On Foot I Wandered Through the Solar Systems by Edith Sodergran
Translated by Malena Morling and Jonas Ellerstrom
As I mentioned in my review of Henry Parland’s “To Pieces”, back in the summer I was introduced to two wonderful books by Scandinavian Modernist women authors: Chitambo by Hagar Olsson, and Crisis by Karin Boye. I’d read the latter’s excellent dystopian novel Kallocain earlier in the year, and all three of these works were ones I reviewed for Shiny New Books. I must admit that I’d not been particularly aware of this particular group of Modernist writers before; but as I said, the discovery of these books led to me exploring the back catalogue of Norvik Press, their publisher, more thoroughly. I did love Parland’s only novel (and I’m still trying to track down his poetry). But I was also pointed in the direction of poet Edith Sodergran (a close friend of Olsson) and, susceptible as I am to bookish suggestions, I had to send off for a translated poetry selection and also a collection of her letters. I don’t know if I’ll get to the letters in time for #WITMonth; but I *have* read the poems, and I absolutely loved them!
Like many of the Scandinavian authors I’ve been reading, Sodergran had a short life; born in 1892 in St. Petersburg, she died at the age of 31 from tuberculosis. An intelligent woman, fluent in several languages, she was also a keen photographer. And despite her illness, she published four collections of verse in her lifetime, with one being released after her death; “On Foot…” gathers poems from all of these. It’s a slim, dual language volume which draws mostly from her first collection from 1916, and it reveals some wonderfully moving and memorable verse.
Here, take my hand, take my white arm,
take my thin shoulder’s longing…
It would be strange to feel,
for one night, a night like this,
your heavy head on my breast,
(The Days Grow Cool)
Sodergran’s poems are mostly short, rarely longer than half a page; and yet the contents are wonderfully evocative. Her work reflects on nature, the stars and the universe, and sometimes the place of women in that world. The impression is of a solitary poet; men do not seem to be allowed to get close. These are what I think would be called visionary poems, rejecting traditional structures and instead considering simply what it is to exist. Reading the poems was a moving and meditative experience. Soderberg seems to speak from the heart, and her words certainly resonated with mine.
The poems are translated by Malena Morling and Jonas Ellerstrom; and Morling provides a useful afterword which puts Sodergran in context, reminding us that she wasn’t really appreciated until after her death. It also reminded me of a fact I’d become aware of in my recent reading of these authors, and that is the proximity of the Scandinavian countries to Russia; many of the authors seem to have either been born or educated in St. Petersburg, and their countries had strong connections with their monolithic neighbour. This also gave them a certain vulnerability because of the volatile state of Russia during the First World War, Revolution and Civil War. These events affected Sodergran’s life, and those of her contemporaries, in a way I had’t appreciated before.
Beautiful sisters, come high on top of the sturdy cliffs,
we are all women warriors, women heroes, women writers,
eyes of innocence, heavenly brows, rose larvae,
heavy surf and birds adrift,
we are the least expected and the deepest red,
tiger spots, taut strings, stars without vertigo.
(Violet Sunsets)
So I loved my first experience of reading Sodergran very much. This book is published by Marick Press in the US, and I wondered whether there were any other collections available in English. Well, it transpires that Bloodaxe published her complete poems back in 1984, but this is only currently available in digital format which is really annoying; because it’s translated by David McDuff, who was also responsible for last year’s “Kallocain” and whose translations I trust. I mention this because I *do* have slight reservations about this selection.
For a start, and it’s a small matter, Sodergran often ends her lines or verses with three dots (just as I often do my sentences…) – which can be seen from the original poem on the left page (this is a dual language edition). However, the translators render this on the right hand page with the translation as a dash – and I really don’t understand why, because the effect to me is very, very different. Similarly, they give the title of the posthumous collection in English as “The Country that Isn’t”; whereas Wikipedia shows it as “The Land which Is Not”. I speak no Swedish, so I have no idea which would be most accurate, but I prefer the Wiki version… I confess to thinking that I’d like very much to read the McDuff translations; but I don’t know that that will be happening any time soon.
Anyway, I am so pleased to have made the acquaintance, albeit briefly, of Edith Sodergran; an ideal discovery for #WITMonth. I’m also delighted that I have a collection of her letters lurking on the TBR, issued by Norvik Press; I doubt I will get to this during August but will try not to leave it too soon to get round to reading it!
*****
A Little Coda…
I’ve left the post above as I originaly wrote it; but I was a bit rattled by my uncertainties about the translation, and also the inabiity to track down the McDuff complete poems; so I did a little digging…
Like so many books during this weird pandemic period, if you search on Amazon they offer you digital versions or very high priced copies; and I have to say that my whole experience of online book buying during this time has changed dramatically. I’ve shifted to Hive, or gone directly to the publishers where I can; anything rather than be ripped off like this. I tried Hive, Wordery, Book Depository and eBay in search of a reasonably priced copy of the Complete Poems, but to no avail. And then I had a lightbulb moment – and zipped over to the site of the publishers, Bloodaxe. Lo and behold, the book could be got from them at normal cover price so I duly ordered it, and here it is with “On foot…”
And now the story takes *another* twist, because I have had a quick look at the McDuff and compared, in particular, one early poem, titled in “On foot…” as “The Day Grows Cool” and in “Complete” as “The Day Cools”. Sure enough, McDuff renders the three dots as three dots when they are such in the original, which makes me very happy and I *don’t* know why Morling/Ellerstrom messed with this. But I was also struck by one particular couplet, which is Swedish is:
Du kastade din kärleks röda ros
I mitt vita sköte –
Morling/Ellerstrom render this as:
You threw your love’s red rose
Into my white womb –
However, McDuff gives this as:
You threw the red rose of your love
Into my white lap –
To me, the use of lap or womb is quite a significant difference and allows for very different interpretation of the couplet. So as I speak no Swedish, my only recourse was Google Translate; and depending on what time of the day you put the phrase in and on what device, it comes up with either word as an option! Which just goes to show, really, what a complicated thing translation is!! I wonder if any of my Ramblings readers speak Swedish and can bring any thoughts to the debate??
Anyway – the bottom line is that I’m very happy to have tracked down the Bloodaxe book, and as I always enjoy David McDuff’s translations I shall read this feeling assured that I am in capable hands! And of course, the lesson to be learned is to always check out the publisher’s site to see if you can get the book directly from them!
elisabethm
Aug 19, 2020 @ 08:10:54
According to my Swedish speaking Finn ‘sköte’ means womb more than lap. Lap would be ‘famn’.
Thanks for another interesting post!
G
Aug 19, 2020 @ 08:25:10
Yes, as a Swede I agree about womb, though I would translate ‘lap’ as ”knä”, ‘to sit in someone’s lap’ = att sitta i någons knä’, ‘famn’ is more of a hug for me, ‘kom i min famn” = come and let me hug you..
‘Sköte’ is definitely a word that suggests either pregnancy or sexual relations to me, also quite old fashioned and poetic of course, but very much of Edith’s time
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 09:13:54
Thank you for this! Language is so complex and interesting, especially when there are so many nuances to be taken into account!
elisabethm
Aug 19, 2020 @ 10:36:41
Thank you for the addition! So ‘sköte’ can only be used for women. It has the same etymology as the Dutch word ‘schoot’, which does mean ‘lap’, although I think that originally it also referred to giving birth.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 10:40:14
So interesting! So many variant interpretations, but then English is the same where one word can mean so many different things according to context!
elisabethm
Aug 19, 2020 @ 11:08:29
And that’s probably why translating poetry is so difficult!
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 11:13:31
Definitely! 😳😳😳
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 09:12:47
Thank you! Such an intriguing poet and the translation issue is – complex!
elisabethm
Aug 19, 2020 @ 10:38:15
Complex indeed! As is the history of Edith Södergran, I just read her Wikipedia page.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 10:39:30
She certainly was an interesting woman, and I can’t wait to get to her letters! 😀
Tredynas Days
Aug 19, 2020 @ 08:26:57
I agree about the strange shift of punctuation in the translation- Emily Dickinson’s dashes are similarly difficult to render, even untranslated
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 09:12:18
It’s unusual, and I really would have preferred the punctuation to be kept as in the original. It’s what the poet intended, surely, just as ED intended her dashes!
Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead
Aug 19, 2020 @ 12:51:52
I always enjoy learning about a new poet and Sodergran seems particularly interesting. The lines you quote are certainly very beautiful (I love the idea of being a star “without vertigo”!). Is it my imagination, or does Scandinavian art & literature get the tinest bit neglected? Recently I’ve been looking at some wonderful paintings by northern artists (Peder Balke, for one), who were never mentioned in any of my art history courses. It’s wonderful that you’re calling attention to some of the literature, which will go on my “to be explored” in more depth list!
Verry interesting discussion about translation as well — it really makes me appreciate the wonderful job so many translators do, in making this work available to us.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 16:20:25
She was a fasacinating woman and there were some really beautiful parts to the book. As for Scandinavian art and lit, I *do* get the impression that much of it is a little overlooked. None of the authors I’ve read recently had come into my line of sight over the many years I’ve been reading translated literature, and that seems unjust. Hopefully initiatives like Bloodaxe republishing some of their collections, and Norvik Press’s efforts, will bring them more to the fore.
And yes – I mentally thank translators on a daily basis – what would I do without them? ;D
heavenali
Aug 19, 2020 @ 13:55:01
Sodergran sounds like an interesting poet, so glad you enjoyed this collection so much. I can see from what you say about those differences in punctuation between the two languages how complex translating poetry must be.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 16:18:06
She was, and such an interesting life. I imagine translating poetry must be one of the most complicated things going – I admire *anyone* who turns their hand to it!
languagehat
Aug 19, 2020 @ 13:59:35
I wrote about Södergran here, and you might find some of the links interesting; you might also want a copy of the Selected Poems translated by Stina Katchadourian, which is what I have — it’s inexpensive and the translations are fine (and keep the dots…).
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 16:12:11
Thank you (I think….) I may now end up with a third book of her poems!!!
(ETA – that collection is not quite so cheap in the UK….)
ireadthatinabook
Aug 19, 2020 @ 17:09:21
I think maybe “bosom” has a similar duality as “sköte”. That it can be both a literal (polite) reference to the body part, and be used figuratively to indicate closeness and/or motherhood? Of course it is the wrong body part and wouldn’t work in this particular poem, but in my opinion lap doesn’t indicate enough nearness. Womb is correct but more explicit than the original.
Country and land is the same word in Swedish so either title translation is accurate, although I agree that the Wikipedia variety sounds better.
Speaking of Swedish we also consider “o” and “ö” to be different letters, with different sounds. Admittedly no-one outside of the Nordic countries ever cares about that, but it should be Södergran, Mörling and Ellerström 🙂
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 18:59:41
Thank you! This is just so interesting and proves how complex and nuanced translation really is. And I suppose, too, when reading translation that a lot depends on how you personally respond to a version.
As for the punctuation, I was painfully aware that I was missing the dots on the letter o, but I haven’t quite worked out how to get that into WordPress…. But as you tell me the the letters are completely different, I will try harder next time! 😀
ireadthatinabook
Aug 19, 2020 @ 19:34:18
I have the same problem when I write Norwegian words from my Swedish keyboard. Technically we have the same characters (å=å, ä=æ, ö=ø), so it is sort of OK to use the wrong ones, but it doesn’t look right… If you really need some weird symbol for something this list is useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters Here you find the html codes for all kinds of weird characters just copy the code in the html column and it should transform into the right character. The Scandinavian ones are in the “Latin 1 – supplement”-list.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 20:26:44
Thank you! I’ll check that out. Maybe I’ll just have to try to find the right letters in Word when I’m writing my posts and see if I can paste them into WordPress!
Jane
Aug 19, 2020 @ 18:58:54
This is so interesting as always, I share your love of digging about with bookish suggestions and completely agree with you about . . . and -, totally different meanings!
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 19:00:30
Thank you! Yes, intriguing to explore the different versions. And certainly in English, … and – would not be comparable!
Peggy
Aug 19, 2020 @ 19:39:10
I hadn’t thought about Hagar Olsson in a long time. I will have to see if I can find my copy of Chitambo. Södergran is one of my favorite poets though I have not read her in a while.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 19, 2020 @ 20:26:03
I did love Chitambo and I’d love to explore more of Olsson’s writing. In fact, I believe that she has quite a bit of input into the Södergran book of letters!
Julé Cunningham
Aug 19, 2020 @ 23:11:43
Very interesting to read the various translation possibilities in the answers you’ve received. I’m always thankful to the translators that take the work on, especially those brave enough to tackle poetry, but there are those nagging thoughts in the back of my head wondering what I’m missing out on by not being able to read the original!
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 20, 2020 @ 16:07:26
I’m eternally grateful to translators, and can’t begin to imagine how complex poetry is to translate. I do often wish I was multilingual and could read *all* of my favourite authors in their original languages, but alas that will never happen… 😦
1streading
Aug 20, 2020 @ 12:54:24
This is as much a detective story as a review! I love when one book leads to others like this. When it comes to translating, especially poetry, there must be difficult decisions between what is most faithful and what sounds best (I would go with the latter but I can see why others would object to this!)
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 20, 2020 @ 16:02:04
LOL! It is – I went for the first book which came up on my searching, but it seems there are several versions of her work in English. It’s a hard decision – fidelity vs artistry – and I imagine it often has to be a compromise. I guess that’s another good reason to always read lots of different translations!!
madamebibilophile
Aug 23, 2020 @ 17:42:35
Fascinating post Kaggsy! I don’t know this poet but the quotes are so beautiful, I definitely want to read her. I think I’d like to try the Bloodaxe translation, although its interesting from the comments that it really should have been womb, not lap – such a huge difference!
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 23, 2020 @ 19:59:52
No, she was new to me but I’m so glad to have found her. And it’s interesting, because what I take from the comments here is that in English the difference in meaning between womb and lap is quite a wide one, whereas in her original language the term is more generally applied to the area in question – so perhaps might not have quite such a sexual implication. Very interesting indeed!
buriedinprint
Aug 26, 2020 @ 21:47:04
What a striking cover. I’ve come across a few Bloodaxe poetry books over the years and they’ve always been of interest. Can you still purchase the earlier publications second-hand, or are they simply not available any longer because the print runs were so limited? It’s disappointing when one simply comes to a discovery too late to properly pursue it (not that we’ve any shortage of other reading projects/obsessions). On another note, I’m always so intrigued by those very short verses. I wonder how that kind of writer’s mind works, whether they start with something much much longer and winnow it down…or whether they see things so perfectly crystallized right from the start…
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 27, 2020 @ 12:48:29
Bloodaxe are marvellous, and from what I’ve seen their older collections are often available direct from their website (this may be pod, but I’m not complaining – it would be hard to keep their whole catalogue constantly in print. Poetry is often intriguing – and Sodegran’s verse varies in length but my quotes are not whole poems (I’m always a little wary of publishing a whole one). She does write beatiufully.