What is the profound truth that the young artist who is talented, and even the old artist who is not (Raisa) discover and live out in the seduction of their literary translation? That art is everything? That life is finite? That there is miserable war in France and Russia, and everywhere, then and today. That in the end, no matter how talented you are, even if you are the young Guy de Maupassant, whom Raisa claims is everything to her, you still eat shit and die? It is an amazing story in so few pages about youth and art and mortality. It took my breath away...made me happy and sad and desperate and gleeful all at the same time. What a story. I guess the feelings stand out because I write my own stories with an eye toward the ending, always asking the same question: "What from this story do I want the reader to feel?" Babel's target feeling is so much grander and deeper than I ever really manage. Nice. Thanks for the read.
I have to say that, unfortunately and a little bit ashamed of myself for picking this out of all the great proses of Babel, how he wrote about generous/large bosomed women.
It happened quite a few times in the last story and it happened a few times in this story…
Now I’m going to reread Guy de Maupassant and try to find something more profound to say…
I noticed how many people (at least in the narrator’s eyes) seem to be living with falsity/delusion.
- His friend who knows every crevice of Spain but has never visited
- The nouveau riche and their fetish for fake castles
- the Benderskys, converts to Christianity who still signal as Jewish
- Raisa with her passionate love for Maupassant yet her clunky, soulless translations of him
The narrator has a moment of falling for an illusion (the fantasies of the washer woman who disappoints when he finally sees her). But I wondered if the pattern - people embracing Thing 1 over here despite Thing 2 over there being the truth - could/should apply more widely to our narrator, his beliefs, and/or even the politics of the 1917 revolution (because it feels important that we’re given the date we are).
Was Maynial's book on Maupassant's life true?? Did Maupassant really end in that horrible way? I grew up reading Maupassant, but had no idea that he had such a tragic life (if true).
Now, what I noticed at the beginning of the story: "Happier than any of us was Kazantsev. He had a motherland: Spain." (which was not really his motherland; he was simply translating from Spanish, where he'd never been). From the above, we understand that "the rest of us," including the narrator, had no motherland.
Second thing I noticed: the narrator is offered a job as a clerk (this is 1916 during the war, when people were starving and were very poor). Yet, he declines to take it because more important than anything for him is his freedom. "Even at the time--20-years-old--I said to myself: better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk 10 hours a day." This reminds me of another Russian writer, Marina Tsvetaeva, who, during the same time (well, actually a few years later because the Bolsheviks had taken power), did the same thing: was offered a job as a clerk and even though she was starving, eventually gave it up because she couldn't stand working as a bureaucrat. This also makes me reflect on differences between Russians/Easterners and Westerners, the latter feeling fulfilled by their careers. I am always puzzled by American women who think that their careers (mostly jobs in an office that kill your soul) "liberate" them.
I saw that some other readers here have noticed the writer's interest in women's bosoms. I too noticed that, but only because I thought: "I am sure that someone will comment on this." But speaking on the way the author/narrator depicts women, there are other sentences I enjoyed: "These women let their resourceful husbands' money overflow onto the rosy fat on their bellies."
Finally, as a translator myself, I enjoyed the way he describes a good translation: "The secret rests in a barely perceptible turn. [...] It must be turned once and no more."
Random fact: George’s Story Club is so large that our sudden joint interest in Babel and Maupassant registers on Google Trends, like tiny seismic shocks. Visible (statistically) in internet search activity in the US and UK, where evidently our previous interest was low - and our ignorance was deeply felt.
I was struck by the opening -- how it stated the details of the main character's life matter of factly. Yet these details add up to a precarious life. Russia in 1916? There's a war going on and this is a year before the Bolsheviks revolt. This character is an intellectual, talented at translation, who manages to "bum around" -- turning down a "real" job, writing for the paper, blowing the money he manages to earn, hanging out with (and making love to?) the wife of his patron.
I'm afraid for him. This feels like the calm before the storm.
I noticed the comments about translating, especially - "how a phrase is born into the world is good and bad at the same time. The secret rests in a barely perceptible turn. The lever must lie in one
hand and get warm. It must be turned once, and no more." and " No iron can enter the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at the right time." Does this story mimic this principle? The seduction scene between Raisa and the narrator does end in a full stop, and after the narrator reads a biography of Maupassant, his heart constricts and the story ends.
first read: I love our young horny narrator ogling everyone's boobs; And the last line: "I was brushed by a foreboding truth" because, same. Something had affected me, just wasn't sure what yet. But felt it in the gut with all deep truths that feel too earthshaking to grasp in the moment :')
second read: Maupassant's life was a hellish fight against hereditary syphilis, and his mother outlived him, how incredibly unlucky; "Maupassant is the only passion of my life" says a woman embarrassed to introduce new people to her Rasputin-tied, crazy-eyed husband. They're all guzzling that "sacred muscadet" just as fast as they're burning through the works of their literary hero; The first story they translate is a "hungry young carpenter" sucking the "overflowing milk of the fat wet nurse" (as everyone recalls!)
A small, perhaps trivial, item struck me on my first read.
"A red carpet ran up the staircase. On the landings, raised on their hind legs, stood plush velvet bears."
I was trying to envision such gauche monstrosities (were they life-sized? what color was the velvet -- possibly red? Did they have faux jewels for eyes? And so on...), when I read the next sentence. Which is actually the next paragraph:
"In their gaping jaws burned crystal lamps."
With the lamps, the bears' kitsch factor multiplied by quite a bit. But why not put that second sentence right after the first one (as I would have), in the same paragraph? Somehow, getting a bonus description in a new paragraph gave me a little surprise -- perhaps someone seeing those bears would not take in the full aesthetic horror all at once; separating the sentences gave me a sense of registering their appearance in jolts.
Anyway, a small thing, but something that stood out for me. Did anyone else notice this?
Observing that a woman has breasts and recording it on paper is not misogyny. Nor is spending time with a woman and noticing you are attracted to her and want to have sex with her misogyny. Even if she is a poor translator.
This story - man is broke, man gets paid, man gets laid, (although it was so subtle I had to read about it in a critical essay on the story), man has an epiphany. Some purplish prose describing the Jewish nouveau riche, and a couple of good lines about literature. Which apparently was good enough to seduce Raisa, and that's what good literature does. Seduce.
But where is the rising action George talks about, what's the curve of this story? Oh right, it's in the narrator's pants. Sorry, I've had a couple glasses of wine. I'm ambivalent about this story. It kinda sucks, and it's great, at the same time.
That brilliant line, “No iron spike can pierce a human heart as icily as a period in the right place.” (Constantine). Used to quote that to my Composition students. The entire passage on art of translation seems applicable to Babel’s own style. At the least he certainly would not have cottoned to Nabokov’s insistence on strict faithfulness to original works.
I loved reading it because it felt like intense gossip. I hate to admit that’s why it drew me in, but it felt like I was being let in on something. Something juicy and whispered. My other impression on first reading was boobs boobs boobs different shapes and sizes of boobs. So many times. That threw me off, all the boobs talk.
In addition to the narrator's fixation on women's bodies (and their supposed licentiousness—which he is perhaps projecting onto them), which others have mentioned, I also was struck and a little mystified by his fixation on Jewishness:
• Raisa is "the ravishing type of Jewess"
• Raisa writes "the way Jews used to write the Russian language in earlier days"
• her husband is "a sallow-faced Jew"
• in the Bendersky's house, dinner is "a noisy affair. It was a Jewish noise"
• Raisa's sisters' eyes have a "myopic, semitic sheen"
I kept thinking about the title. Yes, Raisa and our narrator translate Maupassant's works, but I felt certain there must be more to the story than that. (And the last lines of the story proved me correct.)
Oh those lines about what is ingrained from his forefathers! And so, he doesn't take the clerkship and instead looks for a life of labor, fighting and love--well, with those words, I am primed. I think, okay, he's young and he's got to live his life and learn from it. And i'm pretty sure the story is going to show me exactly that.
When Babel writes that Raisa lives in a "vulgar" castle, i'm looking for vulgarity. And again--found it!
(So many breasts!)
This line: "Maupassant is the passion of my life," followed by her inability to translate him with any passion--that cracked me up. Maupassant may be her passion, but really what she wants is a living embodiment of Maupassant's passion--and she finds it in our narrator.
"When a phrase is born, it is both good and bad at the same time." At that, I wondered: is that true?
These lines: “I couldn’t resist telling her about my childhood. To my own surprise, my tale sounded doleful.” I'm still thinking about those sentences. I guess he's young enough to not have realized how his life would come off to someone much wealthier. In her eyes, his life seems doleful, and right now he's seeing himself through her eyes. The same way she is seeing Maupassant is his.
I LOVED the tale within the tale, when the narrator recounts The Confession--not in "real time," but in summary, and then swooping back into the story and out again, etc. I thought that was a very clever way to do that.
Ending the story the way he did seemed so utterly original and new. Fantastic!
Babel's stories always contain a funny/sad quality that I love--the moment I fall into this story and feel fully committed to it comes on page 681 (the Constantine translation) when Raisa says, "Maupassant is the one passion of my life." And yet, she stinks at translation! His prose in her hands is flat and lifeless.
Some of my favorite lines follow:
"When a phrase is born, it is both good and bad at the same time. The secret of its success rests in a crux that is barely discernible. One's fingertips must grasp the key, gently warming it. And then the key must be turned once, not twice."
"I spoke to her of style, of an army of words, an army in which every type of weapon is deployed. No iron spike can pierce a human heart as icily as a period in the right place."
P.S. did anyone else rush to read Maupassant's "Idyll" based on Babel's description of the story?
What is the profound truth that the young artist who is talented, and even the old artist who is not (Raisa) discover and live out in the seduction of their literary translation? That art is everything? That life is finite? That there is miserable war in France and Russia, and everywhere, then and today. That in the end, no matter how talented you are, even if you are the young Guy de Maupassant, whom Raisa claims is everything to her, you still eat shit and die? It is an amazing story in so few pages about youth and art and mortality. It took my breath away...made me happy and sad and desperate and gleeful all at the same time. What a story. I guess the feelings stand out because I write my own stories with an eye toward the ending, always asking the same question: "What from this story do I want the reader to feel?" Babel's target feeling is so much grander and deeper than I ever really manage. Nice. Thanks for the read.
I have to say that, unfortunately and a little bit ashamed of myself for picking this out of all the great proses of Babel, how he wrote about generous/large bosomed women.
It happened quite a few times in the last story and it happened a few times in this story…
Now I’m going to reread Guy de Maupassant and try to find something more profound to say…
But I have to be honest first.
I noticed how many people (at least in the narrator’s eyes) seem to be living with falsity/delusion.
- His friend who knows every crevice of Spain but has never visited
- The nouveau riche and their fetish for fake castles
- the Benderskys, converts to Christianity who still signal as Jewish
- Raisa with her passionate love for Maupassant yet her clunky, soulless translations of him
The narrator has a moment of falling for an illusion (the fantasies of the washer woman who disappoints when he finally sees her). But I wondered if the pattern - people embracing Thing 1 over here despite Thing 2 over there being the truth - could/should apply more widely to our narrator, his beliefs, and/or even the politics of the 1917 revolution (because it feels important that we’re given the date we are).
Was Maynial's book on Maupassant's life true?? Did Maupassant really end in that horrible way? I grew up reading Maupassant, but had no idea that he had such a tragic life (if true).
Now, what I noticed at the beginning of the story: "Happier than any of us was Kazantsev. He had a motherland: Spain." (which was not really his motherland; he was simply translating from Spanish, where he'd never been). From the above, we understand that "the rest of us," including the narrator, had no motherland.
Second thing I noticed: the narrator is offered a job as a clerk (this is 1916 during the war, when people were starving and were very poor). Yet, he declines to take it because more important than anything for him is his freedom. "Even at the time--20-years-old--I said to myself: better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk 10 hours a day." This reminds me of another Russian writer, Marina Tsvetaeva, who, during the same time (well, actually a few years later because the Bolsheviks had taken power), did the same thing: was offered a job as a clerk and even though she was starving, eventually gave it up because she couldn't stand working as a bureaucrat. This also makes me reflect on differences between Russians/Easterners and Westerners, the latter feeling fulfilled by their careers. I am always puzzled by American women who think that their careers (mostly jobs in an office that kill your soul) "liberate" them.
I saw that some other readers here have noticed the writer's interest in women's bosoms. I too noticed that, but only because I thought: "I am sure that someone will comment on this." But speaking on the way the author/narrator depicts women, there are other sentences I enjoyed: "These women let their resourceful husbands' money overflow onto the rosy fat on their bellies."
Finally, as a translator myself, I enjoyed the way he describes a good translation: "The secret rests in a barely perceptible turn. [...] It must be turned once and no more."
Thank you for choosing this exceptional story!
Random fact: George’s Story Club is so large that our sudden joint interest in Babel and Maupassant registers on Google Trends, like tiny seismic shocks. Visible (statistically) in internet search activity in the US and UK, where evidently our previous interest was low - and our ignorance was deeply felt.
Nice homework effort!
I was struck by the opening -- how it stated the details of the main character's life matter of factly. Yet these details add up to a precarious life. Russia in 1916? There's a war going on and this is a year before the Bolsheviks revolt. This character is an intellectual, talented at translation, who manages to "bum around" -- turning down a "real" job, writing for the paper, blowing the money he manages to earn, hanging out with (and making love to?) the wife of his patron.
I'm afraid for him. This feels like the calm before the storm.
I noticed the comments about translating, especially - "how a phrase is born into the world is good and bad at the same time. The secret rests in a barely perceptible turn. The lever must lie in one
hand and get warm. It must be turned once, and no more." and " No iron can enter the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at the right time." Does this story mimic this principle? The seduction scene between Raisa and the narrator does end in a full stop, and after the narrator reads a biography of Maupassant, his heart constricts and the story ends.
I was amused by the horniness of the young narrator.
first read: I love our young horny narrator ogling everyone's boobs; And the last line: "I was brushed by a foreboding truth" because, same. Something had affected me, just wasn't sure what yet. But felt it in the gut with all deep truths that feel too earthshaking to grasp in the moment :')
second read: Maupassant's life was a hellish fight against hereditary syphilis, and his mother outlived him, how incredibly unlucky; "Maupassant is the only passion of my life" says a woman embarrassed to introduce new people to her Rasputin-tied, crazy-eyed husband. They're all guzzling that "sacred muscadet" just as fast as they're burning through the works of their literary hero; The first story they translate is a "hungry young carpenter" sucking the "overflowing milk of the fat wet nurse" (as everyone recalls!)
love a "scared straight by stds" short story lol
A small, perhaps trivial, item struck me on my first read.
"A red carpet ran up the staircase. On the landings, raised on their hind legs, stood plush velvet bears."
I was trying to envision such gauche monstrosities (were they life-sized? what color was the velvet -- possibly red? Did they have faux jewels for eyes? And so on...), when I read the next sentence. Which is actually the next paragraph:
"In their gaping jaws burned crystal lamps."
With the lamps, the bears' kitsch factor multiplied by quite a bit. But why not put that second sentence right after the first one (as I would have), in the same paragraph? Somehow, getting a bonus description in a new paragraph gave me a little surprise -- perhaps someone seeing those bears would not take in the full aesthetic horror all at once; separating the sentences gave me a sense of registering their appearance in jolts.
Anyway, a small thing, but something that stood out for me. Did anyone else notice this?
Observing that a woman has breasts and recording it on paper is not misogyny. Nor is spending time with a woman and noticing you are attracted to her and want to have sex with her misogyny. Even if she is a poor translator.
This story - man is broke, man gets paid, man gets laid, (although it was so subtle I had to read about it in a critical essay on the story), man has an epiphany. Some purplish prose describing the Jewish nouveau riche, and a couple of good lines about literature. Which apparently was good enough to seduce Raisa, and that's what good literature does. Seduce.
But where is the rising action George talks about, what's the curve of this story? Oh right, it's in the narrator's pants. Sorry, I've had a couple glasses of wine. I'm ambivalent about this story. It kinda sucks, and it's great, at the same time.
That brilliant line, “No iron spike can pierce a human heart as icily as a period in the right place.” (Constantine). Used to quote that to my Composition students. The entire passage on art of translation seems applicable to Babel’s own style. At the least he certainly would not have cottoned to Nabokov’s insistence on strict faithfulness to original works.
I loved reading it because it felt like intense gossip. I hate to admit that’s why it drew me in, but it felt like I was being let in on something. Something juicy and whispered. My other impression on first reading was boobs boobs boobs different shapes and sizes of boobs. So many times. That threw me off, all the boobs talk.
In addition to the narrator's fixation on women's bodies (and their supposed licentiousness—which he is perhaps projecting onto them), which others have mentioned, I also was struck and a little mystified by his fixation on Jewishness:
• Raisa is "the ravishing type of Jewess"
• Raisa writes "the way Jews used to write the Russian language in earlier days"
• her husband is "a sallow-faced Jew"
• in the Bendersky's house, dinner is "a noisy affair. It was a Jewish noise"
• Raisa's sisters' eyes have a "myopic, semitic sheen"
What did I notice? So many things!
I kept thinking about the title. Yes, Raisa and our narrator translate Maupassant's works, but I felt certain there must be more to the story than that. (And the last lines of the story proved me correct.)
Oh those lines about what is ingrained from his forefathers! And so, he doesn't take the clerkship and instead looks for a life of labor, fighting and love--well, with those words, I am primed. I think, okay, he's young and he's got to live his life and learn from it. And i'm pretty sure the story is going to show me exactly that.
When Babel writes that Raisa lives in a "vulgar" castle, i'm looking for vulgarity. And again--found it!
(So many breasts!)
This line: "Maupassant is the passion of my life," followed by her inability to translate him with any passion--that cracked me up. Maupassant may be her passion, but really what she wants is a living embodiment of Maupassant's passion--and she finds it in our narrator.
"When a phrase is born, it is both good and bad at the same time." At that, I wondered: is that true?
These lines: “I couldn’t resist telling her about my childhood. To my own surprise, my tale sounded doleful.” I'm still thinking about those sentences. I guess he's young enough to not have realized how his life would come off to someone much wealthier. In her eyes, his life seems doleful, and right now he's seeing himself through her eyes. The same way she is seeing Maupassant is his.
I LOVED the tale within the tale, when the narrator recounts The Confession--not in "real time," but in summary, and then swooping back into the story and out again, etc. I thought that was a very clever way to do that.
Ending the story the way he did seemed so utterly original and new. Fantastic!
Babel's stories always contain a funny/sad quality that I love--the moment I fall into this story and feel fully committed to it comes on page 681 (the Constantine translation) when Raisa says, "Maupassant is the one passion of my life." And yet, she stinks at translation! His prose in her hands is flat and lifeless.
Some of my favorite lines follow:
"When a phrase is born, it is both good and bad at the same time. The secret of its success rests in a crux that is barely discernible. One's fingertips must grasp the key, gently warming it. And then the key must be turned once, not twice."
"I spoke to her of style, of an army of words, an army in which every type of weapon is deployed. No iron spike can pierce a human heart as icily as a period in the right place."
P.S. did anyone else rush to read Maupassant's "Idyll" based on Babel's description of the story?