see it? Or do you want me to do it some day in the spring when I get back to Denmark?
Is this correspondence already a part of the project?

The depression’s doing fine. Bouts of cheerfulness. As you’ve discovered: My arrangement here is a good one.

All the best, Jørgen.”

Still later the same day, Lars got back to me with these words:

“Dear Jørgen,

Thanks for the mail. Glad to know you’re feeling as planned. The first of the six films could also be an excerpt from something you’ve already done. That would be about the most clear-cut option, I think. What about The Perfect Human! You know that was the one I sat and watched over and over back then at the SFC.

All the best, Lars.”

I thought that was a great idea. I very much wanted to go back to The Perfect Human, recultivate the film’s simplicity, its emblematic character. I could see the possibilities immediately. It was like going back to a motif in much the same way as a painter is able to return time and again.
Perhaps I could use the actor Claus Nissen again. Maintain the very stringent aesthetics, the empty space in which the characters perform a variety of simple actions and utter a number of words.

The arrangement was then to meet up at Lars’ bungalow at Zentropa when I arrived back in Denmark prior to my commentating the spring cycling classics for television.
We agreed that our meeting should be filmed using two DV cameras. Lars had already suggested that our discussion as to how the project should develop was to be documented and perhaps included in the final film. I liked the idea. At the end of the day I would be selecting what was to go in, completion of the project being left up to me.

I was received by Carsten Holst and Lars von Trier. We walked over to the bungalow together. I saw the two DV crews as soon as I came in through the door: photographers Kim Hattesen and Jakob Bonfils with assistants. They were already rolling.
Lars and I sat down on the plush sofa and chatted over a variety of topics, but in particular my original film The Perfect Human. Lars told me again how great an impression the film had made on him. He’d seen it more than thirty times and said he’d also had it in mind working on his latest full-length feature, Dogville. Then we watched it together on his TV, after which we said nice things about the film’s keeping qualities. It all felt good, and I felt at ease.

Later we had The Perfect Human lunch – poached salmon with white potatoes and Hollandaise sauce accompanied by a fine Chablis. That’s how he set me up for the impending attack. I lit a Havana cigar.

We were agreed on the starting point. I was to do a number of remakes of The Perfect Human and each time Lars was going to set up various obstructions to make it more difficult for me. Obstacles to be overcome. We agreed that the new versions – five in all as stipulated – each were to be five minutes in length.

Lars was eager to reveal his first obstruction, but first he tried to get me to say something about how I envisaged making the film if I had to do it over again. I was rather reticent about giving anything away. I might prefer to do it in colour, perhaps in a black room rather than a white one. But I had made no decision about anything. I evaded his attempt to get me to start the ball rolling. I realised that he wanted something he could obstruct and my response was that he could obstruct a repeat of the original film. That was my starting point.

Then he presented his conditions. The first he tabled was that no cut should be longer than twelve (12) frames, i.e. half a second. That was what he said. I took a sip of Chablis and said that would be fine. It was madness.
Then he wanted the questions asked by the narrative voice in the original film to be answered. Further, that the first obstructed version should be filmed in Cuba. Why? Because I was unfamiliar with Cuba.
He left the room for a moment and asked Carsten Holst if there was enough money in the budget to send me to Cuba. It didn’t sound much like a question. There was, and that was that. The film was to be shot in Cuba, no cut more than 12 frames, questions to be answered.
I wasn’t entering into any discussion about the conditions laid down, but I did ask a question about the Cuba shoot. I wanted to take a screen with me, in the style of the photographer Irving Penn, as I had previously done in e.g. Notes on Love in order to isolate the characters. That was the thing I mentioned.
Lars thought about it for a moment and then said: “It’s a shame. You can’t.”

© Jørgen Leth & Gyldendal, 2009
Translation © Martin Aitken, 2009

blurb

Pulitzer prize winner 2008 Junot Díaz, author most recently of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, has this to say about the stories of Dorthe Nors (here>>), soon to be out in my translations in AGNI Magazine, The Boston Review and now Fence Magazine:

Beautiful, faceted, haunting stories ... Dorthe Nors is fantastic ... a rising star of Danish letters.

Thanks, Junot. And thanks to Thomas E. Kennedy (here>>), author of the Copenhagen Quartet (soon destined for world fame courtesy of Bloomsbury in NY), who says this:

Meticulously observed glimpses of everyday life and its small dramas, Dorthe Nors' stories will make you chuckle, make you feel, break your heart and make you see - all in the turn of surprisingly few pages. These are stories for our time, paced for our time, yet old as the human heart. Dorthe Nors is the real deal!

Two more stories from Dorthe's Kantslag collection are on their way soon. Look out for them.

revenge of the lawn / gräsmattans hämnd

Richard Brautigan's wonderful collection Revenge of the Lawn from 1971 has just appeared in a Swedish translation, Gräsmattans hämnd, by Jonas Ellerström and published by Bakhåll (here>>).

The first reviews are deservedly more than positive. Svenska Dagbladet's web edition (here>>) says "Major literature in a small format", while Borås Tidning (here>>) enthuses:

Brautigan's texts exude a marvellous joy of language and I can think of no better book than this to give as a source of inspiration to any young writer in spe (...) With this publication, Backhåll have once again done us a cultural favour.

My own translations of five of the texts in the collection have recently appeared in the Danish journals Apparatur and Den Blå Port (Lars Bukdahl here>>: "cool, wittily sensitive 70s short prose").

Someone ought to do like Backhåll here.

husum and jesus

Lars Husum went through the roof earlier this year with his debut novel Mit venskab med Jesus Kristus, which was sold to all over the place even before it was out in Denmark. I did the English sample translation for Gyldendal, and though Portobello in London already had a translator in line when they snapped it up, I'm still pretty chuffed about my own shot. A short extract from that sample is up here>> in the Danish Literary Magazine.

nordic voices

Nordic Voices in Translation (here>>) is a new blog "devoted to the English translation of the literatures of the Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. And also Estonia." Among its instigators and regular contributors are David McDuff, known for his excellent translations of Pia Tafdrup, and "Reg" aka. Steven T. Murray, one of the most prolific forces in the translation of Nordic literature, most recently Stieg Larsson's megaselling Millenium trilogy.

louis jensen

The Hans Christian Andersen Awards (here>>) are presented biannually by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) "to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children's literature." It's a prestigious award, often referred to as the 'little Nobel prize'. Among the nominees for the 2010 award is Louis Jensen for his book Tinhjerte og Ællingefjer, an endearing journey into Andersen's work and mindset seen through the eyes of an enthusiastic father and his inquisitive young son with a school project to do on Denmark's most celebrated author. The Danish publishers Rosinante asked me to do the English sample translation for the award committee. Here it is.


13: What makes the tale good

I have read my story aloud.
“Is it good?” I ask.
“It’s dramatic,” says my father.
“Is it as good as Hans Christian Andersen?”
He shakes his head. “It isn’t, but then not many can write that well. Not even real authors.”
“Can I get to be as good as Hans Christian Andersen?”
“Perhaps,” he says. “You can certainly become better if you practise. And if you want to become really good, you must read a lot!”
“Must I read Hans Christian Andersen?”
He smiles. “It would be a good idea, but there are many other good writers. The library is full of them!”
“Why was Hans Christian Andersen especially good?”
He scratches his nose and furrows his brow. He’s racking his brains. I hope his forehead doesn’t break, though it would be interesting to see what his head looks like on the inside.
“There’s more than one reason,” he says. “His fairy tales and stories are dramatic and entertaining. His plots are good.”
“Plots?”
“The things that happen. Like the princess declaring that she will marry the man who has the most to say for himself. Then we have three brothers. The first one knows the whole Latin dictionary by heart, and the town’s newspaper for three years. The second has learned all the articles of law. And the third can do nothing at all. At least, that’s what the others think!”
“Clumsy Hans!”
He smiles. “Exactly. The rest you know. And all the things that happen with the billy goat and the crow and the wooden shoe and the mud and the clever brothers, that’s the plot. Oh, yes, and there were blots of ink that got spurted on the King’s floor, too.”
“My plot was good as well!”
“Yes, it was! The plot’s important, but what happens doesn’t really amount to anything unless it’s told well!”
“Does it matter how you tell the story?”
“Certainly!”
“What do you mean by well?”
He scratches his nose again and furrows his brow. Racking his brains. At last he says: “It’s what matters most, the way the story’s told.”
Then he smiles. I think he’s found a way of explaining: “It’s like a house. A house built of bricks. Imagine you’ve two great piles of bricks, each exactly the same. Now imagine there are two builders. The first builder is very good. The second is careless and lays the bricks all wrong. Will their houses be just as fine, even if they’ve used exactly the same bricks?”
“The first house will be better than the second!” I say.
He nods. “It’s the same with words. They have to be put together in just the right way. We all have the same words inside our heads, but some use them in a special way. That’s what Andersen did. And even when he’s only writing about a green field and a blue sky, everything else in the world becomes a part of it, too, and one becomes so joyous it can pain the heart.”
I know how it is. I’ve felt it, though it doesn’t last long. It stops quickly.
He opens his mouth. Then closes it again. I don’t think he knows how to explain. Perhaps he hasn’t quite fathomed it yet? Sometimes you can feel you’re just about to grasp something, but then it disappears. Does he have that feeling, too?
“To tell a story well,” he continues, “means when the language, or more exactly the words, complement each other and the plot. When they sound well together, like a good tune. When they have a ring, and when the rhythm is fine and tickles the ears. There are many ways it can be done. Andersen had his own special way.”
“Isn’t there only one way to lay bricks?”
“There are many! I think everyone has their own way. That’s what it’s all about: finding your own voice. If you can do that, then you can write well.”
“Shouldn’t one imitate Andersen?”
He shakes his head. “That’s when it will fail, and fail miserably!”
He looks like he’s been given a turn. “But it’s as well to read him and see how he does things.”
We sit quietly. Then I ask: “So Hans Christian Andersen found his own voice?”
“He did, but it took a long time. The first things he wrote were magnificent. Novels, plays and poems, but he hadn’t yet found his own voice. Not quite.”
“You told me about that. About The Walking Tour. Just after he’d finished school.”
“Exactly,” he said. “And later came his novel The Improviser, and in no time at all he was famous all over Europe.”
A strange title. “What does improviser mean?”
“An improviser is someone who makes things up on the spot. That’s called improvising. Andersen had been called an improviser. And it wasn’t meant as a compliment.”
“Who called him that?”
“I think it was Hertz.”
“The one the Collin family thought better of?”
“Yes, but the most important thing was that he began to write fairy tales. And even more important: the fairy tales were written for children. The two things together were exactly what gave him his own special voice.
“So it takes a long time to find your voice?”
“I think so. It certainly took Andersen a long time. But all that he wrote prior to that was important, too. It was what had to be done in preparation, to make it possible for him to find his voice.”
He hesitates. Then continues: “There’s a famous example that’s always used to illustrate when Andersen found his voice.” He goes over to the bookcase, returns, opens the book, flicks through the pages and says: “I’ll read you a little excerpt from the fairy tale called The Galoshes of Fortune.”

Inside one of the houses close to King’s Newmarket a party was being given, a very large party whose purpose, like that of so many others, was to secure the others’ reciprocal invitations for the season.

That’s what Andersen wrote first, but then he changed it, and now it reads like this:

It was in Copenhagen, in one of the houses on East Street, not far from King’s Newmarket, that someone was giving a large party. For one must give a party once in a while, if one expects to be invited in return.[1]

“Can you hear the difference?”
I really can! “It’s quicker,” I say.
He nods.
“It’s like he’s talking,” I say.
He smiles. His whole face is smiling: “Exactly! That’s precisely what’s happened! And it means the reader is drawn right into the story. He can’t resist. He has to read on. In those days not many people thought that was a proper way to write. On the contrary! His friends told him not to. They wanted him to write as he had done in The Improviser, that had made him famous all over Europe. They were afraid he would ruin his good reputation as a writer. And it had all only just started. But Andersen persevered. He continued working on his fairy tales in his own way, and now everyone agrees that using everyday language, the way it’s actually spoken, was just the right thing.”
I’m taking notes. “The year?” Ruth wants a year.
“The year? How do you mean?”
“The year he found his voice.”
“That’s hard to say, but the first fairy tales came out in 1835.”
I jot down: 1835.
“You see,” he continues, “when the plot is good and surprising, full of unusual ideas and told in a lively manner, in a language like music, then it will be a good tale. Andersen was really quite daring when he put in everyday language and exclamations. Things like: Hi ho! Now it’s common, but in those days it wasn’t. And there’s another thing!” He looks right at me. I must listen carefully now: “It’s amusing! It’s humorous! And in a special way. His very own way of being amusing. The fairy tales are always, almost always, amusing. Not in the way of Laurel and Hardy throwing custard pies at each other, but amusing in another, more subdued way. He said so himself: Humour is the salt of my tales.”
“The salt?”
“It’s an expression. It means what’s important!”
Then Marie is my salt! But I don’t say so out loud.
“His diary is funny, too. You know he was very tall, and when he sailed to Germany on his first journey abroad, he lay stretched out during the night on a long bunk that was meant for three. At one end he was asked to keep his head to himself, and at the other to keep his legs to himself. Can you picture that?”
I can. He has to bend and curl and crumple himself up.
“And always, whether he’s sending up an emperor or poking fun at an old plaything, one senses he’s fond of those he’s being witty about. He feels for them. He understands their weaknesses and is forgiving of them.”
“And one more thing! Even though the fairy tales are amusing, beneath the surface they are deeply serious and tell us that despite all hardship and misery, the world is good, for a loving God always makes sure all is well in the end!”
“Always?”
“Always, even when it ends badly, it ends well!”
“I don’t get it!”
“Try reading The Story of a Mother, then you’ll understand what I mean. The way in which he tells the tale is uplifting, even though it ends unhappily and even though it makes you sad. Because you sense that despite all the hardship and misery there is nonetheless a meaning.”
So one can be both happy and sad at the same time, I think to myself. Then I ask: “Is there a meaning?”
“Certainly!”
“What is the meaning?”
“For Hans Christian Andersen it was God, and His doing what is best for us!”
I look up at him.
“Occasionally Hans Christian Andersen would doubt. Especially when he became old. But whenever he began to doubt he always ended up believing in God again, and then he would apologize to God for having doubted. When he was a child and a young man, he believed in God much as a little child who doesn’t know anything other than that God is up in heaven looking down and watching over us.”
“But he didn’t go on believing like that?”
“Not quite.”
We sit quietly. I’m making a note.
“It was God who gave him his voice. That’s what I believe he thought,” says my father. “In The Fairy Tale of My Life he writes in the very first paragraph of the very first page: The history of my life will say to the world what it says to me: there is a loving God, who directs all things to the best.”
I can see it before my eyes: God finds Andersen’s voice and hands it down through the clouds to place it on his tongue. From there, it descends into his arm, out into his fingers, into the pen, into the ink and onto the white paper.
“And there’s another thing, too!”
My word! I take up my pencil.
“Another secret is that the fairy tales are written for both children and adults. Andersen says that the children have the fun parts, while the grown-ups are given something to think about.”
I see. But didn’t he think that children could grasp the serious parts? I ask: “Is that a secret? That the fairy tales are written for both children and adults?”
He smiles. “Not at all. But it’s a fine thing. It enlivens the tales.”
I note down. I must talk to Marie about this!
“You see, there’s the plot,” he continues. “And there’s the language, there’s his compassion for his characters, there’s the humour. And the most important thing is that it all hangs together so well. It can’t be taken apart. The humour is in the language, and so is the compassion, often in the same sentence. And then there is God. God is behind everything and inside every little letter and comma. God is the heart of the fairy tale. If one takes away the heart, the tale will die!”
It can’t be taken apart, I think to myself. I don’t want to be taken apart either. Perhaps only to take out my heart and give it to Marie.
My father has gone over to the bookcase. He’s searching for something. He doesn’t hear what I’m thinking.
“Writing meant everything to him. Listen to what he wrote in the diary: Dreamt I was writing and the letters set fire to the paper.
“Did he dream that?” I ask.
“Indeed, there was so very much at work. The letters set fire to the paper. Just like the tin soldier and the paper dancer caught light. You’ll recall they were transformed by the fire. Do you remember the tin heart? Reading Hans Christian Andersen transforms us in much the same way. The flames rise up from the paper and catch into our hearts.”


© Louis Jensen & Høst & Søns Forlag, 2004
Translation © Martin Aitken, 2009

[1] Jean Hersholt’s translation in The Complete Andersen, 1949.

the host

My translation of Stephenie Meyer's mega-seller The Host will soon be done. The equivalent title is pretty naff in Danish, so most likely it'll be called De vandrende sjæle [The Wandering Souls]. Here's how it starts, as yet unedited:

Healerens navn var Fords Deep Waters.
Fordi han var en sjæl, var han efter sin natur godheden selv – medfølende, tålmodig, ærlig, retskaffen, og fuld af kærlighed. Angst var en usædvanlig følelse hos Fords Deep Waters.
Irritation var endnu sjældnere. Men fordi Fords Deep Waters levede inde i en menneskekrop, var irritation somme tider uundgåelig.
Eleverne hviskede, så det summede i det modsatte hjørne af operationsstuen og fik ham til at presse læberne sammen i en tynd streg. Udtrykket føltes malplaceret på en mund, som ellers var mere vant til smil.
Darren, hans sædvanlige assistent, bemærkede hans grimasse og klappede ham på skulderen.
”De er jo bare nysgerrige, Fords,” sagde han sagte.
”En indsættelse er næppe nogen interessant eller ufordrende procedure. En hvilken som helst sjæl på gaden kunne udføre den i nødstilfælde. Der er ikke noget, de kan lære ved at iagttage i dag.” Fords studsede over skarpheden i sin sædvanligvis milde stemme.
”De har jo aldrig set et voksent menneske før,” sagde Darren.