Paul Verhaeghen: Omega Minor

[Eric]

The quote in Dabbler's #19 posting introduces a new dimension: Verhaeghen has changed nationality! Given the fact that English is spoken in the USA, Canada, etc., etc., the reviewer might have stopped to think what the difference is between Flemish, Dutch, Belgian, etc. There is a simple test that nearly always works when looking at the surname: if it has an "ae" in it, it's Flemish, i.e. from Belgium. Examples: Maeterlinck, Verhaeren, Verhaeghen, Claes, and so on.

I feel a bit rotten knocking this book that I've never read, because The Dalkey Archive Press have treated me, as a translator, better than any other publishing house, to date. I've translated two minority interest postmodernist novels for them and done a few reviews in their literary freesheet CONTEXT. But everything I read about it just heaps coals on the fire of my prejudice against Omega Minor. I'll have to leaf through a copy in the bookshop in Amsterdam when I go there to return my library books next week. Maybe I will be converted.

Anyway, when I've got time I'll see what more I can find by way of more reviews from Belgium and the Netherlands.

[Eric]

I'm still mystified why there is so little on Verhaeghen and "Omega Minor" on the internet, when it comers to reviews, opinions, and so on. The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is usually big news. And the book has already appeared in German and the original Dutch. But I can find very little. One more informative review is:

http://sunews.syr.edu/story_details.cfm?id=3048

But this was written about a year before he won the prize.

The Jewish Chronicle (London) is less enthusiastic:

http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?Paren...7261&ATypeId=1

While the Rain Taxi website is quite the opposite - pretty gushing:

http://www.powells.com/review/2008_03_23.html

The Dutch (despite the name) Cutting Edge website says it's a masterpiece:

http://v3.cuttingedge.be/reviews/boo...megaminor.html

There's not much more been said about the book. We will have to look again in six months' time.

Many more thanks, Eric, for the reviews.
Reading all the reviews, except the Dutch for me, was fascinating. If one separates out the actual descriptions of the book's content from the reviewers' reactions to the book's content, it seems to me a rather clear picture emerges.

The descriptions of content all seem accurate to me, so the reviewers are all clearly reading the same book, which is a virtue. The book is as full and overflowing and varied as all the reviews suggest it to be.

When one then looks at the reviewers' reactions, one finds the differences of opinion, which to me are really what one has to expect will be the case. We bring different experiences and literary tastes to the reading experience and this seems to be a book, perhaps because of its great variety, which will particularly excite those different reactions among us. Each reviewer identifies particular aspects for positive or negative comment, but taken all together those aspects still present a true picture of the book's story.

[Eric]

Two evenings ago, I was taken to a pleasant restaurant in London, where it was claimed that Verhaeghen feasted after he's won the Indy prize. I don't think I ever took note of what it was called but it was somewhere on the Old Brompton Road and served Lebanese food. It may have been "Simply Lebanese", but I'm not sure. Anyway, the portions were huge, and the food was pleasantly Middle Eastern.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a closer look at the book itself in the various bookshops I visited, during my brief visit to Blighty, so I still don't know whether it would be as daunting as I imagine.

[nnyhav]

RSB/Bookdepository interview w/ PV

[Eric]

Good interview by Mark Thwaite for Book Depository. I notice that Verhaeghen uses the pronoun "we" when talking about America. Has this Belgian been subsumed by the USA?

I still haven't seen a copy of the book, but maybe the lack of sales are only to do with the fact he is a dreaded Belgian. Maybe the book gives people leafing through it in the bookshop an overpowering impression.

He doesn't give much away about himself. Maybe that's a writer's prerogative to keep an element of private life.

In another interview he describes the process of self-translation:

http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/i...aul-verhaeghen

As you know, translation interests me a great deal. Verhaeghen speaking to Splice Today. Here, he's being more straightforward:

PAUL VERHAEGHEN: The translation! I just bumbled into it. To try to lure publishers into buying the foreign rights, the Flemish Fund for Literature had a few pages translated by a professional. And although this person did an excellent job, I had to swallow hard when I read that translation. It just wasn’t me. So: (a) I realized I apparently had a voice in English; and (b) I stupidly thought that therefore I should do the translation myself. So I applied for the job, and I got hired. It’s not a new book and it’s not a slavish copy. I felt I could take a few liberties here and there, twist sentences around, insert new puns, delete obscure jokes, correct a few mistakes. My English is still not as good as I would want it to be, but I wanted to avoid having a book that read as if it had been translated. In Dutch, my choice of words is very often determined by sound and rhythm. I tried to do that in the translation as well—you have to be able to read it out loud, somehow I feel that’s important. The good thing about translating your own work is that you don’t have to bother with doing the work “justice”; if something doesn’t work in the translation, off it goes! The author isn’t going to show up on my doorstep with a gun.

I do realize I got tremendously lucky. When is the last time you or anyone of your acquaintances lusted for a Flemish novel in translation, right? To get published in any language is a miracle, to get translated into American is even more unthinkable, and to get some small amount of attention and recognition is utterly fantastic. My older work is not worth translating (I hope it all goes out of print in Dutch soon), and whatever is going on inside my mind right now isn’t worth writing down. At all. So it’s gonna be Omega Minor and that is it. A quarter-million words is enough of an oeuvre anyway.

At another point in the interview, he mentions the untranslatability of some authors, including Boon. But Boon's been given some airing in the English-speaking world. Verhaeghen on Boon:

I would recommend Boon, except that he’s totally unreadable in translation. You have to hail from a particular two-by-three block area of the village of Erembodegem to fully appreciate his craft, I have been told. I hail from two miles down the road, and find him sublime. But all my Dutch friends hate him.

Remember what Eric revealed about Boon in another thread...

[Eric]

When buying other books yesterday, as listed elsewhere, I leafed through the Dutch original of the Verhaeghen book. I have to admit that the text looked more readable than I had expected to be, but I also noticed a kind of what I term "creative writing" style, with some rather journalistic punchy phrasing and onomatopoeics. I'd have to read a few chapters to see whether I would really get on with this book.

I expect the copy I leafed through (€11) will still be in the bookshop when I return in a week or two's time.

Has there been anything in the U.S. or British press about it lately (i.e. during late June 2008)?

[fausto]

I read it a couple of weeks ago. It's indeed much more readable than what it's meant to be. I found it a very fast read too.

[Mirabell]

I'm stuck somewhere in the middle. German translation so maybe that's it. It just seems so incredibyl uneven, very readable passages, then some shlock. 100 pages flying by, 100 pages dragging like fuck.

[nnyhav]

Not only does Verhaegen have a blog, but I find out fausto's holding out on us. (available for a limited time only)

[fausto]

Just found out yesterday actually.

[ions]

Rant that has little/nothing to do with topic: This book is still, STILL, not availble from Chapters/Indigo. Fucking Heather Reisman you suck! Can be ordered through the local independent which is what I guess I shall do. And should do.

Go away Heather. You're bad for books. C***!

[Eric]

The word is "cunt". But who the hell is Heather Reisman?

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by Eric

But who the hell is Heather Reisman?

President of Indigo since 1996, apparently.

[Eric]

OK, Reisman belongs to the rich in-crowd. But what's the Indigo-Reisman-Verhaeghen story? I still don't get it.

If you want the book, Amazon will surely suffice. (Or you can learn Dutch.)

[cuchulain]

Sorry if this is waaay off topic.

Someone mentioned Belgian literature in general, and the lack of knowledge of it in the English speaking world.

Two great authors come quickly to mind:

Henri Michaux and Hugo Claus. Claus's The Sorrow of Belgium is in my own top 50. Michaux was an incredibly original poet, artist, travel writer of both internal and external journeys.

Have you folks discussed either writer here?

Congrats, also, to Fausto, for getting such a direct response from the subject of this thread. The "internets" is pretty cool that way.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by cuchulain

Sorry if this is waaay off topic...

To stop going off topic, there's a thread for Belgian Literature in general.

[nnyhav]

I've mentioned over in Recently Completed that Omega Minor would appeal to readers of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (C-R's reviews of former and latter, I'd rate each a notch lower); Richard Powers also came to mind, and it was no surprise to see both authors mentioned in his top ten over at The Book Depository (more specific link than from upthread).

Nor to see Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow on his list, though none of the above-mentioned approach it.