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Lale Eskicioglu
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.
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.
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
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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.
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.
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.
