Gegen den Tag

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

"Good evening Mr. and Mrs. North America and all the ships at sea.
Let's go to press."
 
Ickstadt was brilliant. Liked it especially when he, refering to AtD, said something to the
effect that Pynchon himself is "travelling back in history to unfold its linearity into spectra
of different realities". Scheck presented himself once more as a very professional moderator. 
And although Kittler did not have his best day and appeared at times confused, he had an 
interesting story to tell. Before the German edition of SL ("Spätzünder") was on the market,
Kittler and some of his students wanted to bring out the early stories in unlicensed translations.
But before the book could be published, TRP sent some lawyers from Geneva who must have 
been pretty convincing since Kittler, talking about the consequences he would have had to
face when insisting on the publication, spoke of the death penalty ("Todesstrafe"). Now, I guess
the word was used here strictly metaphorically ... Interesting also the insight Stingl gave into
his translation workshop. Talking about AtD's different genre-parodies (spy, western, detective etc)
he and his partner van Gunsteren had to deal with during the translation process, Stingl hinted 
at the fascinating fact that the German literature does not really know 'boy-adventure-novels' 
which makes the translation somehow tricky. How to parody something that does not exist? What
still works best --- and, believe it or not, I thought so too while reading AtD --- are German 
translations of Jules Verne. If I understood Stingl correctly he used those from the period of time 
AtD is covering. The fresh readings showed that the translation seems at least to be able to bring 
over the general spirit of the work. Plus atmosphere and sound of the dialogue. But of course the 
lingo sounds in German even more artificial. Sick Surrealism, fürwahr. Must get a copy in may.The
last question of the evening did not really find an answer:
 
Was 'Gegen den Tag' written against the Enlightenment?
 
Kai 
  
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