Monday, November 17, 2008
Talks and Readings Dead Authors Make Publicity Tours Complicated, So We're Having to Work Around That a Bit
Posted by Mark on Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:00 AM
So, guys, 2666? Last week I was going to write about Jonathan Lethem's shit-flipping Times Book Review crowning of Roberto Bolaño's everything-in-it book, but then Mike Conklin forwarded the office a video of a puppy and I got distracted. But! Natasha Wimmer is the woman who has translated Bolaño's posthumous American reputation-making The Savage Detectives and now 2666, his five-part, 900-page say-it-all-before-you-drop-dead masterpiece. She'll be at the Strand tonight, talking with perhaps the world's leading translator, Edith Grossman — Gabbo Marquez's English voice and recently the translator of a major, controversially liberty-taking Don Quixote — about their difficult and perhaps quixotic art. And probably talking a lot about this book for which the literary canon has apparently waived its customary waiting period for admittance, like the Baseball Hall of Fame with Roberto Clemente.
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reviewing translations is certainly problematic. I thought it was a bit of folly when James Wood did some close textual analysis in his piece on Saramago.
This review was most interesting in that Lethem said he felt at times as if the book was reading his mind. A very PK Dick type observation...
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