IFOA 35 Saturday Oct 25th So Long Marianne

I attended the International Festival of Author's today.

I saw Roch Carrier discussing his book Montcalm and Wolfe. He told a funny story about being a French Canadian boy growing up steeped in the belief that the English were bad and that they stole the land from the French. He cracked me up when he talked about growing up on the border of Quebec and Maine , "When we fished on our side the fish were French and when the English fished on the other side the fish were English."

I went to a round table discussion on the translation of ones work. I actually only attended because Nancy Huston was supposed to be on the panel but sadly she cancelled. Two of the people on the panel were Maylis de Kerangal, and Jessica Moore (a translator, poet/ musician), and another female writer who is both a writer and translator for Quebec French writers. I couldn't even pretend to spell her name. lol
Maylis talked about the differentiation between a translator vs a writer who translates. That a writer who translates will get into a different depth because they are trying to maintain an essence of what you've written in your original language.

Jessica Moore talked about the challenges of translating a novel peppered with another language. For example, Maylis's book is written in Parisienne French and peppered with the English expressions that they use there but how do you keep that integrity? You wouldn't necessarily flip the languages in the translation because it doesn't have the same feel or meaning. The English don't necessarily pepper their language with French or if they do it wouldn't be in the same instances. We might say, 'C'est la vie' but we wouldn't count in French. She said some would translate the book and keep it all in English but then it would lose the integrity of the original.

In Quebec we would call it speaking Franglais. French and English within the same paragraph and sometimes within the same sentence. How do you translate that? Americans would know it as Spanglish. The same concept.

It was fascinating because so many more of us travel now and have access to other languages and to learn other languages that the probability of a novel being written with many different expressions in other languages is higher than ever. How do you translate that and keep the integrity? It's the feel, how do you keep that?

I went to the poetry reading and heard:
Gary Geddes - his poem about a cow giving birth to a stillborn calf and the line 'I could have drowned in the liquid eye'
Catherine Graham's stand out poem for me was Peas and Barbies. a piece about naked Barbies with always the same plastic smiles and breasts with no nipples. Being fascinated with the word nipple and creating nipples with peas in her mashed potatoes. :-D
Julie Joosten's line 'the valley carries cemeteries in its mouth.'
David Martin's line 'broken teeth roads.'
Adam Sol
and Jacob Scheier. His poem, My Mother dies in Reverse is really beautiful in it's simplicity and lack of emotion. And yet you know it was painful when he lost his mom. It was the second time I'd heard him recite this poem and I was thrilled that he'd pulled it out for this reading. It really could become his signature poem.

I used to see Jacob at his house when he was a child because his mom Libby was one of my writing teachers back in the 1980's. Libby was a formidable smart woman who made a living as a writer, a poet, a teacher and she loved my writing. She loved my writing. Every time I see Jacob now as an adult and hear him recite his work he reminds me that despite the negative voices who told me I couldn't choose writing. The voices who told me I couldn't trust the people who wanted to help me (they'd steal my work). Jacob reminds me that there were a couple of voices who proclaimed that I had that something, that I had talent. Libby Scheier, Michael Zizis and Lesley Krueger were three of the main supportive voices.

I promised myself that I would not, could not buy any books this festival because, um, you know, I have a zillion in my apartment. But I easily strolled into the makeshift bookstore and bought two. It was funny because the bookstore owner, Ben McNally looked over at me and smiled the moment I walked in. I walked right up to him and said, "I know Nancy Huston cancelled but would you happen to have her book here anyway?"
"Well, I happen to have one copy!" Woo hoo!

I bought Jacob's book of poetry and went over to chat with him to ask him to sign, to tell him that I was happy he recited that poem and to tell him that I was one of his mother's students. We had a nice moment together.

And I bought Nancy Huston's latest book, Black Dance. I had no choice. I have all of her books. She is one of my favourite writers. She is Canadian born and now lives in France. She writes in both French and English and will write her book in one language and translate it into the other. I'm fascinated by how she writes about her themes. One of her themes is about motherhood. Her mom and dad broke up and her mom left her to be raised by her dad. It's interesting to read how she writes about mothers from every angle within all the other topics she covers in her writing.

And my final event for the day was with Marianne Ihlen (the muse); Kari Hesthamar (the radio documentarian and author of the book So Long, Marianne); and Helle V. Goldman (the translator).
I finally can say I saw someone who was a muse. lol
I'll take the description right out of the IFOA brochure:
At 22, Marianne Ihlen (Norway) travelled to the Greek island of hydra with Norwegian writer Axel Jensen. While Axel wrote, Marianne kept house. One day while Marianne was shopping in a grocery store, a man asked her to join him and some friends at their table. He introduced himself as Leonard Cohen, the a little-known Canadian poet. When the erratic and explosive Axel abandoned Marianne and their newborn son for another woman, Leonard stepped in and a new, tender love affair began.

The book So Long, Marianne documents her story.
Kari Hesthamer wondered whatever happened to Marianne and went looking for her. She found her and asked if she could do a radio documentary on her and the song and Leonard Cohen and originally Marianne said no. Kari asked her to think about it and recommended some of her documentaries for Marianne to listen to and Marianne ultimately agreed. Marianne said, "I was waiting for her to call back, she had such a lovely voice."
Kari got the gift of finding out that Marianne kept boxes from 50 years ago of letters from Leonard, napkins with lyrics etc.
Helle Goldman was a child at the time and was also living the same Greek island. She lived there from 3 months to about 7 years old. Then her parents moved the family to the States. She still visited regularly. Once the documentary was done and another version was done where Kari approached Leonard Cohen about his side of the story, Kari then wrote the book. Wanting to translate it into English, Marianne thought she might know a person who could do it because she would have an understanding of what it was like to live on this island. It was primarily an island of artists but it was egalitarian in that the poorest could be sitting at a table beside Aristotle Onassis in a restaurant at dinner.

Helle as a woman has been living in Norway for 15 or so years. Speaks the language that the book is written in, does translation work (scientific translations), knows the island, and remembers Marianne. It was so fascinating to hear how things come together.

When asked if it was love at first sight between she and Leonard, Marianne said, "there was some sort of recognition."

I wrote in my notes, MUST READ THIS BOOK! ha ha. I'll see about getting it on my Kobo the next time they are offering a discount code. ;)
She said that So long, Marianne wasn't her favourite song. Bird on a Wire was. She said that Leonard had returned sick after touring with poet Irving Layton and once he was starting to feel better they were sitting inside. She pulled down a guitar and they watched the birds sitting on the telephone wires outside the window and the song started.

the link to the transcript of the original radio doc. The radio doc was in Norwegian.

And the link about the book.

It was a good day.

EY