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Given the insane length of this post, I would recommend downloading the PDF version. Besides, it's easier to read the footnotes that way. Some of which are pretty fun, I think.
Much in the same way it's impossible for me to choose a single part of Franco Moretti's Distant Reading that I like the best, I can't quite settle on what it is about Moretti and his approach to literary studies that gets me jazzed. He's iconoclastic and disruptive (his initial paper on "distant reading" was intended to jar the comparative literature department at Columbia out of its rut and resulted in a number of aggressive critiques), he's obsessed with data and quantitative analyses that are less about close reading and interpretation and more about asking larger questions that can be backed by data (which has a sort of kinship with baseball sabermetrics), and his writing is almost anti-academic in the way it conveys a sense of wonder and exploration. I've never met the man, but his writing is stimulating, fun, and varied.
Hitting a number of different topics, the ten essays in this collection touch upon, in no particular order: data analysis of the length, type, and structure of titles for novels in the eighteenth century; the spread of Hollywood movies; evolutionary theory as applied to the literary marketplace; a geography of literary history; the vast structural differences in the European and Chinese novelistic form, which developed in parallel; and how the tracing of a single textual element (clues) through the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his rivals can explain why Sherlock Holmes survived and 99.5% of the other books published at that time have been eliminated in the "slaughterhouse of literature."
For me, personally, I haven't had this much fun reading a critical work of literary scholarship in ages. Maybe ever. And to go back to that sabermetric thing, the way Moretti's mind works throughout this collection reminds me of the great baseball stats books—the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, obviously, and Baseball Between the Numbers—tend to function: they ask large questions rooted in comparison and evaluation, then turn to the analysis of large data sets (or large swaths of history) to deduce facts and frameworks about individual works or groups of works. Admittedly, I don't read a ton of contemporary literary criticism, but this seems a long way away from the traditional analysis of meaning found in most monographs and is based in the practice of "close reading." (Selected at random: Melville's Vision of America, Moby-Dick and Calvinism, Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Moby-Dick, Moby-Dick a Hindu Avatar, or, simply, Meaning of Moby-Dick.) In the words of Moretti, "We do not need more interpretations [. . .] not because they have nothing to say, but because, by and large, they have already said what they had to. A lot of good work has been done on the relation between meaning and meaning; far too little on meaning and forces."
If I had to point to one bit of Moretti's book that captured my critical imagination though, it has to be the part about reader selection and market magnification. This comes up in two separate essays ("The Slaughterhouse of Literature" and "The End of the Beginning"), both related to an experimental data-centric analysis of Sherlock Holmes stories and other detective stories of the time.
In one of Moretti's graduate seminars, he and his class chose a single "unit of analysis"—in this case, clues—to focus on while reading mystery stories, and saw how those played out in all the texts at hand. So, rather than doing a "close reading" of a ton of different mystery stories of the late 1800s, they read these pieces searching just for the presence or absence of clues. (Like looking through baseball stats for players with high strike-out to home-run ratios, and ignoring the rest of the data.) This lead to a tree-like diagram in which some stories showed the presence of clues, whereas others of the time did not. The stories with clues were then subdivided into ones with clues that were "necessary," which were further subdivided into stories with "visible" and then "decodable" clues. Of all the twenty-one stories they looked at (twelve of which were Holmes stories), only four ended up with clues that were "necessary," "visible," and "decodable"—and all four were written by Doyle. (Worth noting that eight of his twelve stories didn't meet this categorization. Moretti posits that this might be due to Doyle's focus not on the mechanism that made his best stories—like "The Red-Headed League"—work so well, but on his desire to build up Holmes as an almost mythological detective. If all the clues were decodable and visible to the reader, just how good of a detective is this Sherlock?)
That's interesting in itself, and Moretti develops this idea as a possible explanation for why Holmes stories survived instead of any of the alternatives. Even if readers—or Doyle himself—couldn't explain why they were drawn to these sorts of stories, this crucial formal unit ("clues") worked in their readerly brains and lead them to prefer these sorts of stories. Market forces lead to more Holmes-esque writing, Doyle's books stay in print, and decades later, academics cotton on and Sherlock Holmes stories are ratified as the paragon of a certain type of detective literature.
All that's fascinating and makes me want to draw all sorts of trees and charts in my world lit class, but here are few paragraphs from Distant Reading that I want to mention before trying to develop my own argument. The first is a quote Moretti uses from an article by the economists Arthur De Vany and W. David Walls on an economic model for the film industry:
Film audiences make hits or flops . . . not by revealing preferences they already have, but by discovering what they like. When they see a movie they like, they make a discovery and they tell their friends about it; reviewers do this too. This information is transmitted to other consumers and demand develops dynamically over time as the audience sequentially discovers and reveals its demand . . . A hit is generated by an information cascade . . . A flop is an information bandwagon too; in this case the cascade kills the film.
In other words, word-of-mouth generates hits, creates buzz or an "information cascade" that develops almost exponentially. This likely sounds familiar to anyone involved in book publishing. What I'm most interested in here—and want to apply to the current book market—are two processes that Moretti teases out: acceleration and selection. Moretti here:
As more readers select Conan Doyle over L. T. Meade and Grant Allen, more readers are likely to select Conan Doyle again in the future, until he ends up occupying 80, 90, 99.9 per cent of the market for nineteenth-century detective fiction.
And, Moretti again:
A few sellers for the entire market; just like Holmes for the mystery niche. But it's important to disentangle the two discrete processes that converge onto this single outcome: the process that centres on readers, and on their selection of Doyle's formal solution over those of his rivals; and the other one, in which the market amplifies that initial selection over and over again. Readers and markets, in other words, are both causal agents, but in different ways: in the sense that readers select, and then markets magnify.
This is where I want to turn from Moretti to the current literary marketplace, especially as it relates to translations and the creation of buzz and acceleration. My working observation (I hesitate to use the word hypothesis given the paucity of data that I have at hand) is that the acceleration of two related phenomenon—media and the ability to comment on media—has resulted in a situation in which the processes of "reader selection" and "market magnification" have become divorced from one another and are now essentially reversed.
In a million ways, this is an impossible topic to talk about and analyze. The word-of-mouth buzz that leads to market magnification is generated from a number of different sources (booksellers, professors, friends, celebrities, tastemakers) and is notoriously hard to pin down and run experiments on. So, to make this as concrete as possible, I'm going to focus on my favorite hobby-horse of hate: anticipatory lists.
I have a corollary idea that (hopefully) justifies yet another post about lists.1 Over the past decade, the number of works of international fiction and poetry that you could consume as a reader—or, more pertinent to this post, review as a critic—have expanded greatly. In 2008, there were 361 different titles; in 2016, 602. That's only 241, but how many critics read more than 100 books last year? Fifty? One hundred?
And that 100 books is taking into account all the possible books, of which, works of original English-language fiction and poetry take precedent to a degree that so far exceeds the number of works in translation published on an annual basis that a critic reading a work in translation is almost the same as random.2 Which ones do they choose to read? Why?
Historically, advance review trade magazines—Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Library Journal, among others—provided a sort of roadmap of what to pay attention to and what could be ignored. An average issue provides an overview of 60-70 titles, a handful of which are "starred," a similar handful of which are works in translation.3
It would be interesting to track this: How many "major" reviews do "starred" titles get versus those that are simply reviewed in a trade magazine, versus those unreviewed? How do sales compare across these categories? These are ideas I'm totally marking for future posts . . .
But more to the point, I'm not sure if trade magazines are the major gatekeepers critics pay attention to anymore.
This is the most easily criticized statement in my post so far, so have at it, knowing that I've anticipated all of your immediate objections and still decided to put this out there.4 The majority of book criticism being written today is operating in one of two spheres: the personal-professional blog (everything from Flavorwire to Quarterly Conversation to Words Without Borders to Asymptote to Tony's Reading List to Complete Review to Arabic Literature (in English)) or the professional-legacy arena (which includes online journals like Salon or Slate which pay their writers, to Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, L.A. Times, NY Times, The Nation, and other entities that are more obviously corporate and concerned with revenue flows, be it from subscriptions or paid advertisements). Both of these spheres live or die by the page view/like/retweet. Thanks to this moment of quantifiable late-capitalism, basically everyone has to justify themselves by generating clicks. Granted, the local blogger who "does it for fun" can engage with books (or, more likely, social politics) in a way that pays no mind to the number of visitors their piece draws in, but: that doesn't mean anything, since criticism with no stakes is hardly criticism; and also, everyone writes out of self-interest and a desire for "enough" people to read and respect them.
The point being: Everything is based in shares/retweets/pageviews. Quantifiable results. This is an age of measurables. So how should a critic meter out the 100 books they read in a given year?
There are no stats on this (yet), so let me speculate irresponsibly: In that position, I would read 50 books by pre-ordained "literary" writers (let's pretend for a hot second that I'm a critic of literature generally), so, in 2017, I'd read the new Roxane Gay, Paul Auster, Rachel Cusk, Ali Smith, George Saunders, J. M. Coetzee, Viet Thanh Nguyen, etc., etc., etc., books, along with the two dozen titles that are hyped at BookExpo America, at the American Library Association Summer Conference, at ABA's Winter Institute, and so on and forth.5 Let's pretend that takes up seventy of the hundred titles I'll read in any given year. Twenty of the remaining are books that catch my eye for one reason or another—I met the author, the publicist convinced me to take a chance, it's a book I think I can make my brand on. The last ten—translations.
That was all an epically long route to trying to demonstrate how "lists" function. There are a dozen websites (re: tastemakers) out there who do "best of XXXX month" lists capable of guiding my reading to the ten most viable works of translated literature.6 None of the sites I have in mind (such as Flavorwire, Buzzfeed, The Millions, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn, the latter two of which are discussed below) are nearly influential enough7 to causally determine which books get covered, but the slightest bit of research points to a significant overlap between books included on these lists and books that receive reviews in more mainstream, traditional (re: more widely read) outlets.
In March 2016, Flavorwire and the BBC highlighted seventeen different books to read that month. (Two titles appeared on both lists: What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours and Margaret the First.) Of these books, fifteen were reviewed by the New York Times, and the two that weren't (Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America and Blackass were reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle and NPR respectively. It's not like they went unnoticed.) Out of the 10,000 or so trade titles published that month (using Bowker data for fiction, science, biographies, sociology, poetry, history, philosophy, etc.), these two sites chose seventeen books, and had an almost one to one correspondence with which titles our country's most influential newspaper chose to review. It would be more interesting—and illuminating—to look at sales data for these various titles and see how that correlates with being included on lists and/or reviewed in the New York Times, but I don't personally have access to that data.
In the end, a list of books to look forward to is no more than a list of books to look forward to, but there is an inherent value to being included on a list. If nothing else, these list-making sites precipitate—and participate in the creation of—the "information cascade" that overwash successful titles.
Let's look at a couple of examples of how these lists treat the books they choose to highlight. First up is Vol. 1 Brooklyn's recent post on books to read in January 2017:
Han Kang's first novel to appear in English, The Vegetarian, was one of the most jarring works of fiction we've read in a while. Human Acts takes a broader view of humanity, focusing on a host of reactions to the death of a young man in a political action in South Korea. We're looking forward to experiencing her prose in a new context with this novel.
Two things about this write-up: it posits a pre-selection criteria on Han Kang's previously published book ("one of the most jarring works of fiction we've read in a while) while openly admitting that the list-maker has yet to read the book being put forth as one to read this month ("we're looking forward to experiencing her prose in a new context with this novel").
In case you think this is a one-off example of choosing to promote a book before reading it, here are some other lines from this list: "we're eager to read this," "we've been curious about what'll come next," "given the setting and thematic aspects of this book, it may also be a timely read," "we're eager to see a new side of his work show up here."
(As a side-note, I did the exact same thing when I was writing previews for this website. I understand and acknowledge the challenges to featuring only books you've read on those sorts of post. This isn't meant to criticize Vol. 1, but to look at how that particular type of post functions and what it means for book culture and book marketing as a whole.)
The write-ups in the Great First-Half 2017 Book Preview from The Millions are written in such a way to make it at least seem like the list-makers have read these books that they're including. (Although I highly doubt they've read many/any of the titles coming out in June or beyond.) But there's still a lingering question of why these particular books have been chosen. Have the editors of The Millions read even 5% of the works of fiction coming out between January and June of this year? 1%? .01%? There's no question that these selections are primarily anticipatory, that they assume these are the books that culture and readers will embrace once they're available, the books that will be reviewed and bought instead of the titles left off of the list. This happens by necessity, but also raises the question of what elements are at play to make the contributors anticipate these particular books instead of others. (The answer to this is probably pretty obvious, but still, are they looking forward to the "best" books, or the most hyped?)
Again, having a book appear on one of these lists doesn't cause it to become popular or successful, but given the overlap between a) these lists, b) mainstream reviews, c) bookstore availability, and d) sales (all of which should be investigated more in a different post), it's very likely that the particular books on these lists will be the ones dominating the cultural conversation. Everything converges to support a very small number of titles, pre-selected from a pool of titles far too large to thoroughly explore and evaluate.
I have suspicions as to why certain titles are pre-chosen to "make it," along with some understanding of the power dynamics and book market logistics that help these titles become successful, but here's what I'm more interested in: the way in which book coverage seems to have reversed the "selection" and "market magnification" processes of book promotion. Readers and critics don't read hundreds of titles and uncover a new form or technique that makes a novel particularly successful and then promote it through the marketplace; instead, the books that will be promoted and disseminated widely are already selected, known to the culture almost as soon as they're announced8, and only then do critics and readers find reasons why these books are so great. We start from a point of view that these are the "best" books, the ones "worth reading" and then work backward. No one has the time or patience to read all the books coming out in 2017 from contemporary Argentine writers, so we just assume the tastemakers have it right and that the one book included on these lists/reviewed by mainstream media/displayed on a bookstore table must be the best representative of that category of writing. And even if a reader disagrees, how many other Argentine books have they read this year to compare the pre-selected title against? Less than ten, I'm certain.
We live in an age in which it's not just information that's accelerated, but the markets themselves. The magnification aspect of the book market—in which sales increase exponentially—is set in place before readers ever even see a particular book. This keeps the messiness of reader responses as far from the market as possible, consolidating power by offering readers a choice that never really was a choice at all. Or at least is very limited and predetermined by the sphere of critics, tastemakers, and promoters, who used to react to the market, instead of driving it. The biggest players in this market gravitate towards this situation, since it's much safer and more predictable that way. To know which books will do well enough, to cover the titles that people will definitely be talking about (thus perceived as "important"), to stock the titles that are most likely to sell—the closer these things are to certain, the more stable and profitable the industry is. Hits can come out of nowhere and far exceed sales expectations, but it's best if that happen in a context in which you already control the baseline for as close to 100% of the products you're putting into the market as possible.
1 I have to point out that this post is not a rant about list as "dumb," but an analysis of how lists function. Which elevates it. In my eyes, at least.
2 This is a maybe bullshit claim, but here's my breakdown. On average, over 50,000 works of fiction are published in the U.S.annually. Translations made up 1% of that in 2016. (There were 500 works of fiction published in translation in the U.S. last year.) If I randomly selected novels from my local bookstore—independent or Barnes & Noble—it's likely that at least 2 in 100 would be translated. Given the plethora of "known" English writers with new books published in a given year—50? 100? 500?—more than 90% of the works read by an average critic will have been originally written in English, leaving what?, 10 books maximum from the rest of the world? Feels like chance to me.
3 I can actually calculate this, and will. Either for this piece, or for a future one, depending on how much time I have in the very near future.
4 Come at me, bro?
5 You're not a real critic until you review the most reviewed authors.
6 "Viable" as in, I'll review them and someone will pay me for those clicks.
7 Alexa site popularity rankings are a good enough means for demonstrating the relative influence of the websites I have in mind. First off, the list-making sites, the ones that I think help sort the great unread books and provide a sort of precipitory guidance: Flavorwire is the #15,576 most popular site in the world (not necessarily for their books coverage, but), The Millions is #175,585, Vol 1 Brooklyn #1,979,614, and Lit Hub #43,012. By contrast, the New Yorker is #1,413, New York Times #103 (again, not just books coverage), NPR #662, and Slate #920. None of this is surprising, but it does tie into my core idea: to get more eyeballs, small sites want to anticipate what the significantly more well-read sites will eventually cover. It's infinitely better to be part of the information cascade that outside of it.
8 Garth Risk Hallberg's City on Fire is a perfect example of this. The novel is decent enough, but before anyone had even read it, it was guaranteed coverage in every possible outlet simply given the size of its advance. From Ron Charles's review in the Washington Post: "Having reportedly paid nearly $2 million for the manuscript, Knopf must be praying that City on Fire is worth its weight in Goldfinch. Such irrational exuberance can't buy a spot on the bestseller list, but it can guarantee coverage. So prepare yourself for what passes for a book publicity juggernaut: Over the next few weeks, you'll read about this novel everywhere, and you'll hear the young author interviewed on NPR, and you'll see pyramids of City on Fire at your local bookstore. And at some point, you'll wonder, 'Should I read this novel — or three others?'"Tweet
I don't post on social media all that often—unless I've been drinking—but do generally try and share all of the reviews and publicity pieces that come up about Open Letter. And as with anything else, this tends to come in waves, including the onslaught of pieces from the past few days that I've been sharing. Here's a rundown of recent publicity for the press and its authors:
Well, first off, the new issue of World Literature Today is dedicated to this Neustadt Laureate, and includes her acceptance speech, Dubravka Ugresic and Contemporary European Literature by Alison Anderson, and a piece I wrote about The American Nobel. And available only through WLT's digital edition are The Scold's Bridle by Dubravka, Mothers and Daughters: Generational Conflict and Social Change in the Work of Dubravka Ugrešić by Emily D. Johnson, and Crafting Serious Work Out of Mass Culture: The Early Prose of Dubravka Ugrešić by Dragana Obradović.
Additionally, David Williams—who translated Europe in Sepia and part of Karaoke Culture for Open Letter—wrote a blog post for WLT entitled On the Untranslatability of Translation.
It wasn't, however, just the money situation that inhibited me from ever introducing myself as a translator. It was equally that I just couldn't translate to others what it meant to be a translator, let alone how I, a New Zealander with no Yugoslav roots, came to learn the language formerly known as Serbo-Croatian and translate the work of Ugrešić, one of the great living European writers. Reduced to its essence, the backstory is both fantastic and prosaic: it involves a restless young man who sought adventures on distant shores, came unstuck in a short and sad marriage, the end of which left the no-longer-so-young man searching for meaning that for a time he found in books. In New Zealand, in particular, translating all this to some dudes standing around a barbeque was pretty painful. Over time, I developed a series of useless analogies. I'd say that a translator is like the cinematographer, the author like the director. Or that the translator is like a sound engineer or producer shaping how an author "sounds." When the dudes at the barbeque still looked puzzled, I'd just say that a translator is like a better class of wedding singer.
And finally, during the Neustadt Festival, a number of people were interviewed by the radio station KGOU, and these pieces are starting to come out online. The first is actually with me.
Justine by Iben Mondrup, translated from the Danish by Kerri A. Pierce
Complete Review just posted a review of this, giving it a "B." (Which I'll totally take from Michael Orthofer. I'm pretty sure he would fail me in any class I took with him.) The review is mostly summary, but does get at some of the aspects of the character and setting that make this book really interesting:
Mondrup captures the pretentious and often obnoxious (especially the professors) art-school-scene creepily well, with more the more old-fashioned grandfather-figure and the ultimately tamer, crowd-pleasing Ane as helpful counterparts to the purely pretentious, or, for example, the philosophical Vita (a fairly successful sculptor). Justine, meanwhile, is marked especially by her uncertainty. There's a lot of anger there, too, or frustration, and she vents successfully, and even comes up with some interesting ideas, including ultimately resuscitating her lost project, but for the most part, and for most of the novel, she is flailing.
And I mentioned this in the round up of Open Letter 2016 publications, but it's worth pointing out this Rumpus interview with Iben and Kerri one more time:
Brian S: Iben, I've never read de Sade's Justine, but am I correct in thinking there are some parallels between that and your novel? Or is that coincidence?
Iben Mondrup: If there's any comparison, it's all about opposites, the polar opposites of De Sade's Justine and mine. My Justine is sexual subject, she's the one who desires, whereas De Sade's Justine is an object of desire. She (my Justine), is aggressive, she's going for what she wants as opposed to De Sade's Justine, who is the target—and eventually the victim—of the desires of the world. She possesses no will.
Kerri Pierce: There's a funny story, actually, about the graphic on the cover. One of my favorite parts of the book, and one of the editor, Kaija's, favorite parts as well—which I also think speaks to Justine's character—is when a one-night stand asks Justine if she's a lesbian (and his tone is rather dismissive/incredulous) and she responds: "Wolf."
Brian S: Kerri—I loved that moment in the book. That was brilliant.
Iben Mondrup: Exactly, she sees herself as a predator. A wolf, a lone she-wolf.
Gesell Dome by Guillermo Saccomanno, translated from the Spanish by Andrea Labinger
Kim Fay just reviewed this for the Los Angeles Review of Books and digs into one of the most salient and difficult aspects of the book:
There came a point while I was reading Gesell Dome that I cringed whenever new characters were introduced, wondering what horrible things were going to happen to them. But I somehow knew that, even as a reader, I was not allowed to look away. As I grew weary of horror after horror, all I wanted to do was turn my head—but if I did, then I would become complicit.
By using a narrator who is not shocked, who does not look away from anything, Saccomanno shines a gruesome, graphic light on what people are willing to ignore so that their comfort remains intact. He compounds this with a fearlessness when it comes to rationalization. "We're not Auschwitz," the narrator declares, and if someone sexually abuses a few kids, "it's not the same as Bosnia. Give me a break. There's no comparison."
Radiant Terminus by Antoine Volodine, translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman
Radiant Terminus comes out on February 7th (although copies will go out to subscribers this week), but in the meantime, you can read an excerpt on EuropeNow. Here's the opening paragraph from the excerpted section:
The captain was named Umrug. His life had started somewhat chaotically. His father, Choem Mendelssohn, was a bird, and his mother, Bagda Dolomidès, was Ybür.
Also worth noting this comment Brian Evenson made on Facebook when listing his favorite books of the year:
Pleased too that I could write the intro to Antoine Volodine's exceptionally strong Radiant Terminus, which is out from Open Letter in February. I've said before that I think American literature would be much better if more writers were reading Volodine and I still think this: he's one of my half dozen favorite living writers.
You may also want to check out this "starred" review from Kirkus:
French "post-exoticist" Volodine returns with a dark view of the near future, where science fiction meets a certain kind of horror. [. . .] A landmark of modern dystopianism, portending a time to come that no one would want to live in.
Finally, Rochester's local alternative paper, City Newspaper ran a piece on Open Letter as a whole, with the amazing headline, "Open Letter Finishes 2016 Strong." It starts by putting our NEA grant into a local context, then goes on to talk about some recent review coverage and our plans to make 2018—our ten year anniversary—the "Year of Open Letter."
The last few weeks of December set Open Letter Books up for a great 2017. In mid-December, The National Endowment of the Arts awarded the small literary translation press an Art Works grant of $40,000. This was the largest amount awarded to any Rochester organization this cycle — BOA Editions and George Eastman Museum each received $20,000; the Rochester Fringe Festival received $25,000; and Gateways Music Festival and Geva Theatre Center were each awarded $10,000.
I know I've mentioned this on the blog (and podcast) a million times, but every spring I teach a class on "World Literature and Translation" that features somewhere between eight and ten recently published translations. Although the individual arrangement of ideas and books shifts every year, the overall structure and goals of the class remain the same: to explore what we mean by calling something a "good translation," and how to we evaluate works of world literature.
As a mechanism for getting students to participate in class discussions, I force them to act as if they were a jury for a major literary award: the "Best Translation of LTS 206/406 Award," I guess. This process opens up a wide array of topics, such as how to evaluate books from a literary culture you know nothing about, whether it's better to focus on the quality of the book itself or the translation, and what politics of award giving should be considered, among many others.
Schedule permitting, I try and spend one class day discussing each title, providing a literary and historical background, discussing how the work is put together, looking for gaps (or the lack of them) between the way the book functions and the presence of the translation, and then follow that up with a Skype conversation with the translator. It's a really fun class—especially since I tend to include books that I've been looking for an excuse to read.
I like posting the books I chose here, partially because I want to show off what titles I'm able to include in this class, but also because these books tend to end up influencing what I write about on the blog during this time. This year, I'm hoping to make that more specific, and write a post a week about the book under discussion. In fact, starting next Tuesday (in an insanely long essay that I've already written), I'm going to post about the books that I've been reading in preparation for the class. Things like Six Memos for the New Millennium by Italo Calvino, Translating Style by Tim Parks, and Literature Class by Julio Cortazar.
I've never conceived of it in this way, but teaching this class creates a sort of feedback loop about how I read. It's pretty self-indulgent, but I'm curious to see how my thoughts about literature morph as I work my way through these books, reading (or rereading) them with an eye to trying to convey something interesting about them to a group of undergrad students. If I were using books that I've read a million times—or better, written articles about—I don't think this project would be very interesting at all. But given that there's next to no critical material available about the majority of these books, there's a sort of precariousness to every class. And for me, personally, I think about books the best when I'm trying to write about them.
Inevitably, I'll get too busy with garbage work to keep up with this, but for now, I'm going to try. And if you want to play along at home, listed below are all of the works of international fiction we'll be reading for class.
The Dirty Dust and Graveyard Clay by Máirtín Ó Cadhain
Rage by Zygmunt Miłoszewski
A Cup of Rage by Raduan Nassar
Zama by Antonio Di Benedetto
Savage Theories by Pola Oloixarac
The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz
Moonstone by Sjón
Between Dog and Wolf by Sasha Sokolov
The Last Wolf by László Krasznahorkai
Vaseline Buddha by Jung Young Moon
Frontier by Can Xue
If you're really interested and want to see my syllabus, let me know—happy to email it along!
The only preface I have for this interview Dubravka Ugresic did with Verbivoracious Press is that you really need to read the entire thing, and then you need to buy all of her books.
VP Editors: Can you start by telling me a little about your interest in literary activism, and what revelations sprang from the Kolkata conference you mentioned attending last year?
DU: Literary activism, as I see it, should be a useful corrector of mainstream literary values, a reminder and promoter of unknown literary territories. Literary activism is supposed to usurp our comfortable and rigid mainstream opinions, to shake up our literary tastes and standards, to promote unknown writers and neglected literary territories, to bring fresh knowledge about literature. The role of literary activism is irreplaceable especially today, when one can't rely on national literary canons (they are predominantly male and operate with the old-fashioned, dusty concepts of national literature). We equally can't rely on the literary marketplace, because it operates like any other marketplace. When a book becomes a product, we are no longer talking literature, but about sales and trade. [. . .]
VP: In your essay 'Can a Book Save Our Life?' (from Europe in Sepia), you ruminate on the quantity, and impermanence, of books being produced today. What is your prognosis for the future of serious writing, and is there any way for us to escape the gross commodification of literature?
DU: I don't think there is an escape. There will always be various forms of personal, authorial escapes, forms of intellectual gestures; there will also be group initiatives, literary activism, and literary elitism, but as far as publishing and the creative industries are concerned, things will go on and on. [. . .]
VP: What do you think of the likely impacts of technology on the directions which literature can take in terms of form as well as function?
DU: Soon we are all going to write, I'm afraid, and nobody will have time, or need, to read us. We are all going to produce art, but nobody would have time to see it, I'm afraid. The visitors to museums, libraries, and exhibits are going to be school children, no older then 12, because at that age children will aready be producing their first novel, or/and their first piece of art and further on they won't have any time, or need, for consuming works of art. They will produce their own art using mostly copy-paste techniques. Copy-paste technique will enable the future creators to consume and at the same time produce literature, art, music . .
VP: Do we still have a literature of exhaustion, or is now merely an exhaustion of literature?
DU: I am personally exhusted by literary-market manipulations, e.g. every minute of my reader's life I am distracted by warnings of a brilliant book that just appeared on the market and I'm missing it.
Now go read the whole thing.
Sure, the start of a new year is a good time to look to the future, make resolutions you'll definitely break, and all of that, but it's also a nice moment to reflect on the past twelve months. Rather than include all the things that happened with Open Letter last year—from the success of our 2nd Annual Celebration to our $40,000 NEA grant to the ninth Best Translated Book Awards to the continued growth of the Translation Database—I'm just going to recap our 2016 publications, in no particular order.
One of Us Is Sleeping by Josefine Klougart, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken
Klougart's novel was the first to be included in Writers & Books' "Read Local" program, featuring great books from local (re: Rochester, NY) publishing houses. She was able to come here as part of a tour that included stops in Chicago, NY, Dallas, Houston, Portland, and San Francisco.
Here's what Jeremy Garber from Powells had to say about her book:
The uncertainty, instability, doubt, regret, and longing that so often follow a failed relationship are richly and realistically conveyed. Klougart's narrator's emotional turmoil (punctuated, staccato) are quite nearly palpable and viscerally received. One of Us Is Sleeping, as much a series of thematically linked poetic offerings as a novel proper, is graceful and unforgettable. As Klougart's narrator strives for clarity, understanding, and consolation, she's left, as the rest of us undoubtedly are, to make sense of her own perceptions and boldly reassemble for herself the pieces of her shattered, shattering heart.
Josefine has another work in translation coming out later this year, and just released this amazing object in her home country of Denmark:
Justine by Iben Mondrup, translated from the Danish by Kerri Pierce
Sticking to Denmark, the recently release Justine is the third book in our Danish Women Writers Series. It's been getting a lot of good attention, and was even selected by The Rumpus for their Book Club. As part of that, they ran an interview with Iben Mondrup and Kerri Pierce:
Brian Spears: Iben, I've never read de Sade's Justine, but am I correct in thinking there are some parallels between that and your novel? Or is that coincidence?
Iben Mondrup: If there's any comparison, it's all about opposites, the polar opposites of De Sade's Justine and mine. My Justine is sexual subject, she's the one who desires, whereas De Sade's Justine is an object of desire. She (my Justine), is aggressive, she's going for what she wants as opposed to De Sade's Justine, who is the target—and eventually the victim—of the desires of the world. She possesses no will.
Kerri Pierce: There's a funny story, actually, about the graphic on the cover. One of my favorite parts of the book, and one of the editor, Kaija's, favorite parts as well—which I also think speaks to Justine's character—is when a one-night stand asks Justine if she's a lesbian (and his tone is rather dismissive/incredulous) and she responds: "Wolf."
Brian S: Kerri—I loved that moment in the book. That was brilliant.
Iben Mondrup: Exactly, she sees herself as a predator. A wolf, a lone she-wolf.
Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lúcio Cardoso, translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson
Chronologically, the second "modern classic" that we brought out this year, this is the one that's getting the most buzz right now. An epic novel detailing the downfall of a Brazilian family through a series of confessions, letters, diary entries, and the like. Recently, The Onion's A.V. Club reviewed it, stating:
The social commentary might have been lost on audiences when it debuted, but not his genre bending. Cardoso's approach is as expansive as the lands on which his charmless bourgeoisie have lived for generations; he was a voracious reader with a preference for Gothic fiction and Russian lit, and those influences are on full display in Chronicle's framework and themes. From its mysterious opening—which is actually the end of one character's story—to the exploration of morality, the novel is a near-total manifestation of his talents.
Abahn Sabana David by Marguerite Duras, translated from the French by Kazim Ali
The other "modern classic" I was alluding to, Abahn Sabana David was one of the few Open Letter titles to make it into the New York Times this year:
In this slim, raw political novel, Abahn the Jew and his double (also Abahn) spend a long night with Sabana and David, who have been sent to guard them by the Communist party boss Gringo. Fragmentary dialogue occurs about gas chambers, "Jew-dogs" and the fact that Gringo is coming by to kill Abahn(s) as a traitor. Gunshots and howling hounds are heard. By the last page, Sabana and David have allied themselves with their captive(s) and claimed the identities of Jews, the "laughter of joy . . . covering their faces."
How to understand this text, available for the first time in English, in Kazim Ali's translation?
A Greater Music by Bae Suah, translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith
At the start of 2016, I predicted this would be our huge breakout hit of the year. I was obviously wrong about that—at least according to sales, sheer number of reviews, random mentions on Internet lists—but I still stand by this novel as one of the best we've published. And after her next two translations come out—including The Owls' Absence, which we're doing next fall—I think readers will start to cotton on.
Of the reviews this did receive (so far), there are a number of really thoughtful, intelligent piece, such as this one from Tony's Reading List:
With Bae Suah living in Germany, it's tempting to see parallels with her own life here, but A Greater Music is much more than a simple confessional piece. The shorter pieces that have appeared in English have been marked by beautiful writing, punctuated by spiky, aggressive outbursts against the strictures of modern society. Here, these themes and styles are extended over a much larger canvas; it's a fairly slow tale, at least initially, and the story is given space to breathe before coming to life in the second half.
Gesell Dome by Guillermo Saccomanno, translated from the Spanish by Andrea Labinger
The first novel to be translated into English from the two-time winner of the Dashiell Hammett Prize, it just got a glowing review in the San Francisco Chronicle:
Gesell Dome is a bizarro Robert Altman film in book form: hundreds of characters and storylines that paint a portrait of a community, but with events far stranger than anything Altman created.
If the novel has a central character, it's the Villa, which, like other cities in Argentina, accepted Nazi war criminals as residents after World War II. Now it is home to more than 50,000 people, many of whom drive around in 4×4s and harbor prejudices against "half-breeds" and other foreigners.
These residents give Dante [local journalist] many stories to cover, including the scandal that opens the novel: Eleven kindergartners referred to as los abusaditos are abused at Nuestra Señoradel Mar, a religious school "where the snobs send their progeny." Parents are rightfully horrified, but other residents don't want the media to cover the story for fear of the effect the news will have on tourism.
Party Headquarters by Georgi Tenev, translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
Party Headquarters is the sixth book we've published from Bulgaria. To put this in context, all other publishers did a combined total of seven over the past nine years. Here's what "The Literary Review": had to say about it:
Clocking in at only 121 pages, Georgi Tenev's taut novel Party Headquarters is at once a tragedy, a comedy, a love story and thriller, with echoes of A Clockwork Orange and Apocalypse Now. Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel, it tells the story of a man tasked with visiting his father-in-law, a former Communist party boss. The father-in-law then sends him on a mission to bring back a suitcase containing a million Euros suspected to be pilfered from the coffers of the Bulgarian Communist Party. The whole story is set against the backdrop of the meltdown of Chernobyl, and if the basic plot seems like the kind of high-octane premise that Hollywood would deliver, that makes sense: Tenev also writes for film and TV.
The Brother by Rein Raud, translated from the Estonian by Adam Cullen
Sticking with our shorter books from 2016, I'll turn to Estonia and Rein Raud, whose Brother got an "A-" from Michael Orthofer:
The Brother doesn't exactly ride into town on a white horse, and he isn't simply all swagger, but the resemblance to the Sergio Leone-spaghetti Westerns (especially the ones with Clint Eastwood) that author Raud admits inspired him is striking. The story is almost all atmosphere and style (showing also Raud's other big inspiration, the writing of Mr. Gwyn (etc.)-author Alessandro Baricco), and one can almost hear the (Western movie score) background music.
The relatively short chapters — each at most a few pages — are rich but stark, the essentials — of mood and incident — sketched but not belabored. Much is masterfully understated, but the full ramifications easily expand off the page for the reader. The book is short, and quite event-filled, but there's an agreeable languor to it all too; nothing is rushed.
Bardo or Not Bardo by Antoine Volodine, translated from the French by J. T. Mahany
Volodine has been gaining steam over the past few months, and the combination of this piece from The Nation with the forthcoming release of Radiant Terminus may finally push him over the edge. (I just received a wonderful email from Unabridged Books in Chicago about Volodine that really cheered my bitter soul.) As evident his New Inquiry piece (currently unavailable?), Volodine's world is complex and greatly rewarding. It can also be a bit daunting to enter, but of the three titles Open Letter has done/will do, I think Bardo is the best place to start. From Ben Ehrenreich:
This year, Open Letter published Bardo or Not Bardo (2004) in a translation by J.T. Mahany, who also translated Post-Exoticism in 10 Lessons, Lesson 11. It goes without saying that it is a very odd book. [. . .] But Bardo or Not Bardo has its rewards. For all its darkness, it is extremely and blessedly silly. [. . .] Yes, it's all very strange, but in Volodine's world, that hardly counts as a complaint.
The Clouds by Juan José Saer, translated from the Spanish by Hilary Vaughn Dobel
This is our fifth Saer book—with more in the works—and was included on NPR's list of Five of the Year's Best Books in Translation:
This imaginative novel traces the journey of Dr. Real and his mentor as they work treating patients at an insane asylum in Argentina. Saer's prose, while often likened to Proust, carries a beautiful quality that is also uniquely his. Page after page, The Clouds is a poem to be savored.
Overall, that's a solid list. I hope you found a few books from us that you read and enjoyed last year. And stay tuned—2017 includes some insanely good titles, starting with books from Antoine Volodine, Can Xue, Rodrigo Fresan, Iceland's James Joyce, and more . . .Tweet
Caroline Casey from Coffee House Press joined Chad and Tom on this podcast to talk about 2016 movies, TV shows, and podcasts. Before they got into a long discussion about the royal family, Luke Cage, Crimetown, Midnight Special, and more, they touched on a number of things that are both intriguing and a little bit batshit.
Here's the full rundown of this week's episode:
- Sylvester Stallone to head the NEA?
- John O'Brien: "The National Endowment to the Arts in the United States has consistently demonstrated either an indifference to or a hostility towards translations, though it bristles with indignation when this is brought to their attention. A number of years ago I would be told what objections some panel members had to our applications, and in almost all cases the objections centered on panelists not seeing how translations benefited the public and further objected to American money going to writers who weren't American."
- Andrew Wylie: "Many agencies only think about money. But we only look at the quality of the writing. We train people in the agency to forget about money. It's not of interest whether we think a book will sell thousands of copies. Pay attention to the quality of the work. If the writing is unusual, appealing, and drives you a little crazy, then that's someone that we want to represent."
- The best commercial ever.
This episode's music is Run to Your Mama by Goat.
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The latest addition to our Reviews section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Radio: Wireless Poem in Thirteen Messages by Kyn Taniya, published by Cardboard House Press.
It seems to be harder and harder for us, at Three Percent, to find people willing to take on the task of reviewing poetry volumes in translation. Other review sites might have it easier—in which case, share your secrets with us! But in a literary world that currently feels dominated by prose (and to be honest, I kind of think it's been that way for some time), Vince dares to toe the line between prose and poetry translations and translators in a way that makes me think that the difficulty in getting poetry reviewed may stem from a more difficult process for readers of given poetry to connect with the text on myriad levels, and even so far as the difficulties in translating the original poems. As primarily a prose translator, I definitely bristled at the opening lines of Vince's review, but the more I think about it, the more I'm willing to concede a bit and say that, while one may not necessarily be harder than the other, there are most likely, if not absolutely, difficulties inherent to poetry translation that prose translators may never (or rarely) come across. What do you guys think?
Here's the beginning of Vince's review:
Prose translators will likely disagree, but I believe translating poetry requires a significant level of talent, a commitment to the text, and near mania, all of which suggests that the undertaking is the greatest possible challenge. The task is to take a form of writing known for its discipline, its strict forms, rhymes, and meanings suggested through language and render it into a second tongue. It's inevitable that something will be lost in the process of translation. Prose might survive such a transformation (it may even benefit from it), but poetry is wounded each time it's translated. I don't speak Italian, but I know for sure that I'm missing something when I read Dante in English.
Perhaps this is why so much of the poetry in translation I come across seems to fall into the free verse, avant-garde category. One need not fret over how to turn a rhyme from a language like Spanish—a language that allows for easy rhyming—into English when the original doesn't rhyme. Iambic pentameter from French to English could be rough, but if the French poem doesn't adhere to a rigid pattern, so much the better for the translator.
That being the case, the free verse poems had better be good. That's significant pressure on the integrity of the work. A mediocre but clever work in one language can easily fall flat when presented in another. Cultural quirks or idioms might carry an otherwise slight poem, but, robbed of these strengths via translation, the work is ineffective.
For the rest of the review, go here.
The pub date for Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lúcio Cardoso, which is translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, with a biographical note from Ben Moser officially came out on Tuesday, December 13th. To celebrate the release of this Brazilian masterpiece, we'll be running a series of pieces over the rest of this week, including some early reviews, an excerpt, a press release, and a bit from the Ploughshares interview with the translators.
Benjamin Moser is the author of a biography of Clarice Lispector entitled Why This World and translated her novel Near to the Wild Heart. He's also a book critic, editor, and currently at work on a new biography of Susan Sontag. He once visited Rochester and did an event with Chad about Clarice Lispector that's definitely worth watching. He also wrote a biographical note for the novel: "Bette Davis in Yoknapatawpha."
Chronicle is available at better bookstores everywhere, or through our website. If you order before the end of 2016, use the code BOOKSEASON at checkout to receive 40% off your total order.
I keep a tiny watercolor on a bookshelf in my house. It is only a few inches square, slightly larger than a playing card. To all appearances, it is the work of a child: some dabs of color transversed by two black slashes. It looks like something an encouraging parent might have stuck to the refrigerator—but it may be the most poignant thing I own.
In the bottom right corner, in tiny script, someone—not the artist—has written LÚCIO 62. Those characters let it be dated to within a few weeks. It was made in the last days of 1962 by the Brazilian writer Lúcio Cardoso, fifty years old and at the height of his powers when he suffered a stroke on December 7. He would linger another six years, paralyzed, unable to speak or write, devoting his remaining time to making paintings like these. This smear is what remained of one of the most prodigiously gifted artists of twentieth-century Brazil.
It is tempting to read symbols into these blotches. Are those black lines a sign of despair? Is that yellow half-circle a setting sun?
Today, Lúcio Cardoso is primarily remembered for two things: being gay, and being loved by Clarice Lispector, from whose great name his is inseparable. While still a student, the eighteen-year-old Clarice took a job at a government propaganda outfit called the Agência Nacional. There, among the bored young staff, was Lúcio, a twenty-six-year-old from a small town who was already hailed as one of the most talented writers of his generation.
His father, Joaquim Lúcio Cardoso, had studied engineering but left university without a degree, due to the death of his own father. He then headed into the backlands of the interior state of Minas Gerais, where he enjoyed a period of great prosperity, at one time accumulating eight thousand head of cattle, only to be forced to hand over his fortune to a textile factory owner to whom he was indebted. After the death of his wife, he created a soap factory; but his volatile personality brought him trouble with the local merchants, who boycotted his products. His business ventures failed, Joaquim and his second wife, Dona Nhanhá, raised their six children in relative poverty.
Their town of Curvelo was typical of the backwoods of Minas Gerais, a state said to imprint a special character on its inhabitants, and one whose personality occupies a prominent place in Brazilian mythology. The mineiros, the stereotype goes, are tight-fisted, wary, and religious; there is a joke that Minas dining tables have drawers built into them, the better, at the first approach of a visitor, to hide food from potential guests. It is a place where mannered elocutions play an important role in the local language. Nobody in Minas is crazy, or louco; the preferred euphemism is "systematic." There is a taboo against overt descriptions of medical procedures: "They opened him, and closed him back up" is the most that can be conceded of a surgery. A mineiro, above all, does not draw attention to himself. One native, returning home from São Paulo, recalls his puzzlement at being the object of amazed stares. He finally realized that it was because he was wearing a red shirt.
That was in the capital, Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil's largest and most modern cities, in the 1960s. Four decades earlier, in the no-name village of Curvelo, it was presumably even easier to provoke a scandal. And nobody did it quite as well as Joaquin and Nhanhá Cardoso's youngest son, Lúcio, who refused to go to school, was obsessed with movie stars, and played with dolls. This last point especially galled his father, who fought with his wife about it. "It's your fault," he would charge, "you brought him up clinging to your skirts, and the result is this queer. Where did you ever hear of a boy playing with dolls? Why doesn't he like playing with the other boys? He's a nervous child who's never going to amount to anything."
It was impossible to keep him in school, but he was curious about everything, and his older sister, Maria Helena, who became the best chronicler of his life, oriented his reading. This ranged from Dostoyevsky to the romantic novels serialized in the newspapers, which Lúcio and Maria Helena followed avidly. In his teens, the family moved to Rio de Janeiro, and he was sent to boarding school, where he was predictably miserable, and he eventually ended up working at an insurance company, A Equitativa, run by his uncle. "I was always a terrible employee," he said. "All I did was write poetry."
But he was finally free and in the capital. He was twenty-two when, in 1934, with the help of the Catholic poet and industrialist Augusto Frederico Schmidt, he published his first novel, Maleita. By the time he published his third novel, The Light in the Basement, two years later, he had attracted the attention of Brazil's ultimate cultural arbiter, Mário de Andrade, who dispatched a typically colorful letter from São Paulo. "Artistically it is terrible," Andrade thundered. "Socially it is detestable. But I understood its point . . . to return the spiritual dimension to the materialistic literature that is now being made in Brazil. God has returned to stir the face of the waters. Finally."
You can read the rest of Ben's piece—which includes a lot of information about his relationship with Lispector—by purchasing the book, either from us or from your favorite book retailer.
The pub date for Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lúcio Cardoso, which is translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, with a biographical note from Ben Moser officially came out on Tuesday, December 13th. To celebrate the release of this Brazilian masterpiece, we'll be running a series of pieces over the rest of this week, including some early reviews, an excerpt, a press release, and part of Ben Moser's piece.
Ploughshares was kind enough to interview both Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson about the process of translating this book. You can read the whole interview here after you check out a couple bits from it below.
Chronicle is available at better bookstores everywhere, or through our website. If you order before the end of 2016, use the code BOOKSEASON at checkout to receive 40% off your total order.
Graham Oliver: Given Cardoso's fame in Brazil, his extensive ouevre, and his romantic relationship and friendship with Clarice Lispector (who in turn has an enduring and even growing popularity in the US), why do you think this is the first book of Cardoso's to be translated?\
Margaret Jull Costa: Ben Moser, who wrote the introduction and has written a biography of Clarice Lispector, recommended the book to Chad Post at Open Letter, who was sufficiently intrigued to commission a translation.
Robin Patterson: I think it was both a natural choice, in that Chronicle of the Murdered House is certainly Cardoso's best-known work, and also a bold one, in that it is not the most accessible of books. So it is both an obvious starting point, and a difficult one. Perhaps that is why it has taken to so long to bring to readers in English.
GO: Can you talk some about how you approach translating a deceased writer versus having the author available for questions or guidance? Do you rely on the author's other works as points of reference??
MJC: I'm not sure it makes any difference, except, as you say, the author is not available to answer queries. The edition we used proved very useful, because it gave all the variants from earlier drafts, and the clue to what the author might have meant was often to be found there.
RP: Yes, looking at earlier drafts was useful, but at times not so much to clarify meaning, as to indicate where we simply needed to stop trying to clarify (even to ourselves!) and simply trust the author. Although it might be more time-consuming, in some ways not having the author around gives you a clearer concept of the text as a thing in itself—ultimately, that is where you have to find the answers.
GO: The story is told using the voices of multiple characters. In English, I could easily see differences in style between them, but I'm curious if there were any differences in the original that you found harder to bring over during translation? Or maybe you differentiated them in other ways?
MJC: The differences are clear in the style of each of the characters, the very melodramatic style of André, for example, and the rather pedantic style of the pharmacist. The Portuguese tells you what tone and register to use in English, but I must admit that I found André the most difficult, simply because his language and the way he expresses his feelings are so florid and over-the-top. I had to resist the temptation to tone him down a bit.
RP: Yes, as well as the linguistic indications in the Portuguese, I think the characters themselves helped to set their own tone. We get to know them so well over the course of the book that you begin to know how they would speak, or formulate their thoughts. The fact that nearly all the characters take their turn as narrator at some point helps with that—you really do get inside their minds, even if at times that can be quite an unsettling process.
Go read the rest of the interview at Ploughshares and come back tomorrow for a bit of Ben Moser's introduction to the novel.
Prose translators will likely disagree, but I believe translating poetry requires a significant level of talent, a commitment to the text, and near mania, all of which suggests that the undertaking is the greatest possible challenge. The task is to. . .
The biggest issues with books like The Subsidiary often have to do with their underpinnings—when we learn that Georges Perec wrote La Disparition without once using the letter E, we are impressed. Imagine such a task! It takes a high. . .
Following The Infatuations, Javier Marías's latest novel seems, like those that have preceded it, an experiment to test fiction's capacity to mesmerize with sombre-sexy atmospheres and ruminative elongated sentences stretched across windowless walls of paragraphs. Thus Bad Begins offers his. . .
Death by Water, Kenzaburo Oe's latest novel to be translated into English, practically begs you to read it as autobiography. Like The Changeling, as well as many other works not yet released in English, Death by Water is narrated in. . .
Jocelyne Saucier's Twenty-One Cardinals is about the type of unique, indestructible, and often tragic loyalty only found in families. For a brief but stunningly mesmerizing 169 pages, Twenty-One Cardinals invited me in to the haunting and intimate world of the. . .
We know so very little; so little that what we think to be knowledge is hardly worth reckoning with at all; instead we ought to settle for being pleasantly surprised if, on the edge of things, against all expectations, our. . .
Many of Virginie Despentes's books revolve around the same central idea: "To be born a woman [is] the worst fate in practically every society." But this message is nearly always packaged in easy-to-read books that fill you with the pleasure. . .
Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer's La Superba is appropriately titled after the Italian city of Genoa, where, after escaping the pressures of fame in his own country, the semi-autobiographical narrator finds himself cataloguing the experiences of its mesmerizing inhabitants with the intention. . .
It took reading 44 pages of Intervenir/Intervene before I began to get a sense of what Dolores Dorantes and Rodrigo Flores Sánchez were up to. Recurring throughout these 44 pages—throughout the entire book—are shovels, shovel smacks to the face, lobelias—aha!. . .
As presaged by its title, contradiction is the theme of Peter Stamm's novel, All Days Are Night. Gillian, a well-known television personality, remains unknowable to herself. And Hubert, a frustrated artist and Gillian's lover, creates art through the process of. . .


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After dinner at a nearby restaurant, we decided to go here for dessert and coffee. IWe had been to the old Nonnah's, but had not been to their new location. I ordered Californian Almond Cake (A sugar cookie crust topped with six layers of white almond cake separated by raspberry preserves,topped with an almond lattice over more raspberry preserves -...
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Columbia Asia recruitment 2017-January.Columbia Asia has been issued a recruitment notification for hiring the following positions.The full details regarding recruit notification given below.Download or Visit notification from the link provided in this Job recruitment article.Candidates Who are looking to start career at Columbia Asia can apply for current openings at Columbia Asia .
Job description
Overall Audit Objectives
Operational efficiency and effectiveness
Financial accounting and reporting
Compliance with policies, procedures, and governmental regulations
Investigations of thefts, losses, or allegations
Information system operating controls and security
Investigative Audits and Fraud
Audit – planning
Important dates
Opening date: 12.01.2017
Closing date :Expiring soon
Eligibility criteria
|Post name and Vacancy
|Qualification and experience
|Age and Pay Scale
|Senior Manager
|Chartered Accountant (CA)
6 – 10 Years
|Not Disclosed by Recruiter
Location: :Bengaluru/Bangalore
Openings : 01
Selection procedure
Candidates will be selected based on Walkin Interview
About company
Columbia Asia has developed a unique model for hospitals. We deliver advanced medical care through facilities located in neighborhoods, rather than the central city. With sophisticated hospitals based in their communities, patients have dramatically improved access to quality affordable care


text:
Piping and Pipeline Engineering Jobs
Search & apply for the latest Piping and Pipeline jobs with TRS Staffing Solutions. Find the perfect role for you.
Browse piping and pipeline roles in your ideal locations, from Spain and the Netherlands to the Middle East. Apply today!
Position: Sr. Piping designer (SP3D)
Location: Hoofddorp, the Netherlands
Duration: Duration of the project
Function: Piping Designer
Location: Antwerp (Belgium)
Duration: duration of the project
Start: ASAP
Estamos buscando diseñadores de soportes para importante empresa del sector de la energia situada en Madrid.
Experiencia minima: 4/5 años diseñando soportes.
We currently seek a Pipeline Engineer to work on site of one of the largest oil and gas projects currently being executed. You will work on a 28x28 rotation and be based in Kazakhstan.
Function : Piping Design Specialist
Location : Cape Town
Duration : Contract
Piping Support Engineer
Job purpose
Locate, design and modelling supports for various pipings system and perform the required calculations.
What are the
Estamos seleccionando para importante empresa del sector oil & gas situada en Madrid un Material / Corrosion Engineer
Requerimientos generales son:
Position: Piping Design Supervisor
Location: Hoofddorp, the Netherlands
Contract: Direct contract at the client
We are currently recruiting for a major EPC contractor in the Oil & Gas industry. They have an urgent requirement for a Lead Pipeline Engineer to work on a long term project in Kuwait.


text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Jan 15, 2008
|Filing date
|Oct 2, 2002
|Priority date
|Mar 13, 2002
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Anthony Joseph Aiello
|Original Assignee
|Seagate Technology Llc
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (23), Referenced by (6), Classifications (24), Legal Events (7)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
This application claims benefit of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/364,072, filed Mar. 13, 2002 and entitled Single Thrust Bearing FDB Motor by Anthony Aiello; this application is incorporated herein by reference.
The invention relates generally to the field of fluid dynamic bearings, and more particularly to a design which includes a simplified thrust bearing design.
Disc drive memory systems have been used in computers for many years for storage of digital information. Information is recorded on concentric tracks of a magnetic disc medium, the actual information being stored in the forward magnetic transitions within the medium. The discs themselves are rotatably mounted on a spindle, while the information is accessed by read/write has generally located on a pivoting arm which moves radially over the surface of the rotating disc. The read/write heads or transducers must be accurately aligned with the storage tracks on the disk to ensure proper reading and writing of information.
During operation, the discs are rotated at very high speeds within an enclosed housing using an electric motor generally located inside the hub or below the discs. Such known spindle motors typically have had a spindle mounted by two ball bearing systems to a motor shaft disposed in the center of the hub. The bearings are spaced apart, with one located near the top of the spindle and the other spaced a distance away. These bearings allow support the spindle or hub about the shaft, and allow for a stable rotational relative movement between the shaft and the spindle or hub while maintaining accurate alignment of the spindle and shaft. The bearings themselves are normally lubricated by highly refined grease or oil.
The conventional ball bearing system described above is prone to several shortcomings. First is the problem of vibration generated by the balls rolling on the bearing raceways. This is one of the conditions that generally guarantee physical contact between raceways and balls, in spite of the lubrication provided by the bearing oil or grease. Hence, bearing balls running on the generally even and smooth, but microscopically uneven and rough raceways, transmit the rough surface structure as well as their imperfections in sphericity in the vibration of the rotating disc. This vibration results in misalignment between the data tracks and the read/write transducer. This source of vibration limits the data track density and the overall performance of the disc drive system. Vibration results in misalignment between the data tracks and the read/write transducer. Vibration limits therefore the data track density and the overall performance of the disc drive system.
Further, mechanical bearings are not always scalable to smaller dimensions. This is a significant drawback, since the tendency in the disc drive industry has been to continually shrink the physical dimensions of the disc drive unit.
As an alternative to conventional ball bearing spindle systems, much effort has been focused on developing a fluid dynamic bearing. In these types of systems lubricating fluid, either gas or liquid, functions as the actual bearing surface between a stationary shaft supported from the base of the housing, and the rotating spindle or hub. Liquid lubricants comprising oil, more complex fluids, or other lubricants have been utilized in such fluid dynamic bearings. The reason for the popularity of the use of such fluids is the elimination of the vibrations caused by mechanical contact in a ball bearing system, and the ability to scale the fluid dynamic bearing to smaller and smaller sizes.
In this field of fluid dynamic bearing motors for use in hard disk drives, some prior systems including, but not limited to, small form factor motor designs which are especially useful in mobile applications have been limited by stringent power specifications or requirements. In the well known single plate fluid dynamic bearing design, which typically comprises a ring or plate with two equally opposing thrust bearings defined on opposite axially directed surfaces of the bearing, the ring is affixed to a shaft which has a journal bearing defined thereon; the thrust bearings provide axially stiffness, and the journal bearing radial stiffness. However, this typically results in bearing gaps between the thrust plate surfaces and the facing surface of the shaft or sleeve and counterplate, which have large diameters, increasing the bearing drag and consuming considerable power at motor startup due to the viscosity of the fluid in the bearing gap especially when the motor is cold. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to modify the single plate thrust plate bearing design to minimize the power required and maintain rotation of the shaft and thrust plate relative to a surrounding sleeve.
The present invention is intended to provide a fluid dynamic bearing assembly especially useful in a high speed spindle motor assembly. A further advantage of the present invention and objective thereof is to provide an improved stiffness to power ratio in a fluid bearing arrangement.
More particularly, the present invention is intended to provide a fluid bearing assembly which diminishes to some extent the power requirements in a thrust plate fluid bearing design.
These and other advantages and objectives are achieved by modifying a typical dynamic bearing design which comprises a ring shaped or circular thrust plate mounted at or near the end of a shaft, the shaft defining together with a surrounding sleeve a journal bearing by providing grooves on only one of the two surfaces facing the gap between the shaft and sleeve. On the ring shaped thrust plate supported by the shaft, the traditional upward thrust bearing defined between the lower face of the thrust plate and the facing surface of the sleeve is maintained; but no grooves are on the surface of the thrust plate distant from the shaft and a facing counterplate surface. Further, the journal bearing is defined to have an asymmetry so that a bias force pressure along the surface of the shaft toward the thrust plate is established. The combination of the journal groove asymmetry pumping action toward the shoulder or thrust plate, together with the single grooved thrust bearing, is sufficient to establish a constant pressure between the distal surface of the thrust plate and the facing counterplate, as well as between the groove thrust plate and the facing shoulder surface.
In a preferred embodiment, the gap between the shaft adjacent thrust plate surface and the facing sleeve surface should be designed to be relatively small, (in a range from about 2 to 12 microns.
In a further alternative, the ungrooved gap between the counterplate and the facing thrust plate surface and end surface can be relatively large and lower precision, since this interface is not acting as a pressure generating bearing; rather, this gap and the facing surfaces primarily act as a shock displacement limiter, shaft landing zone and journal asymmetry pressurization region subject to pressurization by the journal bearing.
The above preferred embodiments utilize journal asymmetry pumping pressure acting against the surfaces of the thrust plate and especially the ungrooved thrust plate gap as a constant force axially biasing the rotor or shaft such that the grooved surface of the thrust gap closes until axial force equilibrium is achieved. The grooved section of the thrust plate surface can be adjusted to provide additional asymmetry pressure acting on the thrust plate surface.
In summary in a combination of shaft and thrust plate, with only the surface of the thrust plate adjacent to the shaft being grooved, and also including a journal bearing establishing asymmetric pressure which is toward the thrust plate to establish a pressure between the counterplate and upper surface of the thrust plate and thus against the top of the shaft, this creating a self-balancing axially force utilizing a single grooved thrust bearing.
In preferred embodiments, the thrust bearing would be a chevron pattern or a spiral or similar to adds pressure to the asymmetric pressure acting on the thrust plate face, although a spiral design, in a preferred form, would include a circulation path across the thrust plate inner diameter.
Other features of the present invention are disclosed discussed and apparent from the following description.
For a fuller understanding of the present invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings in the following detailed description, wherein
Reference will now be made in detail to exemplary embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. While the invention will be described in conjunction with these embodiments, it is to be understood that the described embodiments are not intended to limit the invention solely and specifically to only those embodiments, or to use solely in the disc drive which is illustrated. On the contrary, the invention is intended to cover alternatives, modifications and equivalents which may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the attached claims. Further, both hard disc drives, in which the present invention is especially useful, and spindle motors, where the invention is also especially useful are both well known to those of skill in this field. In order to avoid confusion while enabling those skilled in the art to practice the claimed invention, this specification omits such details with respect to known items.
The outer surface of the shaft 14 and the bore of the journal sleeve 26 together form hydrodynamic journal bearings 28, 30. The dual reference numbers are used because the journal bearings are typically in two sections. The bearing gaps at the hydrodynamic journal bearings, 28, 30 are typically between 0.003 and 0.006 mm. The journal bearings 28, 30 each include a grooved surface. The grooved surfaces may be provided either on the outer surface of the shaft 14, or the inner bore surface of the journal sleeve 26, and journal 28 is typically asymmetric.
A thrust plate 32 is press fitted or formed or otherwise attached to an end of the shaft 14 and extends transversely to the shaft 14. The thrust plate 32 is circular in form, the thrust plate 32 defines a first axial thrust surface 33 which, together with a facing sleeve thrust surface 35 extending transverse to the journal bearing defines a first fluid dynamic thrust bearing 34 in the gap between the two surfaces. As can be seen from
A counterplate 36 is press fitted to or otherwise supported by the journal sleeve 26 adjacent the thrust plate surface 37 which is distal from the journal bearing 28, 30. The counterplate 36 has a surface 39 which corporates with the thrust plate surface 37 to define a gap in which fluid is maintained during rotational operation of the shaft and sleeve. Therefore, the counterplate 36 is sealed to the journal sleeve 26 by a O-ring 40 or other means to prevent any loss of the fluid which appears in the gap between counterplate and thrust plate.
It is important to note that in all known prior art designs, a groove pattern was formed on one of the two facing surfaces between counterplate 36 and the distal surface of the thrust plate. However, in the present design, grooving of either surface to establish a pressure as a function of clearance or gap between the two surfaces is not needed. Rather, the pressure in this instance which will establish and maintain fluid in the gap between the two surfaces 37, 39 is established by other means, based on the use of a single thrust bearing in the gap between the thrust plate surface and the facing surface of the sleeve adjacent the journal bearing, and by an asymmetric design of the journal bearing 28 itself. The gap 38 between the counterplate and the distal thrust plate surface is typically about 10 microns or larger; it is at the larger end of bearing gaps, or perhaps even larger because its criticality to creating axial force is not necessary. Rather, the surfaces are relatively smooth and do not require exact smoothness or polishing because of the lack of grooves. Rather, the fluid in this gap is provided primarily to support relative rotation between the shaft sleeve and counterplate.
In contrast, the gap between the thrust plate adjacent to the journal bearing is at the small end of typical thrust plate bearing gaps, because of the fact that a groove pattern is provided on this surface, and it is necessary and desirable to provide both high axial and angular stiffness.
The hub assembly 13 is rotated with respect to the base 12 in use by means of an electromagnetic motor. The electromagnet motor comprises a stator assembly 52 mounted to the base 12, and a magnet 54 mounted to the journal sleeve 26.
As can be appreciated from
The operation of a hydrodynamic bearing can best be understood by reference to
A hydrodynamic thrust bearing is formed when the bearing surface 60 is placed adjacent to an opposed bearing surface with a film of lubricant between the two surfaces. When the bearing surface 60 is rotated in the direction 72, that the, against the herringbone pattern, the grooves 62 and lands 64 tend to draw lubricant from the inner and outer radii 66 and 68 towards the points of the herringbone pattern at 70. This creates a radial pressure distribution within the lubricant which serves to keep the bearing surfaces apart under external loading.
By varying the pattern of grooves 62 and the lands 64 in a known fashion, the pressure distribution across the hydrodynamic bearing can be varied. In particular, if the pressure in the bearing lubricant is greater at the inner radius 66 than at the outer radius 68 during operation, a new flow of lubricant from the inner radius 66 to the outer radius 68 will result, and vice versa. This can be done, for example, by having the intermediate radius 70, at which the points of the herringbone (or spiral) pattern are located, closer to the outer radius 68. The pressure distribution amplitude across the hydrodynamic bearing can be varied by various means including altering the design of the grooves. The significance of having a net flow of lubricant across the bearing surface is discussed below.
The grooves 62 and lands 64 may be formed in the hydrodynamic bearing surface by any number of means including, for example, chemical machining or stamping.
Although the operation of a hydrodynamic bearing has been discussed with reference to a hydrodynamic thrust bearing, it will be appreciated that the above principles can be applied to a hydrodynamic journal bearing such as the hydrodynamic journal bearings 28 and 30 illustrated in
It will also be appreciated that a hydrodynamic bearing is not limited to the use of a herringbone pattern of grooves 62 and lands 64. For example, a spiral or sinusoidal pattern may be used as an alternative to the herringbone pattern. The herringbone pattern is however preferred for thrust bearing arrangements as it generates a pressure distribution across the bearing surface which provides improved bearing rocking stiffness. Bearing rocking stiffness is a measure of the ability of a thrust bearing to resist rotation of the bearing surfaces relative to one another about an axis traverse to the axis of rotation of the thrust bearing.
Referring again to
The present design seeks to minimize the power consumption which is typically associated with the use of a two-sided thrust bearing. This power consumption comes from the fact that in the typical design which uses a thrust plate with a bearing on either side of the thrust plate provides the desired level of axial stiffness. The viscosity of the fluids used in the gap is relatively high at low temperatures, thus the drag on the grooved surfaces of a dual thrust bearing design i.e. one with grooves on both axially facing surfaces is quite high. The approach herein of using one rather than two fluid dynamic thrust bearings will reduce the power consumed. As already have been described, the journal bearing comprises grooves along one of the shaft 20 or the facing sleeve 26. Typically the journal bearing is in two sections; in the present design, shown in
As shown in the schematic diagram of
By grooving the thrust plate surface 312 or the facing surface 313 of the sleeve, a thrust bearing is established which provides the generally triangular additional force as a function of gap represented by the regions 340, 342 of the pressure diagram (
The thrust bearing 312 would typically be a chevron pattern or an outward spiral, as is well known in the art, which can add to the pressure on the gap surface 312 as well as contributing to the pressure established at the opposed thrust plate regions 354, 356. This grooved thrust bearing can be designed to operate at a relatively small effective gap 310, such that a high axially and angular stiffness and efficiency can be achieved. The ungrooved gap 320 between the shaft face and the counterplate 312 as well as between the thrust plate surface 322 and the counterplate 312 can be larger and lower precision than in normal dual thrust plate bearings of the prior art. The pressure in this gap 320 is a substantially constant pressure independent of thrust gap that is equal to journal asymmetry pressure. This region now acts primarily as a shock displacement limiter, shaft landing zone and journal asymmetry pressurization region.
It can be seen by a person of skill in the art who has reviewed this disclosure that the single thrust bearing with a reduced diameter, which may be used pursuant to the present design, will consume less power than the dual thrust bearing design of the known art, because of the use of one thrust gap instead of two. Further, the angular stiffness which is necessary in designs such as disc drives will be achieved through the reduced bearing gap of the single thrust bearing adjacent the journal bearing.
In addition, cost reduction is achieved because only a single bearing grooving process is required on the sleeve to form the journal, and the single set of thrust bearing grooves. The grooving process for the counterplate, or the thrust plate surface which normally faces the counterplate does not need to be carried out. Further, the counterplate is made as a less high precision part; only medium precision is needed since this part does not act as a bearing surface. It is further believed that recirculation holes or pressure venting ports should not be required in many embodiments of this design, further simplifying the part manufacturing process. Finally, since the journal asymmetry pressure is utilized as a constant thrust bias force, other sources of biasing such as magnetic magnets or the like are not needed, thereby eliminating such parts and the tolerances associated therewith. An alternative embodiment is shown in
Other features and advantages of this invention will be apparent to a person of skill in the art who studies the disclosure. Therefore, the scope of the invention is to be limited only by the claims.
|Cited Patent
|Filing date
|Publication date
|Mar 20, 1978
|Apr 29, 1980
|The University Of Southampton
|Magnetic disc stores
|Feb 7, 1983
|Aug 27, 1985
|Tokyo Shibaura Denki Kabushiki Kaisha
|Electric motor with hydrodynamic pressure and magnetic thrust bearings
|Jul 19, 1990
|Feb 18, 1992
|Ebara Corporation
|Spindle motor
|Jun 26, 1990
|May 12, 1992
|Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
|Disk driving apparatus
|Aug 8, 1990
|Aug 25, 1992
|Ebara Corporation
|Bearing structure
|May 6, 1993
|Oct 18, 1994
|Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
|Motor with dynamic-pressure type bearing device
|Feb 25, 1993
|Jun 20, 1995
|Nippon Densan Corporation
|Disk clamping assembly for a low profile disk drive apparatus
|Apr 12, 1994
|Jun 27, 1995
|Synektron Corporation
|Fluid bearing with asymmetrical groove pattern
|Mar 21, 1995
|Jun 11, 1996
|Seagate Technology, Inc.
|Fluid thermal compensation and containment for hydrodynamic bearings
|Sep 26, 1996
|Nov 4, 1997
|Nsk Ltd.
|Spindle device and bearing device therefor
|Mar 28, 1996
|Mar 3, 1998
|Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
|Dynamic pressure bearing spindle motor
|Feb 14, 1997
|Aug 11, 1998
|Sankyo Seiki Mfg. Co., Ltd.
|Hydrodynamic bearing apparatus
|Feb 6, 1997
|Sep 15, 1998
|Sankyo Seiki Mfg. Co., Ltd.
|Hydrodynamic bearing apparatus
|Mar 29, 1996
|Jun 22, 1999
|Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
|Spindle motor having a thrust plate etched to form a dynamic pressure bearing groove and circumferential portion
|Mar 25, 1999
|Mar 7, 2000
|Nidec Corporation
|Mar 18, 1999
|Feb 6, 2001
|Seagate Technology Llc
|Single plate hydrodynamic bearing with self-balancing fluid level and fluid circulation
|Mar 19, 1999
|Feb 13, 2001
|Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
|Motor and hard disk drive having a reduced vibration motor
|Jun 23, 1998
|Mar 20, 2001
|Nidec Corporation
|Disk drive motor
|Mar 27, 2000
|Apr 3, 2001
|Nidec Corporation
|Motor for driving storage disks
|Sep 8, 1999
|Jun 26, 2001
|Ntn Corporation
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|Jun 8, 1998
|Oct 2, 2001
|Sankyo Seiki Mfg. Co., Ltd.
|Hydrodynamic bearing apparatus
|Jan 3, 2000
|Jan 15, 2002
|Nidec Corporation
|Motor for driving storage disks, and storage disk drive device provided therewith
|May 12, 2000
|Apr 2, 2002
|Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
|Hydrodynamic bearing and motor having the same
|Citing Patent
|Filing date
|Publication date
|Feb 16, 2009
|May 14, 2013
|Thk Co., Ltd.
|Rotary table device provided with cooling structure and rotary bearing provided with cooling structure
|Jul 16, 2010
|Aug 13, 2013
|Samsung Electro-Mechanics Japan Advanced Technology Co., Ltd.
|Disk drive device improved in anti-vibration characteristic
|Nov 19, 2010
|May 27, 2014
|Seagate Technology Llc
|Single thrust bearing fluid dynamic bearing motor
|Feb 16, 2009
|Jan 6, 2011
|Thk Co., Ltd.
|Rotary table device provided with cooling structure and rotary bearing provided with cooling structure
|Jul 16, 2010
|Feb 10, 2011
|Alphana Technology Co., Ltd.
|Disk drive device improved in anti-vibration characteristic
|Nov 19, 2010
|Mar 17, 2011
|Seagate Technology Llc
|Single thrust bearing fluid dynamic bearing motor
|U.S. Classification
|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification
|Oct 6, 2003
Owner name: SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC, CALIFORNIA
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|May 15, 2009
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