A Linguistic Problem
http://bookcoolie.blogspot.com/2005/06/guest-in-house-of-english.html
A Guest in the House of English
Book Coolie presents for you a short essay by Tsipi Keller, novelist and translator, on the issue of writing in English away from her mother tongue of Hebrew. Tsipi is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, of CAPS and NYFA awards in fiction, and is the author, most recently, of Jackpot (Spuyten Duyvil, 2004)
Writing in a language not your own
Not your own. You never own it, you don’t feel you own it, even if your vocabulary is rich, your syntax and spelling correct. There’s always a hesitancy – imperceptible to others, but there all the same – in your hand when you write, and, even worse, in your voice, when you speak, for, in addition to correct usage you also worry about your accent: “Will I be understood? I open my mouth and they know I’m a foreigner. Do they resent foreigners here?”
So yes, I’m a guest in the House of English, but, for the most part, a welcomed guest, free to roam as she pleases, especially when she writes and doesn’t have to answer to anyone. It was hard at first, thirty years ago, when I arrived in NYC. I knew English from school, from reading, from the movies and from pop music. But, by the time I arrived in NYC, I had become adept at adopting languages. I had adopted Hebrew when my parents and I emigrated from Prague to Israel (Yiddish had been my mother’s tongue), and later French, when I went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. I came to NY as a tourist, stayed on, and have been living English and in English for thirty years, the longest I’ve ever spent in any language. It feels natural to me to write in English, but still, the hesitancy I mentioned earlier is there, too. I don’t think it’ll ever leave me. I will always look at native speakers with wonder and a tinge of envy.
To address the practical aspects: Dictionaries have been and still are a great companion to me. Reading and absorbing and listening to how people express themselves. These are obvious and necessary to any writer, native speaker and foreigner as one. What sets me apart, I think, is that, as a kind of “outsider” I pay more attention to terms that native speakers don’t think twice about. For instance, I’ve asked friends why in baseball the term “bullpen” is applied to where the pitchers wait. Are they bulls? No one – and all of them baseball fans – could provide an answer. “Speakeasy” also gives me a tickle. A writer who has more than one language in her arsenal also gets to borrow idiosyncrasies from the other language. At times she does this consciously and deliberately, at times she’s unaware she is doing it. She may choose to mangle idioms, she may mangle idioms unawares.
Bruce Benderson, who reviewed my latest novel, Jackpot, for the Brooklyn Rail, had this to say about the subject:
Tsipi Keller used to write in Hebrew and now writes in English, an adaptation as powerful as the manufacturing of a new personality. During my life I’ve known only two other novelists who succeeded in making such a fundamental switch. It requires a profound rewiring of the brain that can be as insightful as it can be alienating. Keller’s new novel, Jackpot, has the characteristics of something created by a linguistic survivor. In simple, precise yet enticing prose, it tells the story of a conflict between social convention and raw, dangerous appetite. Like a speaker of two languages, it exists on two levels: one appropriate and familiar, the other foreign and disturbing. Such a structure mirrors the immigrant experience. On the surface it is decorous, appropriate, and earnest; on another, muffled plane, all is anguish and confusion.
This is how Benderson begins his review of the book, and when I first read it, this paragraph gave me a jolt. It instantly felt true, although I myself wasn’t aware of these two linguistic and narrative levels. Simply put, this is sharp and brilliant insight. Benderson develops this theme throughout the review, which you can read in full by clicking here and scrolling down.
I’ll conclude with a poem I’ve translated from the Hebrew. It’s by Dan Pagis, one of Israel’s greatest poets. When I was growing up, and when Pagis, in all likelihood, wrote this poem – it was never published in his lifetime, it was found in his archives and published posthumously in the collection, Last Poems – there were those who tried to keep Hebrew “pure.” There was a very real distinction between “literary” Hebrew, and “street” Hebrew. As a writer, you were not allowed to mix the two. I tried it – my first novel was written in Hebrew – and no one would publish it. These days, thankfully, this distinction is ignored by most writers, and “street” Hebrew has its place in literature, if still shunned in some circles.
A LINGUISTIC PROBLEM
The maiden we call Hebrew
is the youngest born in a very good family.
Her problem, though: she messes around.
Every day it's another story.
You can't rely on her,
her word carries no weight.
She's not even pretty:
she's got acne, large feet,
is loud and stubborn as a mule.
And what's worse:
she won't give in to those
who want to stifle her unruly voice
and bury her, respectfully,
in the ancestral tomb.
A Guest in the House of English
Book Coolie presents for you a short essay by Tsipi Keller, novelist and translator, on the issue of writing in English away from her mother tongue of Hebrew. Tsipi is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, of CAPS and NYFA awards in fiction, and is the author, most recently, of Jackpot (Spuyten Duyvil, 2004)
Writing in a language not your own
Not your own. You never own it, you don’t feel you own it, even if your vocabulary is rich, your syntax and spelling correct. There’s always a hesitancy – imperceptible to others, but there all the same – in your hand when you write, and, even worse, in your voice, when you speak, for, in addition to correct usage you also worry about your accent: “Will I be understood? I open my mouth and they know I’m a foreigner. Do they resent foreigners here?”
So yes, I’m a guest in the House of English, but, for the most part, a welcomed guest, free to roam as she pleases, especially when she writes and doesn’t have to answer to anyone. It was hard at first, thirty years ago, when I arrived in NYC. I knew English from school, from reading, from the movies and from pop music. But, by the time I arrived in NYC, I had become adept at adopting languages. I had adopted Hebrew when my parents and I emigrated from Prague to Israel (Yiddish had been my mother’s tongue), and later French, when I went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. I came to NY as a tourist, stayed on, and have been living English and in English for thirty years, the longest I’ve ever spent in any language. It feels natural to me to write in English, but still, the hesitancy I mentioned earlier is there, too. I don’t think it’ll ever leave me. I will always look at native speakers with wonder and a tinge of envy.
To address the practical aspects: Dictionaries have been and still are a great companion to me. Reading and absorbing and listening to how people express themselves. These are obvious and necessary to any writer, native speaker and foreigner as one. What sets me apart, I think, is that, as a kind of “outsider” I pay more attention to terms that native speakers don’t think twice about. For instance, I’ve asked friends why in baseball the term “bullpen” is applied to where the pitchers wait. Are they bulls? No one – and all of them baseball fans – could provide an answer. “Speakeasy” also gives me a tickle. A writer who has more than one language in her arsenal also gets to borrow idiosyncrasies from the other language. At times she does this consciously and deliberately, at times she’s unaware she is doing it. She may choose to mangle idioms, she may mangle idioms unawares.
Bruce Benderson, who reviewed my latest novel, Jackpot, for the Brooklyn Rail, had this to say about the subject:
Tsipi Keller used to write in Hebrew and now writes in English, an adaptation as powerful as the manufacturing of a new personality. During my life I’ve known only two other novelists who succeeded in making such a fundamental switch. It requires a profound rewiring of the brain that can be as insightful as it can be alienating. Keller’s new novel, Jackpot, has the characteristics of something created by a linguistic survivor. In simple, precise yet enticing prose, it tells the story of a conflict between social convention and raw, dangerous appetite. Like a speaker of two languages, it exists on two levels: one appropriate and familiar, the other foreign and disturbing. Such a structure mirrors the immigrant experience. On the surface it is decorous, appropriate, and earnest; on another, muffled plane, all is anguish and confusion.
This is how Benderson begins his review of the book, and when I first read it, this paragraph gave me a jolt. It instantly felt true, although I myself wasn’t aware of these two linguistic and narrative levels. Simply put, this is sharp and brilliant insight. Benderson develops this theme throughout the review, which you can read in full by clicking here and scrolling down.
I’ll conclude with a poem I’ve translated from the Hebrew. It’s by Dan Pagis, one of Israel’s greatest poets. When I was growing up, and when Pagis, in all likelihood, wrote this poem – it was never published in his lifetime, it was found in his archives and published posthumously in the collection, Last Poems – there were those who tried to keep Hebrew “pure.” There was a very real distinction between “literary” Hebrew, and “street” Hebrew. As a writer, you were not allowed to mix the two. I tried it – my first novel was written in Hebrew – and no one would publish it. These days, thankfully, this distinction is ignored by most writers, and “street” Hebrew has its place in literature, if still shunned in some circles.
A LINGUISTIC PROBLEM
The maiden we call Hebrew
is the youngest born in a very good family.
Her problem, though: she messes around.
Every day it's another story.
You can't rely on her,
her word carries no weight.
She's not even pretty:
she's got acne, large feet,
is loud and stubborn as a mule.
And what's worse:
she won't give in to those
who want to stifle her unruly voice
and bury her, respectfully,
in the ancestral tomb.
posted by bitandpieces at 7:21 AM
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