 ""Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette" by Vincent Van Gogh |
They don’t have much in common, but together, they can be very tempting. At least for me.
I love the use of "repudiate" in your flash piece. Why that word?
You have to ask my translator about that. It was she who chose the word. I write in Serbian and I choose rare words, so my translators can find themselves in a trouble. Some of them get angry and tell me I could write in a simpler way. Just now, a story of mine is being translated, and it’s about a repair shop, so I used a lot of technical slang for all sorts of tools. And now she’s pretty angry because she has to look up everywhere around to find the words that a New York car mechanic would use. You could help her, perhaps, if you knew a mechanic who would give her a kind of insight into the matter. Or perhaps you happen to know which name a New York guy would give to “cvikercangle”. It would mean a lot to her.
What does our reaction to sports teams reveal about our characters? What does an entire city's reaction reveal about theirs? And what teams do you root for?
It’s not actually football I care about in this short piece (just a short remark – it’s European football, that is to say soccer, and not American football). She talked, and I listened. I’d listen and enjoy whatever she talked about. When it comes to the reaction of supporters, I don’t know much about it because it’s been a while since I went to a stadium. As a matter of fact, at the beginning of the 90s I was a passionate fan of the Red Star, an entire wall of my room was decorated with their posters. They became the European champions at the time, which was very, very difficult here, especially for a small club that comes from the Balkans. A year later the war broke out and they sold all the footballers and sent them abroad. It made me feel very angry. Angry and disappointed. Ever since, I stick to my grandfather’s words: “Players get money even if they lose, but who would pay you for your nerves?” I don’t follow much sport since then.
Your native language is Serbian, yes? What's lost in the translation to English? Anything gained?
A lot of it is lost, just like in any translation. It’s impossible to find absolute synonyms in two languages (you’ve noticed it very well with the word “repudiate”). Besides meaning something, a word has its own way of sounding. A lot of sentence sounding is completely lost when it’s translated. But if you have a good translator, s/he can make up for it. It’s not entirely your text anymore, but you have to cope with it if you come from a small country and speak an exotic language. That’s what makes translators very important (this text will also be revised by my translator, so I have to fawn a little bit).
Time for the first (and perhaps only) SLQ deserted island questionnaire. One CD. One novel. One flash piece. One movie. One very much alive famous person. One very much alive writer. One SLQ editor with the initials R.B.. Go!
Novel: Midnight ’s Children written by Salman Rushdie. An Indian who has mastered English up to that point. Fascinating.
Short piece: something written by Chekhov, "A Joke” or "Lady with Lapdog."
Movie: Usual Supects, with Kevin Spacey starring. The sentence: “Who is Keiser Soze?” still echoes in my ears.
CD: something old, very old. A Nina Simone, or Ella Fitzgerald, or Neil Diamond compilation… Something like that.
Celebrity: I can’t decide between Letitia Casta and Monica Bellucci. Could I take both, and later, when I decide which one makes me more dissatisfied, put her on a ship that would pass by?
Being an editor in a literary magazine, I know how tedious everyday hanging out with writers can be. So, I’d take Pamela Anderson, for instance. I hear she’s published a book. Or someone with a similar talent. Does it count? If you want a serious answer, then it would probably be Umberto Eco, the man is a living encyclopedia, I’d learn loads of stuff from him. Of course, it depends on the time I could spend with him. I’m a decent young man. I wouldn’t like to see the others feel neglected.
Sorry, I don’t personally know any editor, and I don’t like hanging out with the people I don’t know. And, as you can see, it’s already a bit of a crowd, so I’d properly explain to him that being a Robinson Crusoe is out these days.
Read Cheering.
