{"id":282726,"date":"2011-03-16T15:22:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T15:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2011\/03\/16\/on-elegance-while-sleeping-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T15:23:09","slug":"on-elegance-while-sleeping-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2011\/03\/16\/on-elegance-while-sleeping-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/","title":{"rendered":"On Elegance While Sleeping [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

On Elegance While Sleeping<\/em><\/b> by Viscount Lascano Tegui, translated by Idra Novey<\/p>\n

Language:<\/b> Spanish
\nCountry:<\/b> Argentina
\nPublisher:<\/b> Dalkey Archive
\nPages:<\/b> 172<\/p>\n

Why This Book Should Win:<\/b> Because it hasn\u2019t won any other awards, and it deserves at least one. On Elegance While Sleeping is our first opportunity to read a complete work by Tegui in English. Also, where else can we find heterosexuality, homosexuality, pedophilia, prostitution, and bestiality all wrapped into the experiences of one character.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s entry is from Gwen Dawson, who runs the always excellent Literary License<\/a> blog. And who will be joining the BTBA<\/span> judging panel for 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n

Emilio Lascano Tegui (1887-1966) was, at various times during his eventful life, an Argentinean, a Parisian, a self-labeled viscount, a translator, a journalist, a curator, a painter, a decorator, a diplomat, a mechanic, an orator, a dentist, and, fortunately for us, a writer. Tegui\u2019s 1925 novel On Elegance While Sleeping<\/em>, a cult classic in Argentina, Tegui\u2019s home country, is now available for the first time to an English-speaking audience (thanks to Dalkey Archive Press and translator Idra Novey). This genre-defying novel is framed as a four-year series of chronologically-ordered diary entries composed by an unnamed French infantryman in the late 1800s. Like its author, this novel\u2019s narrator concerns himself with a bit of everything, including the proverbial kitchen sink (or, should I say, the cultivation of carrots). The entries touch on the themes of life, illness (specifically, syphilis), death, sex, gender, memory, crime, and literature, to name just a few. Seamlessly shifting among present reflections, past recollections, and stories within stories, the entries examine the mundane (one begins \u201cCotton mittens bother me when they\u2019re dyed black.\u201d) as well as the sublime (\u201cNothing spreads sadness like popularity.\u201d) and range in length from just two sentences to almost seven pages. The result is a work of art that\u2019s impossible to categorize. Is it autobiography? Allegory? A crime novel? An experiment in form? In a word, yes.<\/p>\n

Just before we lose our bearings wandering among this heady collection of seemingly aimless thoughts\u2014that is, at the perfect moment\u2014On Elegance While Sleeping<\/i> changes registers. The novel adopts a foreboding tone as the diary entries slowly coalesce into the thoughts of a man intent on committing murder. Driven by a Raskolnikov-like need \u201c[t]o unburden humanity of an imperfect being: a weakness,\u201d the diarist lays out his motivations in chilling and poetic prose:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve sketched out my plans and am ready. I have a new strength in me, taken from the secret core of my life, driving me on, controlling me. It\u2019s health, youth, and optimism combined. Until yesterday, my tentative novel (\u201cThe Syphilis of Don Juan\u201d) served as a haven for my imagination. Today, it doesn\u2019t satisfy my thirst\u2014or, better said, can no longer stem the anguish that gnaws at me on the eve of an act that is now quite inevitable. I\u2019m halfway between a comedy and a strange sort of drama, and feel an overbearing need to lower the curtain. No simple curtain: the front curtain of the stage, the grand drape, the great iron and asbestos curtain that drops like a zinc plate from the sixth floor and creaks as it falls. Something like that, flamboyant, coarse, unexpected\u2014something that will impose its tyranny over my life without question. I\u2019m going to kill someone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tegui\u2019s prose is a seductive mix of hard edges and soft contours, flowing musings and sharp declarations. Translator Idra Novey maintains this delicate balance, juxtaposing \u201ca haven for my imagination\u201d with \u201cthe anguish that gnaws\u201d and following a complex and elegant three-sentence metaphor with the startling declaration, \u201cI\u2019m going to kill someone.\u201d Tegui\u2019s compelling style relies as much on rhythm and sound as it does on content, and Novey masterfully recreates this effect in English.<\/p>\n

At its core, On Elegance While Sleeping<\/em> gives us access to the soul of a man who is desperately seeking. Whether it\u2019s love, sex, happiness, connection with his fellow man, an imaginative outlet, or simply a good story, the problem is the same: to find what he lacks. He asks, \u201cCould it be that the thing I\u2019m missing is courage?\u201d Does our diarist have the fortitude to follow through with his murderous plan? To discover the answer, you\u2019ll have to read the book.<\/p>\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":[7656,37866,37856,17496,28926,38906,6516,38896,37876],"class_list":["post-282726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-argentine-literature","tag-best-translated-book","tag-btba-2011","tag-dalkey-archive-press","tag-idra-novey","tag-on-elegance-while-sleeping","tag-spanish-literature","tag-viscount-lascano-tegui","tag-why-this-book-should-win"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282726","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=282726"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397412,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282726\/revisions\/397412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}