Miscellaneous on a Saturday Night.

[Michel Ryckx]

To all:

1.    Uncle Adolf's Cigars, they were called in Antwerp -I went to the exposition I mentioned earlier this week.  The colour photographs by a Nazi photographer and former collaborator of Leni Riefenstahl (discovered in 1998), and drawings by Mittelwerke Mitarbeiter on Dora were horrible.  To be seen in Munich and New York later on this year. More information can be found on the organisers' site, http:\\www.lacoupole.com in France.

2.    The casualties when a V2 hit the Antwerp Rex Theatre: 567 officially.  I saw a newspaper article today from the day after the screaming-across-the-sky, mentioning only 280 corpses.  The City of Antwerp used forms, especially designed for reporting about the Bombs. In December 1944 the city didn't use the alarm installations any longer.  Nobody paid attention.

 3.    On translations.  Can you imagine someone translating Nathalie Sarraute's 'Tropismes' into English?  Or even Marguerite Duras?  The main difficulty in reading mr. Pynchon, me being a foreigner, is not his language (grammar or vocabulary).  It is the background needed to understand what he is writing about.  Example: the use of different dialects -which becomes immediately clear for a native reader- is nearly unattainable to grasp.  (To Doug:) The Saramago case is different, in that that old charming communist uses a universal and very simple language.  I admit I was overwhelmed when reading a novel of his -in Dutch- ('The Gospel according to Jesus Christ').  It needs a commie to convince another one.
4.    On translations, 2.  I gave up recommending mr. Pynchon's works to friends and family, though many of them are much more learned than I am.  Only one of them appreciated Lot49.  What does that mean?  Yes, I cannot sell a thing.

5.    I can only remember 1 critic in a Belgian paper having an article about Mason & Dixon (but I need to say I don't follow 'bookchat' any longer, preferring my random way of reading).  Ome may regret it, but he clearly isn't NEEDED over here.

6.    On translations, 3.  Nearly all of mr. Faulkner's  books have been translated into my language.  I liked to read them.  It was only when I read the original that I realised he was describing a hot, swampy jungle.  Besides, what is the value of mr. Nabokov's translations of his own stories?  What is lost?

7.    Unclear thinking.  (To Saurio:)  You said that there is a communis opinio among intellectuals that WW1... .You will know -without a doubt- that history is full of intellectuals fighting common opinions.  I very seldom accept a fact because of the quantity of its defendants. (he said deprecatingly).

8.    To mr. Saurio: Rationalism is a tool.  It is different from a hammer, but just an other ordinary tool.

9.    To Jill.  I do not believe that GR is a 'universal' novel, a mere parable.  It is, to me as a European, about America.  It is a parabole.

10.    I have the impression that the person of an author is, to some of you, as important as his or her books.  Mr.  Kurt Vonnegut may be a nice man, but that is irrelevant.  Mr. Philip Roth may be not a first class feminist, but he is a fine author.  The only author I know life and work were one, was mrs. Woolf.  But I thought her a genius before I knew she was regularly besotted.  

As you have remarked, presumably, I'd rather use one message instead of replying to all of you.  It forces me to think more clearly.  There's a firework on the Scheldt tonight, time to get sedated (alcohol? drugs?) and seducted.  

Have a nice weekend, all of you.

Un cavalier seul.