I’m proofing Kin, which has been slow going – I’ll post separately about that – and am finding myself laughing at many things that before I didn’t notice or don’t remember noticing as funny. Jergović’s humor is almost always rather dark, and I recall someone noting how frequently he found himself laughing while reading another… Continue reading Family Humor
Author: russellv
Music Saving
COVID-19 isolated me, as it did most of us, in ways that we could not have anticipated. I found a variety of ways to not go crazy. One was to rediscover music, not listening so much as making, something I have done off and on for many years since I was a teenager. In the… Continue reading Music Saving
Kakania in The Massachusetts Review
An excerpt from the fifth part of Kin is in the current (summer 2020) issue of The Massachusetts Review. Thanks to the editors, especially Corine Tachtaris and Jim Hicks, for their interest and support. It’s a strong issue with plenty of global awareness and representation, including translations by Patty Crane (Tomas Tranströmer), Peter Bush (Juan… Continue reading Kakania in The Massachusetts Review
Man, person, people, or none of the above
While editing a translation recently, I came up against the following challenge. In a passage in which two men are talking about art, one says to the other something to this effect: “The artist must develop his technique to the point that he does not think about it anymore.” The source language in this case… Continue reading Man, person, people, or none of the above
It’s, like, the ripest old age
The relative frequency of the word даже is something translators from Russian to English figure out at some point, and Dostoevsky’s palaverers present a classic case. Gogol’s are right up there as well, and I seem to recall that one of the most astute passages of Eikhenbaum’s “How Gogol’s Overcoat is Made” delves into the… Continue reading It’s, like, the ripest old age
More on Nature Writing
I found another, quite different, book that has added to my writing options, Where the Sea Breaks its Back, by Corey Ford. This is a much older book (first published in 1966), and though the prose has a somewhat dated quality at times, it uses some techniques that I am attracted to. The subtitle, “The… Continue reading More on Nature Writing
Memoir, Nature Writing, Biology
I have found in the past that reading widely and apparently outside the field I’m thinking about has helped me write my own books, so I’ve been exploring a bit as I imagine Sea of Intimacy. I read a review of this book… in The NY Review of Books a few years ago, and thought… Continue reading Memoir, Nature Writing, Biology
Publishing Kin
It looks like Archipelago Books will publish Kin in the first half of 2021. In the meantime, we are working together on some first serial publication excerpts. I have taken three and contacted two editors I know at lit mags to start, while the folks at Archipelago are working on a handful of others. This… Continue reading Publishing Kin
Mare Superum and St. Paul’s Shipwreck
The Strait of Otranto is today the generally accepted dividing line between the Adriatic Sea and its neighbor to the south, the Ionian, but discovering exactly where the strait stops and starts, like many a water boundary, depends on who you ask and when. This southern boundary, moreover, is relatively recent. In a certain sense… Continue reading Mare Superum and St. Paul’s Shipwreck
Glagolitic Reflections
The so-called “Glagolitic Path,” or, as the locals name it, the Aleja glagljaša, runs for a little more than four miles through the idyllic countryside of Istria’s Mirna Valley Basin between the villages of Roč and Hum. Nowhere near so well-traveled as the coastal towns just to the west, it is no less picturesque. Hilltop… Continue reading Glagolitic Reflections
Russell Scott Valentino 