I Never Talk About It

Véronique Côté

and Steve Gagnon

I NEVER TALK ABOUT IT

Translated from the French

by 37 different translators, one for each short story

QC fiction

Revision: Peter McCambridge

Proofreading: Riteba McCallum, Elizabeth West, David Warriner

Book design and ebooks: Folio infographie

Cover & logo: Maison 1608 by Solisco

Fiction editor: Peter McCambridge

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Any other adaptation or use of the publication is strictly prohibited without the prior written consent of the authors or their representatives. For more information, for Steve Gagnon please contact Marie-Pierre Coulombe of Duchesne Agence Artistique, 6031 avenue du Parc, Montréal, Québec, H2V 4H4, [email protected]. And for Véronique Côté please contact Karine Lapierre of Karine Lapierre Agence, 410 rue St-Nicolas, bur 009, Montréal, Québec, H2Y 2P5, [email protected].

To publish an excerpt of this translation, contact [email protected].

Copyright © 2012 by Les éditions du Septentrion

Originally published under the title Chaque automne j’ai envie de mourir

Translation Copyright © Baraka Books (QC Fiction imprint)

ISBN 978-1-77186-109-0 pbk; 978-1-77186-110-6 epub; 978-1-77186-111-3 pdf; 978-1-77186-112-0 mobi/pocket

Legal Deposit, 3rd quarter 2017

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We acknowledge the support from the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC) and the Government of Quebec tax credit for book publishing administered by SODEC.

Table des matières

Introduction

1. Olives

2. Attic

3. Ants

4. Wrestling

5. Spasm

6. Detective

7. Tractor

8. Orange

9. Nightmares

10. Couch

11. Conspiracy

12. Modigliani

13. Cupcakes

14. Snot

15. Light

16. Sunglasses

17. Rice

18. Knives

19. Trolls

20. Dishes

21. Home

22. Ice

23. Looks

24. Notebook

25. Brothers

26. Rabbit

27. Cinema

28. Constellation

29. Flood

30. Pandas

31. Puberty

32. Missiles

33. Tsunami

34. Churches

35. Collection

36. Floorboards

37. Vinyl

About the Translators

About the Authors

Introduction

It’s like when you’re standing in front of a classroom of children. Go ahead, you tell them, there are no wrong answers. The next word out of their mouths is practically guaranteed to be a wrong answer.

So, in translation, we can’t say there are no wrong answers, but there are few wrong answers. J’ai 12 ans. There’s a difference in wrongness between I am 13 years old, I have 12 years old, and I am 12 years. There’s even a difference between I’m 12 and I am 12 years old.

QC Fiction was set up to do things differently and the idea behind this project is to get people thinking about the translators responsible for the words they’re now magically reading in English. Not necessarily to give them recognition or a pat on the back. (Not all are deserving of a pat on the back.) But to acknowledge the process of translation, a reflection in a mirror or a puddle. What are their backgrounds and approaches? Have they twenty years’ experience or have they never translated before? Are they award-winners or unpublished translation students? Does it matter?

This is, I think, an important conversation to have (and the rarity of such a conversation is partly alluded to in my choice of title: I Never Talk About It). Translations are the product of a set of translators with established routines and practices. With the same tics, favourite words, and go-tos as the rest of us. But none of this is ever discussed. Readers are lucky to find the translator’s name on the book, let alone learn anything about their approach to it or the questions that kept them up at night.

In the occasional interview after the translation’s release, the translator will say something like, This is more an adaptation than a translation. Remember: there are few wrong answers. This isn’t a sin or a failing, it is what it is. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to have that on the book for all the world to see? Freely translated by X, Faithfully translated by X. (Best of all, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have different translations of the same book? This happens in Russian literature, for example. But even there we need to do a little digging around a particular translator’s reputation when deciding which translation to choose. Constance Garnett? Pevear and Volokhonsky? Marian Schwartz? Wouldn’t it be truly great to have different translations of Nicolas Dickner or Elena Ferrante to choose from or switch back and forth between?)

Of course, the argument goes, faithfully would win the day. Because readers want to read faithful translations, don’t they? Readers who are served a steady diet of faithful translations that cling to the original—translations that they seldom read let alone buy—are dying to read a faithful translation, aren’t they? Well... what if they aren’t? What if they’re interested in a different sort of artistic creation? In a new work that’s beautifully written in English and was inspired by words originally put down in French? Or in a version that lies somewhere in between?

What if? we thought. Let’s give readers a choice. Let’s start a conversation. Let’s talk about the types of translators and translations you’ll come across in this book. Let’s show you a few of the possibilities. Let’s have each of the 37 stories translated by a different translator. By a translator with his or her own unique approach. By a translator who then reveals a little of what they did and why at the end of each story.

None of which is to say that these are not successful translations; this is more than a translation exercise. They have been edited and polished, not simply printed. But they haven’t been standardized or made to conform to some ideal. They have, of course, been read alongside the French. Probing questions have been posed. Second drafts have been sent. Liberties have been taken, and every word has been dutifully looked up in a dictionary. The authors have been asked exactly what they meant by such-and-such a word. In short, they are polished translations like any other published translation. They are just a little more upfront about the whole process. Because QC Fiction genuinely believes that if you read Eric Dupont in English there will always be a little of Peter McCambridge’s or Sheila Fischman’s voice in there. That Samuel Archibald would sound different in English if he hadn’t been translated by Donald Winkler. That this isn’t an unavoidable failing; it just is.

Chaque automne j'ai envie de mourir seemed the perfect hybrid text to examine from a few different angles. Each short story came in fact from the theatre and was originally performed outdoors in Quebec City, with the audience literally wandering in off the street to a garden of secrets, then on to the next story somewhere else across town. (No surprise, then, that so many translators refer to the texts' oral nature or sometimes eccentric punctuation.) The monologues had been co-written by Véronique Côté and Steve Gagnon, with no indication whether a particular text had been written by one, the other, or both. Not counting the interventions from everyone else involved in the theatre festival, and then the editing process when the stories were first put together and published in book form.

It seemed exciting, and fitting, to have these stories translated by a broad range of people. By sleep-deprived young parents juggling newborn babies; by men and women, straight and gay; by people with French as their mother tongue; by people born speaking English who now only speak French and vice versa; by newbies and unpublished students and award-winning translators on speed-dial; by people who only speak enough French to order a croissant; by people who grew up speaking various forms of English in Ireland, England, the United States, and Australia; by retired French teachers; and by people who haven't picked up a book in years.

We hope it will be fun to read each of these stories. To compare them. To compare X’s approach to Y’s. To have each particular approach set out for all to see. And, most of all, the next time you pick up a book in translation, to wonder What approach did this translator take? Because there’s always an approach, always a slant, always a distortion or deviation from the original, however slight or well-intentioned. Often it makes for a smoother reading experience in English. But it’s nice to know it’s there, all the same. To have something to think about. Because there are few wrong answers. Because any translation is a question and then an answer. A series of decisions that all lead to different places.

It’s time to explore some of them.

Peter McCambridge

Fiction editor, QC Fiction

1. Olives

I never talk about it. Not even with my boyfriend. Nor with my sister, my best friend, my mum. It’s humiliating, totally. I don’t want the people I love to notice, I don’t know how I’d be able to go on afterwards.

No-one knows about it because I’m really, really good at making sure it doesn’t show, at just seeming like it doesn’t bother me, at letting stuff go, y’know. I don’t understand people who aren’t like me. At one point, I was even scared it was a kind of obsessive-compulsive thing, a sort of disorder, a problem in my head, a little knock, you know, but no. That’s not it. I don’t count how many walls there are in my bedroom fifty times before falling asleep, I don’t freak out when I walk a number of steps which isn’t a multiple of ten, I step on the cracks in the pavement, there’s no routine I have to carry out before I leave my place, I don’t do housework all the time. I’m normal, I think. As much as that means anything. No, it’s, it’s sneakier, more… hidden away.

It doesn’t look like I’m counting. But I do. The exact tip. The length of the long-distance calls to my mum. The degrees on the thermostat. Films rented, days late, the cinema. How many loads from a bottle of washing liquid. How many bowls of cereal in a family-sized box. How many times I listen to a CD, if I finish a book or if it slips from my hands, and if so, how many pages I’ve read. Guests. How much shampoo they use, toothpaste, cleanser, hot water, beer, biscuits, olives, after-dinner drinks, coffee, toast, peanut butter. Toilet paper, for Christ’s sake. I count bus tickets, how much time I’ve got left on the ticket to change buses, miles, petrol, parking. Transactions on my bank card. Drink bottles I paid deposits on. Electricity. That’s great actually because it looks like I’m doing it for the planet, I don’t hide that, I make out that I’m a greenie. To tell the truth, I think I am pretty green, it doesn’t make any difference, having my reasons for being careful doesn’t change anything. Anyway. It’s not a mental illness, that’s what I want to say. It’s just… ugly. It’s just sad. I know which of our friends have invited us to dinner, how many times, and who we’ve invited in turn, I remember who never brings a bottle of wine, and I even know who brings GOOD wine and who brings cheap stuff, I see it, I can’t help