{"id":295896,"date":"2013-12-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2013\/12\/18\/dutch-treats\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:39:27","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:39:27","slug":"dutch-treats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2013\/12\/18\/dutch-treats\/","title":{"rendered":"Dutch Treats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Orthofer runs the Complete Review<\/a> \u2013 a book review site with a focus on international fiction \u2013 and its Literary Saloon<\/a> weblog.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the many interesting things about judging the Best Translated Book Award is the sense it gives you of what (and how much) is actually being translated into English (and published\/distributed in the US). Thanks largely to Dalkey Archive Press\u2019 Library of Korean Literature<\/a>, for example, we\u2019re suddenly exposed to about a dozen Korean titles this year (without the Dalkey publications, it would be more like \u2026 one). The statistics can be revealing \u2013 and disappointing. Sure, we get \u2026 well, if not quite any number so at least a whole lot of French titles \u2013 but Chinese ? Isn\u2019t Chinese literature hot<\/i> right now ? Last time the database we rely on was updated (i.e. there might still be some unaccounted for) I counted all of three eligible titles.<\/p>\n

Numbers-wise, among the literatures which seems to consistently punch above its population-weight, along with Icelandic and Hebrew, is Dutch (meaning: Dutch and Flemish), and while we have (at last count) quote-unquote only six works of fiction to consider \u2026 well, damn, it is an impressive selection (and the Vondel Prize<\/a>-folks — who have to consider two years’ worth of publications — have their work cut out for them).<\/p>\n

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I haven\u2019t seen one of these yet — The Square of Revenge<\/i>, \u2018An Inspector Van In novel\u2019 by Pieter Aspe \u2013 and I suspect that its being part of a mystery series makes it a longshot to get longlisted, but I note that Aspe has apparently sold millions and that this book did get reviewed in The New York Times Book Review<\/i> (only as part of Marilyn Stasio\u2018s \u2018Crime\u2019-round-up<\/a>, but still). [As it turns out, there\u2019s a double-bill of Inspector Van In novels eligible \u2013 a second one, The Midas Murders<\/i>, having also appeared in the eligible period (but failing to make it onto the database for now \u2013 an omission Chad will rectify shortly. So that\u2019s seven \u2013 and counting \u2026 \u2013 Dutch titles in the running.]<\/p>\n

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Even if they are great mysteries, the Aspes will be hard-pressed to compete with the other Dutch titles elbowing for spots on the longlist. First off, there\u2019s Hella S. Haasse\u2019s The Black Lake <\/i>, in Ina Rilke\u2019s translation — which fellow-judge Daniel Medin has already delighted in in a previous Three Percent\/BTBA post<\/a>. Haasse<\/a> — who died just two years ago, at a very ripe old age \u2013 wrote this back in 1948. While quite a bit of the work by this grand old lady of Dutch literature has been published in translation, it\u2019s great to see this important, powerful little novel about colonial Indonesia finally also available in English.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s another, even older work in the running, Jan Jacob Slauerhoff\u2019s 1932 novel, The Forbidden Kingdom<\/a>. This unusual time-bridging narrative features Portuguese traveler and poet, Lu\u00eds de Cam\u00f5es, as well as a modern-day (well, early 20th-century) events, and is a wonderful (and wonderfully surprising) more-than-just-adventure novel.<\/p>\n

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Then there\u2019s Gerbrand Bakker\u2019s Ten White Geese<\/a> — which you might also recognize from the title it was published in the UK under, The Detour <\/i>, since it, in David Colmer\u2019s translation, already won the biggest translation-into-English prize on the other side of the Atlantic, the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize<\/a>, With Bakker\u2019s previous novel, The Twin<\/a>, already making the 2010 BTBA<\/span> shortlist it\u2019s clear he\u2019s an author \u2013 and this a book \u2013 that has to be taken pretty seriously.<\/p>\n

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Finally, there are the two Sam Garrett-translated titles \u2013 notable not just because they share a translator (Anthea Bell has him beat there, hands down, with five translations in the BTBA<\/span>-running) but because they\u2019re in many ways quite similar works \u2013 and both were incredibly successful in the Netherlands. One is Tirza<\/a>, by Arnon Grunberg, the other The Dinner<\/a> by Herman Koch. Amazingly, both<\/i\/> were reviewed in the not-known-as-very-open-to-fiction-in-translation New York Times Book Review<\/i> \u2013 here<\/a> and here<\/a> \u2013 and The Dinner<\/i> even got the Janet Maslin treatment in the daily Times<\/i> (she loathed<\/a> it).<\/p>\n

One seems to have done much, much better sales-wise than the other — The Dinner<\/i>, which actually can boast of being a New York Times<\/i> bestseller (indeed, it spent quite a few weeks on the bestseller lists). Yet Tirza<\/i> is the clearly superior work; as Claire Messud concluded in her NYTBR<\/span><\/i> review of The Dinner<\/i>, that novel, while \u201cabsorbing and highly readable, proves in the end strangely shallow\u201d. Tirza<\/i>, on the other hand, is both entertaining and, ultimately, profound. <\/p>\n

Both novels have a horrific twist. In the case of The Dinner<\/i> it is one that\u2019s, at least in its outlines, fairly obvious early on \u2013 but just keeps getting more twisted and horrific as the novel progresses (an admittedly very nice and disturbing touch). Tirza<\/i> seems to follow a simpler arc of personal dissolution before taking its more surprising final turn into the abyss.<\/p>\n

The Dinner<\/i> uses a meal at a fancy restaurant as its foundation, taking readers through the many courses while incongruously (that\u2019s the intent, anyway) increasingly disturbing revelations are made. With one of the characters running for high political office (prime minister, in fact), The Dinner<\/i> is a cruel satire of contemporary Dutch movers and shakers (and any notion of civilized behavior in general). By turns shocking as well as occasionally funny, it does have considerable shock-value-appeal \u2013 but there\u2019s not that much more to it. Koch does reasonably well, but not quite well enough with what is also ultimately a very ugly tale that \u2013 as Messud noted \u2013 doesn\u2019t really have much depth to it.<\/p>\n

Tirza<\/i> also involves an almost unspeakable act, but Grunberg is the far superior craftsman in leading readers there, the shock, when it comes, all the more affecting. It\u2019s a remarkably convincing portrait of a man falling apart. Like Koch\u2019s novel, it\u2019s uncomfortable to read, in part, but whereas Koch\u2019s exaggerated satire can also be shrugged off \u2013 good for cocktail-party chatter, but hardly to be taken seriously as an in any way a profound critique of society \u2013 Grunberg\u2019s novel sits much deeper.<\/p>\n

I can see the easy appeal of The Dinner<\/i> \u2013 part of which is surely also that it can be shrugged off fairly easily, as over-the-top satire often can. Tirza<\/i>, much more personal than public (no one running for the highest office in the land here …), may not be a novel whose protagonist readers want to identify with either, but it\u2019s a completely convincing portrait of (a) contemporary man and contemporary society.<\/p>\n

This BTBA<\/span> selection process, of narrowing down the three or four hundred eligible books, first to a longlist, is challenging. I\u2019ve just gone over the Dutch titles here, and I think there\u2019s a strong case to be made for four of them to at least reach the final-25 stage. Whatever the outcome \u2013 I am only of nine judges, after all, and I can\u2019t be sure how my fellow judges feel about these (and the many other worthy) titles \u2013 I\u2019d be surprised if Tirza<\/i> didn\u2019t make the cut, and if The Dinner<\/i> did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Orthofer runs the Complete Review \u2013 a book review site with a focus on international fiction \u2013 and its Literary Saloon weblog. One of the many interesting things about judging the Best Translated Book Award is the sense it gives you of what (and how much) is actually being translated into English (and published\/distributed […]<\/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":[54336,35996,5256,54386,7736,1646,54376,50066,54366,53256],"class_list":["post-295896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-black-lake","tag-btba","tag-dutch-literature","tag-forbidden-kingdom","tag-michael-orthofer","tag-review","tag-square-of-revenge","tag-ten-white-geese","tag-the-dinner","tag-tirza"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295896","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=295896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317876,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295896\/revisions\/317876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}