“I live continually in a reverie of the future.” #edgarallanpoe #baudelaire

Edgar Allan Poe is an author who is perhaps unfortunately pigeonholed because of the fame (or indeed notoriety!) of his horror stories. Tales like “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”, poems like “The Raven”, fall squarely into the kind of writing which is normally read at this time of the year. And I have to confess that I do love his dark, troubling stories and his melodramatic verse! However, his writing does range more widely than this and he’s been responsible for journalism, essays, a scientific prose-poem and of course some of the earliest examples of detective fiction.

I’ve read a lot of his work over the years, but my eye was caught recently on Twitter when someone mentioned a little collection called “The Unknown Poe”. An anthology initially published in 1980 by New Directions, and gathered together by Raymond Foye, it brings together not only some of what they call ‘fugitive wiritngs’ by Poe, but also some marvellous writings on the man by luminaries such as Andre Breton and Charles Baudelaire. The result is a most wonderful collection which I devoured and absolutely loved!

And so, being young and dipt in folly
I fell in love with melancholy

The Poe section contains some fascinating pieces, from a selection of letters, through some poems rarely seen and extract from his ‘Marginalia‘. There are also prose pieces, “Prose, Essays & Reviews” and these were particularly interesting; ‘The Imp of the Perverse‘, which explores that inexplicable human trait of perversity, is perhaps the best known, but it was fascinating seeing him give his thoughts on authors such as Shelley and Shakespeare. After reading all of these pieces, I really feel I want to dig out what Poe I have, and then check out whether there’s any kind of collected edition available; the diversity of his writing is impressive.

OUR PRESENT EXISTENCE

It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

The icing on the cake for me, though, was the supporting material collected in the second section, entitled “The French View“. Here, Foy brings together some writings by Baudelaire on Poe which are exemplary, and as well as throwing light on Poe, also demonstrate the influence the older writer had on the younger. These two substantial pieces were, I believe, forewords to translations of Poe’s work which Baudelaire made into the French, and his enthusiasm and reverence for Poe are clear.

It will always be difficult to exist, nobly and productively, as a man of letters, without facing defamation, slander by the impotent, the envy of the rich, that envy which is their punishment! – or the vengeance of bourgeois mediocrity. But what is difficult in a restrained monarchy or in a regular republic, becomes nearly impossible in a kind of lumber yard where every town sergeant polices his own opinions to the profit of his own vices – or his own virtues, for they are one in the same; – where a poet or novelist in a slave society is a detestable writer in the eyes of an abolitionist critic, where one does not know which is the greater scandal, sloppy cynicism or imperturbable Biblical hypocrisy. (Baudelaire)

The other pieces, by Huysmans, Valery, Lallarme and Breton, are much shorted but equally fascinating and, in their references back to Baudelaire and then Poe, they clearly demonstrate the lineage of influence down from an American author much misunderstood in his own country but revered in Europe. Baudelaire in particular is very harsh about America and its (lack of) culture, chastising the country for not recognising the genius they had in their midst; and, in fact, he goes on to berate society in general for trying to produce a bland and homogenised literature. It’s bracing and fascinating stuff!

As you can see from the amount of post-its sticking out of my book, this small volume (117 pages) was absolutely packed with writing which had my brain buzzing. (It also has a few very nice illustrations…) I’ve tended with Poe to read mainly his stories, but I definitely want to explore the rest of his writing more after reading this. As for Baudelaire, again I have volumes of his prose non-fiction lurking on Mount TBR and they really do need to come off it sooner rather than later! “The Unknown Poe” was an utterly wonderful read, and thank you to whoever happened to mention it on Twitter – I’m so glad I read it! 😀

Torrid Translation Troubles… #Baudelaire

There’s a saying that goes ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, and alas I tend to find that can be the case when I’m reading translated works… I’ve grumped a bit about translation issues in the past, and these can be a particular problem when I’m reading from the French; in particular a dual language edition of poetry. A case in point is a recent book which became such a struggle that I actually stopped reading it, although the problem may be more my expectations than the book itself…

The author is Charles Baudelaire, who’s appeared on the Ramblings before; and I *am* a bit of a fan of his work. When I was perusing the Seagull Books sale last year, I initially intended not to purchase from it, but did get hold of a volume of his they’d issued via a second hand site. The book is “Invitation to the Voyage”, translated by Beverley Bie Brahic, and it’s an anthology featuring selections from his prose and poetry arranged thematically, so that works in the two different forms relate to one another. The poems are presented alongside their French originals, but not the prose.

Baudelaire poetry

So I started reading with enthusiasm, but soon began to stumble. The problem is my schoolgirl French, and the temptation to compare the translation with the original; and then finding that I would prefer a different rendering!! This is not me being arrogant, as I would never presume to translate and can’t imagine how complex it is, but there were places where I was uncomfortable with what was being presented in English…

Now, I *know* a literal translation is not necessarily going to be the best, and that any translation of a poem (in particular) is going to be an interpretation. But the renderings weren’t working for me and when I got to “The Balcony” the disjuncture between what I felt I should be reading and what I was reading was too much – I abandoned the book…

Baudelaire is an author whose poems I have in several different translations, as you can see from the book pile above, and I dug them all out to compare the various versions of “The Balcony”; and the one which appealed to me most, oddly enough, was from the Penguin Classics Selected Poems which contains what they call a plain prose translation by Carol Clark. Simply a literal prose rendering, but I found it the most moving and the one which spoke to me most – go figure…

This leaves me with a bit of a dilemma, really, as another slight quibble I had with “Invitation…” was its selectiveness. As I read through, I was reminded that Baudelaire’s one great poetic work was “Les Fleurs du Mal” which kind of is a complete whole of its own. Reading selections from it just felt a bit wrong, but the dilemma I now have is that the Penguin only has part of it so I’m not sure where to go next with reading Baudelaire’s poetry.

Baudelaire Prose

Really, I’m my own worst enemy I suppose; maybe I would be better off sticking large post-its over the French originals, finding the translated voice I like best and just reading that. The danger is that I will always have that question mark in the back of my mind as to whether I would prefer different words; if I can get past that, I may be ok!

Baudelaire has, of course, been translated many, many times and so it may be that I just haven’t found the right version for me yet. For the time being, however, I shall stick to the literal prose translations for a little while (and these are also the form used in my Penguin Book of French Poetry, which is a help). And I can also dip into his prose as I have a number of collections of this too. But if anyone can recommend a translation of Baudelaire they think is particularly good, please do let me know!

“Only poets are innocent enough to invent such monstrosities” #baudelaire @melvillehouse

Despite the teetering piles of the TBR, I can never resist procuring new books and they certainly haven’t stopped trickling into the Ramblings recently… They tend to suffer one of two fates: either joining the piles and getting lost in there forever (or for quite a while) or getting picked up and read pretty rapidly. Today’s book is one of the latter; I had been intending to pick up a copy for absolutely ages, as it’s Baudelaire! and prose! but somehow hadn’t. However, I stumbled across a reasonably-priced copy and as I was in the middle of reading some chunky volumes for Shiny New Books, it seemed the ideal distraction between a couple of these. The book in question is “Fanfarlo”, translated by Edward K. Kaplan and released in the Melville House Press ‘Art of the Novella’ series; and it’s fascinating.

As well as being a stunning poet, Baudelaire was also a writer of prose, and I have a collection of his writings on art, as well as “Paris Spleen” and others. However, “Fanfarlo” is rather special as it’s his only piece of prose fiction and was written a decade before his masterwork, “The Flowers of Evil”. An intense 61 pages long, it tells a story which really does seem to mirror that of its author; of an obsessive love affair which will change the life of the protagonist forever.

… Samuel was, more than all the others, the man of failed works of beauty;- a fantastical and sickly creature, whose poetry shines forth much more in his person than his works…

The protagonist is one Samuel Cramer; a poet, dandy and aesthete, he becomes embroiled in a situation with a childhood friend. She is Mme de Cosmelly, and her husband is obsessed with the titular Fanfarlo, a beautiful burlesuque dancer. Cramer is charged with seducing her himself, persuading her away from M de Cosmelly; however, all does not go as planned, and Samuel finds himself falling under Fanfarlo’s spell. Quite what effect this will have on his life and his work remains to be seen…

… he gave her his volume The Ospreys, a collection of sonnets, like those everyone has written and everyone has read, at the age when our judgement was so short and our hair so long.

As I mentioned above, “Fanfarlo” is reckoned to be drawn from Baudelaire’s complex relationship with the dancer Jeanne Duval, and if this is a self-portrait of the poet in his youth, it’s certainly a fascinating one. Samuel is a wonderfully entertaining and very complex character; oscillating between laziness and ambition, constantly drawn to shiny new things and experiences, he seems, in fact, no match for the women he meets. Fanfarlo, though, is a bit of a puzzle; in some ways less defined than Samuel, she’s a sensual and hot-blooded character, and likely to hijack his artistic ambitions. The result of the collision of these two forces of nature plays out in what might be the expected manner, and the narrator/author perhaps seems a little disappointed at this! Interestingly, Mme de Cosmelly is a more rounded character, and Baudelaire allows her to express some very modern and strong views about the education of women, allowing them to be given much more knowledge of the vices of men so they can approach adulthood and a marriage with a clear view of reality.

Étienne Carjat, Portrait of Charles Baudelaire, circa 1862 – Public Domain

“Fanfarlo” was such an interesting read, and was enhanced very much by the extra material which is accessible after purchasing the book. I have several of these MHP ‘Art of the Novella’ editions (they’re so lovely) and the publisher describes them as a ‘hybrid book’. There is a link in the back (or a QR Code to scan) which takes you to a PDF containing some wonderful addition information to support the reading of the book. There are images, biographical extracts and discussions of the work itself which make interesting reading in themselves as well as adding to the experience of reading “Fanfarlo”. I don’t know that I’ve actually accessed any of these before, despite, as I mentioned, owning a number of books in the series – that’s something I need to check out soon…

So this acquisition turned out to definitely be worth the wait! I love Baudelaire’s writing and this translation worked well for me (apart from the occasionally Americanism…) The poet seems to love self-deprecation, mocking his alter-ego regularly, although I found myself wondering about how he would feel later on in real life, seeing how his relationship with Duval played out. The prose was very beautiful, and on the evidence of “Fanfarlo” I rather wish Baudelaire had written more fiction… Highly recommended, particularly in this lovely edition with the extra material!

 

“History is an angel….” #WalterBenjamin @versobooks #germanlitmonth

The Storyteller: Tales out of Loneliness by Walter Benjamin
With Illustrations by Paul Klee
Translated and edited by Sam Dolbear, Esther Leslie and Sebastian Truskolaski

It seems that I’ve been aware of Walter Benjamin for longer than I might have realised; although the first thing I read by him was “Unpacking My Library“, that was fairly recently (and I have revisited it at least once). A renowned German Jewish author, he had an illustrious career but took his own life in 1940 while fleeing the Nazis. But he was in the back of my mind as an important thinker and critic, though possibly I was a little intimidated by his reputation. However, oddly enough, he had a considerable influence on me through his influence on one of my favourite artists, Laurie Anderson. I’ve adored her album “Strange Angels” since it came out in 1995, and a favourite track was “The Dream Before”. In the CD booklet this is dedicated “For Walter Benjamin”, although at that time I probably had little idea of the significance of the dedication. But more of that later…

I’ve amassed a number of Benjamin books since first reading “Unpacking…”, although really all they’ve done is sit on the shelves. “The Storyteller” is a good case in point; I obviously picked it up during one of Verso Books’ regular offers (do sign up for their newsletter – it’s really worth it!), but it had been languishing since along with some other volumes. However, I think it was the Baudelaire connection that spurred me on to this reading (as well as German Lit Month!); particularly when I sent Melissa an image of the contents page of Benjamin’s “Illuminations” collection, pointing out the Kafka content. There is also a Baudelaire essay, and a little bit of online research (always a dangerous thing!) led to the discovery that there is a considerable body of Benjamin writing about Baudelaire. Picking up “The Storyteller” as my next read was a no-brainer, and I’ve been dipping into it alongside a collection of Baudelaire’s selected poems in prose translation, and the two books together make a heady mix. I’m not qualified by a long chalk to ‘review’ Benjamin’s work – that would feel ridiculously presumptious – but I can share my reactions to this excellent book and perhaps encourage you to explore this marvellous writer’s works. I know I’ll be doing just that.

As I mentioned, I’ve always thought of Benjamin primarily in terms of philosophy and cultural writing, particularly in the field of critical theory (“a philosophical approach to culture, and especially to literature, that considers the social, historical, and ideological forces and structures which produce and constrain it.”) Therefore, to discover that he had wandered into fictions as well was intriguing, and this exemplary collection brings together for the first time all of Benjamin’s stories in one volume, along with marvellous illustrations by Swiss German artist Paul Klee and erudite commentary by the translators/editors. It’s a heady collection, which they’ve divided into three themed sections – “Dreamworlds”, “Travel” and “Play and Pedagogy”. I believe the majority of the works haven’t been translated into English before, which makes this book even more valuable; I imagine there must be shed-loads of Benjamin untranslated, and I’ve actually found myself in a bit of a book jungle trying to work out which of his books/collections I should pick up.

Of all those songs, the one I loved the most was a Christmas song that filled me, as only music can, with solace for a sorrow not yet experienced but only sensed now for the first time.

So what of the contents themselves? The translators/editors point out that the stories reflect many of the themes of Benjamin’s theoretical work. I’m not well-versed enough in the latter to really comment but what lingers most from reading these inventive, sparkling and often strange fables, stories and meditations is the sheer sense of playfulness (an element also highlighted in the introduction). Benjamin’s very fertile mind lets itself loose in fabulous ways, ranging far and wide over topics as diverse as children’s primers, dreams (both sleeping and waking), gambling, life in cities (which resonates with the Georg Simmel collection I read recently) and the moon. Many are short, fragmentary pieces but some extend over several pages, and each is beautifully written and memorable. I was reminded in some places of Bruno Schulz; in others of Borges. But each piece warranted the pleasure from slow and thoughtful reading, and I imagine I’ll return to this collection again and again over the years – it’s that good. The introduction reminds us of the importance of our imaginations – “Dreams shape history and are shaped by it” – and Benjamin’s is in full force here.

By Photo d’identité sans auteur, 1928 – Akademie der Künste, Berlin – Walter Benjamin Archiv, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17162035

Each of the 43 chapters has an image by Paul Klee at the start, and ends with the sources of the actual written material, individual translation credits, as well as details of the picture; all books should be this well presented and annotated. I don’t like to pick favourites, but one particular stand out for me was “The Hypochondriac in the Landscape” with its vivid, witty imagery :

At the peak of the landscape we find him again. A ruin stood there, overgrown by the green of nature. Storms and tempests roared more fiercely here than elsewhere. The place was created for the indulgence of every conceivable suffering…

And:

After dinner, physicians and patients organise germ hunts in the park. Oftentimes it happens that a patient is accidentally shot. In such cases a simple bed of moss and forest herbs is prepared as the patient sinks to the ground. Bandages lie ready in the tree hollows.

It’s clever and funny and dark, and sets the tone for much of the collection – I loved it! And a lovely piece entitled “Detective Novels, on tour” is a beautiful paean to the joy of reading a book while travelling by train.

As for Paul Klee and the Laurie Anderson connection, well that realisation was part of what send me down my recent Benjamin-Baudelaire wormhole. There is a Klee print called “Angelus Novus”, which was owned by Benjamin and is now in the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. It informs one of Benjamin’s last and most important works, as essay called “Theses on the Theory of History”, and that essay is in turn the source of Anderson’s lyrical imagery in her song “The Dream Before”. Bearing in mind that the essay was written while Benjamin was being pursued by the dark forces of history, the song and essay are even more poignant.The Klee painting seems to have been a real touchstone for Benjamin, and it even appears on the back of my copy of “Illuminations”.

Coll IMJ, photo (c) IMJ.
By Paul Klee – The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25188355

So I’m still down the Benjamin-Baudelaire wormhole; as you might have seen from recent posts I’ve been raiding the library for related books (in particular the volume which collects Benjamin’s essays on the poet). Although I’ve finished the Benjamin stories, I’m still savouring the Baudelaire poems and I’ll no doubt share some thoughts later. However, what I would say about them is that I’m finding the prose translations much more satisfying that those put into verse form which have me questioning the translator’s choices…

But I’ll leave you with the great Laurie Anderson, and her wonderful channelling of Benjamin; and I think that while we struggle on through one of our most difficult times, we need once again to be reminded of our past…