Once upon a time, back in the ‘80s, Katerine Gierak was just a young girl in Paris. At five years old she enrolled in her first music class. Soon she started playing the flute and studying music theory. Then she took up the classical guitar, followed by the electric guitar. From 1999 to 2005 she studied music at the Sorbonne, hoping to become a music teacher. But she failed the CAPES, a French exam for teachers, and instead of accepting the failure as a temporary setback, she changed careers. She became a rock star.

Now heading the band Mademoiselle K, Katerine Gierak is a popular and distinctive voice in contemporary French rock. Here is a clip of her 2006 song “Jalouse” (”Jealous”) from the album Ça Me Vexe (”That Upsets Me”). Below is a translation of the lyrics.

Clip : “Jalouse”, Mademoiselle K. Roy Music
envoyé par roymusic. – Regardez plus de clips, en HD !
Jalouse

By Katerine Gierak
J’suis jalouse à en faire trembler les gens
A faire trembler mes jambes
J’ai plus qu’à plonger en silence
J’pourrais flotter inerte, tu t’en balance
Et ça me ronge, ça me pourrit
Ça me rend dingue, ça me fout en l’air
Quand je sais que tu t’envoies en l’air
De l’air, de l’air, de l’air

Et même si j’le savais pas
J’imagine tout, c’est encore pire
Tu pourrais tomber amoureux
Recommencer une vie à deux
Plus tu la désire et plus j’expire
Et ça me ronge, ça me pourrit
Ça me rend dingue, ça me fout en l’air
Quand je sais que tu t’envoi en l’air
De l’air, de l’air

Jalouse, jalouse
J’suis jalouse à en faire trembler les gens
Et même si c’est moi qui casse
J’m'en fout, j’veux pas qu’on me remplace
J’suis jalouse à en faire trembler mes jambes
J’m'écraserai bien sur l’autoroute
Mais tu t’en fout, t’es déjà loin . . .
Le pire, c’est d’être déjà trop loin

Est-ce que parfois des idées noires
Te traverse sans crier gare ?
Moi, j’en ai un peu tous les soirs
Pourvu que le temps les écrases
Est-ce que tu penses encore à moi
Comme je pense encore à toi ?
Est-ce que tu souffres autant que moi ?
Si c’est moins, j’te le pardonnerai pas

Jalouse, jalouse
Et même si c’est moi qui casse
J’m'en fout, j’veux pas qu’on me remplace
Non, j’veux pas qu’on me remplace
J’veux pas qu’on me remplace
I’m so jealous I make people tremble
I make my legs tremble
Now I only have to dive into silence
I could float without moving, you couldn’t care less
And it eats away at me, it rots me
It makes me crazy, it fucks me up
When I know you’re screwing someone
Air, air, air . . .

And even if I didn’t know it
I imagine everything, it’s even worse
You could fall in love
Start again the life of a couple
The more you want her, the more I die
And it eats away at me, it rots me
It makes me crazy, it fucks me up
When I know you’re screwing someone
Air, air, air . . .

Jealous, jealous,
I’m so jealous I make people tremble
And even if I was the one who split up
I don’t care, I don’t want someone replacing me
I’m so jealous I make my legs tremble
I’ll even crush myself on the highway
But you don’t care, you’re already too far away . . .
The worst, it’s to be already too far away

Do dark thoughts sometimes
Cross your mind without warning?
Me, I have a few of them every night
Hoping that time crushes them
Do you still think of me
Like I still think of you?
Do you suffer as much as I do?
If it’s less, I won’t forgive you

Jealous, jealous
And even if I was the one who split up
I don’t care, I don’t want someone replacing me
No, I don’t want someone replacing me
I don’t want someone replacing me

Thus were the origins of one of the most successful pop songs in American history. Popularized by Frank Sinatra, “My Way” has since been recorded by more than a thousand other singers. But as explained on this French television program, in France it wasn’t initially a big hit for Claude François, who cowrote the song with Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibaut. The French lyrics are also completely different, expressing a weary routine in a relationship.

Below is a video of Claude François and Mureille Mathieu singing “Comme d’habitude” in 1973. By this time even Elvis had a version of “My Way.” François and Mathieu end this short version of the song with lines from Anka’s English lyrics.

Following the video is a translation of the original French song. (For a video in which Claude François sings all the French lyrics, click here.)

Comme d’habitude

By Claude François, Jacques Revaux, and Gilles Thibaut
Je me lève et je te bouscule
Tu ne te réveilles pas comme d’habitude
Sur toi je remonte le drap
J’ai peur que tu aies froid comme d’habitude
Ma main caresse tes cheveux
Presque malgré moi comme d’habitude
Mais toi, tu me tournes le dos
Comme d’habitude

Alors je m’habille très vite
Je sors de la chambre comme d’habitude
Tout seul je bois mon café
Je suis en retard comme d’habitude
Sans bruit je quitte la maison
Tout est gris dehors comme d’habitude
J’ai froid, je relève mon col
Comme d’habitude

Comme d’habitude toute la journée
Je vais jouer à faire semblant
Comme d’habitude je vais sourire
Comme d’habitude je vais même rire
Comme d’habitude, enfin je vais vivre
Comme d’habitude

Et puis le jour s’en ira
Moi, je reviendrai comme d’habitude
Toi, tu seras sortie
Pas encore rentrée comme d’habitude
Tout seul j’irai me coucher
Dans ce grand lit froid comme d’habitude
Mes larmes, je les cacherai
Comme d’habitude

Mais comme d’habitude, même la nuit
Je vais jouer à faire semblant
Comme d’habitude tu rentreras
Oui, comme d’habitude je t’attendrai
Comme d’habitude tu me souriras
Oui, comme d’habitude

Comme d’habitude tu te déshabilleras
Oui, comme d’habitude tu te coucheras
Oui, comme d’habitude on s’embrassera
Comme d’habitude

Comme d’habitude on fera semblant
Oui, comme d’habitude on fera l’amour
Oui, comme d’habitude on fera semblant
Comme d’habitude . . .
I get up and make you stir
You don’t wake up as always
Over you I pull the sheets
I’m afraid you’re cold as always
My hand strokes your hair
Almost despite myself as always
But you, you turn your back
As always

Then I get quickly dressed
I leave the room as always
All alone I drink coffee
I’m running late as always
Without a sound I leave the house
All is grey outside as always
I’m cold, I pull up my collar
As always

As always throughout the day
I’m going to play at pretending
As always I’m going to smile
As always I‘ll even laugh
As always I’m finally going to live
As always

And then the day will pass
Me, I’ll go home as always
You, you will have left
Not yet returned as always
All alone I’ll go to sleep
In the cold, large bed as always
My tears I’ll hide them all
As always

But as always even during the night
I’m going to play at pretending
As always you’ll come home
Yes, as always I’ll wait for you
As always you‘ll smile at me
Yes, as always

As always you’ll get undressed
Yes, as always you’ll come to bed
Yes, as always we’ll kiss
As always

As always we’ll pretend
As always we’ll make love
Yes, as always we’ll pretend
As always . . .

Book clubs are pretty amazing things. I don’t belong to one at the moment, but I would say 80 percent of my friends are members of book groups. I really believe there is a book group for everyone. There are highly structured book groups, very laidback ones, clubs that read only classics, I could go on and on. Well, I just learned of a public book club in Minneapolis called Books & Bars. The group meets once a month at Bryant Lake Bowl, a theater that is adjoined by a pub and bowling alley.

Books & Bars has a moderator, comedian Jeff Kamin, and each session boasts about 70 attendees. Among the book club’s sponsors are independent bookseller Magers & Quinn and satirical newspaper The Onion. Participants are encouraged to purchase the selected books from Magers & Quinn and to enjoy food and drink at Bryant Lake Bowl during the gatherings. And even though it’s a book club, reading the book selection is not a requirement.

Upcoming book selections include The Magicians by Lev Grossman, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, and illustrated novel Blankets by Craig Thompson.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be at a French rock concert? Well, here you go: Matthieu Chedid, better known by his stage name M, singing “En tête à tête” (about five years ago in Paris). One of France’s most extravagant and innovative rock stars, M combines the driving, rhythmic motion of rock with the elegant evenness of the French language.

Below are the lyrics and a translation.

En tête à tête

By M
Ce matin j’lui presse des oranges
   mécaniquement
Les yeux encore un peu brouillés par le sommeil
J’me trouve nez à nez avec ce vers qui ne rime
   à rien
C’est vrai ce week-end je suis seul
   avec moi même

En tête à tête avec moi-même
Souvent j’me tâte pour trouver le thème
En tête à tête avec moi même
J’ai pas la force de dire je je je . . .

Il faut aimer pour comprendre
Nous aimer pour nous comprendre
Mieux aimer pour mieux comprendre
C’est vrai ce week-end je suis seul
   avec moi-même

En tête à tête avec moi-même
Souvent j’me tâte pour trouver le thème
En tête à tête avec moi même
J’ai pas la force de dire je je je . . .
En tête a tête
En tête a tête
En tête a tête
En tête a tête
En tête a tête
This morning I squeeze oranges
   without thinking
My eyes still a little blurry from sleeping
I face with this line that rhymes
   with nothing
It’s true I’m alone this weekend
   with myself

All alone with myself
I often hesitate to find the theme
All alone with myself
I don’t have the energy to say I, I, I . . .

We have to love to understand
To love ourselves to understand ourselves
Loving better to understand better
It’s true I’m alone this weekend
   with myself

All alone with myself
I often hesitate to find the theme
All alone with myself
I don’t have the energy to say I, I, I . . .
All alone
All alone
All alone
All alone
All alone

France has an environmental movement of its own, and in the last European legislative elections, in 2009, Les Verts (“The Greens”) won 16 percent of the vote in France. Today the country is aswarm in things écolo (“environmental”) and bio (“organic”). It even has a kind of “Al Gore” in the writer and television producer Nicolas Hulot, who has been successful in pressuring French politicians to address environmental issues and is well known for his book and film Le Syndrome du Titanic (click here for the trailer).

If France had an environmental anthem, it might be “Respire” by the French trio Mickey 3D. Led by singer and songwriter Mickaël Furnon (whose nickname is Mickey), the group released its biggest hit, “Respire,” in 2003 on the album Tu vas pas mourir de rire (”You’re Not Going to Die of Laughter”). This simple, upbeat, but gloomy song blends eerily with the animated video the group made for it.

Below are the video, the lyrics, and a translation (note: in France baby boys are said to be found in a cabbage patch).

Respire

By Mickey 3D
Approche-toi petit,
Ecoute-moi, gamin.
Je vais te raconter
L’histoire de l’être humain.
Au début y avait rien,
Au début c’était bien.
La nature avancait,
Y avait pas de chemin.

Puis l’homme a débarqué
Avec ses gros souliers.
Des coups de pieds dans la gueule
Pour se faire respecter.
Des routes à sens unique
Qui s’est mises à tracer.
Les fleches dans la plaine
Se sont multipliées.

Et tous les éléments
Se sont vu métrisé.
En deux temps trois mouvements
L’histoire était pliée.
C’est pas demain la veille
Qu’on fera marche arrière.
On a meme commencé
A polluer les déserts.

Il faut que tu respires,
Et ça c’est rien de le dire.
Tu vas pas mourrir de rire,
Et c’est pas rien de le dire.

D’ici quelques années
On aura bouffé la feuille.
Et tes petits enfants
Ils n’auront plus qu’un oeil
En pleins milieu du front.
Ils te demanderont
Pourquoi toi t’en as 2.
Tu passeras pour un con.

Ils te diront comment
T’as pu laisser faire ça.
T’auras beau te défendre
Leurs expliquer tout bas,
T’est pas ma faute à moi,
C’est la faute aux anciens.
Mais y aura plus personne
Pour te laver les mains.

Tu leur raconteras
L’époque où tu pouvais
Manger des fruits dans l’herbe
Allonger dans les prés,
Y avait des animaux partout
Dans la forêt.
Au début du printemps
Les oiseaux revenaient.

Il faut que tu respires.
Et ça c’est rien de le dire.
Tu vas pas mourrir de rire,
Et c’est pas rien de le dire.
Il faut que tu respires,
c’est demain que tout empire.
Tu vas pas mourrir de rire,
et c’est pas rien de le dire.

Le pire dans cette histoire,
C’est qu’on est des esclaves.
Quelque part assassins,
Ici bien incapables
De regarder les arbres
Sans se sentir coupable,
A motié défroqué,
100 pour cent misérable.

Alors voilà, petit,
L’histoire de l’etre humain.
C’est pas joli joli,
Et j’connais pas la fin.
On est pas né dans un chou
Mais plutot dans un trou
Qu’on remplit tous les jours
Comme une fosse à purin.

Il faut que tu respires,
Et ça c’est rien de le dire.
Tu vas pas mourir de rire,
Et c’est pas rien de le dire.
Il faut que tu respires,
C’est demain que tout empire.
Tu vas pas mourrir de rire,
Et ça c’est rien de le dire.

Il faut que tu respires.
Il faut que tu respires.
Il faut que tu respires.
Il faut que tu respires.
Come closer, little one.
Listen up, kid.
I’m going to tell you
The story of humankind.
At first there was nothing,
At first it was fine.
Nature was moving on
Without even a trail.

Then man showed up
With his enormous shoes.
Some kicks in the face
To gain respect.
One-way streets
That began to be drawn.
The arrows in the field
spread right along.

And all the elements
Were thought to be tamed.
Then before you knew it,
The story had turned.
Tomorrow’s not even close
To when we’ll return.
We’ve already begun
polluting the deserts.

You have to breathe,
And that’s easy to say.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s not easy to say.

Sometime in the future
This will all be our fault.
And your little children
Will have just one eye
In the center of their forehead.
They’ll ask you
Why you have two.
You’ll look like an idiot.

They’ll ask you how
You could let this happen.
They’ll be no point in defending yourself,
Explaining to them softly
That’s it’s not your fault,
It’s the fault of your ancestors.
But there will be no one anymore
To wash your hands.

You’ll tell them about
The time you could
Eat fruit in the grass
Lying down in the meadow,
Animals everywhere
In the forest.
At the beginning of spring
The birds would come back.

You have to breathe,
And that’s easy to say.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s not easy to say.
You have to breathe,
And tomorrow it’ll get worse.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s not easy to say.

The worst of this story
Is that we’re each a slave,
In some sense a murderer,
Now fully incapable
Of looking at trees
Without feeling guilty,
Half given up,
100 percent miserable.

Well, there it is, little one,
The story of humankind.
It’s not really pretty,
And I don’t know the end.
We’re not born in a cabbage
But rather in a hole
That one fills everyday
Like a pit of manure.

You have to breathe,
And that’s easy to say.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s not easy to say.
You have to breathe,
And tomorrow it’ll get worse.
You’re not going to die of laughter,
And that’s easy to say.

You have to breathe.
You have to breathe.
You have to breathe.
You have to breathe.

Here at TRC we’ve been wondering lately about children’s literature in translation. What are the unique challenges of translating for a young audience? Might children’s imaginative and flexible minds be more receptive to stories from other cultures? In the era of globalization, is it not vital for our children to empathize with and understand a great diversity of stories?

As it turns out, there is not a lot of information out there about this niche-within-a-niche in American and British publishing. I did, however, find a fascinating article in Publisher’s Weekly from 2008 about the history of French children’s literature and the state of French-English and English-French translations. Not surprisingly, the French are translating a lot more of our children’s books than we are translating theirs. A relative trailblazer in this respect is American publisher Harry N. Abrams, which has had found success with a number of carefully selected illustrated books from France, particularly 365 pingouins (365 Penguins) by Jean-Luc Fromental (with acclaimed illustrator Joëlle Jolivet), which outsold expectations by 350 percent in two years. Abrams president and CEO Michael Jacobs remarked, “There’s an innovation in French children’s picture book publishing that’s missing here [in the United States]. It’s really refreshing.”

Another valuable perspective (Guardian 2006) comes from Sarah Adams, the award-winning translator of Daniel Pennac’s beloved tale L’oeil du loup (Eye of the Wolf). Originally published in 1984, the book was continuously in print in French and translated into numerous other languages—including Dutch, Finnish, and Basque—before it was finally translated into English in 2002.

Adams describes the work of translating as a “peculiar literary ventriloquism” that is all about finding the right voice:

I’m a parrot, a bridge-builder, an undertaker, a midwife and an editor all rolled into one. I’m bent on bringing original words back to life in a new context, owning them to some extent and backing off again, making them real and familiar without diluting where they’ve come from.

She goes on to cite some notable children’s titles in English translation, from fairy tales to coming-of-age novels (translated from Arabic, Dutch, Greek, Portuguese, French, German . . .), making a compelling case for the idea that more works in translation would give English-speaking children access to a vast wealth of stories and voices that they have never heard before.

As Tim Parks, author of Translating Style (revised edition, 2007), remarked in the Guardian recently, the work of the translator is neither glamorous nor lucrative. Even the most talented translator usually remains anonymous unless s/he has the good fortune to work with a literary superstar, like Salman Rushdie or Umberto Eco.

Indeed, Parks argues, the unwritten rule seems to be that the translator should remain anonymous, as neither the author nor the reader of a foreign language work wants to be reminded that the translated text is only a mediated version of the original:

The translator should do his job and then disappear. The great, charismatic, creative writer wants to be all over the globe. And the last thing he wants to accept is that the majority of his readers are not really reading him.

His readers feel the same. They want intimate contact with true greatness. They don’t want to know that this prose was written on survival wages in a maisonette in Bremen, or a high-rise flat in the suburbs of Osaka.

Still, having written his own novels and translated those of many others, Parks maintains that “sentence by sentence, translation is intellectually more taxing.” He laments the fact that few writers today are interested or willing to become translators, especially as “the hands-on experience of how another writer puts together his work is worth a year’s creative writing classes.”

Given the labor-of-love, toiling-in-obscurity aspect of being a literary translator, then, it’s good to see the establishment this year of the Harville Secker Young Translators’ Prize, which seeks to foster a new generation of translating talent. Entrants must be between the ages of 16 and 34. The inaugural £1000 prize will go to the most artful and convincing English translation of ‘El hachazo,’ a short story by Argentinian writer Matías Néspolo. The deadline for entries is 31 July 2010.

According to its MySpace page, La Féline is “a trio that likes pop, epic folk, beauty, strangeness, instrumental music, and B movies” (“un trio qui aime la pop, le folk épique, le beau, le bizarre, la musique instrumentale et les séries B”). But I prefer this description that lead singer Agnès Gayraud gave in an English-language interview.

We’re three people. A dark-haired girl, Agnès. who sings and plays guitar, gently leading the band, a grey-haired boy, Xavier, who plays keyboards, and a brown-haired boy, Stéphane, playing drums. We all live in Paris. We’re all looking for something—without knowing exactly what. We only agree on the fact we’re looking for it.

La Féline’s music is sometimes in French, sometimes in English. This song is in both, creating a Franco-American mélange in which French pop tradition wanders freely in the folksy, Wild West.

Below are the lyrics and a translation of the French.

HibOO d’Live : La Féline “Mystery Train” from Le-HibOO.com on Vimeo.

Mystery Train

By La Féline
Je suis montée dans ton Mystery Train
A ton côté, innocente et sereine
Alors, tu m’as tout raconté
J’ai tout quitté en montant dans ce train
Moi je voulais partager ton destin
Alors, on a tout partagé

Everybody loves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

Autour de nous filait le paysage
Dans ses reflets, je voyais ton visage
Alors, on a tout traversé
Dessus les ponts, au dessous des nuages
Au bord des gouffres, évitant les orages
La mort, j’ai voulu m’en aller

Everybody leaves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

Je suis tombée de ton Mystery Train
J’ai basé mon camp dans la plaine
Alors, j’ai voulu t’oublier
J’ai tout quitté en tombant de ce train
Je t’ai laissé seul à ton destin
Alors, tu m’as tout reproché

Everybody hurts somebody someday, someday
Everybody hurts the one he loves, you said

A l’heure qu’il est poursuis-tu ta course?
A quelle distance du gouffre?
Voila où je veux te parler
Dans les couloirs désertés que tu longes
Si tu me croises au milieu de tes songes
Alors, tu m’auras pardonnée

Everybody misses somebody someday, someday
Everybody missed the one he left, that’s what I say.
I boarded your Mystery Train
Next to you, innocent and serene
Then you told me everything
I left everything getting on the train
Me, I wanted to share your destiny
So we shared everything

Everybody loves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

Around us flew by the landscape
In our reflections I saw your face
Then we crossed over everything
Over the bridges, under clouds
On the edge of the abyss, avoiding the storms
Death, I wanted to go away

Everybody leaves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

I fell off your Mystery Train
I set up my camp on the plain
Then I wanted to forget you
I left everything falling off this train
I left you alone with your destiny
So you blamed me for everything

Everybody hurts somebody someday, someday
Everybody hurts the one he loves, you said

Are you still racing now?
How far from the abyss?
That’s where I want to talk with you
In the deserted passages you pass through
If you meet me in the middle of your dreams
Then you will have forgiven me.

Everybody misses somebody someday, someday
Everybody missed the one he left, that’s what I say.

Some of the published titles are already well-known works, such as Natsume Soseki’s Botchan and Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories. The selected works cover a number of genres, including mysteries, poetry, short stories, and novels. Upcoming titles (for which, I believe, the publishing rights are still available), include an introduction to contemporary Japanese poetry, fantasy novel The Mandala Way by Masako Bando, historical novel Tokyo Seven Roses by Hisashi Inoue, and literary biography A Thousand Strands of Black Hair by Seiko Tanabe.

Thanks to the very informative Three Percent blog, which focuses on international literature, for clueing me in about JLPP! I’m definitely going to check out some of these books.

Rare among contemporary French singers, Vanessa Paradis has a following in the United States, partly because she is the longtime partner of actor Johnny Depp, with whom she has two children. Paradis and Depp divide their time between Los Angeles and the south of France and also have property elsewhere. Depp was the cover artist for Divinidylle, her 2007 CD.

Paradis, now 37, has been famous for years as a singer and actor in France. Her first hit, “Joe le taxi,” was released in 1987 when she was 14 years old, and it became a number one song in 25 countries. She was instantly a kind of French Lolita, adored and scorned by the French public. Years later she is now often seen as a chic French rocker.

Here is Paradis doing an acoustic version of “Dans mon café” (“In My Coffee”) from her album Bliss (2000). The concert took place on November 22, 2009, in the historic Parisian theatre La Cigale. Before singing, Paradis says,

Vous me donnez soif . . . [from someone in the audience: “à ta santé] . . . merci . . . Cette chanson est dédiée à tout ce qu’on le sait . . . l’incendie prend dans leurs cœurs. On va laisser le feu les envahir, sans faire des dégats, sans extincteur, sans eau.

(You make me thirsty . . . [from someone in the audience : “to your health”] . . . thank you . . . This song is dedicated to everything we know . . . the fire takes hold in our hearts. We’re going to let the fire invade us, without damage, without an extinguisher, without water.)

Below are the lyrics and a translation.

Dans mon café

Lyrics by Didier Golemanas
Tu es le clown dans mon café
Le ballon rouge sur mon nez
Le magicien auditionné
Au plus grand cirque jamais monté

Des trapézistes s’sont ramassés
Des lionnes, de tigres dépareillés
Tu es le seul dans mon café
L’seul numéro qu’j'peux pas sucrer

Mais qu’as-tu fait des plus futés
De ceux qui me faisaient du thé
Du lait dont j’aurais dû douter
Le bel autodafé
Le bel autodafé
Que t’as fait lá
Dans mon café

Tu es bien le diable embarqué
Pas besoin d’me l’faire remarquer
La cuillère a beau tourner
T’es toujours là dans mon café

Même si j’ai pas fini d’jongler
Si j’ai pas assez répété
Avec toi c’est les yeux fermés
Tous ces couteaux qu’tu vas m’lancer

Qu’as-tu fait des plus affutées
De celles qui t’as jamais plantées
Des feux de bengale de chak’ côte
Le bel autodafé
Le bel autodafé
Que t’as fait lá
Dans mon café . . .
You are the clown in my coffee
The red balloon on my nose
The magician auditioned
at the largest circus ever erected

Trapeze artists fell down
Lions, tigers mixed up
You are the only one in my coffee
The only one I can’t rub out

But what did you do with the smartest ones
With those who used to make me tea
With milk I should have mistrusted
The beautiful auto-da-fé
The beautiful auto-da-fé
That you performed
In my coffee

You are indeed the devil aboard
No need to make it clear
Even though I stir the spoon
You are always in my coffee

Even if I don’t finish juggling
If I don’t practice enough
With you the eyes are closed
All those knives you’ll throw at me

What did you do with the sharpest ones
With the ones you never thrust in me
Bengal lights on either side
The beautiful auto-da-fé
The beautiful auto-da-fé
That you performed
In my coffee . . .

Although Francis Cabrel has been one of the best-selling songwriters in France since the late 1970s, he’s hardly had the typical life of a celebrity. Raised in the village of Astaffort, in the southwestern French department of Lot-et-Garonne, he still lives there with his longtime wife, Mariette. His first hit, “Petite Marie” (“Little Marie”; 1977), was dedicated to her.

Below is a video of Francis Cabrel performing “La Corrida” (“Bullfighting”), a song from his 1994 album Samedi soir sur la terre (“Saturday Night on Earth”), which sold three million copies. I love the tall, French windows at the back of the stage.

The lyrics describe the horror of bullfighting from the point of view of the bull, and the song shares with Cabrel’s other music a dreamlike quality and a yearning to say something that feels essential. Andalousie (Andalusia), mentioned below in the lyrics and translation, is a region in southern Spain known for bullfighting. The French expression “dormer sur ses deux oreilles” (“to sleep on both ears”) means to sleep deeply. In the song it’s used as a pun. After killing a bull the bullfighter is sometimes given its ears as a gift.

Francis Cabrel – La corrida
envoyé par dimigardien. – Regardez la dernière sélection musicale.

La Corrida

By Francis Cabrel
Depuis le temps que je patiente
Dans cette chambre noire
J’entends qu’on s’amuse et qu’on chante
Au bout du couloir
Quelqu’un a touché le verrou
Et j’ai plongé vers le grand jour
J’ai vu les fanfares, les barrières
Et les gens autour

Dans les premiers moments j’ai cru
Qu’il fallait seulement se défendre
Mais cette place est sans issue
Je commence à comprendre
Ils ont refermé derrière moi
Ils ont eu peur que je recule
Je vais bien finir par l’avoir
Cette danseuse ridicule…

Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?
Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?

Andalousie je me souviens
Les prairies bordées de cactus
Je ne vais pas trembler devant
Ce pantin, ce minus !
Je vais l’attraper, lui et son chapeau
Les faire tourner comme un soleil
Ce soir la femme du torero
Dormira sur ses deux oreilles

Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?
Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?

J’en ai poursuivi des fantômes
Presque touché leurs ballerines
Ils ont frappé fort dans mon cou
Pour que je m’incline
Ils sortent d’où ces acrobates
Avec leurs costumes de papier ?
J’ai jamais appris à me battre
Contre des poupées

Sentir le sable sous ma tête
C’est fou comme ça peut faire du bien
J’ai prié pour que tout s’arrête
Andalousie je me souviens
Je les entends rire comme je râle
Je les vois danser comme je succombe
Je pensais pas qu’on puisse autant
S’amuser autour d’une tombe

Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?
Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux ?

Si, si, hombre, hombre
Baila, baila
Hay que bailar de nuevo
Y mataremos otros
Otras vidas, otros toros
Y mataremos otros
Venga, venga a bailar…
Y mataremos otros
During the time I was waiting
In this dark room
I heard people having fun and singing
At the end of the corridor
Someone put his hand on the lock
And I dove into the daylight
I saw the commotion, the gates
And the people all around

At first I believed
I needed only to defend myself
But this place with no exit
I’m beginning to understand
They locked up behind me
They were afraid I was going back
I’m just going to end up doing
This ridiculous pastime . . .

Are these people serious?
Are these people serious?

Andalusia I remember
The meadows lined with cacti
I’m not going to tremble before
This nobody, this moron!
I’m going to catch him, him and his hat
Make them spin like a sun
This evening the bullfighter’s wife
Will sleep on both ears

Are these people serious?
Are these people serious?

I pursued their ghosts
Almost touched their ballerina shoes
They struck hard on my neck
So that I’d bow down
Where did these acrobats come from
With their paper costumes?
I never learned to fight
Against dolls

To feel the sand under my head
It’s crazy how good it can feel
I prayed so that everything would stop
Andalusia I remember
I hear them laugh as I groan
I see them dance as I die
I didn’t think anyone could have so much
fun gathered around a grave

Are these people serious?
Are these people serious?

Yes, yes, man, man
Dance, dance
You have to dance again
And we’ll kill others
Other lives, other bulls
And we’ll kill others
Come, come and dance . . .
And we’ll kill others

Although poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) is not a pop lyricist, the words to one of his best-known poems, “Le Pont Mirabeau” (”The Mirabeau Bridge”), were put to music by Marc Lavoine, pictured above on the cover of his CD titled simply Marc Lavoine (2001). “Le Pont Mirabeau,” the first track on the CD, is a bridge in Paris that spans over the Seine River. Apparently Apollinaire had to walk over the bridge to get to the home of painter Marie Laurencin, his girlfriend from 1907 to 1912. It is also the bridge where poet Paul Celan likely killed himself in 1970. His body was found miles downstream.

Below is Lavoine, since the 1980s a successful French actor and crooner, singing “Le Pont Mirabeau.”

The poem has been translated into English many times and in many ways. Here are a few well-known attempts to translate it. Some of the differences come from the translators’ struggle to replicate the rhyme scheme in English without straying too far from the meaning in French. But a more literal translation, without regard to rhyme, would also be open to question. The meaning even in French is ambiguous (as this brief and useful summary of the poem, in French, points out).

Below is the text of the poem, as well as a more or less literal, though debatable, translation.

Le Pont Mirabeau

By Guillaume Apollinaire
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante
L’amour s’en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l’Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
Under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine
And our passion
Must I remember again
Joy always came after the pain

Comes the night, strikes the hour
The days go by, but I remain

Hand in hand, let’s stay face to face
While under
The bridge of our arms move
The waters so weary of our eternal gaze

Comes the night, strikes the hour
The days go by, but I remain

Love passes by like this flowing water
Love passes by
In the way that life lags
And hope brings violence

Comes the night, strikes the hour
The days go by, but I remain

The days pass, and the weeks pass,
Neither time past
Nor the passion returns
Under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine

Comes the night, strikes the hour
The days go by, but I remain

In the world of literary translators, Edith Grossman is a rock star. She is known for her mastery of translation, which includes the seemingly insurmountable ability to merge translated language with cultural nuance and style. Grossman is responsible for the English translations of a number of titles by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, including Love in the Time of Cholera, as well as the 2003 translation of Miguel de Cervantes’ classic Don Quixote.

Though many acknowledge that translation is an art form, there are plenty of others who hold translation in lesser regard, not giving it the credit it is due. It’s possible they consider translation a technical task, something a translator can plow through, dictionary in hand. Grossman takes offense to this, and she details the importance of translation in her forthcoming book, Why Translation Matters (release date March 30, 2010).

Works in translation are not wildly popular in the United States. According to research firm R. R. Bowker’s 2005 report, translated works make up only about 3 percent of book releases in the United States each year. Works translated from English, on the other hand, are plentiful (double-digit percentages) in other parts of the world. This is partly due to the dominance of the English language in print.

But all is not lost, as works translated to English do have an audience in the United States. Take, for example, the popularity of such books as Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (translated from French) and of the crime genre “Nordic Noir,” including The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell (Swedish) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Swedish).

To read more about Grossman and translation, see this article.

We have a deep interest in translated works here at Thomas Riggs & Company. Not only are we planning to publish translated books but we also have personal interests in various languages (one coworker even uses French software). The other day we were discussing the power and difficulty of translation; when translating works of fiction or poetry, how literal should the translator be? How much liberty is the translator allowed? Language is infused with cultural nuances, so how are those translated? So, yes, it’s very complex, which is why good translators should be applauded.

The 2010 Best Translated Book Awards just announced its winners, and the fiction and poetry winners both came from independent presses. The fiction winner was The Confessions of Noa Weber, a book in Hebrew by Gail Hareven, translated by Dalya Bilu and published by Melville House Press. Bilu has been translating Hebrew literature for some time and is highly respected in her field. The poetry winner was The Russian Version by Elena Fanailova, translated from Russian by Genya Turovskaya and Stephanie Sandler and published by Ugly Duckling Presse. Turovskaya, a poet herself, immigrated to the United States from the Ukraine, and Sandler is a professor at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Here’s a list of the other fiction finalists, in case you need more titles to add to your reading lists!

Ghosts
by César Aira
translated by Chris Andrews
published by New Directions
language: Spanish

The Twin
by Gerbrand Bakker
translated by David Colmer
published by Archipelago
language: Dutch

Anonymous Celebrity
by Ignácio de Loyola Brandão
translated by Nelson Vieira
published by Dalkey Archive
language: Portuguese

Wonder
by Hugo Claus
translated by Michael Henry Heim
published by Archipelago
language: Dutch

The Weather Fifteen Years Ago
by Wolf Haas
translated by Stephanie Gilardi and Thomas S. Hansen
published by Ariadne Press
language: German

The Discoverer
by Jan Kjærstad
translated by Barbara Haveland
published by Open Letter
language: Norwegian

Memories of the Future
by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
translated by Joanne Turnbull
published by New York Review Books
language: Russian

Rex
by José Manuel Prieto
translated by Esther Allen
published by Grove
language: Spanish

The Tanners
by Robert Walser
translated by Susan Bernofsky
published by New Directions
language: German

For a list of the poetry finalists and more information about the Best Translated Book Awards, go here.

Perhaps you didn’t notice, but next month Soft Skull Press is releasing The Bad Life, the English translation of Frédéric Mitterrand’s “memoir” La mauvaise vie (2005). Over the last few months the author has become controversial, and in response Soft Skull published a defense of the book on its blog.

We’d just like to say that what is most surprising to us regarding the situation is that Mr. Mitterrand’s story has for quite some time been public knowledge to the French people, and in the most high-profile fashion. The Bad Life was published four years ago and became a bestseller in France. The controversial passages have been known to us all along and, among other things, it was the frankness and thoughtfulness with which Mr. Mitterrand discussed his life that drew us to the project. Whether you agree with Mr. Mitterrand’s story or habits, he approaches them with a compelling and thought-provoking honesty and we continue to stand behind this elegant and brave book in the same way we have since undertaking to publish it here. As a publisher, Soft Skull has always embraced controversial conversations.

So, then, who is Frédéric Mitterrand, and what did he do to cause such a scandal?

Monsieur Mitterrand is the nephew of the former French president François Mitterrand. In June 2009, after many years as a documentary maker, writer, and television presenter, he became the French minister of culture and communication under the current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, supposedly at the urging of Sarkozy’s wife, the singer and former model Carla Bruni. France is famous for looking the other way when politicians and other personalities transgress moral norms in their personal lives. Hardly anyone in France seemed to care when Mitterrand’s book appeared in French in 2005, even though what he says about paying for prostitutes in Thailand is hardly accepted behavior in France.

Tous ces rituels de foire aux éphèbes, de marché aux esclaves m’excitent énormément. La lumière est moche, la musique tape sur les nerfs, les shows sont sinistres et on pourrait juger qu’un tel spectacle, abominable d’un point de vue moral, est aussi d’une vulgarité repoussante. Mais il me plaît au-delà du raisonnable. La profusion de garçons très attrayants, et immédiatement disponibles, me met dans un état de désir que je n’ai plus besoin de refréner ou d’occulter. L’argent et le sexe, je suis au cœur de mon système ; celui qui fonctionne enfin car je sais qu’on ne me refusera pas.

**************

All the rituals of the market for young men, the slave market, excite me enormously. The light is awful, the music gets on your nerves, the shows are dreary, and such a spectacle, abominable from a moral standpoint, could also be judged as a hideous vulgarity. But it pleases me beyond reason. The profusion of boys, very attractive and immediately available, puts me in a state of desire I no longer need to restrain or hide. Money and sex, I am at the heart of my system, that which functions in the end because I know that no one will refuse me.

In France the book was critically acclaimed and sold well, but something changed in 2009. Mitterrand, now a politician, threw himself into an international controversy: the arrest in Switzerland of director Roman Polanski, a French citizen, who had fled the United States in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a thirteen-year-old girl. Mitterrand called the arrest “frightening.” Unfortunately for Mitterrand, what he seemed to be admitting in his book—sex with underage boys—was immediately identified with Polanski’s crime, sex with an underage girl. Both French Socialists (the party of his uncle) and the ultra-right-wing Front National attacked him for pedophilia and “sex tourism.” It was left to President Sarkozy’s party, the right-wing UMP, to defend its minister of culture. The party’s spokesman, Xavier Bertrand, expressed his support in a typical French way. “On n’est pas obligé d’utiliser la vie privée des gens à des fins politiciennes” (“One is not obliged to use someone’s private life for political ends”).

Hardly surprising, the issue ended up being more complicated than it first seemed. Most importantly, the book is, as its French publisher (Éditions Robert Laffont) states, a roman d’inspiration autobiographique (“novel of autobiographical inspiration”). In other words, it’s a mixture of memory and imagination. The controversial material is found on only a few pages. The book covers a much longer period of his life and concerns something more general, as Mitterrand hints at here when referring to himself in the third person.

Autrefois on aurait dit qu’il s’agissait de la divulgation de sa part d’ombre ; aujourd’hui on parlerait de “coming out.” Il ne se reconnaît pas dans ce genre de définition. La mauvaise vie qu’il décrit est la seule qu’il a connue.

**************

In the past one would have said it was a matter of revealing his dark side; today one would speak of “coming out.” He doesn’t recognize himself in this type of definition. The bad life he describes is the only life he knew.

Mitterrand eventually went on French television to discuss the controversy. He denied having sex with underage boys, saying gay men often call other men “boys.” He echoed misgivings expressed in the book, saying payment for sex was “an offence against the idea of dignity, human dignity.” And ultimately, as when the book first appeared in 2005, many (though not all) French people admired his honesty in discussing the issue. To this day he remains the minister of culture and communication.

Of course, I don’t know whether Mitterrand is telling the truth. But I give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s a smart man (if you understand French, see the video below), and it doesn’t seem bright to mention in a “memoir” that you committed what would be a serious crime in your own country. France, of course, prosecutes people who have sex with minors.

But what about the book itself, its quality and literary merit? As we have learned so many times before, art is not a reflection of the moral rectitude of the creator. Art, in this case an arrangement of words, stands on its own. On the back of the French edition, a blurb describes the work as “délicat, pudique jusque dans l’impudeur” (“delicate, discreet to the point of indiscretion”). In reading the book, I was absorbed by the author’s elegant style, his search for understanding, of himself and of things around him, whether real or imagined. I found it to be an impressive and moving confession of an unsettling and at times disturbing life.

Tim Parks, who blogs for the New York Review of Books, had an interesting post recently about the pressure that writers (particularly non-American writers) feel to reach an international audience and the way this is affecting what and how they write:

There is a growing sense that for an author to be considered “great,” he or she must be an international rather than a national phenomenon . . . [M]ore and more European, African, Asian and South American authors see themselves as having “failed” if they do not reach an international audience.

Parks goes on to describe how this pressure has increased with the advent of electronic submissions, which enable an author to send a new work simultaneously to publishers all over the world, such that international rights may even be purchased before the writer has found a publisher in his or her own country:

An astute agent can then orchestrate the simultaneous launch of a work in many different countries using promotional strategies that we normally associate with multinational corporations. Thus a reader picking up a copy of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, or the latest Harry Potter, or indeed a work by Umberto Eco, or Haruki Murakami, or Ian McEwan, does so in the knowledge that this same work is being read now, all over the world . . . This perception adds to the book’s attraction.

The disturbing side effect of this global market consciousness, Parks suggests, is that authors may be inclined to tailor their work for ease of translation and “remove obstacles to international comprehension,” particularly by keeping the language simple:

Kazuo Ishiguro has spoken of the importance of avoiding word play and allusion to make things easy for the translator. Scandinavian writers I know tell me they avoid character names that would be difficult for an English reader . . . What seems doomed to disappear, or at least to risk neglect, is the kind of work that revels in the subtle nuances of its own language and literary culture, the sort of writing that can savage or celebrate the way this or that linguistic group really lives.

It will be unfortunate if the proliferation of literature in translation can only happen through its homogenization.

Translation is a funny business. With a novel it’s important not only to maintain the meaning of the original text but to express that meaning in a way that can be understood and appreciated by people conditioned in another culture. For commercial publishers there’s another concern: how best to attract potential buyers.

In 1951 Catcher in the Rye became an instant best seller in the United States. Soon it started to spread across the globe, contorting itself into different languages. Although in some countries the title kept its literal referents (catcher, rye), elsewhere publishers chose titles that presumably better expressed the intended meaning, or would be more interesting or understandable to their readers, than a literal translation. In Swedish it became Raddaren i noden (”Savior in a Crisis”); in Hungarian, Zabhegyezõ (“A Sharpener of Oats”); and in Polish, Buszujący w zbożu (”Rummage Around in the Corn”).

In France J.D. Salinger’s classic became L’attrape-coeurs (”The Catcher of Hearts”). Why didn’t the French choose a more literal translation? I’ve read several explanations.

The English and French titles are both taken from a scene with Holden and his younger sister, Phoebe, with Holden starting off.

“You know what I’d like to be?” I said. “You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?”

“What? Stop swearing.”

“You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like —”

It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!” old Phoebe said. “It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.”

Holden then says he imagines a field of rye next to a cliff, and in the field thousands of kids are running around. He is the only big person there to protect them from falling off the edge.

I mean if they’re running and don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.

In the French version of the book, Holden says something different.

Tu connais la chanson « Si un cœur attrape un cœur qui vient à travers les seigles » ? Je voudrais . . . (”You know the song ‘If a heart catches a heart coming through the rye’? I’d like . . .”)

When Phoebe corrects him, she uses the word “body” (corps), not “heart” (coeur), and the French is a literal translation from the English.

C’est « Si un corps rencontre un corps qui vient à travers les seigles ». C’est un poème de Robert Burns.

But when Holden continues his thought, he goes to back to using “heart.”

C’est ce que je ferais toute la journée. Je serais juste l’attrape-cœurs et tout. (”That’s what I would do all day. I would just be the catcher of hearts and all.”)

Why did the translator choose the French word for “heart” and not “body” here? One theory I read is that for an adolescent the body is often confused with the heart and with hormones energizing the body. For Holden, then, it would be normal for a teenager to mix up the two words.

But another idea is that a well-known book, Boris Vian’s L’arrache-coeur (English title: Heartsnatcher), was published not long before the French version of Catcher in the Rye and that the publisher wanted to make the connection. In fact, at a dinner in Nice recently, I asked people at the table why the book was called L’attrape-coeurs, and someone immediately thought of Vian.

So my best guess is that, while the translator and the publisher remained faithful to the original meaning in the scene of Holden and Phoebe, the use of coeur (”heart”)—and especially the turn of phrase “L’attrape-coeurs”—was at least in part a marketing strategy.