One of the perks of bilingualism is having access to two different literatures. Not only the native literature of the two languages, but also whatever gets translated into each one and not (or before) the other. I was quite taken with this excerpt from Édouard Levé’s Autoportrait, and I was looking forward to the English translation that’s set to be published in 2012. As it happens, the awesome Norwegian publisher Flamme (who also introduced me to Vladimir Sorokin) recently published a Norwegian translation.
I’m predisposed to like Levé. He was a photographer and an author. He admires Joel Sternfeld, Ed Ruscha and Stephen Shore. I love photography, I love literature, I love Sternfeld, Ruscha and Shore. But beyond superficial shared affinities, there’s something captivating about the way Levé writes. You get a feel for it in the Paris Review excerpt, which is actually cobbled together from sentences that appear anywhere and everywhere in the book. Assembling a text by picking and choosing sentences would normally ruin the source material, but this isn’t so grave a sin in the case of Levé’s self-portrait: the entire book is composed of atomic sentences that are more or less randomly strung together. Each sentence states a fact, an anecdote, a preference or an idea the author has; few sentences follow in any way logically from the one that precede or follow them.
“Art forms that extend in time appeal less to me than those that stop it,
” Levé writes. (This is my translation of the translation. The point here isn’t to show off the prose, which will surely flow better in the direct French-to-English translation, but the sentiment it expresses.) This makes sense, coming from a photographer, and it’s refreshing to hear in a time when you hardly find a new still camera that doesn’t also capture film and when industry pundits predict that most photographers—most professional freezers of time—will soon also be videographers. This is exactly what Levé’s self-portrait does: where a traditional autobiography or novel trades in narrative, Levé freezes time, breaks it into atoms, and builds a portrait out of many timeless particulars. When you think of it, this is just as valid as the traditional narrative. Both the portrait of someone through a specific narration of their life and the portrait built out telling details are simplifications of reality. Narratives reflect truth in some ways and distort in others. The same is true of telling particulars, but the reflections and distortions don’t necessarily overlap.
I don’t write in books. Not books I borrow, and not books I own. It seems almost blasphemous, which is really a ridiculous attitude to take. This book inspired me to start highlighting. My copy is full of [square brackets] enclosing particularly interesting passages. Here is one (again, double translation):
In disused factories and abandoned barns, I can experience aesthetic feelings (beauty defined through function), nostalgia (places of production that no longer produce anything), erotic feelings (memories of childhood games), a benevolent emptiness, peace and quiet, all mixed together, trembling, with perceptions of death, of fear (the ideal site for a crime) and prohibition (no one gave me permission to enter this private property).
Another: “Abroad, I do things I wouldn’t dare at home, because everything seems fictional.
” There’s one sentence about witnessing, at the age of thirteen, a ski instructor in his forties masturbating a ten-year-old boy: this sentence is preceded by “I repeat myself a lot,
” and followed by “I can’t say if I’d prefer to ampute my left arm or my right leg.
” There are very few good books built entirely out of non sequiturs. As far as I know, there is only one.
I recommend getting this book in whatever version you can read, be it the French original, the forthcoming English translation, the Norwegian translation I read, or another translation. It’s a quick read, a hundred pages, but every sentence could be expanded to fill its own page, chapter, or book.
These are the last sentences: “The age of 15 is the middle of my life, regardless of when I die. I believe in a life after life, but not a death after death. I don’t ask if I’m loved. I will only once be able to say “I’m dying” without lying. The most beautiful day of my life has perhaps passed.
”
