{"id":299896,"date":"2014-11-12T10:39:18","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T10:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2014\/11\/12\/slim-pickings-by-btba-judge-michael-orthofer\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:39:23","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:39:23","slug":"slim-pickings-by-btba-judge-michael-orthofer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2014\/11\/12\/slim-pickings-by-btba-judge-michael-orthofer\/","title":{"rendered":"Slim Pickings? by BTBA Judge Michael Orthofer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The size of a book shouldn\u2019t really matter, not when judging whether or not it\u2019s Best Translated Book Award-worthy<\/a>, but one of the things that has struck me about this year\u2019s batch of eligible titles is that page- if not quality-wise many of the pickings are slimmer than usual.<\/p>\n

Mind you, I\u2019m still reeling from 2011 and the memories of (lugging, not to mention reading) P\u00e9ter N\u00e1das\u2019s 1133-pager blank”>Parallel Stories<\/a><\/i> \u2026. (I don\u2019t even want to think about 2009 and Jonathan Littell\u2019s \u2026 let\u2019s say unfortunate near-1000 page The Kindly Ones<\/em><\/a><\/i>.) So, yes, there\u2019s something to be said for shorter books \u2013 beginning with the logistical advantages, of getting through them, as well as the quicker variety moving from one to the next allows for (getting bogged down in a 500-pager is very different (and more drawn-out-painful) than getting bogged down in a book of 100 pages \u2026).<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s shortlist had quite a few substantial books: if not quite the norm, there were a decent number of 400+ page books, including the winning title. Hell, 400 pages seemed almost unremarkable. Antonio Mu\u00f1oz Molina\u2019s In the Night of Time<\/a><\/i> topped 600, and along the way there had been longer books too: Goliarda Sapienza\u2019s The Art Of Joy<\/a><\/i> was just short of 700 pages, France Daigle\u2019s For Sure<\/a><\/i> easily topped that.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Quite a few 2014 books make it into the 400 page range \u2013 including obvious contenders for at least the final award-stages (longlist, shortlist): this year\u2019s Knausgaard (My Struggle: Book Three<\/a><\/i>), just like last year\u2019s; this year\u2019s Ferrante (Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay<\/a>)<\/i>, just like last year\u2019s \u2026. But there just don\u2019t seem to be that many other bulky books. And there seem to be a lot of very slim ones.<\/p>\n

True, we\u2019re unlikely ever to have an entry as short as last year\u2019s Her Not All Her<\/a><\/i> — Elfriede Jelinek\u2019s longlisted \u2026 well, it was barely a forty-page pamphlet. But the pile of top titles that come in at under a hundred pages is surprising.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Among my favorites this year has been Julio Cort\u00e1zar\u2019s (comic book-)inspired Fantomas versus the Multinational Vampires<\/a><\/i> (87 generously illustrated pages), which is about the most fun I\u2019ve had reading any of these books this year. With cameos by Susan Sontag and Alberto Moravia this is \u2026 well, wild barely begins to describe it. But the writing (and translation, by David Kurnick) is sharp, and, despite being almost forty years old, it feels surprisingly topical and current.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Arno Camenisch\u2019s The Alp<\/a><\/i> (82 pages) is just one of what seems like dozens of Dalkey Archive Press entries in the 100-page-range (it\u2019s not dozens, but there are quite a few). Here is an author who works in both German and Romansh (the fourth official language of Switzerland) \u2013 a challenge Donal McLaughlin seems quite up to here.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a second Haruki Murakami book due out this year, too — The Strange Library<\/a><\/i>, another book that counts as \u201cheavily illustrated\u201d and still doesn\u2019t make it to a hundred pages. There\u2019s a fairly new Murakami translator at work here too \u2013 one we haven\u2019t read in the previous translations, Ted Goosen — and while it is a very small piece (and competes against the other Murakami in the running this year, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage<\/a><\/i>, translated by older Murakami-hand Philip Gabriel) can\u2019t be discounted at this early stage.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

So are there any fat chance-counterweights to these slim pickings? As I said, a couple of contenders make it into the 400 page range, but beyond that the choices are few and far between. Some thrillers and the like but from what I\u2019ve seen so far, nothing that could make a serious dent (sorry, Zoran Drvenkar\u2019s You<\/a><\/i> may have an intriguing range of voices, but \u2026 yeah, sorry, no). The best 500+ pagers I\u2019ve checked out so far are Leonardo Padura\u2019s Trotsky novel, The Man Who Loved Dogs<\/a><\/i>, which has the qualities that could put it on the longlist, and Albert S\u00e1nchez Pi\u00f1ol\u2019s Victus<\/a><\/i>, which also turns out to be a nice surprise. But they both do sag a bit under their weight \u2013 always the danger with the long ones.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

The one I\u2019m most curious about is one I haven\u2019t seen yet: H.G. Adler\u2019s The Wall<\/a><\/i> (a reported 656 pages), the last in a trilogy that has impressed so far. This comes with some very good buzz, so I definitely see some potential here. Of course, I do have to see it before I can properly judge \u2026..<\/p>\n

We\u2019re used to meaty books when it comes to fiction in translation, as if length were more proof of a book\u2019s weighty worthiness. From the biggest Bola\u00f1os and recent BTBA<\/span> winners My\u015bliwski and (2x) Krasznahorkai they never entirely shoved smaller works aside, but maybe had an easier time making more of a big impression. I wonder whether we\u2019ll now see a shift towards some of this smaller work \u2013 looking even stronger this year than usual.<\/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. The size of a book shouldn\u2019t really matter, not when judging whether or not it\u2019s Best Translated Book Award-worthy, but one of the things that has struck me about this year\u2019s batch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[57276,7736,1646,58866],"class_list":["post-299896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-btba-2015","tag-michael-orthofer","tag-review","tag-slim-pickings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299896","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\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317086,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299896\/revisions\/317086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Others under 100 pages include the almost obligatory annual diminutive C\u00e9sar Aira \u2013 Conversations<\/a><\/i> this year (88 pages) \u2013 and Antonio Sk\u00e1rmeta\u2019s A Distant Father<\/a><\/i>. Special mention has to go to Patrick Modiano\u2019s Suspended Sentences<\/a><\/i>, a volume we weren\u2019t expecting until next year until he was named this year\u2019s Nobel laureate, leading Yale University Press to push up the publication date: it consists of \u2018Three Novellas\u2019, filling just over 200 pages \u2013 but in France (and elsewhere) the slim volumes have also been published individually. Almost unfair for the Nobel laureate to get three chances to wow the judges in one go (and, helped along by translator Mark Polizzotti, who seems to have a really good feel for Modiano\u2019s style, he certainly wowed this one).<\/p>\n

Some good-looking short story collections come in under the century-mark — Kristiina Ehin\u2019s Walker on Water<\/a><\/i> and Kjell Askildsen\u2019s Selected Stories<\/a><\/i> among them \u2013 but I\u2019m particularly surprised by the number of novels of this size. And by how many of them punch considerably above their weight: Hilda Hilst\u2019s With My Dog Eyes<\/a><\/i> is probably only sustainable over this length, while Jean Echenoz\u2019s just over 100-page 1914<\/a><\/i> is a master-class in economical storytelling.<\/p>\n