Autumn 2020: Is Everything Getting Dimmer or Is It Just Me?

I got Penguin's new-ish (2018) translation of Simplicius Simplicissimus and it's..... something. The translator's note is extraordinary. I've never seen anything like it. I'm going to write it down.

This is a very well-known book. In the German-speaking world (where Simplicius Simplicissimus was first published in 1669) many students become acquainted with at least some of the text before leaving school; in the rest of the world it has been often translated (including into contemporary German, although the German language has not changed hugely since 1669), with many of the translations being into English; and Grimmelhausen's work has a substantial presence on the Internet.

So my editor and I have decided to let readers conduct their own background research to whatever level they require. Rather than produce a learned version of an acknowledged literary by ramming home easily accessible points in long footnotes that will slow down the eye, we prefer to offer an attractive reading experience.

Perhaps, like the translator, readers will discover that a seventeenth-century best-seller can come across as surprisingly modern.

J.A.U.

(That's 'J.A. Underwood.')

What do you guys make of THAT? I have so much to say about this. First of all, look at that first paragraph. A four-lane pileup of semicolons setting out the case: everybody knows this book, there's stuff all over the Internet about it, leave me alone willya? Sheesh, alright alright.

But second... who lets footnotes slow them down? I just don't read them if I don't want to. Make them endnotes if they're really so offensive to the eye. But really? They're worried that someone buying a Penguin Classic of Grimmelhausen in 2018 is going to be put off by.... superscript numbers adorning certain names and phrases? They can't be. It's a preposterous suggestion. The idea that anyone would even swallow it is even a little insulting. I can't help but think they just didn't feel like doing any work. Or their budget was cut. Something went wrong and this is their attempt to style it out.

'This is a very well known book.' Well... maybe? SOME Germans read PARTS of it before going to university. Okay. Not exactly proving your case, but okay. But this is an English translation. Nobody in the English-speaking world reads this unless they're a little weird (raises hand) or studying German literature in higher education.

In any case, their brainwave is to allow the reader to just... look things up on the Internet! And this is going to be "faster" "to the eye" than reading a footnote?? Well - maybe we won't even do that. We'll be surprised, they say, at how modern this little firecracker is. Who needs "learned" notes after all?? (I should say there is a pretty good introduction from Kevin Cramer that sets out the historical and literary context and gives a short bio of Grimmelhausen himself.) So maybe we can just wing it, eh? Or look things up on the Internet if we want to. We're just reading for pleasure, or we're ultra-nerds, either way this approach works - we can nerd out online if we want, or just blaze through.

Indeed the first sentence speaks of a 'new fad'. The second sentence refers to 'daft' fashions. The third uses the word 'celebrities.' In the next graf we hear 'waffling on.' We get modern words like 'twerp' and 'dunno'. Bumptious! But you get a lot of old-fashioned stuff, too. 'Ninny' and 'numbskull', etc. No big deal. But if German hasn't changed that much, maybe it would have been a good idea to use English that hasn't changed that much, either? Words that feel neither obsolete nor... faddish?

And then - and I will stop soon I promise - you really do want a few learned footnotes. What's 'Malmsey wine'? No idea. Presumably a reader in 1669 would have known. The translator appears to think the word 'nob' is shorthand for 'nobleman'. What's 'fernambuck'? 'Minium'? A 'Samoyed'? A 'palliasse'? Off to Google...

sorry should read acknowledged literary masterpiece

Tracer, you don't know what a Samoyed is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0wjtlSTTiQ

much better than Google tyvm :)

I assiduously read footnotes, so ones that are not that necessary can take me out of a text, however it doesn't seem to make sense if there are so many terms used that are not familiar to the general reader (I have heard of none of the terms you note). having to check a dictionary on your phone while you read is annoying, I read Spanish well but not enough to not have to look up the odd word every few pages and it does make reading in Spanish a little bit less enjoyable

What do you guys make of THAT?

I'd say the translator and Penguin's editor let each other off easy and together skated past parts of their job that required extra thought and effort. I presume this was issued as part of Penguin Classics, which once upon a time held itself to very high standards.

I like to think of myself as a reasonably well read person, and I lived in Germany for 5 years, and I’d never heard of grimelhausen until a couple of months ago when i read a John le carre novel in which it is a recurring plot point. So yeah I feel like the odd footnote might be ok in a penguin edition.

It's just.. you could say it about anything, now. 'There's so much on the Internet! We don't wanna slow you down'. Well, no, I don't want to go on the Internet, I want to read your book, jackass. There's a word for free. Use it instead of 'ninny'.

i was trying to think of a way that this might be good not bad. but no, it's ridiculous, as you say, and if I'd been the series editor or whatever, I'd've said, 'You expect to get *paid* for this?'. I mean, the only community amongst whom Grimmelshausen would be a household name, and for whom many of the references would be 'easily accessible' are academics afaict, and of course they tend to demand *more* of an scholarly apparatus. An act of staggeringly laziness that somehow got published, because it would exceed the budget to go to another academic.

Presumably it's this guy?

He died in 2018. Maybe he got ill and they just tried to style it out? Though the fact he once worked for Calder is a massive red flag that he might be totally indifferent to fundamental editorial principles.

I have Underwood's translation of Walter Benjamin. It's unusually colloquial.

the simplicius talk made me go and finally read this lrb piece which coincidentally (xpost) singles out the old calder translation for praise (the only version i've read).

recently i've been catching up on some of thos. hardy's lesser known/regarded work, currently on a laodicean. could be down to its being dictated to his wife whilst on his sickbed, but finding it surprisingly breezy in comparison to his others (or my memory of them, at least)... almost a page-turner in the sensation novel mode with visits to the gambling dens of monte carlo and a machiavellian bastard son!

Don’t tell me Thomas Cromwell wasn’t as beautiful and nuanced as Hilary Mantel makes him in The Mirror & the Light (HarperCollins, £25): I don’t want to know, I want to maintain the fantasy.

From all I've read Cromwell not only wasn't "as beautiful and nuanced", he was a bloodthirsty gangster. I do wonder if these novels will have permanently rehabilitated him in the popular consciousness - and whether it matters.

Always felt Mantel was taking aim at the 'Man for All Seasons' narrative of Thomas More, making him an arrogant heretic burner and torturer, through the eys of a comparatively humane Cromwell.

A Place of Greater Safety has a similar sort of revisionism, with a sympathetic Robespierre and cunt Danton

Yeah, More was a cunt too, but you don't really need a goodie when it comes to the court of Henry. Thing about those books is that if you write down objectively what Cromwell does in them it's pretty obvious he's as bad as any of the others, but since we're in his subjectivity and Mantel is an amazing writer the reader is intrigued into believing all of Cromwell's bloodshed is done reluctantly and with good cause while that of his opponents is atrocious. It's that old mobster movie dilemma but I don't think seeing through it is the "point" of Wolf Hall either.

Nuanced, yes. Ambiguous, yes. Beautiful, not really?

Cromwell is not beautiful and nuanced even in Mantel, his mind is sharpened by renaissance accounting, mercantilism, and culture, but he's a thug, and portrayed as such - people are frightened of him and he'll physically knock people out of the way and push them up against walls - and he's a strong and practical, wide-shouldered, muscular dog.

Really don't think that's right, fizzles - Cromwell is in his inner monologue often astonished that people fear him - and as a reader, you're encouraged to view him as misunderstood on that count. The physical violence only tends to come out in moments where he is being badly done against, and we are on his side when it happens. Plus, the fact that he's been raised from a very rough childhood contextualizes his violence, while that of his opponents appears all the more despicable.

irrelevant depending on where you fall down re: death of the author but Mantel never sounds particularly critical of Cromwell when discussing him, either

irrelevant depending on where you fall down re: death of the author What does this mean? I was struck by "don't tell me" etc because she straight-up praised it as fantasy---she had me at "world-building"---but by the same token, despite all the vividness, which carries over into descriptions here, I was reminded that I got tired of The Sopranos and especially Game of Thrones (series only, haven't read the books) because anecdotal, episodic effects overrode character development, and if it's just asshole v asshole power struggle w everybody else caught in the middle or backing way the hell off--not really worldbuilding, past a certain point, which can come up pretty quickly, in any given ep, arc, or series---then I sure don't want any of that on the page, where I tend to pay more active attention---I want something more like Shakespeare or Kurosawa (sorry, don't really know historical novels, so no idea who might be good, but guess Mantel is?)

(Not that The Sopranos didn't have good bits all along, enough to keep me coming back from time to time, and her books would not take years and years and years to play out, from audience POV, unlike these series, jeez)

dow, I just meant Mantel's comments on Cromwell in interviews and etc may not be germane to the discussion if you think the work is a separate thing

I think you're right that this quote paints it as to be enjoyed as pure fantasy but also I parsed it as "don't tell me this person is actually more flawed than in the books" and not "don't tell me this person was actually a total asshole".

I get sick of asshole vs asshole narratives quickly, too - I'd say on that count Wolf Hall does well in that I never stopped being sympathetic towards Cromwell. Six seasons of the Sopranos left me w/ very little of that towards Tony. Some of the GoT characters stay pretty likeable iirc but that show has so many other problems.

I'm intrigued to hear talk of the Simplicissimus. I'm not 100% sure of how I came across the book . May have been me scouring shelves in a public library in the mid 80s but i did get it oout at that point but didn't finish it. Then came across it in the University library at the start of teh 00ies when i did get through it.
It is a large book with some level of obscure action in it. I think it would help to have things like the role of hermetism and the significance of the lake etc which were probabl;y both in the version i did read. Also I think there are references to other novels that would be easily missed.
I liked the book a lot but it has been nearly 20 years since I read it.

THis does sound crazy, would think notes would be useful.

to be fair a lot of it doesn't require explanation - e.g. failed strategies for farting quietly (he uses the word 'pong' to describe the smell which makes me think of like, Jamie Oliver, so THAT'S annoying) - but if you're gonna go full-on "this is a cheeky no-footnotes-required edition!! r0x0r" you just cannot use words like 'palliasse'

but yes, going further, if the battle of Nördlingen is indeed 'famous' then the reader could probably use a précis

still steamed about this tbh

Really don't think that's right, fizzles - Cromwell is in his inner monologue often astonished that people fear him - and as a reader, you're encouraged to view him as misunderstood on that count. The physical violence only tends to come out in moments where he is being badly done against, and we are on his side when it happens. Plus, the fact that he's been raised from a very rough childhood contextualizes his violence, while that of his opponents appears all the more despicable.

irrelevant depending on where you fall down re: death of the author but Mantel never sounds particularly critical of Cromwell when discussing him, either

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, December 17, 2020 4:12 PM bookmarkflaglink

lol i was reading this and thinking 'do i want to double down on this, or relax my definition slightly? hmm, i think i'm going to double down.' but i need to give it some more thought, so am putting a bookmark against this to revisit later.

it all makes sense when you realise, as i believe i've said before, that cromwell is to hilary mantel what dirk pitt is to clive cussler - an action hero who's good at everything including exuding a certain manly menace when the requirement arises

I don't 100% trust my memory but I don't feel that we actually see much of Cromwell's violence - it's implied and happens mostly off-stage. I'd go as far as to say that I *wanted* to see him in action way more.

Like watching a Scott Adkins film and only seeing him walk around gardens and sit in the dark in a tower.

I finished A Scanner Darkly last night. For my purposes as a reader the sci-fi elements were the least important aspect of the book, merely an excuse to allow the book to fit into the genre where his audience was. The plot was only important to supply the bare bones of a story so there was something to hang the rest of the book upon. Everything I valued in it was its capacity to describe the lives of the drug addicts who give the book life. This aspect dominates the book, consumes most of the word count, and makes it well worth reading.

I'd say it has quite a bit in common with Wm. S. Burroughs' Junky, with the largest difference being the drugs being taken and how those drugs affected their users -- basically opiates in Junky versus meth, and hallucinogens (with weed providing a daily baseline) in Scanner. Since these drugs come to drive their addicts and how they behave, this difference is very noticeable.

Very true. And as Burroughs observed somewhere, there are some old junkies, not so many old speed freaks---"meth" then meant the original crystal methedrine, whenever possible, rather than the later predominance of bathtub bennies and other homemade concoctions, although none of it is less corrosive than other kinds, apparently, if you use it that much. The oldest speed freaks I ever knew were a friends' parents, a truck-driving team in the early 70s, with scars like highways on their arms, don't think they made it out of their 50s, early 50s, like PKD. And I seem to recall him mentioning awareness of the damage already done, to himself and some of his colleagues, contributing to the momentum of this book.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee. I've only read the first three of these essays, but they're good, particularly the first, which is about a school exchange summer in Mexico, and about finding out who you are by not being yourself, by feeling the shape around who you are. to take a version of this thinking, there's a really good bit where he's hanging out around the slightly older mexican boys, who are drinking and getting ready for their night out:

I watched for the moment the girls would arrive, the way the group of boys at the overlook would change when they did. I already knew at this point that I was gay, and so I was forever looking for other signs of it in the landscape. What I was looking for was what seemed to vanish then.

The second essay is one on tarot reading, which bears such a similarity to my own fantasy reading going into tarot reading via the crowley pack that it was intrinsically fascinating. the third is a nice piece on the hard work of writing, of learning to be a writer, of the sense of becoming a writer. recommend.

I truly dislike Chee and his writing.

oh wow, really? i must admit in these essays i’m not sure what i’d pick on to dislike.

A shrill noise broke out close to Maigret's ear, and he stirred crossly, as though startled, and flapping one arm outside the bedclothes. He was aware of being in bed, and his wife's presence at his side, wider awake than himself, lying in the dark without venturing to speak.
Where he was mistaken---at least for a few seconds---was about the nature of the insistent, aggressive, imperious sound. And it was always in winter, in very cold weather, that he made this mistake.
He thought his alarm clock was ringing, although never since his marriage had there been one at his bedside The idea went back even further than his boyhood---to the time, when, as a small choirboy, he used to serve at mass at six o'clock in the morning.
Yet he had served at mass in spring, summer, and autumn as well. Why did this one memory persist, returning to him unbidden---a memory of darkness, frost, stiff fingers, and thin ice in the lane, cracking underfoot?
He upset his glass of water, as often happened, and Madame Maigret switched on the bedside lamp just as his fumbling hand reached the telephone.
'Maigret here...Yes...'
It was ten minutes past four, and the silence outside was the special silence of the coldest winter nights.
'This is Funnel, Superintendent...'
'What d'you say?'
He could scarcely hear. It sounded as if the caller had a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth.
'Funnel of the 18th...'

As Maigret and Simenon enter the homestretch of their careers, the past keeps pushing its way into and through A Maigret Trio: Three Novels Published in the United States For The First Time (1973--- individual French editions from 1956, 1960, and 1963 respectively). Maigret's Failure began with the unbidden-and-then-some reunion with an obnoxious schoolmate, the butcher's son, very unpopular, who always had M. pegged as the solid citizen, son of the steward of the local swells' estate. Now, known by the press and their voracious public, always ready for news involving Maigret and colleagues, as The Meat King, with a string of butcher shops, all over France, he's gotten the Superintendent's boss's boss to give him concierge service, via old chum M. Later, Maigret considers that he let his personal attitude affect this professional judgement, and this is his "failure," although nobody else seems to think that, but fuck them.

Maigret In Society has him unexpectedly having to deal with swells, but these are tottery, like his father's bosses would be if still around, yet moving right along, behaving like "characters in a bad romance novel, published in 1900!" The solution to the mystery seems a little dubious to me, but that makes the story's implicit point more likey: This time Maigret *needs* to believe.

The Lazy Burglar, the opening of which is excerpted above, has him drawn into a case he's not supposed to be working, according to the new order of ubersuits---this is the murder of a punk, a petty thief, very convenient, and explained to the press by an ubersuit as the result of "a gangland vendetta"---short 'n' sweet, the end---while the priorty and then some is property crimes, like the big lively deadly heist that is the great concern of law enforcement and the media just now, and sure he does his bit---but the secret life, the layers of it, the droning, tunneling, purposeful pacing of this little crim whom M. has encountered over the years---the one with the "slow vowels," giving the "suggestion of laziness" to his Swiss immigrant accent---finally reaching an end, but how? This, the Superintendent's own secret resistance to change, as he nears and becomes readied for retirement, is his fascination and refreshment, as he also becomes more attuned to, for instance, the lives of women in the cases he's working, the ones who support, without knowing it all, who are discovering more about the men they knew so well, working the cases with him, in various ways: a mother, wives, girlfriends, a mistress or two figuring in, also another old acquaintance, now a moll at least---and a genre staple, the sharp-eyed prostitute.

Secret lives in all three novels, always ringing a bell: A Maigret Trio indeed.

"implicit point more *likely*", I meant--these days, when ppl commonly type "judgey" and even xpost "pacy" on purpose, be it known that "likey" is a typo.

I finished the collection of Leskov stories (in the recent NYRB edition). I think the title story "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" may be my favorite - it shows Leskov's penchant for indulging rather shocking wickedness with vicarious glee before reining things in with a quasi-moralistic ending, perhaps to get past the Tsarist censors - but they all have something to offer. "The Enchanted Wanderer" is a rather amusing shaggy-dog story, or I guess you could say a wide-ranging picaresque novella. Leskov's sardonic yet humane fables are addictive. Now I've started reading Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg, having greatly enjoyed Valentino and Sagittarius which I read earlier this year.

Which of Edward Tufte's previous books is your favorite?

― dow, Sunday, 13 December 2020 20:52 bookmarkflaglink

apologies dow, i never answered this, mainly because i couldn't remember the titles and the books, but i think it was actually Envisioning Information!

love, love Leskov. I read a collection a couple of years ago, and each story seemed to add to the last, until i just had to stop because i felt overwhelmed with thoughts about them, which i wanted to capture, but didn't. i think my favourite of those stories was The Sealed Angel but I loved The Enchanted Wanderer as well.

After watching Mindhunter, I'm reading James Baldwin's Evidence of Things Unseen. I don't want to say *rambling* but it does, in what is a short book, have something of that quality to it. I also wonder if his exile in France has meant a blunting of his vision slightly (and age)? The Baldwin sentence is still a thing of beauty.

Also reading Robert Aickman's Cold Hand in Mind. The opening story, 'The Swords', is horrifying in all manner of ways. A man stumbles into a grotty fairground in a desolate part of Wolverhampton and in a tent sees a bunch of seedy men pay to plunge a sword into a woman, who is, apparently, unharmed. It functions as a free-floating metaphor for male violence and sexuality I suppose but it's grimmer than that. I'm still making sense of the denouement.

The Finest Years, Charles Drazin - only recently became aware that the 1940's are viewed as a golden age for British cinema - my experience is much more with the 60's, US money coming in, swinging London films, the Woodfall social realist stuff, Hammer. The author's reasoning does feel quite stuffy and old fashioned in places: "quality" in this context associated with costume dramas, literary adaptations. Don't think I'll ever be able to care about David Lean. But it's well written and now that he's talking Carol Reed, which I'm more interested in.

Reading J. Gordon Faylor's 'The Antoecians,' which seems to be something of a published daybooks. At turns evocative and hermetic. Actually having a great time with it!

Having noted Fizzles' kindly comments on it, I'm now reading Because Internet: Understanding How Language is Changing by Gretchen McCulloch. I'll admit that some of the details of internet usage she is fascinated by are a bit too fine-grained to fascinate me, but I am gleaning some good information and gaining enjoyment from it.

pleased you like it! i think it’s a book that probably could have been done very badly, but it’s done well, with thought about what framework you need to make sense of the territory.

bartleby the scrivener - very good!

made men: the story of goodfellas - i don't think kenny quite had enough to say to sustain a longish book.

the guns of august by barbara tuchman - the buildup and first weeks of WW1. i very much enjoyed her social/political history of the 14th century, a distant mirror. this felt like not quite her strong suit. and she really doesn't like germany! the narrative reminded me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFrcl6VGrDQ

Bleak House. It's been long enough that I remember vague plot points but none of the writing, which I'm enjoying, but it's still early yet and he probably wrote these parts ahead of time and wasn't making things up month by month (my memory is that the last 25% is ropey)

(is also good to get back into the actual novels after about 3 years of reading the Christmas editions (admittedly not all by him) and journalism)

Hi Alfred, what was that Sherwood Anderson collection you were reading, and what did you end up thinking about it?

while you're at it, how was the warhol bio?

Which of Edward Tufte's previous books is your favorite?

― dow, Sunday, 13 December 2020 20:52 bookmarkflaglink

apologies dow, i never answered this, mainly because i couldn't remember the titles and the books, but i think it was actually Envisioning Information!

― Fizzles, Monday, December 21, 2020 4:52 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

ive never checked out his books but i went to his sculpture park this year, it was cool - https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/hogpen-hill-farms

Hi Alfred, what was that Sherwood Anderson collection you were reading, and what did you end up thinking about it?

― dow,

The Library of America edition. Got it at the library.

Mordew by Alex Pheby

thought i’d try it for christmas seeing an eley williams capsule recommendation on the foyles blog

As the nights start drawing in and frosts weave new chills into the evening air, what could be better than a descent into a catacombed city, full of unseen scuttling and theological travesties, where the frailties of human hopefulness are examined and writ large on an epic, sprawling scale? Welcome to the snarling, sludgy and shifting world of Mordew. The first instalment of a trilogy by Wellcome Book Prize-winning author Alex Pheby, the scope and sophistication of Mordew has earned deserved comparisons to Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels and the stories set in M. John Harrison’s city Viriconium. Tense and thrilling, and a fully immersive vision of decadence and decay – the provocative and beguiling Mordew awaits.

it sounded right up my alley, i remain a firm fan of the gormnghast trilogy. and yet i’m finding mordew oddly unsatisfying. something about the way the topography of the place is depicted, or the way i feel i’m reading the written rendition of a mental cartoon, even a computer game. i should dig down into why i’m feeling this and i’m not ready to give up on it yet, but i’d struggle to recommend it. rather like the city itself he seems to throw up characters will-i nil-i and dispose of them as carelessly, and there’s little sense of warmth and comfort in the book anywhere.

also, it’s got children in having an adventure, but it’s a pretty grisly children’s book. there is nothing to say that adult books cannot concern children, but the point of children going through a fantastic adventure, the finding of power out of innocence in the fact of an adult world, seems to me to belong to children’s literature. that may be my problem. even so i’m not sure what pheby is about here.