Traditore
An apposite follow-up to the previous post: I have just looked up the Russian translation of Perec’s “La disparition” and it is NOT a lipogram.
An apposite follow-up to the previous post: I have just looked up the Russian translation of Perec’s “La disparition” and it is NOT a lipogram.
In my opinion, you don’t have to be mad to translate, but it probably helps. Take, for instance, the case of the late, great Gilbert Adair. He was translating into English the brilliant novel by Georges Perec, “La Disparition” – a lipogram written entirely without the letter “e.” Adair even succeeded, for a while, in deleting “e” from his vocabulary. I met him for tea in London, while he was in the midst of it, at the Savoy hotel (it had to be the Savoy, not Claridge’s or the Grosvenor, obviously). When a waitress came around and asked if he would like “tea or coffee,” he frowned, gritted his teeth, and replied, “Lapsang souchong.
Time trickles slowly in the belly of the earth. Up above, night must have descended on the fields because Bibi can see stars twinkle shy through the well’s mouth—diamond dust scattered across a circle of darkening sky. Bibi remembers someone on TV saying that a person could see stars from the bottom of a well even on the brightest summer noon. Perhaps it isn’t night after all… But so much time has passed since they fell. How could it be day up there, when down here, it is so dark?
It is also cool, and damp, and full of elemental smells: earth and water, and the tangible darkness of air that enters your body as you breathe and spreads with the flow of blood, night taking you over. Bibi cannot see their body but she imagines beautiful black streaks branching out just underneath the skin, as if someone filled their veins with ink. Muira would not like this. She is squeamish; everything’s got to be just so with her. If only she could care less about such things, maybe the fresh breeze that flows over fields, not this stale inky night, would be filling their lungs right now.
What rhymes with “Grimes”?
There was no way I was going to fit through Hell’s gate.
The tiny devil guarding it must have realized it. The gate’s top barely reached my knees. Still, he went on bleating in a voice that tried desperately to be menacing:
“—and all your sins shall now be repaid, and all your iniquities shall be re-visited upon your head a thousandfold, and all your evil deeds—”
“Hey,” I said. “Are you sure I’m in the right place?”
“You are in Hell, sinner!” he thundered. Or tried to thunder. It’s hard to do when you have a tinny voice.
The phone rang again at three o’clock in the morning.
“Mr. Martin?” a Japanese-accented voice inquired on the other end.
Moan.
“I am Mr. Takahashi, calling from Mezamashi TV. We have a proposition for you.”
Groan.
“We would like to invite you to our show. Fly you to Tokyo. You are highly popular here. Our viewers want to see more. We pay all expenses. Big royalties, VIP treat. Do you accept?”
After that, the routine was set. For the next several days, his comings and goings were observed by an ever-present, ever-changing audience. They kept a respectful distance, although on a couple of occasions, some of them did follow him to and from work, provoking curious stares from passers-by. Some local girl, intrigued by this entourage, stopped him and asked point blank if he was famous. He said no, but she demanded an autograph anyway. He walked to the office with mixed feelings.
The first bus arrived the following Monday.
Chloe was in love with Mike; her mother hated it, of course, but that made Chloe love Mike even more. To her chagrin (and her mother’s delight) Mike seemed to have forgotten all about Chloe. He had met Hannah, and Lucy, and Mareike. All that was left to Chloe was heartache, which lead, perversely, to an even stronger infatuation with Mike. Copious quantities of ice cream could temporarily quell her misery, but even that was working less and less. Chloe, to state the problem briefly, was a mess.
Which is why she put her job on the line. It seemed so easy: the words that she composed every week would just this one time bend to serve her good fortune, not others’. By the time her lapse was noticed, the newspaper was already being distributed to morning commuters on every street corner.
Strolling home from the train station on a clear day in July, Martin saw an Asian couple standing outside his house, snapping pictures.
He immediately knew they were tourists. There is a funny air about tourists, even when they aren’t wielding hefty 55-millimeter wide-angle cameras. The most nondescript of them still seem out of place. It’s hard to say why: something about their clothes, their hair, their demeanor. The Asian couple looked like they didn’t belong.
Brian is sitting on a park bench on top of a hill, where the trees are sparse. Behind him is a tall wall with bas-reliefs of mythical animals. He chose this place carefully; there is little chance anyone can sneak up on him here.
It’s a chilly day, so Brian’s green jacket is zippered all the way up. He has his hands in the jacket pockets. One hand is clasping a gun. The other, a pocket-size time machine.
Brian is waiting for the other to show up. It shouldn’t be long now.
