{"id":301186,"date":"2015-04-28T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2015\/04\/28\/why-this-book-should-win-the-author-and-me-by-btba-judge-michael-orthofer\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:39:21","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:39:21","slug":"why-this-book-should-win-the-author-and-me-by-btba-judge-michael-orthofer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2015\/04\/28\/why-this-book-should-win-the-author-and-me-by-btba-judge-michael-orthofer\/","title":{"rendered":"Why this Book Should Win – The Author and Me 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.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Author and Me<\/i><\/a> – \u00c9ric Chevillard, translated from the French by Jordan Stump, France
\nDalkey Archive Press<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obviously, two-time, back-to-back winner L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai has made the biggest splash at the Best Translated Book Award<\/a> in recent years, but several other authors have also proven to be more than one-hit wonders. So, for example, former winner (2011, for The True Deceiver<\/a>) Tove Jansson features on this year\u2019s longlist, as do shortlisted authors from recent years such as Elena Ferrante (2014), Edouard Lev\u00e9 (2013), and Jean Echenoz (2012). One more name that keeps cropping up is that of \u00c9ric Chevillard: his Demolishing Nisard<\/a> was longlisted<\/a> in 2012, and a year later Prehistoric Times<\/a> was shortlisted<\/a>. So is 2015 the year Chevillard goes all the way, on the back of Jordan Stump\u2018s translation of his novel, The Author and Me<\/a>?<\/p>\n

A book-length rant by a character who is served cauliflower gratin rather than the trout amandine he was expecting \u2013 okay, perhaps it doesn\u2019t sound like the most promising material. And yet \u2026 what more could one ask for?<\/p>\n

Sure, the author admits, in a footnote well into the book, that maybe he\u2019s taking things a bit far:<\/p>\n

(R)eally, a whole book against cauliflower gratin, what a ridiculous conceit, it\u2019s not credible, not for a second<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nHe suggests, too:<\/p>\n

No, the reader will surely prefer to see all this as an allegory, and will struggle to decipher it: that cauliflower gratin can only be a metaphor for the good old-fashioned novel still stewing in the kitchens of our literature.<\/i> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nCertainly, one can \u2013 and probably does well to \u2013 read this and more into the protagonist\u2019s arguments. But as in any good allegory, The Author and Me<\/i> (and the cauliflower\/trout debate) functions well on multiple levels: regardless of how deep or shallow the meaning, this is some fine raging on offer here.<\/p>\n

Yet there\u2019s more to The Author and Me<\/i>, too: as the title suggests, this is a novel that also plays some games with questions of the relationship between author and subject. In his Foreword, Chevillard insists he\u2019s out to prove his autonomy-as-author \u2013 to show that he\u2019s the one in charge and differentiate himself from a protagonist who, he insists, isn\u2019t just a mouthpiece-cum-alter ego. Just to make things clear, he intrudes in the story-proper \u2013 in footnotes explaining his position. Wanting to assert autonomy, and authorial authority \u2013 and to show he\u2019s the better man (\u201cThe author\u2019s mind is more spirited, bolder, and even more sensitive\u201d, he claims, for example, just to be clear \u2026) \u2013 he struggles to differentiate himself from his character. Eventually, he feels he has to put his foot(note) down more firmly, asserting himself in a secondary story (suggested title: My Ant<\/i>) \u2013 a forty-page excursion (all in that single footnote) following \u2026 an ant. (No worries, the cauliflower gratin\/trout amandine mix-up hasn\u2019t been forgotten: it crops up here as well.)<\/p>\n

Oh, and for those who prefer their novels with a bit of a more conventional arc of drama and suspense, The Author and Me<\/i> also offers \u2026 murder! (Some readers may, indeed, wonder, as the narrator rants and rants endlessly along, at what point the Mademoiselle who is his silent, long-suffering audience reaches the breaking point and reaches across the table to start throttling him \u2013 or perhaps suspect Chevillard-as-author will assert final authority by doing in his wordy creation himself \u2026 but Chevillard follows convention only so far (not very; not very, at all) so there\u2019s some surprise here, too. (Indeed, as he hopefully notes in his final footnote: \u201cHe trusts that this twist will leave his reader agape, and, why not, stammering Wha\u2026wha\u2026<\/i>\u201d.)<\/p>\n

The Author and Me<\/i> is a fairly slim (146-page) albeit occasionally dense (certainly literally so, in that footnote-story-section, some forty pages of fine print \u2026) novel that builds a tour de force on its simple premises \u2013 cauliflower vs. trout; author vs. protagonist. Chevillard has considerable fun while he\u2019s at it \u2013 and so then does the reader \u2013 and shows incredible dexterity in what he does with his story. It\u2019s challenging \u2013 in no small part because Chevillard refuses to give in to convention(s) \u2013 to put up with cauliflower gratin! \u2013 but rewardingly so.<\/p>\n

Jordan Stump<\/a> has been engaged with \u00c9ric Chevillard\u2019s writing for many years: the first of Chevillard\u2019s books he translated was The Crab Nebula<\/i><\/a>, in 1997; The Author and Me<\/i> is the fourth. With its stylistic range and playfulness, Chevillard\u2019s writing, more than most, is surely not something either translator or reader can easily get comfortable with \u2013 a 1997 reviewThe Crab Nebula<\/i>, in The New York Times Book Review<\/i> by Liam Callanan noting:<\/p>\n

“‘Translation is entirely mysterious,’ Ursula K. Le Guin once remarked, and so is Eric Chevillard’s brief novel — his first to be translated into English. The mystery stems not from any conflict between the English text (by Jordan Stump and Eleanor Hardin) and the original French, but more from the translation from thought to page.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The translation-challenges posed by The Author and Me<\/i> are different, but no less demanding, and Stump has captured Chevillard\u2019s tone and registers (and the humor to it all) expertly.<\/p>\n

Multilayered, though-provoking \u2013 and very funny \u2013 The Author and Me<\/i> is a rich work, indeed deserving of serious consideration for Best Translated Book Award honors.<\/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 Author and Me – \u00c9ric Chevillard, translated from the French by Jordan Stump, France Dalkey Archive Press Obviously, two-time, back-to-back winner L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai has made the biggest splash at the Best […]<\/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":[60346,60616,17496,45986,1246,2396,10086,7736,1646],"class_list":["post-301186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-btba2015-fiction-longlist","tag-author-and-me","tag-dalkey-archive-press","tag-eric-chevillard","tag-france","tag-french","tag-jordan-stump","tag-michael-orthofer","tag-review"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301186","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=301186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316756,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301186\/revisions\/316756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}