Translator, editor, and writer Sally Laird died last month in Denmark. NYRB publishes her translation of Vladimir Sorokin's The Queue, but Sally's contribution to the series (and to the dissemination of Central European) goes further, in the form of her participation in the Central European Classics series, without which the English-speaking world might never have had the chance to become acquainted with fine and fascinating writers like Gyula Krúdy, Dezso Kosztolányi, Jan Neruda, and Boleslaw Prus.

For an overview of her life and career, see the Guardian's obituary, which far from being simply a clinical tally of a life, is movingly written by Kate Kellaway

At The Index on Censorship (a journal she once edited) Robert Chandler writes:

Sally was unusually gifted in many ways, probably in more ways than I know. Whatever she set her mind to — a large portfolio of drawings of a family of bears produced at the age of thirteen, her work as chief editor of Index on Censorship in her late twenties and early thirties, the many reviews on Russia-related books that she wrote for Prospect, the TLS, the Guardian and the Observer — she carried out conscientiously and with imagination. Her translations of Petrushevaksaya and Sorokin are note perfect. And I know no book that presents a more nuanced picture of Soviet literary life in the post-Stalin years than Sally’s Voices of Russian Literature: Interviews with Ten Contemporary Writers.

And of her own work on The Queue, a highly idiomatic book she had the opportunity to revise (following Sorokin's own revisions to the text) twenty years after the initial translation, she wrote perceptively about the interplay between the form and content of a story that at first might appear  as improvised and insubstantial as the human line it records:

A novel so firmly anchored in time and place, and which relies entirely on colloquial speech, poses certain problems to the translator....The people in Sorokin’s queue speak in laconic, ritualized utterances perfectly suited to their survival in the context, but not always easily transferable to English. Still, what one might call the “deep grammar” of the book—to want, to wait, to be thwarted, to get—is universal; it forms the basis for our compassion.

For more memories of Sally Laird, read the complete text of Robert Chandler's tribute and also the comments left below.

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Back from our summer hiatus and catching up with some things we've been meaning to post. Here's an item that's really fun: a profile of Stephen Benatar at the BBC World Service. If you've read any profiles of our lovely and lively living author, you know that he has sold thousands of copies of his books simply by charming the pants off of unsuspecting bookstore shoppers—and even that that's the way we found out about Wish Her Safe at Home. Well here a reporter shadows Mr. Benatar as he pitches his books at a London Waterstones with mixed success but without losing his charm.

Listen to the profile of Stephen Benatar at the BBC World Service
(start listening at the 9:96 point)

Times (London) profile of Stephen Benatar from earlier this year.

Speaking of the abysmal sales of even the most deserving writers, Library of America's newish blog reminds us on the anniversary of the publication of Walden that even the überbestseller Henry David Thoreau suffered from lack of recognition. As Thoreau notes in his Journal, the publisher of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers returned to him 706 copies of the initial 1,000 print run: "I now have a library of nearly 900 volumes, over 700 of which I wrote myself."

But back to Stephen Benatar, who wouldn't have us writing about other writers when we're supposed to be writing about him. In a post titled "On My Debt to Stephen Benatar, British Novelist," Anne Britting Oleson describes meeting the writer in 1989, when he was an umbrella salesman and writes about their brief correspondence and how his encouragement helped her in her own writing.

Not mentioned in any of Stephen Benatar's recent press is the happy news that Capuchin Classics will be reissuing another of his books, When I Was Otherwise, in the UK next year.

Stephen Benatar's Wish Her Safe at Home is currently part of the "Unforgettable Women" collection at nyrb.com—which means that you can get it (along with books by Brian Moore, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Janet Hobhouse for a mere $36.51).

Ella, who writes the blog Dance to the Revolution has won the Thoreau shirt, courtesy of Novel-T. Congratualtions Ella and thanks to all who entered.* 

Ella's passage, "It is the love of virtue makes us young ever. That is the fountain of youth," is not part of the NYRB edition of the Journal, but another passage from the entry from which it was taken, July 16th, 1851, is, and since the date is only a few days from today, it seems especially fitting to post some of it.

Methinks my present experience is nothing; my past experience is all in all. I think that no experience which I have to-day comes up to, or is comparable with, the experiences of my boyhood. And not only this is true, but as far back as I can remember I have unconsciously referred to the experiences of a previous state of existence. My life was ecstasy. In youth, before I lost any of my senses, I can remember that I was all alive, and inhabited my body with inexpressible satisfaction; both its weariness and its refreshment were sweet to me. I can remember how I was astonished. I looked in books for some recognition of a kindred experience, but, strange to say, I found none. With all your science can you tell how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?
    Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them. They are important as introducing children to the fields and woods, and as wild fruits of which much account is made. During the berry season the schools have a vacation, and many little fingers are busy picking these small fruits. It is ever a pastime, not a drudgery. I remember how glad I was when I was kept from school a half a day to pick huckleberries on a neighboring hill all by myself to make a pudding for the family dinner. Ah, they got nothing but the pudding, but I got invaluable experience beside! A half a day of liberty like that was like the promise of life eternal. It was emancipation in New England. O, what a day was there, my countrymen!

*In case anyone is curious about our methodology, here's how the winner was chosen: all the entries were assigned a number, starting at 1, first the people who posted to the blog, and then on to those who posted to the Facebook page. The numbers were entered into the random number generator at random.org and number 8 came up)

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In which ask: Was HDT a founding member of the Corduroy Appreciation Club? Did he look anything like this fella?

(and let you know that July 12, 2010 is the last day to post (here! not here!) your favorite passage from The Journal of Henry David Thoreau in order to be entered to win a snazzy baseball t-shirt courtesy of Novel-T).

May 8, 1857

Within a week I have had made a pair of corduroy pants, which cost when done $1.60. They are of that peculiar clay-color, reflecting the light from portions of their surface. They have this advantage, that, beside being very strong, they will look about as well three months hence as now,—or as ill, some would say. Most of my friends are disturbed by my wearing them. I can get four or five pairs for what one ordinary pair would cost in Boston, and each of the former will last two or three times as long under the same circumstances. The tailor said that the stuff was not made in this country; that it was worn by the Irish at home, and now they would not look at it, but others would not wear it, durable and cheap as it is, because it is worn by the Irish. Moreover, I like the color on other accounts. Anything but black clothes. The birds and beasts are not afraid of me now. A mink came within twenty feet of me the other day as soon as my companion had left me, and if I had had my gray sack on as well as my corduroys, it would perhaps have come quite up to me.

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In honor of the 4th annual celebration of Pollinator Week, we bring you an excerpt from Ernst Jünger's prescient novel, The Glass Bees. In this section, the book's narrator, called to a job interview at the house of industrialist/entertainer Zapparoni (imagine Walt Disney with a sideline in weapons of mass destruction), notices an odd buzz in the air.

(Jünger, by the way, fought during World War I, and died only in 1998—he saw some action during the Second World War as well, and a little later, in hanging out with Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD.)

The bees seemed to have finished their siesta; the air was filled with their humming. They were searching for food in the meadow, sweeping in clouds over the foaming flood of whiteness which stood high over the grass, or dipping into its colorful depth. They hung in clusters on the white jasmine which bordered the path; and out of the blossoming maple beside the pavilion their swarming sounded as if it came from the interior of some huge bell which reverberates for a long time after its midday peal. There was no lack of blossoms; it was one of those years when beekeepers say that “the fenceposts give honey.”

And yet there was something strange in these peaceful activities.... As I sat there, watching the swarms, I sometimes saw creatures flying past which seemed to differ in an odd way from the usual types. I can rely on my eyesight: I have tested it—and not only when hunting game birds. Now, it wasn’t difficult for me to follow one of these creatures until it descended upon a flower. Then I saw, with the help of my field glasses, that I had not been deceived.

Although, as I said before, I know only a few insects, I at once had the impression of something undreamed-of, something extremely bizarre—the impression, let us say, of an insect from the moon. A demiurge from a distant realm, who had once heard of bees, might have created it.

I had plenty of time to examine this creature, and similar ones were now arriving from all directions like workmen at the gate of a factory when a siren blows. At first I was struck by the large size of these bees. Although they were not as big as those which Gulliver met in Brobdingnag—he defended himself against them with his little sword—they were considerably larger than a normal bee or even a hornet. They were about the size of a walnut still encased in its green shell. The wings were not movable like the wings of birds or insects, but were arranged around their bodies in a rigid band, and acted as stabilizing and supporting surfaces.

Their large size was less striking than one might think, since they were completely transparent. Indeed, my idea of them was derived mainly from the glitter of their movements as seen in the sunlight. When the creature I now watched hovered before the blossom of a convolvulus whose calyx it tapped with a tongue shaped like a glass probe, it was almost invisible.

This sight fascinated me to such a degree that I forgot time and place. We are gripped by a similar astonishment when we see a machine which reveals a ne

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The new cover art is in honor of the animated movie My Dog Tulip, which features the voice of Christopher Plummer as J.R. Ackerley, along with Isabella Rossellini, Lynn Redgrave, and Brian Murray in smaller roles. Veteran animators Paul and Sandra Fierlinger animate and direct.

Don't worry, the portrait of Ackerley, with his "Alsatian bitch" Queenie (Tulip's real name) gazing up at him with hearts in her eyes isn't gone, it's just moved to the frontispiece.

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The illustrator Eric Hanson has a madcap style, reminiscent of the work of Ben Shahn, so we were very pleased when the opportunity to have him bring to life the anarchic Edie Cares, heroine of Terrible, Horrible Edie (clearly she had no part in the naming of the book). Eric recently sent us some of the early ideas for Edie, and we thought we'd share them with you.

By the way, Eric Hanson doesn't just have a blog and illustrate books (though he's just done the cover of John Waters's memoir, making Mr. Waters and Edie siblings of sorts), he's also written a book. It's called A Book of Ages, and will help you realize that you haven't done much with your life, no matter how old you are.

          

 

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Yesterday Brian Moore's Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne went on sale, along with Alexandros Papdiamantis's Murderess. We couldn't help note both books concern the plight of powerless women living in patriarchal societies—and that they were both written by men. Judge for yourself whether these male writers have done justice to their subjects.

In this excerpt from The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, Miss Hearne runs into a tenant from her boarding house as they leave Mass.

She watched him as he walked on, saw his face smile, saw it turn cold and serious. What could he be thinking of? He seemed to be trying to remember something, perhaps an engagement, perhaps an excuse to leave her. For eventually, they all made some excuse. But when they reached the end of the street, he turned and took off his broad-brimmed hat.

“I guess you’ve got a lot of things to do,” he said. “You going back to the house?”

“O, yes. But I go to see my friends, the O’Neills, every Sunday afternoon. He’s a professor at the university, you know. A very clever man. I used to know him when we were children. And now he’s married with a lovely family of his own.”

Why did I say that, she thought, why? But it was her old fault, the old boasts, the shields against pity, against being forced to say that nobody wanted to see you that particular day. The old mistake. Now he would go away.

“That so?” His face showed disappointment.

She tried to undo it: to let him know that life was not all gay friends.

“It’s so nice to have someone to visit occasionally when one lives alone.”

It was a forward thing to say, but she had to come out with it some time: besides, it was the truth, although nobody liked to admit being lonely. How many times before had she turned men away by her habit of boasting, of pretending that she had a good time all the time and needed no one. Looking at him, tall, no longer young, with his rough-red face and his built-up shoe, she knew that he would be easily turned away, that he had not stayed so long alone without something of herself in him. And maybe, although it was a thing you could hardly bear to think about, like death or your last judgment, maybe he would be the last one ever and he would walk away now and it would only be a question of waiting for it all to end and hoping for better things in the next world. But that was silly, it was never too late. And so she waited, pretending not to see him lift his hand to say good bye, waited for something, for some little chance to keep him.

And in this excerpt from

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Damion Searls, editor and mastermind behind our edition of Thoreau's Journal, sat down to talk about Thoreau with Christopher Lydon. The podcast is called Radio Open Source, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Listen to the podcast.

Also: remember to post your favorite excerpt from Thoreau's Journal to be entered in a drawing to win a Thoreau baseball t-shirt from Novel-Ts. More details here.

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Yuri Olesha's Envy, the funniest novel you'll ever read about the quest for the perfect means of mass producing sausage, has as its dramatic center a soccer match between the USSR and Germany. In the passage below, Volodya is the shlub of a narrator's rival, and Goetske is the flamboyant star of the opposing team. The playing styles of the two men are contrasted, each, perhaps, reflecting the spirit of his home country.

Volodya would catch the ball in midflight, when it seemed mathematically impossible. The entire audience, the entire living slope of the stands seemed to get steeper; each spectator was halfway to his feet, impelled by a terrible, impatient desire to see, at last, the most interesting thing—the scoring of a goal. The referees were sticking whistles into their lips as they walked, ready to whistle for a goal...Volodya wasn’t catching the ball, he was ripping it from its line of flight, like someone who has violated the laws of physics and was hit by the stunning action of thwarted forces. He would fly up with the ball, spinning around, literally screwing himself up on it. He would grab the ball with his entire body—knees, belly, and chin—throwing his weight at the speed of the ball, the way someone throws a rag down to put out a flame. The usurped speed of the ball would throw Volodya two meters to the side, and he would fall like a firecracker. The opposing forwards would run at him, but ultimately the ball would end up high above the fray.
    Volodya stayed inside the goal. He couldn’t just stand there, though. He walked the line of the goal from post to post, trying to tamp down the surge of energy from his battle with the ball. Everything was roaring inside him. He swung his arms, shook himself, kicked up a clump of earth with his toe. Elegant before the start of the game, he now consisted of rags, a black body, and the leather of his huge, fingerless gloves. The breaks didn’t last long. Once again the Germans’ attack would roll toward Moscow’s goal. Volodya passionately desired victory for his team and worried about each of his players. He thought that only he knew how you should play against Goetske, what his weak points were, how to defend against his attacks. He was also interested in what opinion the famous German was forming about the Soviet game. When he himself clapped and shouted “hurray” to each of his backs, he felt like shouting to Goetske then: “Look how we’re playing! Do you think we’re playing well?”
    As a soccer player, Volodya was Goetske’s exact opposite. Volodya was a professional athlete; the other was a professional player. What was important to Volodya was the overall progress of the game, the overall victory, the outcome; Goetske was anxious merely to demonstrate his art. He was an old hand who was not there to support the team’s honor; he treasured only his own success; he was not a permanent member of any sports organization because he had compromised himself by moving from club to club for money. He was barred from participating in play-off matches. He was invited only for friendly games, exhibition games, and trips to other countries. He combined art and luck. His presence made a team dangerous. He despised the other players—both his side and his opponents. He knew he could kick a goal against any team. The rest didn’t matter to him. He was a hack.

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We're giving away a handsome baseball t-shirt, courtesy of Novel-T, and all you have to do is post your favorite excerpt from Henry David Thoreau's Journal here before July 12th (HDT's birthday).

Please cite the date of the entry. The passage need not appear in the NYRB Classics edition of The Journal, but it must be from that work. A winner will be chosen at random. Sorry international readers, this contest is only open to people with US or Canadian mailing addresses.

And please take a moment to browse around the Novel-T shop, they've recently released a second roster of literary tops and they donate $1 of every purchase to 826 NYC, 826NYC, "a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills."

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Every now and then our translators manage to shut down their computers, put the dust-cover on the typewriter, and talk about their work in the wild.

First, Larry Korn—who lived on Masanobu Fukuoka's farm in Japan in the 1970s and returned to the US, where he translated The One Straw Revolution and spread his sensei's teachings—will co-teach a two-week intensive permaculture design course at Restoration Farm in Oregon, beginning June 13.

Next, Robert Chandler, who has been translating the work of Vasily Grossman since the 1980s and who is very much responsible for the author's acclaim as one of the most important Soviet writers, has three events in London this month. The first is taking place tonight at the Free Word Center. And in the upcoming two, he'll be discussing Grossman's recently released novel Everything Flows and talking with Grossman's daughter, Yekaterina Korotkova-Grossman:

June 15, 7.30pm, Pushkin House
June 20, 2pm, British Museum, Stevenson Room

(thanks to Sarah J. Young for rounding up these Grossman-related events, as well as for linking some recent press in praise of Vasily Grossman, on her blog)

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Louise Bourgeois, detail of Untitled (Legs and Bones), 1993; courtesy Gallerie Karsten Greve, Cologne; photograph by Beth Phillips

Louise Bourgeois: 1911–2010

"We sit in Louise's web, a wonderfully tatty parlor, watching the paint peel, waiting nervously. There is a round coffee table with a dozen bottles of liquor on it. Esrafily pours and says: 'Louder! Like we're having a party. If she thinks she's missing a party, she'll come down.'' Cloud taunts us: ''Man, she's gonna lay waste. I call this place the smack-down shack, 'cause it ends in tears, man.'

"Then she appears, and it's hard to imagine this small, opalescent woman in a pink tunic, black slip over black leggings and tiny black Nikes smacking anybody down."

From "Always on Sunday," a profile of the artist and her circle that appeared in The New York Times in 2002

"My Life in Pictures": Bourgeois comments on photographs of herself from age 2 to 85, also in the Times.

And for Barbara Comyns admirers, we hear that her novel Our Spoons Came from Woolworths will soon be republished in America (it's available in the UK from Virago). More details to come.

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