Dreams of Retail Translation: Handselling Tabucchi

"Fernando Pessoa died three years ago. Very few people, almost no one, even knew he existed. He lived in Portugal as a foreigner and a misfit, perhaps because he was everywhere a misfit," writes Dr. Pereira in his "Anniversaries" feature for a Lisbon newspaper in Antonio Tabucchi's novel Pereira Declares (New Directions).

This past Monday marked the first anniversary of Tabucchi's death. Although we often publish an Obituary Note when someone in the world of books dies, last year I went a step further and wrote about my discovery of this Italian author, whose relationship to Portuguese culture--as well as Pessoa's life and work--has fascinated me since I was introduced to Pereira Declares more than a decade ago by Martha Cooley's simple question: "Have you read Antonio Tabucchi?"

And now, perhaps, is just the right moment for my own "Anniversaries" piece about him. When I was a bookseller, I used to love the challenge of handselling Tabucchi's books. It was a form of retail translation, as I searched for just the right words, depending upon the customer, to convey my love for his writing without scaring off a potential reader.

My thoughts have returned to Tabucchi for another reason. More of his work is appearing from Archipelago Books, which recently published The Woman of Porto Pim and The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico, both translated by Tim Parks.

"I have felt very close to and lit up by Tabucchi's work since I first began to read him years ago," Jill Schoolman, Archipelago's publisher, told me. "I believe it's his own profound mixture of humanity (on both the individual/local and more universal planes), insight, his irrepressible need to play, his elusive ability to infuse dream with earthly matters, his fierce devotion to human dignity, and his exploratory ways--basically his kaleidoscopic mind and rare ability to love--that draw me to his work. Nothing is too small to illuminate for us, and nothing is too large to begin to chip away at, alter or ponder. I return to his books the way I feel the deep urge to return to old friends."

Archipelago will also release Time Ages In a Hurry, translated by Martha Cooley and Antonio Romani, next year and Tristano is Dying in Elizabeth Harris's translation soon after.

While that "handseller retail translation" theory I mentioned earlier may exist only in my imagination or dreams (a prospect I suspect both Pessoa and Tabucchi would approve of), I'm deeply curious about the actual process of translating Tabucchi. I asked Cooley how she and Romani, her husband, opened the door of Il tempo invecchia in fretta for English-language readers.

Noting that the author "writes about people for whom time itself is the key player in their lives," Cooley observed that "Tabucchi's vivid tales are suspenseful, surprising, quietly comic and very moving. Working with my co-translator, I've found it both great fun and greatly challenging to take each of these rich tales from Italian to English. How to handle Tabucchi's often long sentences--should we simplify them (good grief, no!) or shorten them (also no!) and, if not, how to make them sound just right? What to do with the speech of a young girl who switches between formal and informal ways of saying 'you' to the adult (a man who's ill, possibly dying, yet wry and affable) whom she's talking with? And how to render the half-affectionate, half-insulting nickname given by a former spy to the man he used to tail?

"For translators, working as a duo is wonderful. Collaboration opens up all kinds of possibilities, especially if (as in the case of my co-translator and myself) the two translators are (1) married and (2) quite well versed but not fully fluent in each other's language. Translation is a dance that starts and ends with sounds and rhythms. Meanings are essential, of course, but music comes first nonetheless--and music, like language, loves repetition."

Cooley mentioned that she'd re-read Pereira Declares quite recently: "My co-translator and I keep hearing in our heads all its haunting refrains--phrases and actions its reluctant hero keeps repeating to calm himself as momentous changes occur within and around him. Can any reader of this terrific short novel ever come across the words lemonade, omelette or obituary without also thinking of Pereira, so baffled and beleaguered yet so brave, too?"

The answer, for me, will always be no, never. Pereira lives, as his creator still lives, in all those irresistible words translated for us to read, re-read and share. "Rather than regret for what I have written, I feel regret for what I shall never read," Tabucchi wrote in a preface to Little Misunderstandings of No Importance (New Directions). And here am I, his retail translator, still handselling like a street vendor: Read Tabucchi! You won't regret it. --Published by Shelf Awareness, issue #1959.

Parisian Bookshops & Quiet as Image

Quiet may not be the first word that occurs to most people on a trip to Paris, but it's the one that struck me early last week as I browsed the beautiful, iron-gated little poetry section at Shakespeare and Company bookstore; and the word continued to weave its way through my impressions of the city during an all-too-brief visit.

On our third day in Paris, we began the morning with innocent optimism at the Musée d'Orsay, where we discovered an enormous and noisy line of tourists and vacationing students outside, snaking around the plaza and down the street. Bundled for a mid-March snowstorm, some braced their umbrellas against a bitter wind while others negotiated with the parapluie vendors.

We declined to join the frozen queue. Since almost any postponement in Paris is an opportunity, we just kept walking along the slick sidewalks--often taking necessary and irresistible detours on narrow side streets--in the general direction of Shakespeare and Company, which would, we were certain, offer much-needed warmth and shelter from the storm to weary readers.

After the anxious buzz of the museum crowd, followed by traffic noise and pedestrian chatter, a near silence inside the bookshop was almost as breathtaking as the cold wind had been. We browsed for a long time, exploring the ground floor stacks as well as the library upstairs.

Because it's my business even when on holiday, I also watched the booksellers, who were young and knew their stuff, fielding questions in French from the locals; changing direction instantly for an Australian man's query about "social justice in literature"; then deftly handling an American woman's request for some Ken Follett, Nora Roberts or Pat Conroy. It was a drill most frontline booksellers would recognize: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, I thought, more or less.

Just a day before, I'd been amazed by the high "shushing quotient" at the Louvre, which was fending off its own invasion of student and tourist groups. By contrast, the quiet in Shakespeare and Company was simply expected and natural, inspiring even an energetic band of chaperoned young Americans to tone it down a notch. Their muted conversations ranged from shocked recognition of classic novel covers on display to a report from a pair who'd strayed and then returned with breaking news of a place nearby selling "cheap little pizzas" (Croque-Monsieurs). Low volume conversations from unexpected sources are also a form of quiet, I decided.

We bought several books, of course, and then ventured back outside. It was on this wet and chilly walk across the Seine at Pont Neuf and back to our apartment that I began thinking about quiet as image.

Ultimately, this notion lured me to Shakespeare and Company again a couple of days later to photograph the iconic exterior. From there, we headed to nearby Notre Dame, where my obsession with "quiet" was probably entrenched as the week's theme. Following a boisterous crowd being funneled through the cathedral's ancient entryway, we were greeted by signage that proved to be a relatively effective international commandment: SILENCE.

Quiet as image.

It stuck, even when I wasn't taking photographs. I remember visiting Flammarion's La Hune bookshop near the Boulevard Saint-Germain one night on the way to dinner and being, well, intoxicated by the distinctive sound of two wine bottles clinking gently together as a bookseller carried them upstairs, where an author event was about to take place.

There was also a measure of visual quiet in bookstore exteriors, including the closed (Librairie Paris et son Patrimoine), the high end (Taschen Kartell), even the expat (W.H. Smith on the Rue de Rivoli).

And then there was that small but exquisite bookshop tucked within the passageway to the courtyard of the Musée Carnavalet. As the days and our endless strolls accumulated, so did all of these beautiful, bookish images. Merci, Paris, for showing us the exquisite quiet of your librairies. --Published by Shelf Awareness, issue #1954.

Lady Banks & the Art of 'Front Porch Literary Gossip'

Dearest readers,
Winter days, her ladyship has decided, exist solely for the purpose of being able to curl up in one's favorite chair with a hot cup of coffee and a very good book.

Where do you turn for "front porch literary gossip" about all things Southern and bookish? One of my favorite destinations is Lady Banks' Commonplace Book, a weekly e-newsletter created by Nicki Leone, website administrator and newsletter editor for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.

The voice of "her ladyship, the editor" is amusing and informative, suitably civilized with just the appropriate dash of feistiness. I asked Nicki recently about Lady Banks's distinctive place in the SIBA family.

When did you first decide to channel (if that's an appropriate term; I know L.B. speaks for herself) the irresistible voice of her ladyship?

The idea for Lady Banks actually came into being on a warm spring day back in 2007. SIBA had just begun to focus its efforts toward promoting its member stores to the reading public--what we call the 'consumer' market. We had created a calendar of store events for all our stores, and a website, 'ReaderMeetWriter.com,' to reach out to people who loved Southern literature. So we wanted a newsletter to go along with that, one that would highlight what was going on at our stores, and what books our booksellers were excited about.

I remember [SIBA executive director] Wanda Jewell and I were talking on the phone about how to do this newsletter. It was high spring here in Wilmington, N.C. where I live, and I happened to be looking out the window and saw the profusion of roses growing along my neighbor's fence. They were an old-fashioned heirloom climbing variety, thornless and  heavy with small pale yellow blooms, called 'Lady Banks.' Hey, I said to Wanda, I've got an idea.... That idea really seemed to take off. It used to be a monthly newsletter, but the response was so good that we made it a weekly publication.

How would you describe her?

Physically? Oh, she's a "woman of a certain age," I guess. Not young. Not elderly. When I first started writing her I had this mental image of a proper lady in a long skirt, sensible shoes, and her hair in a perpetual bun--possibly held up with a pencil. Someone who would eventually become Maggie Smith when she was older! But she's evolved a bit since then, although on the whole I don't think becoming Maggie Smith is too terrible a goal. I would love to find a "gentleman friend" for her though.

Most importantly, she is someone who is interested in all kinds of writing, and all kinds of writers, in the literary life of the South.

Acknowledging that she is ever so real herself, was there a "real world" model for Lady Banks in your life? A literary one?

Like any fiction writer (which I am emphatically NOT), I could tell you that Lady Banks is a composite of many different people--real and fictional. Of the real, she comes a little bit from many of the women I've admired: Doris Betts, Eudora Welty, Elizabeth Lawrence, my mother. Of the fictional, I'd say she's a combination of every feisty lady you ever met in a Southern novel, from Nora Bonesteel to Miss Julia.

But the tone of voice, believe it or not, is Jane Austen. In fact, when I have to sit down to write the newsletter, I usually read a bit of Persuasion or Pride and Prejudice first just to get style of it into my head... that lovely, semi-formal, dryly amused attitude that Austen does so devastatingly well.
 
Would she ever consider attending a SIBA conference?

She would! Early on I believe she did once or twice. But it is extremely difficult to stay in character. Her ladyship is, on the whole, much more polite and patient than I am. She is also inclined to be better-dressed.
 
What is the borderline between Nicki Leone and Lady Banks?

Fuzzy! We all know how important a personal, real connection is in the bookselling world. Recommending books to people is an intimate business that demands a lot of trust. We wanted Lady Banks to be a 'real' person to her readers, so naturally she's a lot like me in what she likes to read (everything but diet books); in what she likes to do, such as gardening and cooking; and what is going on in her life, such as adopting a new puppy or deciding what books to buy her nephews for Christmas.

Indie booksellers and avid readers both know that books and stories integrate themselves into our lives. 'A reading life' is not just about what you read, but about how books fit into your idea of a good life. So Lady Banks writes about how they have done so for her. What she writes usually goes for me as well.

Next week, Lady Banks speaks for herself. --Published by Shelf Awareness, issue #1938.

Handwriting Between the Pages

"This is an old book. Grandma has read it. Please return. I can get the new paperback I saw in Costco. Love, Mom."

One of the little pleasures of my reading life is receiving the B-Mail newsletter from Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Mass. In each issue, there is a Used Book Cellar "Find of the Week." Sometimes the hastily scribbled notes are funny and sometimes poignant, but always irresistible. It's as if they weren't lost or abandoned at all, but finally discovered their true home and value between those pages.

Exegesis is also part of Brookline's Find of the Week ritual. Here's the commentary on Mom's Costco note above: "This makes my heart hurt. While you're there, we're almost out of mustard and Alaskan king crab spread. Get a gallon of each. And eight dozen bottles of sparkling cider. Unless they don't let you get just half the package, in which case go ahead and get sixteen-dozen. And twenty tubes of toothpaste. Please."

The casual and yet deeply personal handwriting in these scraps affects me as a reader because it is so human in a fragile, unintentionally revealing way that text messages ("pls give gram hr bk getting 14u @costco") or viral tweets can't possibly emulate.

Handwriting isn't a lost art, or at least not an art lost on me. When I visit a bookstore, I'm always drawn to shelf talkers that are handwritten. Even legibility is secondary to the enthusiasm invoked by a pen's scrawl across the surface of a card. I'm also on the lookout for those faded, handwritten, often outdated reminders that cling by frayed yellow tape to cash registers ("Use shift-F4 to...") or over staff break room sinks ("You're mother doesn't work here. Wash your own dishes!"). For pure entertainment, however, there's nothing quite like children's handwritten contributions to bookstore suggestion boxes ("Need more chairs for us kids!").

I'm not a handwriting purist, which is perhaps one reason the scraps intrigue me. Just in case you missed it, January 23 was National Handwriting Day, brought to you, not coincidentally, by the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association, which represents the $4.5-billion industry of pen, pencil and marker manufacturers. Its purpose is to "alert the public to the importance of handwriting," offering "a chance for all of us to re-explore the purity and power of handwriting." Sorry you didn't get my handwritten greeting card.

Probably the reason I'm paying more attention lately is because I just finished reading Philip Hensher's The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting, in which he observed: "Our attitude to our own handwriting is a peculiar mixture of shame and defiance: ashamed that it's so bad and untutored, but defiant in our belief that it's not our fault. What shame and defiance have in common, of course, is the determination to leave the cause of the shame and defiance unaltered."

I get that. My own "hand" is deeply influenced by the slight childhood trauma of switching schools in the middle of first grade and having to adapt in mid-stream from print to cursive. The end result is a relatively legible, if visually jumbled collection of print and cursive letters lining up like mismatched train cars (judge for yourself in this example).

After I changed schools, my former teacher wrote a consoling note to my mother regarding little Robert's apparent struggle to adapt. She conceded that while "many schools do start writing in the first grade," most of the districts in the area didn't begin teaching cursive until third grade. It didn't get better from there. I hesitate to even mention the nuns. In sixth grade, Sister Philomena checked "N" on my report card under penmanship: "Needs help; is progressing but below grade level."

Thus, handwriting eventually became more of a spectator sport for me, and when I need a fix, Brookline Booksmith always delivers with treasures like this postcard: "Hello--Here in Riverside, Conn., for the meeting of the Titanic His. Soc. Met a survivor and got his signature..."

As I mentioned before, Brookline has a true gift for handwriting exegesis: "It concerns me that this message is abruptly cut off. Did anyone out there ever hear any word from attendees of the 1971 Titanic Historical Society reunion in Riverside, CT? From what I know of the original tragedy, it took some hours for the ship to go down, but I fear that whatever befell this postcard's author was rather more sudden. Perhaps the iceberg simply dropped upon the top of the building this time. That would explain it." Nicely played, Brookline. Couldn't have written it better myself.--Published by Shelf Awareness, issue #1933.

Broadcasting Local on the Chuckanut Radio Hour

Shop local meets broadcast local. In the still center of that spinning wheel of digital retail chaos--e-mails, Tweets, Facebook updates, blog posts, Instagram pics--that is the contemporary bookseller's daily round of local outreach tasks, there's a certain comfort to be drawn from noting the success of an old-fashioned radio variety program created and hosted by Chuck and Dee Robinson, owners of Village Books, Bellingham, Wash.

January marked the sixth anniversary of the Chuckanut Radio Hour. Taped before a live audience, the show generally features a guest author; what I've seen described as "some groaner jokes" by Chuck, Dee and announcer Rich Donelly; and an episode of "The Bellingham Bean" serial radio comedy. There is also live music, a new essay by Cascadia Weekly columnist Alan Rhodes, poetry by house poet Kevin Murphy and other bookish treats.

"The show is now broadcast on three low-power community radio stations," said Chuck. "KMRE is the one here in Bellingham and reaches the largest audience. The station can be streamed at any time, but we don't do the show live. CRH plays on the station every Saturday evening at 6 p.m. and every Sunday at 9 p.m. The shows play in rotation. We don't even know which show will play." With two other small stations in the area now featuring the program as well, "I guess that means we're syndicated," he quipped.   

When Chuck was approached in 2007 about doing some sort of radio program, he drew inspiration and format ideas from Thacker Mountain Radio (Square Books, Oxford, Miss.) and Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion.

"I think part of the appeal is the reflection of a time we remember as simpler--whether it actually was or not (memory does strange things)," he observed. "Though folks my age--I just became a Medicare baby in November--were on the tail end of old-time radio, early television (Ed Sullivan, the Tonight Show, etc.) was really old-time radio on TV. So I think for a lot of us there's a bit of nostalgia involved. Some of us really do like corny jokes."

Since Village Books is also committed to outreach through social networking, Chuck considers CRH to be both a complement and a counterpoint to those efforts: "Our audience for the show, depending of course on what author is featured, trends slightly older than our general audience. To the extent that most of these folks don't likely spend much time on Twitter, the show is likely a counterpoint to what they see others doing. And, to those who do Tweet and Facebook, this might be providing a respite. We do use social media to promote the show and we often have comments, especially on Facebook, about particular shows."

Division of labor while maintaining consistency in a bookstore's "voice" is the eternal challenge for booksellers everywhere, but Chuck noted that Village Books has managed to bridge the outreach gaps well: "We have one person who manages our social media. Lindsey McGuirk is pretty attuned to the philosophy of the store and also seems to have a great understanding of the 'conversational' nature of social media and how it can be used to build relationships. She does a great job of balancing marketing, with providing interesting general information, to having conversations with folks and asking questions. Other staff members have their own blogs and often guest blog on our site."

Who attends CRH performances? While the live audience tends to be in the 45-50 age range, Chuck said that can change depending upon the guest author for a particular show: "T.C. Boyle drew a bit younger audience, as did Cheryl Strayed, but I think for the most part that the radio hour format appeals more to an older audience. We are, however, about to test that notion as we move the show to an auditorium at Whatcom Community College in March. We'll be integrating some faculty, staff and students into the programming, and in our partnership agreement, they'll be able to attend for free."

He noted that one of the more surprising revelations about the show's audience occurs whenever he asks how many are seeing CRH for the first time and a considerable number of hands go up. "We thought after 60-plus shows we would have tapped the local audience, but apparently not."

Happy anniversary, CRH. As Chuck summed it up so well in a recent blog post, "Whoda thunk it? Six years and the Chuckanut Radio Hour is still going strong."--Published by Shelf Awareness, issue #1929.