fruelund, river and sound, redivider

Talking of Three Percent, they just directed me on to a new online journal called River and Sound. It looks great. First off, they even have Simon Fruelund's excellent piece Phosphorescence, translated by K. E. Semmel. Read it here>>. Incidentally, Fruelund's short novel Borgerligt tusmørke is well worth a read. Maybe someone will put it out in English. Maybe K. E. Semmel should translate it. Maybe I should.

And now I see that another of Semmel's translations of Fruelund's stories - What is it? - is out here>> in Redivider, a journal I didn't even know about until now. But then, I never did want to know everything.

inger christensen exists

Inger Christensen, Denmark's major modern poet, died a few months back. Her monumental poems Alphabet, It and Butterfly Valley: A Requiem are all available in award-winning English translations by Susanne Nied. Now, Denise Newman has translated Christensen's novel Azorno for US publishers New Directions. It's reviewed here on Three Percent. Newman's translation of Christensen's novel The Painted Room came out in 2000.

There's a five-minute clip from Jytte Rex' 1998 portrait Inger Christensen - Cikaderne findes here>> (Danish).

jørgen leth / from 'sports poems'

FAUSTO COPPI

Fausto coppi
was a fantastic human
most at ease entirely alone

When he attacked in the mountains
no-one could follow him, he
was a fantastic human

Departed early,
fausto coppi
fausto coppi



from Sportsdigte [Sports Poems] (1967)

© Jørgen Leth & Gyldendal, 1967
Translation © Martin Aitken, 2009

what I do when I translate

1.
There are some thoughts in a mind. The thoughts are joined. The thoughts are joined into something meaningful. The meaning is not necessarily determinate. The mind represents the meaning in language. The mind represents it in words joined into sentences. The sentences are uttered. Now there are some words on paper. There are utterances on paper. There are utterances joined into text. The text is a representation of some thoughts in a mind.

The text is not an exact representation of the thoughts in the mind. The text does not fully encode the meaning. The words and the sentences are semantically underdetermined. They are not big enough on their own to contain all the meaning. They are blueprints for understanding. The utterances and the text may convey some or all or none of the intended meaning.

2.
There are some words on paper. There is a text. The text is an input to a decoding process. Decoding delivers a semantic template representing the encoded content of the words and sentences. The representation is a semantic representation that is underdetermined in relation to the meaning. It falls short of the meaning. The mind fills in the gaps by means of inference. The text means nothing without a mind to fill in the gaps.

The mind represents the text by combining the decoded semantic content with assumptions about the world and the possible intentions of the writer. It adds things up and works things out and makes informed guesses. The representations so delivered are contextually determined. They may bear some greater or lesser degree of resemblance to the writer’s intended meaning.

3.
They may bear some greater or lesser degree of resemblance to the writer’s intended meaning.

4.
The number of representations of the text is equal to the number of readers of the text.

5.
What am I translating? What am I not translating?

6.
I am translating my representations of the text. My representations of the text may bear some greater or lesser degree of resemblance to the writer’s intended meaning. I am striving to encode my representations of the text in another text. I am striving to encode my representations of the text in words and sentences whose encoded semantic content will provide an input to decoding and inference that is as similar as possible to that provided by the words and sentences in the original text. I am striving to encode my representations of the text in words and sentences that are stylistically as similar as possible to those in the original text.

7.
I am not trying to encode the thoughts in the writer’s mind. I have no direct access to the thoughts in the writer’s mind. The writer can only convey to me the nature of the thoughts in her mind by encoding her representations of those thoughts in language.

8.
I am doing my best to produce a text that provides just the right input to cognitive processing as will yield representations as similar as possible to my own representations of the original text.

9.
That’s it.

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.