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Lale Eskicioglu
Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner, English translation
by Lazer Lederhendler
In
last month's Literary Leaf, I wrote about the book
which received the 2008 Governor General's Award for
fiction, Nino Ricci's The Origin of Species. This
month, I would like to share my thoughts with you about another
winner of the same award of the same year; this time for translation.
Nicolas Dickner's Nikolski was first published
in French, in 2005. In 2008 Lazer Lederhendler who brought
Nikolski to the English readers, became the recipient
of Governor General's Award for French to English
translation for his work. In my opinion, this was a well-deserved
recognition because Lederhendler's fluid rendition of Nikolski
is so beautiful, and has no hint of coercion whatsoever,
that the reader feels as if the story was originally written in
English. I think that's one of the requirements of translation:
it should not sound translated, it should flow naturally.
So, this month
we have not one man to praise but two: Nicolas Dickner for his wonderfully
original story telling, and Lazer Lederhendler for making
it available to the English readers. Dickner's first published
work is a collection of short stories titled L'encyclopédie
du petit cercle. His first novel Nikolski won
many prestigious awards, most recently CBC's Canada Reads award
for 2010. Lederhendler, during his 30 years in the art of
translation, has brought some of Canada's best French books to the
English readers and has been nominated for and awarded many prizes.
Since
I read Nino Ricci's Origin of Species and Nicolas
Dickner's Nikolski back to back, and since both
authors have been winning recent awards left and right, I couldn't
help compare the two books. Both stories take place in Montreal
and give us snapshots of the city's daily life, streets and landmarks.
Main characters of both books are young and in the process of self-discovery.
Even the Charles Darwin reference is common. Nino Ricci's
book shares its title with Darwin's groundbreaking publication
in 1859, On the Origin of Species. Nicolas Dickner's Nikolski
has a chapter titled "The Marvellous Adventures of Charles
Darwin." There are many more resemblances: the geography
(connections to Central and South America, the Caribbean), the biology
(the fish, the plants), the fatherhood through secretive girlfriends,
the Ph. D. theses and the eccentric professors.
Between these
two contemporary Canadian novels, I enjoyed Nikolski much
more than I liked The Origin of Species. It is smart,
it is witty, and it is amusing. The story has many complex threads
and the beauty of it is that they do not all get tied up in the
end, like they do in the plots of the olden days. I have never favoured
implausible multiple coincidences, so I admire Nicolas Dickner
for taking a different approach and leaving his subplots unconnected
to one another even though the reader figures out all the links.
Nikolski
is about three young people who have unlikely connections
to one another. As their paths cross during the course of the story,
their experiences and their choices (even the bad ones such as hacking
into computers for identity theft) charm the reader. The writing
style is delightful and the book remains light-hearted and humourous
as we read about close calls and last-minute escapes. I recommend
this book to every one who live in Montreal and everyone who don't.
Non-fiction of the month:
The Emergence of Modern Turkey by Bernard Lewis
First
printed in 1961, Bernard Lewis' The Emergence of Modern
Turkey is probably the second most popular book ever written
about Turkey, coming right after the book Atatürk written
by Lord Kinross.
I have the third
edition of The Emergence of Modern Turkey, published
in 2002. The author has written a long preface for this edition.
I would like to share the first few sentences of Lewis' preface
with Bizim Anadolu readers:
"The
beginnings of this book date back to the academic year 1949-1950,
most of which I spent in Istanbul. My primary purpose in being there
was to work in the Turkish State Archives, newly opened to Western
researches, for a project in sixteenth-century history. But living
in Turkey at that time, I could not but be aware of the momentous
events that were taking place around me, and be deeply impressed
- even inspired - by their rapid development. An invitation from
the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, better known
as Chatham House, to write a book on modern Turkey as part of a
series they were planning on the interrelation between the Islamic
world and the West, gave me an opportunity to pursue this new interest
in modern and recent history."
This is how
the project of The Emergence of Modern Turkey starts
and continues to remain one of the top books on Turkey and Turkish
history for 50 years. For a political history book that contains
encyclopedic scope and detail, it is remarkably interesting and
easy to read. Lewis captures the interest of the reader right
from the start. Extensively footnoted, the book provides thorough
and substantial sources, going into every aspect of cultural, social,
financial, religious and political development of Turkey. To show
our appreciation for the amount of research that has gone into this
book, all we need to do is to read it.
May-June
2010
Old Articles by Lale Eskicioglu:
The Origin of Species by Nino Ricci
Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai
Richler
Yashar Kemal And His Works
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