Stellar reviews don't make anyone blue!

Marketing for The Last Love of George Sand is in full swing, with pub date only two weeks away. But the first review came in last year. Yep, this review from Kirkus was posted way back in early December. Publishing timelines are weird. But enough about that, the review itself is brilliant!

Now, Kirkus is an especially important reviewer to get. They call themselves "The World's Toughest Book Critics Since 1933," and it's no joke. The entire industry looks to them for helpful, honest reviews. And they have starred reviews, which they award "to Books of Exceptional Merit."

Ladies and gentlemen.

I present to you.

The STARRED Kirkus review for The Last Love of George Sand.

Delightful reconstruction of the deeply fulfilling, late-life romance of the French novelist with a devoted, younger engraver.

Obviously a labor of love, this work by the accomplished French biographer Bloch-Dano (Vegetables: A Biography, 2012, etc.) is highly entertaining and original. The author sees her job as reassembling the life of her subject from scattered pieces and “the ravages of time” and then, if all else fails, using her imagination to fill in the details much like a novelist. The result is a series of pointed assertions like light bulbs going off in her head, questions and switching to the present tense, all while sticking to the courageous, romantic spirit of her subject. George Sand was in her mid-40s when her son brought his engraver friend Alexandre Manceau to spend the holidays of 1849 at her beloved ancestral home, Nohant. A famous novelist and playwright, she was now bone-weary after the failures of the socialist revolution of 1848, into which she had thrown herself, and strapped by debts and squabbles with her headstrong daughter. Nohant had always served as her refuge, in between bruising stints in Paris and maternal love affairs with a series of “men-children.” Bloch-Dano ably portrays Sand's attraction to the 32-year-old engraver, a man of modest beginnings and much talent, highly intuitive, intelligent and devoted to Sand. Manceau not only took over the theatrical productions at Nohant, but also assumed the role of her secretary and copyist, living with her for 14 years while plying his commissions as a sought-after engraver. Bloch-Dano’s portrait is poignant and beautifully researched.

A love story probably suppressed by Sand’s resentful son, brought here to vivid life in the hands of her capable biographer.

Color me very proud.

It's coming...

Yes, folks, the major event we've all been waiting for. Okay, maybe just me.

The Last Love of George Sand gets published on February 6. I translated this biography of the famous French writer from Evelyne Bloch-Dano's rich French text. Thus, I'm nearly buzzing with excitement.

But you should also be excited about it! Why, you ask?

Look. George Sand was a lion of a woman. Facts:

1. She was a proto-feminist in the mid-1800s, dressing in men’s clothing, smoking cigars, and managing her own finances and philanthropic work. She took a male name for her pseudonym, even spelling it in an English fashion, instead of the French "Georges." (That's why her name looks so familiar to English speakers.)
2. Like most other artists and cultural creators at the time, she was a staunch supporter of democracy. But she was also friends with Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who later became Napoleon III, Emperor of France. During a series of audiences with him after his coup d'etat, she convinced him to grant amnesty to her friends, whom this self-same emperor had exiled to Algeria or sentenced to death for political crimes.
3. Divorce was illegal in France during her adult life. So, at the age of 26, she just negotiated with her husband to spend half of each year in Paris with her lover.
4. Then, she continued on to have some of the steamiest and gossip-worthy affairs of all time – five years with the libertine poet, Alfred de Musset; nine years with the genius composer, Frederic Chopin, until his untimely death from tuberculosis; the list goes on and on, and on and on and on.
5. Oh, right, and she was a writer. One of the most admired and prolific artists of her era, in fact. The list of her completed works runs as long as my arm. She was one of those rare authors who managed to earn a nice living from her work, gained fame and acclaim for her writing during her lifetime, and whose works continue to be taught in French literature classes around the world (especially in high school classes in France).

So of course, there have been many biographies of this amazing woman written over the years, in both French and English. But not all of her life has been told yet.

See, at Christmastime in 1849, she met a young engraver from the working class, thirteen years her junior. His name was Alexandre Manceau. He was a modestly successful artist in his own right, but not one whom history would ever remember. They fell in love. He became her companion for the next fifteen years -- the rest of his life -- and George would never take another lover.

But there was one problem. (There always is.) Alexandre Manceau was one of Maurice's best friends. Maurice Sand. George's son. George only met Alexandre through Maurice's introduction, and then "stole" her son's best friend away from him. Naturally, Maurice resented his mother for this. Quite a bit.

After George's death, Maurice did everything in his power to suppress any records of Alexandre Manceau. Burned letters, forbade anyone from talking about the engraver, refused to allow publication of any posthumous works by his mother that mentioned Manceau. It took years after Maurice eventually died in 1889 for those works to be legally published.

So for decades, even upwards of a century, there were no primary sources that mentioned Manceau. Everyone assumed he must not be very important, so he's only awarded a few lines in any biography of George Sand. If he's mentioned at all.

But guess what? That's all about to change.

This book is entitled The Last Love of George Sand. Guess who this "last love" is?

Yep, right in one: Alexandre Manceau.

Now do you see why I'm so excited about this book???

Been rejected, and it feels so good!

Oh wait. No, no it doesn't, really.

Actually not that great.

Especially when it's one of the coolest pieces you've worked on to date, and you had crafted it so lovingly, and you had really thought that it fit the magazine perfectly, and you even had a colleague introduce you to the editor-in-chief herself...nope.

Turns out, there's no Magic Bullet to getting a story accepted. I mean, I knew that. But rejection still sucks.

So you keep working. There's an editing job today, and one lined up for tomorrow. There are still several irons in the fire, other submissions that you're waiting to hear back from. And this is only one in a long string of rejections that are bound to come. You're a writer, after all. Writers, all writers, even very good writers, get rejected all the time. (Except for possibly Neil Gaiman.) It's a ridiculously large percentage: 9 out of 10, or 99 out of 100, or maybe even 993 out of 1000 submissions will be rejected. You just have to keep plugging away.

Besides, it's still a very good piece of writing, skillfully translated. There are other journals out there. Eventually, someone will bite.

They have to. Right?

Regarding "The End of the World for Translation as We Knew It"

Rob Vandenberg wrote an article on Wired, all about his predictions for the translation market in 2013 and about how if you don't think about "Big Data and the cloud," you're screwed. Look, I understand where he's coming from. There are so many time- and money-saving tips and tricks and techniques that businesses and regular ol' people can use to make translation easier. There's the CAT tools. The globalization analytics. Online management systems (I think the acronym is WEM, for web experience management). Social media and crowdsourcing. Some of these things are good, some are, well, not so good, both for business and for the translators themselves.

There is a place for all of this. Projects with high repetition and consistency issues blossom with CAT tools. International companies can hit unprecedented numbers of markets with globalization analytics. All of this is great, and business is booming, so they say.

Yet it takes the focus off of the artistry of translation and shines the light squarely on commerce, efficiency, and money. Again, that's fine, especially in the financial world, or the legal world, or the pharmaceutical world. But.

BUT.

That is not what I love about translation.

And that is why I will endeavor to translate literature and other creative types of writing for as long as my brain keeps humming along.

"What then remains, but to bow your heads before such a wonder?"

I came very close to translating music. I did. The libretto is close, right? Right before Christmas, the New York Choral Society performed Hector Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ in Carnegie Hall, with supertitles translated by yours truly. The hall was packed. I was very lucky to be there.

There were some stunning reviews, and deservedly so, for the concert was fantastic. But one, this one, from Downtown Magazine, gave me such satisfaction. And I quote:

"The show’s epilogue was indelible all on its own. The whole company projected of Christ’s future and ultimate sacrifice with some very simple yet heart wrenching words: 'What then remains, but to bow your heads before such a wonder?'"

How could the reviewer possibly have known what was being said, without the supertitles projected for all the audience to see?

I don't need public acclaim for my work. It's nice, but I'd rather the notice fall on my work. The books, the poetry, the music, the work that should be seen and read and heard by as many people as possible.

So when people do notice the work, and especially when they notice it so seamlessly that they don't even consider there was a translator standing in between them and the original text, that is a very high compliment, indeed.

Santa makes me happy.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. So he can make people happy. As usual, half of the things on my Christmas list this year were books. (The other half was divided between music, knitting supplies, the odd gift card, and a new heavy winter coat -- I live in upstate NY now). This is both because I love to read and because it's my job to read and write. I buy lots of books for myself and frequent the library and read articles online, but Christmas always means that I get even more books than usual. Which I love.

So, without further ado, here are three of this year's favorites:

#1

This year, I even got something useful in my daily work: the Collins Robert French Dictionary. This thing is a bible, both in size and scope. It's bilingual, and as close to comprehensive as a print dictionary can get in this digital world. It's going to replace the pocket dictionary currently on my shelves.

But, you ask, why? Didn't I just read that this is a digital world? Why is this necessary?

And that's a valid question. For me, it's a matter of variety and security. Different dictionaries tend to have slightly different definitions, and being able to research many options for one word can sometimes make the difference between an okay choice and the best contextual choice.

And as for security, well, I usually use lots of online dictionaries, both free and subscription-based (I'm currently on a test run of the Oxford Language Dictionary online) because they're faster. But the Internet is a fickle creature, and can crash, disappear, or not be available on travels.

#2

In October, I went to the ALTA Annual Conference in Rochester, and heard Marian Schwartz talk about her new book, Maidenhair. It's "an instant classic of Russian literature," and I am so very excited to sink my teeth into it. I'll let it speak for itself:

"Day after day the Russian asylum-seekers sit across from the interpreter and Peter—the Swiss officers who guard the gates to paradise—and tell of the atrocities they’ve suffered, or that they’ve invented, or heard from someone else. These stories of escape, war, and violence intermingle with the interpreter’s own reading: a his­tory of an ancient Persian war; letters sent to his son “Nebuchadnezzasaurus,” ruler of a distant, imaginary childhood empire; and the diaries of a Russian singer who lived through Russia’s wars and revolutions in the early part of the twentieth century, and eventually saw the Soviet Union’s dissolution."

So. Excited. And I even met the wonderful translator, because as it turns out, people in the literary translation industry are categorically wonderful!

#3

Another wonderful translator, who I hope to meet someday, is Gregory Rabassa. He's the only reason that any Americans have read Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is one of my favorite books. Rabassa wrote a memoir of translation in 2005 called If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents. Rabassa is one of those people whose life and work proves that translators are writers, too. He's one of those people who makes my job awesome, because he's made my job exist. And he wrote his own book eight years ago.

Yes, please.

So, all I have to do is finish sobbing through reading Stone Upon Stone, which is my current obsession. I should really stop reading it before bed, though; it's messing with my dreams.

Happy 2013! I'm back! Plus: previews of upcoming things

The holidays have been very good to me. Moving was successful, family time was wonderful, relaxation was had, and I even got a few nice presents (more on that in a later post -- some should be of interest to my dear readers!). Professionally, I made a conscious choice not to accept any jobs between Christmas and New Year's. Instead, I used the time to very leisurely work my way through a novel sample whose deadline is now approaching fast, retool my (and my family's) finances, and get my work life in order for the new year. It was a nice week of spending time with the people I love, with a couple calm hours of work inserted whenever I felt like working.

This was a good choice. I feel so much better about diving back in to a normal schedule starting tomorrow.

At any rate, exciting things are happening, and I've got some good posts simmering in the back of my head to write over the next few days and weeks. Here's what you can look forward to reading about soon:

• a wonderful review of a recent choir concert that made use of supertitles translated by yours truly
• previews of The Last Love of George Sand, the biography of the famous French writer that I translated from Evelyne Bloch-Dano's original book, slated for publication by Skyhorse on February 6
• possibly a book giveaway for said biography, because I think it's a fantastic story
• and the aforementioned Christmas haul, of course

Sound good? Awesome. 2013 is going to be a marvelous year.

One Peril of the Publishing Industry:

Lead time.

There's that expression that goes: "Hurry up and wait." That is the publishing industry, from an author or translator's perspective.

You hurry up to get that manuscript to your editor...and then wait nine months to see it in print.

You get super stressed about finishing it, and tweaking it to perfection, and you're so excited/relieved when you finally do...only to put all that excitement on hold for the marketing push next season.

Or even before contracts are signed, you translate a new sample or write a new story as fast as you can to send out to all the magazines and literary journals and agents that you can...and then try not to sit around waiting for the response to hit your inbox, because it won't come for a very long time.

Then, when everything's done and you're finally ready to share your work with the world, and accolades start coming in...you're not allowed to publicize the reviews until they get published, which could be days or weeks after you're notified about them.

-------

In my younger days in a children's chorus, we worked with a wonderfully eccentric performance artist. At lunch one day, he got everybody's attention, because he wanted to share a poem with us. "It's called, 'Waiting,'" he said. He cleared his throat. Exhaled slowly. Gazed at the ceiling in preparation. Took a sip of water. Made eye contact with every single person gathered around the table. Stood up. Straightened his vest, brushed the crumbs off of his vest. Planted his feet in a firm stance. Clasped his hands in front of him. Took a deep breath.

And bowed, to giggles and a rapid crescendo of applause.

That was it. And it's the only poem I remember in its entirety from before age 15.

Hurry up and wait.

Say What You Mean…

…but it’s okay if other people don’t mean what they say.

To illustrate: a person who volunteered to script out a libretto translation for supertitles emails you, saying: “This isn’t going to work, I need a literal translation because I can only put up one phrase at a time. How long would it take you to do that and send it over to me?”

They don’t mean: “This is TERRIBLE this is not what I was looking for AT ALL you’re such a BAD PERSON and a DREADFUL professional what were you THINKING!!!?!?!??!?!?!??!” (with exclamation points and question marks ad infinitum, because we all know that person…)

They may instead actually mean: “This is a beautiful translation, but I don’t know how to work with it. Could you please help me?”

So, don’t email them back: “Oh my GODS how could you be so STUPID and not APPRECIATE all of my hard work you’re a blithering MORON!!!!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!??!?!” (also because you don’t want to become that person…)

Instead, write: “The project managers and I agreed that a more poetic, lyrical translation would be best for this concert. I did endeavor, however, to translate phrase by phrase, instead of being completely free with the translation. The ideas in each line should still line up between the French and the English translation. Would you like me to send you a copy of the English with the corresponding French text lined up?”

Now, instead of being a terrible awful person, you are instead a pleasant, helpful correspondent who goes beyond the job description to make everyone’s lives easier. And then, the people you work with are grateful, appreciative, and even more complimentary on your work.

As Wil Wheaton says, don’t be a dick.

(Especially when the other person is a volunteer – they are only being nice! Don’t make them mad.)

Writer's Block

Translators are writers, too (I've written a post about that already). Which means, by extension, that translators hit writer's block, too. In both translation tasks and straight creative writing (which most literary translators also do -- more on that in a later post, I'm sure), there come certain times when you just get stuck. Hit a wall. Dig yourself into a hole. Run out of gas. Lose your momentum. Can't think of a single darn idea, not if you had to save your life. So, then, in response, there's this:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/10/help-from-heinlein.html

I'm in awe.

It's a letter from Robert Heinlein to Theodore Sturgeon, from one writer to another, with literally dozens of unsolicited story ideas. It's a slice of an amazing man's brain, a strange and wonderful world where things happen that we don't fully understand.

Now please excuse me. I have to go write a story about a cat.