Writers – Page 4 – My Own RE:public

The other half

Somewhere in her slight, but written with almost existential urgency, 1987 memoir, Une femme, Annie Ernaux recalls how her mother, in her quest to improve the family’s standing, her striving for upward mobility in the firmly entrenched social structure of post-war France, at some stage began referring to her husband in the oh so formal language imagined (by her) to be that of the bourgeoisie. Now, having read this book in German (Eine Frau, Suhrkamp, 2019), the class difference to be discerned in the “upgrading” of (presumably in the original French) mon mari to mon époux (in German: mein (Ehe)Mann to mein Gatte), and especially in respect to the social norms of the time, is clear in the formalities of both languages, but I am not so sure how that would transpose in modern English nor how that was handled in the English translation. When did you last hear anyone casually – or seriously – referring to their “spouse”? In this respect the English formal is often confined to tax forms! And, complicated further by the social and linguistic improvements (or at least changes) of the last decade or so, I do wonder where the translation would have gone with this.

But, I divert, for it is not so much this (not uninteresting) nuance of language that concerns me, but rather how powerfully that seemingly simple but inherently complex play with words describes the life and the ambitions of Annie Ernaux’s mother, and that were so inextricable from husband and child. I read this book very much as a memorial to this life – giving it the respect and meaning in memory and reflection that it was often denied in the course of its living. And, because Ernaux’s mother is never named, it may be, more generally, read as about a woman of a certain stand and certain generation in a certain place – or any place really.

Unlike La place which I have previously written on, in which Ernaux disentangles her relationship with her father, and which is rendered with the rational distance from events and emotions that only distance in time affords, Une femme is written with immediacy and in the midst of grief and the lonely struggle against feelings of guilt and shame that that brings. But, it is also written by “a writer”, and as such Ernaux can do nothing other than write her way to some point of reconciliation; remaining attentive to her craft – assembling fragments, observations, narratives to a captivating whole. This book touched me deeply. I could write about all the “class” stuff that could be extricated from the text, but I won’t here – not now – rather I will just pay tribute to the courage of this wonderful French writer who, in confronting her own imperfect place in the world, dignifies that held by others. And gratitude, for sharing that experience that many of us have had, or will have, when faced with the realization that someone near and dear will never again exist upon this earth; one who connects us to our past, of finding ourselves for a short time or long set adrift; flaying, disoriented.

A comprehensive collection of Annie Ernaux’s work is available in English translation at Seven Stories Press.

There are many Christmas stories…

this one from Vladimir Nabakov. A mail from The New York Review of Books today offers a free read (for the moment anyway), and I quote:

“In the Review’s November 16, 1995, issue, we featured a new translation, by Dmitri Nabokov, of a 1928 short story by his father, Vladimir. “The Christmas Story,” originally published on December 25, 1928, in the Berlin Russian-language journal Rul’, tells the tale of a preeminent writer in the new USSR, a once-great master now despairing of finding a new subject in a changed world and unable to shake from his mind the image of a Christmas tree. Nabokov’s story may be read for free [here].”

The New York Review of Books, December 26, 2021.

(Update: January 12th 2022 - Unfortunately, the above link now appears to go only so far, and a subscription is required to read the complete story.)

Cover of *Bezbozhnik* in 1931 against the felling of Christmas trees

Reading this, and with the Soviet now relegated to the annals of history, and Russia in the steely grip of an autocrat and an oligarchy that accommodates (and flirts with to various degrees) the Orthodox church, Nabokov’s story is ostensibly one particular to its time. But, the symbolism of a Christmas tree, with a red star atop in jest, for instance, or as a representation of the fusion of the Church with Western capitalism, retains its resonance for the contemporary reader; for a virulent and state-mandated nationalism and anti-West (if not anti-capitalist!) tenor flourishes still in post-Soviet Russia, as it did in those post-revolutionary days at its beginnings in the midst of which the Nabakov family’s fate was mired.

And, in any era, in this time, there are countless who know and as many who can imagine, the totality of the immigrant experience – what you take with you and what you leave behind. And, the baggage is most heavy with the customs and beliefs of all those formative years preceding departure; often treasured more in the chosen land than ever done in the old country. Nabakov’s short story beautifully conveys the dichotomy of experience with which many peoples of the Soviet countries had to grapple – at home and abroad – and imagined in the person of an older, eminent writer looking for literary inspiration in an increasingly uniform and sterile society while remaining true to the system of collective will. Just as the nostalgic Novodvortsev could not escape the vision of his country folk gathered about the light and riches of a Christmas tree, nor could the comrade Novodvortsev that of the poverty and injustice lurking in its shadow. Comrade N. wins out in the end – reason, as he sees it, trumping emotional flights of fancy that would herald only trouble.

With triumphal agitation, sensing that he had found the necessary, one-and-only key, that he would write something exquisite, depict as no one had before the collision of two classes, of two worlds, he commenced writing. He wrote about the opulent tree in the shamelessly illuminated window and about the hungry worker, victim of a lockout, peering at that tree with a severe and somber gaze.
1928, Translated from the Russian by Dmitri Nabokov

The Russian émigré newspaper Rul’ was founded by Nabakov’s father in 1922 by the way, and a copy of the story as originally published – under the pen-name of Vladimir Sirin (Владимир Сирин) – is accessible here at the Berlin library (page 2 and 3). Nabakov lived in Berlin from 1922 until 1937 – a long time and an eventful time in the history of the world. His father was assassinated there, he was married and his son was born there, Berlin was the setting for his early writing and novels. But Nabakov remained ambivalent, even distrustful, of the city and its people, had few German friends, spoke the language not well and remained firmly entrenched in the Russian émigré community. Presumably, he was so lacking in knowledge of German politics and the affairs of state that the events of 1933 came as a surprise for him! We are talking about the twenties in Berlin! Party or poverty and not much in-between – well, so the common narrative. But for Nabakov, seemingly, an uninspiring time. Or is something missing in this version? I am not totally convinced. As a matter of interest, this very informative piece about the Berlin of those years is on the still active website of Dieter E. Zimmer (✝2020) – and lots of other stuff about Nabakov is also there to be explored.

Interrupted…

in the midst of Yuletide

some tidings, though not unexpected, when they do come still jolt one to the very core; so it is with the death of one of the United States’ finest writers.

Joan Didion: December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021

There could be very few who have not been bedazzled by the beauty and coolness – in structure and syntax – of Joan Didion’s prose, the integrity and incisiveness of her investigations into the American culture and society of the last half century – uncompromising, often going there where it is at its very darkest. Who could not have appreciated her intellectual brilliance and the finest sense of irony that she brought to her stories – be they fact or fiction? As I have done, how many others have cried with her and for her – because of injustices done or out of grief crying to be heard; knowing well that all those tears are really for oneself – perhaps as the writer, Didion, would have wished? As a chronicler of, not only her time and her country, but her inner self with all its contradictions and human frailties and failures, Didion has no peer. She will remain present, until she is not.

The New York Times is full of accolades – here is their obituary, and tributes from two generations -a younger represented by Parul Sehgal and, old habits die hard, Kakutani (luck or subscription whichever comes first!). ~~Available, for the moment at least,~~ ^{(edit. Jan 7 2022)} Available to subscribers, this very famous 1991 essay written for The New York Review of Books about the trial of the Central Park Five in which Didion deconstructs the prosecution’s arguments, exposing the racial profiling and the political pressures about which they erected their case. Be warned, thirty years ago long form was really that – long! And every word, every page worth it. As prescient as the issues she raises in here essay were then, regrettably they remain the reality to this day.

This afternoon I watched again Griffin Dunne’s 2017 Netflix documentary about his aunt (I had a need to return to her – Christmas or no Christmas!). Not everybody was satisfied if I remember, and it cannot help but be a labour of love, but the warts are there to be found, and I liked it. Here is the trailer on YouTube:

Now the following I haven’t seen; but also available on YouTube is the 1972 film “Play It As It Lays”, for which Didion wrote the screenplay with her husband John Gregory Dunne based on her 1970 novel.

Screenplay by Joan Didion, based on her 1970 novel of the same name.

Didion speaks of this film not very favorably – something like “not what I wrote!”- in the abovementioned documentary, but it’s there asking to be watched! (As a side note, I find myself wondering: whatever happened to Tuesday Weld?)

Everything – or nothing – to lose

With Berlin’s International Literature Festival, another cultural event made tentative steps back to normality last month. I read with great interest Leïla Slimani’s opening speech in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and fortunately it has made its way into the wide world with an English translation in pdf format available here. Also, I suppose in the interest of the “International …” bit, Slimani delivers her address in English so I have embedded the YouTube video (54:00) below. (I have to say, with opening passages that invites her listeners to join her in a thought experiment, Slimini immediately outs herself as a Virginia Woolf acolyte; for such is a technique not dissimilar to that which Woolf often used in her speeches (including those that were to form the basis of “A Room of One’s Own”). Sure enough Woolf is quickly catapulted to center stage; the direct quotes come from a wonderful 931 essay called “Professions for Women” – to be read here, and found in many anthologies of her work.)

Opening 21st International Literature Festival, Berlin, September 2021

A star of the literary scene in Europe and beyond, Leïla Slimani carefully constructs an argument that is concerned with some of the contemporary tendencies; ones that stifle constructive discourse and shy at the complexities of literature. Having encouraged us to (do a Virginia Woolf) and brutally kill off the angels within; she reminds us of the fates of the famous, the notorious, the literary heroines of yore; how little girls are molded to fit an ideal and come of age conditioned to please and in fear of transgression; how our voices are so often curtailed or silenced. And it is here, and with her own experiences, she connects with the fashionable preoccupation of renegotiating the past, of speaking at one’s own peril! For, she maintains, we must speak up, and without trepidation, without fear of reprisal (yes, of being cancelled.) Writers and artists (but we all really) must have the freedom to break down walls and resist categorizations and assumptions – and this can only be achieved when we are in command of our voice. There is more, so whether watched or read or both, Ms. Slimani’s words are well worthy of our time and thought.

Having now done so, and following the recent talk surrounding Slimani’s new book, In the Country of Others, the first of a trilogy and this one set mostly in post-World War II Morocco, and with very much familial biographical elements, I surprise myself by the realization that I have not read any of her work (slender though it is; to date only three novels) – even successfully “not reading” Lullaby (The Perfect Nanny in the US) her controversial, prize-winning and best-selling novel of a children-murdering nanny (well, that’s the short version, presumably there is much more to it than that). Why I deemed this a success on my part I couldn’t say. Subject matter? Aversion to hype? The first would imply an over-sensitivity that I would be quick to deny; the second, an affliction that I have often overcome. Whatever the reason, its status suggested it as an appropriate literary starter. But alas, at least here in Germany, it remains so popular that I must wait my turn at the local library.

However, the German translation of her 2015 first novel Dans le jardin de l’ogres, which was published outside France in 2019 after the success of Lullaby, was available. All das zu verlieren, meaning literally in English “everything to lose” and which was published as Adèle in English, was certainly a difficult introduction to this lauded writer. Normally, perhaps, I would have read the dust-jacket blurb and thought: well, rather not. (I swear I am of an age where I struggle with contemporary twenty-somethings or thirty-somethings with husbands or wives and/or lovers, kids, parents – none of whom understand them – doing what they sincerely believe to be radical!) What could this Adèle, for that is the thirty-something (with husband and child, et cetera) subject’s name, have to say to me?

Angela Merkel and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From the previous post – in Dresden with a Baroque master one day and the evening prior in Düsseldorf with a contemporary literary superstar. As I suggested: some of the perks of higher office!

As I post, I haven’t as yet seen this video, but the event has been well reported upon in Germany and I hear tell it was a successful meeting of two outwardly very different women – of different generations and heritage – but both of whom during the last decade or so have found (international) fame and influence, and a search for (and finding of) commonality that included, beyond their respective crafts of State and art, a quiet and personal discussion on grief springing from Adichie’s essay (now book) that I have previously discussed and an open and sincere invitation from Adichie for the soon to be ex-Bundeskanzlerin to visit Nigeria, that is, with all the freedoms and interests of the private person.

Mixed emotions

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: on grief…and then, if that wasn’t enough…!

A couple of weeks ago I caught Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on BBC Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour (03 June 2021, still online as I write, at about 02:40 in) speaking on her new book Notes on Grief. I see here on the Penguin Random House website that it is only a very slim work and, as I presumed, is an extension of her very fine essay in The New Yorker which I addressed last year. Sadly, Adichie’s grief over the death of her father was not the last she would suffer in this wretched year of reckoning for many; revealed now is the very recent death of her mother. For her, only some consolation in being at home in Nigeria on this latter occasion, and not impeded in sharing the physical near that is as much a part of death as it is life.

With Emma, Adichie wonders aloud; that death should so surprise, so devastate, when it is assured to all and every one of us; that this thing called grief, springing as it does from love, can cause such visceral hurt; of the realization that when grief retreats to the private crevices of memory, the own life left with in its wake is fundamentally other. And, the banality of the “speech” of grief – given and received. This, not so much of the euphemistic as applied often to death, and as brilliantly parodied by Monty Python in the famous dead-parrot sketch, but an act of avoidance, of (not) saying out aloud what can not be said – of confronting the one great absolute.

Extract from “Notes on Grief” read by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

And, now, for something completely different! But staying with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Reported on here in The Guardian, and finding resonance through the international media, was Adichie’s furious essay excoriating, specifically, two writers who (she claims) have abused her friendship and/or collegiality and, more generally, an increasingly pretentious and self-absorbed younger generation (too much of a generalization here perhaps) who use social media outlets to pontificate on the latest orthodoxy; using the language of parrots (I can’t believe I’m back with the parrots!) rather than that of personal reflection, denying the complexity of living a life – or lives (and I am not thinking reincarnation! But now I am thinking about attacking the convoluted pronoun argument some time soon!). Suffice to say, Adichie’s piece was met with support by some and scorned by others.

I should add, that this whole fracas has roots in Adichie’s comments on transgender women – in 2017! – that were considered by some to be trans-phobic. (I will not dignify this assertion with the paltry evidence that the offending quote offers.) This mini-kerfuffle escaped my attention then, though I seem to remember Adichie’s voice as one (of reason) in the contentious, never-ending rigmarole surrounding J.K. Rowling and her last Tweet, next Tweet, no tweeting at all. Forgive me, but so ludicrous have some of these identity debates, or rabble rousing under the guise of such, become! No longer are they concerned with respect and kindness, or interested in a fair exchange, instead have everything to do with who is the loudest, who next can be vilified – or better still “cancelled”!

Here’s to you Toni Morrison…

Born February 18th, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, Toni Morrison would have celebrated her 90th birthday today. She won’t be doing that of course, but very many far and wide will give pause for thought this day and raise a glass in her honour, and remember a most remarkable writer and woman.

And that is what The New York Times does with their “Essential Toni Morrison” today, from which I quote.

…The questions [posed in a 2002 lecture] seem wholly relevant : “To what do we pay greatest allegiance? Family, language group, culture, country, gender? Religion, race? And if none of these matter, are we urbane, cosmopolitan, or simply lonely? In other words, how do we decide where we belong? What convinces us that we do?”
In everything Morrison wrote, she offered narratives that revealed the journeys of characters, specific but universal, flawed and imperfect, with a deeply American desire for freedom and adventure. One might say that because her characters were almost exclusively African-American, the quest to be free — in mind, body and spirit — was the consistent adventure. She was also a masterful crafter of windows; when you opened a book of hers, the worlds you entered were so rich with detail, you could feel the molecules around you change as if you’d just taken a long flight and were descending onto the tarmac in a town or city where you’d never been…
Veronica Chambers, The New York Times, Feb. 18 2021

The fine introduction by Veronica Chambers leads on to a selection of works, each accompanied by equally thoughtful text. For those, especially younger people who are encountering Toni Morrison for the first time, perhaps at college or of their own volition, the piece offers some guidance as to where to start, and for us others a reminder to return to Morrison again and again, and find in one of her stories or essays that which we only now “get” with the passing of time and an accumulation of knowledge and experience.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Barnes!

“Der Mann in roten Rock” [Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2021]

As the years proceed, birthday greetings – given and received – become almost perfunctory, and especially so when they are between peoples unknown; a ritualistic give and take encouraged by the echo of an omnipresent media. But, an interview with Julian Barnes in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (on the publication in German of The Man in the Red Coat), alerted me to his approaching seventy-fifth birthday; and that it falls on this 19th January day. Much more than just an admired romancier and essayiste; a very favourite person who had the right words to share with me when I most needed them. So, here, I simply remember that; and to no-one in particular, I say: Happy Birthday, Mr. Barnes!