Helen Stuhr-Rommereim Interviews Elif Batuman at Full Stop

"Well, I have been thinking about how a lot of the writers that I know are incredibly good email writers and a lot of the time I find their emails more compelling than the things they are writing at the time. It is connected to this thing that I quoted from Chekhov in The Possessed, about how everyone has two lives and one is the open one that is known to everyone and one is the unknown one, running its course in secret. The email is kind of the unknown life, and the published writings are the known life. This is something that I tried to do in The Possessed, especially in the 'Ice Palace' piece. I tried to take the piece that I wrote for The New Yorker and fill out the human dimension that didn’t make it into the New Yorker story. I want to go back to some of the stuff that I wrote, and fill in the personal story that contextualizes it. Otherwise, you have this New Yorker journalist, a professional dilettante, who is just going from thing to thing to thing, and none of them are connected to each other. When you’re lucky enough to like your work it’s a huge part of your thinking. And one of the things that I really like about the classic novel is that it shows you all of the layers of thought that people have; their job, their marriage, their friends and their thoughts about politics are all woven together. But I want to write more about sex in this one; I think sex is a really big problem that people don’t acknowledge enough. And I wasn’t able to do that in The Possessed because it was non-fiction."

At Full Stop, Chris Andrews on Roberto Bolano and Australian Universities

Aside from being a translator you teach at the University of Western Sydney. I don’t want you to get into any trouble with your colleagues, but Australian universities have been aggressive in adopting governance models from the private sector, ironically called “New Public Management.” Has the study and teaching of literature been affected by this change? Is the university a good place to develop a new generation of translators or readers of literature in other languages?

Things are not looking good here, to be honest. The whole idea of the public university is under threat. The humanities in general are finding it hard to defend themselves, and one of the reasons is paradoxical: they’re not expensive. Research success is measured more and more by the size of the grants secured. Language offerings at Australian universities continue to shrink. Where I work, the Spanish and Italian programs were eliminated in 2012. Literary translation does not count as research, so from an institutional point of view, it’s a waste of time. Well, you asked!

On the other hand, when I remember the good students I’ve had at the University of Western Sydney and at the University of Melbourne before that, I’m not pessimistic at all. The passion for reading in other languages and the desire to translate may not be very widespread, but they’re not about to disappear.

old, yellowing picture postcards

"Rummaging through these old, yellowing picture postcards, I find that everything has suddenly become confused, everything is in chaos. Ever since my father vanished from the story, from the novel, everything has come loose, fallen apart. His mighty figure, his authority, even his very name, were sufficient to hold the plot within fixed limits, the story that ferments like grapes in barrels, the story in which fruit slowly rots, trampled underfoot, crushed by the press of memories, weighted down by its own juices and by the sun. And now that the barrel has burst, the wine of the story has spilled out, the soul of the grape, and no divine skill can put it back inside the wineskin, compress it into a short tale, mold it into a glass of crystal. Oh, golden-pink liquid, oh, fairy tale, oh, alcoholic vapor, oh, fate! I don't want to curse God, I don't want to complain about life. So I'll gather together all those picture postcards in a heap, this era full of old-fashioned splendor and romanticism, I'll shuffle my cards, deal them as in a game of solitaire for readers who are fond of solitaire and intoxicating fragrances, of bright colors and vertigo."

~~ from Garden, Ashes by Danilo Kis

vigorously, I was sure of that

"But my father had already removed his hand from his pocket, and everyone could see the scrap of newspaper into which he proceeded to blow his nose. Any kind of excitement provoked powerful disturbances in his metabolism and ample secretions of fluids. If he got out of that scramble alive, the first thing he would do would be to go behind a bush and urinate, breaking wind vigorously, I was sure of that."

~~ from Garden, Ashes by Danilo Kis

written at Auschwitz

"Last Stop Auschwitz" by Eddy de Wind is recognized as the only novel written at Auschwitz, and now it has finally been published in English.

What else do I write?

In the tweeted reply below, I failed to mention my father's obituary; long, meandering, unanswered email; novels published and unpublished; and endless syllabi, quizzes, tests, and other course materials.

but please do take, "Yay for Danilo Kis!" ~~ Alex Kudera, author of "Free Car," "Frade Killed Ellen," and grocery lists

— Alex Kudera (@kudera) January 15, 2020

Allen Ginsberg would be proud. . .

. . .if Patrick McCauley's "Howling Back" included five additional pages of free verse.

Garden, Ashes

"At first my father's job was clearing ruins. He had filed a sharp protest, however, justifying his disability over ten pages of closely spaced handwriting, buttressed by statements from witnesses and discharge papers from clinics for nervous diseases. His arguments were irrefutable, particularly if we take into consideration—aside from the actual facts—his polemical tone and his brilliant style. 'I hereby state for the attention of the esteemed Commissarist,' he wrote in his appeal, 'in connection with Item A-2, in which I took the liberty of citing the causes of my total incapacity and proving—if in a very sensible fashion—my abnormality as well as my complete mental and physical worthlessness, the worthlessness of a neurotic and alcoholic incapable of taking care of his family or himself, I hereby state, therefore, with a view to the most specific information possible on this matter, although each and every one of the aforementioned matters is in itself a physical amputation, I am stating that I am also flat-footed, a certificate to which effect I am appending from the draft board at Zalaegerszeg, by which I am exempt from military service by virtue of 100 percent flat-footedness. . .'"

~~ from Garden, Ashes by Danilo Kis

Losing Faith in the Humanities

According to The Chronicle Review, Simon During's "Losing Faith in the Humanities" was "recently in the review," but not among their top ten reads of 2019. "The Disgusting New Academic Novel"--whose author included two paragraphs on Fight for Your Long Day without having read, understood, or appreciated the book or its nuances--was also "recently in the review" although also not part of the top ten.