{"id":282646,"date":"2011-03-11T18:34:45","date_gmt":"2011-03-11T18:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2011\/03\/11\/a-life-on-paper-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T15:23:55","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T15:23:55","slug":"a-life-on-paper-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2011\/03\/11\/a-life-on-paper-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/","title":{"rendered":"A Life on Paper [Why This Book Should Win the BTBA]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Similar to years past, we\u2019re going to be featuring each of the 25 titles on the BTBA<\/span> Fiction Longlist<\/a> over the next month plus, but in contrast to previous editions, this year we\u2019re going to try an experiment and frame all write-ups as \u201cwhy this book should win.\u201d Some of these entries will be absurd, some more serious, some very funny, a lot written by people who normally don\u2019t contribute to Three Percent. Overall, the point is to have some fun and give you a bunch of reasons as to why you should read at least a few of the BTBA<\/span> titles._<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for all past and future posts.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Life on Paper<\/em><\/b> by Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud, translated by Edward Gauvin<\/p>\n

Language:<\/b> French
\nCountry:<\/b> France
\nPublisher:<\/b> Small Beer
\nPages:<\/b> 231<\/p>\n

Why This Book Should Win:<\/b> Craziest (in a fun way) French author to finally make his way into English; looks almost exactly like Kurt Vonnegut; first book from Small Beer to make the list; Edward Gauvin is one of the brightest up-and-coming translators working today.<\/p>\n

We will have a more formal post about this book in the near future, but in the meantime, I wanted to draw some attention to Edward Gauvin\u2019s blog,<\/a> which is very interesting and includes a post on A Visit with Chateaureynaud<\/a> that provides some good material on why Chateaureynaud deserves more attention\u2014and even a prize:<\/p>\n

Ch\u00e2teaureynaud had just come from signing 300 press copies of his latest book, a memoir of his early life from Grasset, entitled La vie nous regarde passer [Life Watches Us Go By].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI lost fifteen copies,\u201d he said. \u201cI left them in the metro. The stockroom did a good job sealing the box up really tight, so instead of trying to open it, the police have probably blown it up by now.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one way to spread the word\u2026 or words,\u201d I said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cYes . . . you could say that book really burst onto the scene!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ch\u00e2teaureynaud\u2019s latest work of fiction, R\u00e9sidence derni\u00e8re<\/em> [Final Residence], had come out a few weeks earlier from Les \u00c9ditions des Busclats, a small press founded by poet Ren\u00e9 Char\u2019s daughter, Marie-Claude, and her partner, critic Mich\u00e8le Gazier. Since 2007\u2019s De l\u2019autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 d\u2019Alice<\/em> [Through a Looking Glass Darkly]\u2014three adult meditations on popular children\u2019s heroes Alice, Peter Pan, and Pinocchio\u2014Ch\u00e2teaureynaud had been experimenting with thematically linked triptychs of short stories. The tales in R\u00e9sidence derni\u00e8re<\/em>, featuring a decrepit sphinx, a magic mirror, and a nightmarish limbo, revolve around writer\u2019s retreats, examining such typically Castelreynaldian themes as solitude, the anxiety of creation, and the writing life. I thought the final, title story among the finest he\u2019d written. In it, a number of aging writers, worrying over posterity, find themselves on a bus headed for a mysterious residency. [. . .]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An alcove off the dining room is stocked top to bottom with the handsome red Hachette hardcovers of Jules Verne, a few postcards and figurines propped against the gilt backdrop of their spines. In a corner of the glass-fronted armoire, among china services collected from his days as an antiques dealer, the certificate naming Ch\u00e2teaureynaud a Chevalier de la L\u00e9gion d\u2019honneur stands rolled up in its original mailing tube. A photocopied picture was wedged between mirror and frame, above the liquor cabinet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cGuess who it is?\u201d G.-O. asked. A weathered-looking Vonnegut with a hat and a cane stared out from a street corner. \u201cHe does look like me, doesn\u2019t he?\u201d [. . .]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

G.-O. said that he himself had met Borges\u2019 friend, the Argentine fabulist Adolfo Bioy Casares, \u201cin Nice once, or maybe Cannes. Somewhere warm.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He\u2019d asked Bioy Casares a question only to be met with practiced deflection. \u201cBut he was very old by then, you know; I don\u2019t think he could\u2019ve stood up straight without his nurses.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I pictured the author of The Invention of Morel<\/em>, one of Ch\u00e2teaureynaud\u2019s favorite novels, flanked by a pair of Russ Meyer valkyries. Among the many ways in which meeting Georges-Olivier has not disappointed me is that he never plays the persona card. You have the feeling of talking to a real person who pays you the compliment of his attention and does his best to answer, an approachability almost shocking in a public figure. There is, of course, the hat and the merry air of slight befuddlement most often worn at book fairs, but even that, one suspects, is less pretense than actuality, and endearingly human.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Similar to years past, we\u2019re going to be featuring each of the 25 titles on the BTBA Fiction Longlist over the next month plus, but in contrast to previous editions, this year we\u2019re going to try an experiment and frame all write-ups as \u201cwhy this book should win.\u201d Some of these entries will be absurd, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[29566,37866,37856,21166,3426,29546,38796,37876],"class_list":["post-282646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-a-life-on-paper","tag-best-translated-book","tag-btba-2011","tag-edward-gauvin","tag-french-literature","tag-georges-olivier-chateaureynaud","tag-small-beer","tag-why-this-book-should-win"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282646"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397442,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282646\/revisions\/397442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}