In the late 80’s and early 90’s I co-edited (with the publisher Pete Ayrton) a series of Extraordinary Classics for the Serpent’s Tail publishing house. A number of important translations were published under that imprint, notably Fernando Pessoa’s ‘Book of Unrest’ and three novels by the great Uruguayan writer Juan Carlos Onetti. These were not titles I was directly concerned with, but there were three authors I was particularly pleased to have helped introduce to English-language readers. One was Ernst Weiss, whose novel ‘The Aristocrat’ I translated, the afterword to which is reproduced below. Of course, Weiss has hardly become a popular classic since then, but three more of his books have been published in English and ‘The Eyewitness’ appeared as long ago as 1978. The latter, unfortunately, was brought out in a rather misguided edition which blurs the difference between document and fiction (the subject is the Jewish doctor who during the First World War cured Hitler’s hysterical blindness) and the novel deserves both retranslation and representation. Weiss was a friend of Kafka and the latter’s praise for him was considerably more heartfelt than it was for Max Brod. “But what an extraordinary writer he is!” Kafka tells Felice Bauer in a postcard dated 19th April, 1916. “You absolutely must read the book!” (He was referring to ‘Der Kampf’ – The Struggle). So far Kafka’s endorsement hasn’t led to appreciation of Weiss in the English-speaking world. But perhaps one just has to be patient. It has taken more than half a century since Robert Walser’s death and a hundred years since his modest heyday as an author in pre-1914 Berlin for his distinctiveness to be valued in America and even in Britain.
Serpent’s Tail also played a part in making Walser better known. Walser’s novel ‘Jakob von Gunten’ had been published in the United States as long ago as 1969 in an outstanding and ground-breaking translation by Christopher Middleton, but had never appeared in Britain. We had already republished a selection of Walser’s stories (‘The Walk’) and were embarked on the process of acquiring rights to Jakob von Gunten. (In the days before e-mail or before e-mail access became general this meant rather wearisome communication by post, fax and telephone with an uninterested University of Texas Press. I think we only got anywhere when I approached Christopher Middleton himself.) At this point we discovered that the film-makers the Brothers Quay, who had enjoyed cult success with a stop-motion animated version of Bruno Schulz’s ‘Street of Crocodiles’ were preparing a feature film of ‘Jakob von Gunten’ under the title ‘The Benjamenta Institute’ (adopting the title of the French translation). So in the hopes of benefiting from the publicity and success of the film we also used that title (though with some considerable regret on my part). As it turned out the film although beautifully shot in black and white – in Hackney – was not a commercial success even by the standards of an ‘art’ or cult film and disappeared very quickly without much helping sales of the novel.1 I have to admit I was also critical of the Brothers Quay interpretation of Walser’s book. The film remains worth seeing, however, not least for the performance of Gottfried John as Herr Benjamenta, the proprietor of the Institute Benjamenta school for servants. (John is one of the great actors of the European cinema and perhaps was never greater than as Reinhold in Fassbinder’s film of ‘Berlin, Alexanderplatz. Günther Lamprecht as Franz Biberkopf and John as his nemesis make for an incomparable double-act.)
After the publication of ‘The Institute Benjamenta’/‘Jakob von Gunten’ I would have liked to translate Walser’s novel ‘Die Geschwister Tanner’ which I considered the most appropriate follow-up. By that time I had taken on the task of producing an English-language version of the Diaries of Victor Klemperer, which proved to be a much more time-consuming and demanding project than I had at first naively supposed and other translation work was pushed into the background for several years. In the meantime, however, the cause of Robert Walser had migrated back across the Atlantic and thanks, not least, to the unflagging commitment of the translator Susan Bernofsky all of Walser’s surviving novels as well as a large amount of his shorter work is now available in English.
The third author I’m proud of having a hand in making more familiar to English-speaking readers is Daniil Kharms. Kharms was a belated Russian avant-gardist, writing in the 20’s and 30’s. He’s now recognised for his bleak and blackly comic stories, scenes and anecdotes which refuse the familiar comforts of character, narrative and plot. (But then, as the Glasgow writer Jeff Torrington once put it, ‘Plots are for graveyards’.) In his lifetime he made a living, when he made a living, with children’s stories and books. He died, forgotten, literally, probably of starvation, in a Leningrad mental hospital in 1942, during the siege of the city. He was only 36. His work, aside from the writing for children, only began to become known in the 1960’s, but then exerted a growing influence among artists and dissident literary circles in the Soviet Union.
A selection of Kharms’ pieces appeared in German as early as 1973, but I read him in Peter Urban’s much more extensive two volume edition published by Haffmans in the 1980’s. After only a few pages I was an enthusiast. I investigated what was available in English and found out that apart from a slim US edition which presented some texts by Kharms and his friend and fellow-member of the OBERIUT (Union of Real Art) group, Vvdensky, there was nothing, at least in book-form. I was determined that there should be something more of Kharms in English. I needed a translator, of course, and friends who were students of Russian affairs pointed me in the direction of Neil Cornwell, an academic at Bristol University, who, it turned out was not only an expert on Kharms and his circle but was able to do justice, in English, to the writing. I acted as editor of Cornwell’s selection, using Urban’s German translation as a guide, but I don’t recollect any differences between us. ‘Incidences’, as the book was entitled, appeared in 1994 with an introduction by the translator.2 Unfortunately review editors didn’t agree with us that we were introducing an unknown modern classic to English-speaking readers and there were next to no reviews. No sales were only turned into modest sales because, unknown to us, Theâtre de Complicité (as the group was then called) were preparing a stage show with music, using their own translation, based on Kharms’ texts. This was ‘Out of a House Walked a Man…’ and it was presented at the National Theatre in late 1994 and created at least a little interest in Kharms.
Nevertheless despite some subsequent publications in English of writing by Kharms, ‘Incidences’ has established itself as the most reliable selection from and guide to his work and it was republished in 2007, although by a different publisher.
- The premiere was celebrated with dinner in a private members club in Dean Street in Soho. A place where, if I remember correctly, there were mirrors at face-height above the urinals, but none above the wash-hand basins. At table, representing Serpent’s Tail, I found myself sitting between Geoff Andrew, then head film critic of Time Out, and Terry Gilliam, a long-time supporter of the work of the Brothers Quay. The critic ignored me, but the supply of wine appeared limitless, and I spent hours in conversation with a genial Terry Gilliam. (The Brothers themselves didn’t seem such great drinkers and somehow faded away without quite sliding from their chairs.) I now have no idea what we talked about, I imagine about films. At the end of the night, that is to say some time in the early morning we enthusiastcally shook hands on Dean Street – that image at least is stored in my mind – and went home. And, of course, I’ve never met him again. [↩]
- Last year (2012) a beautifully produced new four volume collected edition of Kharms appeared in German (Galiani Verlag), for the greater part translated by Alexander Nitzberg. Nitzberg and at least one distinguished reviewer, Ralph Dütli, have expressed highly critical opinions of Peter Urban’s translations. I haven’t had time yet to compare the two versions but at this point I can only say that I’m grateful to Urban to introducing me to Kharms, one result of which was Neil Cornwell’s English translation ‘Incidences’. [↩]