In My Father's Footsteps, by Sebastian Matthews

This post is not about life in France; it's about a book. Literature and life communicate, so my guess is that, although unplanned, some reference to France will find its way into the comments that follow.

I've just returned to my village after a too-short month's visit with my family, my head more prone to dancing with recent literary adventures than yet another how-to-survive-the-cold-winter-months-in-an-uninsulated-house-with-no-hot-water-in-the-bath" adventure... go figure.

I've just finished reading Sebastian Matthews' gem of a book, In My Father's Footsteps. Thanks for the loan, Basil, good call. I appreciate being introduced to Matthews - Harris - Matthews poetry.

Sebastian Matthews is the son of Marie Harris and William Matthews. Here's a link for each poet; your own Google search will take you to many others:

http://3bythefire.blogspot.com/
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/132
http://www.marieharris.com/

In My Father's Footsteps is a memoire of sorts. I qualify it like this because part way through the book, it takes a turn into literature. This is a blog and I have lessons to prep, so let's forego the irritation of having to define "literature." I've had that argument one too many times with too many elitist French folks (told you so!).

Midway or so through the narrative, Matthews' focus turns away from the father's life towards the son's, a change of direction that, for several pages, felt like an aside that would shortly end, with the narrative turning its attention back to the father. I could have been looking over Sebastian's shoulder at a party waiting for his father to show up, while trying to stay tuned in (and look tuned in) to what S. was telling me about himself. The change of (apparent) narrative focus caught me saying, "wait a minute, I'm interested in your Dad; enough about you, what about your Dad? When's he supposed to show up?"

I don't know if the provocation was intentional, but I found it an exquistie marriage of form and content, of literature and life.

The focus turns to Matthews' quest to better understand his father, his relationship with him, and Matthews' relationship with himself. Matthews' narrative evolves adeptly -- and in sometimes uncomfortable forthrightness -- towards equilibrium: the father fades more into the background as the son puts himself in the psychological limelight. The transition/change up, while remaining very personal, takes the narrative to a more universal level that spins around self-identity and choice, and ultimately acceptance.

I particularly appreciated the risotto passage at the end of the book, on pages 268-270. It reminded me of the one and only time in my life that I made risotto for my own father. During the course of that meal preparation, complete with music and a glass of wine (in my hand not his: he doesn't drink), we found a  moment of common ground. Nice feeling...and the risotto was a success, too.

The International PEN Report on Translation, Globalization and the English Language

PEN American Center is the U.S. branch of the world’s oldest international literary and human rights organization. There's a quote from Arthur Miller on the PEN web site calling the organization "the voice of cultures truthfully addressing one another rather than governments or armies in confrontation. The object is not to win something, but to illuminate something." The belief that a healthy society is based on free expression is the backbone of PEN's programs. They reach out to the world and into diverse communities within the United States to promote writing and literature at all levels.

Why am I talking about this in a blog on life in France? The reasons are several. I live in a small community where English is not spoken by most people. However it's a community whose elderly citizens and some of its younger ones are bilingual; they speak both French and Occitan and are richer for it. As for English, it's a mandatory subject in the one-room school for kids from 9 to 11 years old; I'm the (volunteer) English teacher. The villagers in general understand some English and would like to learn much more, as a second language. They don't want to replace their native language, they want to broaden their connections to the world. Why? Even in this remote area, where many people pass through during the summer and winter months, English is the language of common ground, the fall-back language: if visitors don't speak French well enough to make themselves understood, they rely on English to communicate. English has become the language Esperanto aimed to be.

I've had mixed reactions to this reality, mostly because of the infiltration of American culture into other cultures. I've been in Foucault's camp for years, ever since I read his ideas about the flattening of American culture and the implication that, as American products (including particularly music, films, literature, and pop culture) are consumed globally, cultural differences are flattened. I like color and difference. But cultures have always invaded each other, adopted and adapted. What makes now different? Accessibility, power, money...

I also believe that we should speak the language of the culture in which we live (not to the exclusion of our native language), out of respect and for the many doors it opens both literally and figuratively.  This leads to better cultural understanding and societal participation as we more effectively interact with our fellow citizens: a multicultural environment with multilingual citizens. Not speaking the language is disempowering, creating disequilibrium on many levels -- not the least of which is psychological.

The positive aspects of this melding are effectively exposed in the PEN Report on the international situation of literary translation. It presents some very convincing arguments about how the growing presence of the English language around the world can foster a sharing of ideas between cultures, enriching rather than flattening them, through literature in translation.

The international PEN report refers to literature as the "common currency among nations" and the "unhampered transmission of thought." You can find a pdf of the report on the University of Columbia's Center for Literary Translation web site: http://www.centerforliterarytranslation.org/  Scroll down to the bottom on the left hand side of the page and you'll find the correct link.

The sixty-seven page document discusses the global presence of the English language and the complex, perplexing reality of why so little literature is translated from other languages into English when the predominant language of our planet is English. The number of those who speak English as a native language coupled with the number of those who speak it as a second language topples the billion mark. And that's growing. An obvious reality is that literature published in English has the potential of reaching a very large, international audience and therefore translations into English of literature originally written in other languages have the potential of weaving together ideas from multiple cultures by making them accessible to readers worldwide.

The Report's Introduction, written by Columbia's Esther Allen and Carles Torner from the Institut Ramon Llull (Barcelona, Spain), quotes from Shakespeare's Richard II, Act 1, Scene 3, where Thomas Mowbray reacts to his being banished from his native land and hence his native language, his only language:

    A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,

    And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:

    A dearer merit, not so deep a maim

    As to be cast forth in the common air,

    Have I deserved at your highness' hands.

    The language I have learn'd these forty years,

    My native English, now I must forego:

    And now my tongue's use is to me no more

    Than an unstringed viol or a harp,

    Or like a cunning instrument cased up,

    Or, being open, put into his hands

    That knows no touch to tune the harmony:

    Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,

    Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;

    And dull unfeeling barren ignorance

    Is made my gaoler to attend on me.

    I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

    Too far in years to be a pupil now:

    What is thy sentence then but speechless death,

    Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

Allen and Torner state that with the passing of four centuries, Mowbury's lament has been nearly reversed: today odds are that an English speaker will be understood in more places on our planet than any speaker of any other language. It has become important to master English to avoid exclusion. Research shows that lesser-spoken languages and dialects are disappearing. We cannot blame that entirely on the growing presence of the English language; as the Report accurately points out, many other widely spoken languages, such as Spanish and Chinese, have replaced lesser spoken languages. But does this trend necessarily bring with it an eventual disappearance of cultural differences as well? 

I would say that that is indeed the risk we're facing, unless the trend in publishing changes, unless publishers increase the number of English translations of works originating in other languages. If their motivation for publishing spins around the financial -- obviously a primary concern that cannot be discarded--, then why not publish more English translations of foreign works to sell to an ever-increasing global market of English speakers, thereby diffusing ideas from different cultures while making money as well? Illuminating while winning, winning by illuminating. Read the report and let me know what you think. I'm off to edit a translation. 

Philippe Claudel: author and film director

If you've never read anything by Philippe Claudel, you're missing something. You may know his Ames grises, published in English under two different titles for each of its two translations: Grey Souls and By a Slow River. And then there's Brodeck, a Novel (French title: Le rapport de Brodeck).

My favorite Claudel novel to date is La petite fille de Monsieur Linh, unfortunately currently unavailable in English. You'll need an intermediate to advanced level in French to understand and appreciate the story. Stick with it if you're intermediate only; it's a beautiful story of great humanity, well worth the effort... a love story like no other I've ever read and a poetic indictment of the ravages of war. To read more: http://incurablelogophilia.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/philippe-claudel-la-petite-fille-de-monsieur-linh/

Claudel is on my mind because I just saw his first film: Il y a longtemps que je t'aime ("I've Loved You so Long"), with Kristen Scott Thomas in a stunning, understated performance that caught me from the very first scene. It tells the story of two sisters getting to know each other after a fifteen-year separation. Juliette (Kristen Scott Thomas), the older of the two, has spent those years in prison...for murder. Her younger sister, Léa, welcomes her into the home she shares with her husband, two adopted daughters and father-in-law. As always with Claudel, the story is anchored in the unsaid, the unspoken and the unexplained. The visual aspects of communication, so present in Claudel's writing, are center stage in this film. Don't watch it when you're tired; you need to pay attention to the nuances. Chapeau, Monsieur Claudel, et merci.

No Crash for Chocolate

OHHHHH if only I had time to write what I wanted to write, when I wanted to write! When I started this blog, I thought it would be easy to keep up. Not true. I find myself so dispersed trying to make ends meet that my energy is shot to pieces. Why is it that, when we live in a foreign country and speak a foreign language far more than our native language, we find ourselves using idioms in our native language that we would never use living in the US? Some linguist out there surely has a theory or two or three.

Today I'm updating websites, taking a break from my usual tasks; that break includes writing a new blog entry. At last.

One of the most reputable newspapers in France is Le Canard enchaîné, a tongue-in-cheek, hard-nose, well researched look at the week's news. In this past week's issue, I found a great little article entitled "Pas de krach pour le chocolat!"  Here's my rendition, ultra short version:

Companies may be not selling cars or refrigerators, but sales for little moments of happiness are on the rise. It seems that even in difficult times, you can sell happiness.

Chocolate moguls are rubbing their hands together gleefully. Since the Crash-Crise, the giants of the candy world have never sold so much chocolate candy. Why? Because chocolate is an inexpensive mood booster. Some ad campaigns have used this spin to boost sales, claiming: Times are tough, give yourself have a little pleasure. The tactic is called "indulgence marketing." Apparently people swallow such TV ploys more easily when the they have less money to spend on going out to dinner or the movies. Apparently they're glued to the TV set instead, eating chocolate.

Chocolate makers in particular among candy makers are making a double killing on the market: chocolate costs less to make since 2000, thanks to the European commission. Manufacturers are allowed to replace some of the cocoa butter with vegetable fats such as shea butter, which is 7 times cheaper. They can also use palm oil, which is 10 times cheaper.

And the taste, folks? What about the taste? If the "chocolate" coats your tongue and throat so thickly with these non-chocolate substitutes, where's the pleasure?

American Kraft has been trying to take over British rival Cadbury for the sum of 12 billion euros (back in September, Cadbury hadn't yet ceded), to become king of a chocolate market that weighs in yearly at 88 billion euros and is rapidly growing. Conclusion? The future will be an obese one.

http://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/

http://www.jeparlefrancais.net/ 

http://www.yourfrenchlife.net/