the booklover angle
by uzwi
My boredom benchmark for Euro-Lit mysteries in which the writing, translation, publishing, selling & curating of books is cleverly interwoven with philosophical puzzles, mild sex & Real History, is Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier, a novel in which almost nothing happens except book-chat, & of which Isabel Allende said, “A treat for the mind”, an assessment I still find puzzling. So far, Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Angel’s Game isn’t anything like as boring as that. It’s an amiable meander over the same kind of territory as The Shadow of the Wind, vaguely irritating about the romance & importance of being a hack writer (& indeed about the romance & importance of being any kind of writer) & rather lacking the energy of the kind of fiction it claims to admire; but otherwise entertaining. What I find objectionable about all these novels is how they attempt to flatter the reader by “sharing” –ie, masturbating–the readerly experience. While I’m reading them I want to say: Fuck off & curl up with a good book somewhere else, Carlos (or Pascal), it gets you no points with me, because though I’ve read a lot of books, I’d rather break my left leg than rub shoulders with your idea of what that’s all about.
Someone got here yesterday by typing “sheo (sic) & sock porn”. Welcome friend! Want to learn more about “stealth rubber” ? Then have a look at these little puppies.
La Fiera Literaria (“The Literary Beast”) is a Spanish self-confessed “libel”, crusading against “bestsellerados” acclaimed by reviewers at the service of the big corporations. All of them (including Cercas and Zafón) are blacklisted as “the worst novelists in the world” Needless to say, la Fiera is ignored & scorned by everybody… Here are their mug shots:
http://www.lafieraliteraria.com/peores.htm
“A treat for the mind”? Sausagemeat. Hallowe’en? Our chance to act like a vampire or zombie – unlike our social roles on the other 364 days in the year. Boredom and anger? Oh, yes:
http://apiln.blogspot.com/
Is that the next novel: descriptions of a million smashed shop windows, interleaved with breathless porn descriptions of tight Velcro round the toes, first thing every morning? Sounds good to me.
There’s something in this that triggers a vague memory of what the Republic of Letters was supposed to be all about: readers were writers, writers were readers, of correspondence, not publication. I was reminded recently that up until the late 1960s, a lot of academics still did this, and did not publish what we now know as ‘articles’ in professional journals. There’s a pooling or sharing of knowledge, arcane or enlightening, which is at least implicitly acknowledged as not being replete. I haven’t read any of the books you have referenced, so I cannot be sure about what these particular authors are attempting with ‘readerliness’ (if that is a word); the only thing I have come across that sounds at all familiar in theme is The Dumas Club by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, which I enjoyed as a romp. But it’s I suppose because there’s something in that rare books thing especially for me – I am easily seduced by apparent antiquity and lineage, as tomes hand themselves down to each other, a caterwauling of ideas ripped and cited down the ages by merely human vectors.
Hi Josep, thanx for that interesting rogue’s gallery. Couple of people there whose work I admire.
You’re welcome. May I ask if these authors you admire are Javier Cercas and Javier Marías? (Marías, by the way, is Fiera’s bête noire…)
Myself a Spaniard reader, thus feeling sort of an oxymoron… Once read a book by Pérez-Reverte, entertaining at its best. Apart from that, never endured further than fifty pages by any in that overprized gallery.
However, some good translator may actually have added value, and do not underestimate the charm of the exotic.
Don’t panic, though. There is fine literature outside the Spanish literary ‘industry’.
I have a similar response to plays and movies that fetishize theatre and filmmaking.
Gatopeich: “some good translator may actually have added value”. Definitely. Tons of value. This is the reason why these books are read outside Spain: thanks to the skill of a translator/alchemist able to turn shit into gold. That’s the difference between linguistic communicating vessels: when Spanish flows into English, it sounds like a melodious stream; but when English flows into Spanish, it usually sounds like a stream of piss.
Regarding English to Spanish translations, it can’t be a fault of the languages. More likely the ‘industry’ of translation to Spanish is affected by the same issues as the Spanish literature. After all, a translator is a writer. I have been told it is a very closed niche too, and to enter you must be invited.
Regarding the book-lover angle, yes it is lame!
Check some decent writer before giving up completely on today’s Spanish literature. Discard prize winners! Just Ray Loriga comes to my mind at the moment…
Now I realize that I’ve just read from a few writers, and no more than a couple books from each (ex. Pratchett!). You see, I’m no booklover at all. Ha!