Discussion → Ich bin deine Mutter
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I was just wondering about the concept of "guilt" when not writing in your mother tongue. Do any of you feel this?
I once heard a lovely poem by a Scottish poet-I've long forgotten the name of the poet and the poem- but one of the images has stayed with me: the grandfather of the poet visiting him in a dream and accusing him of not writing in his Scots dialect.
Just a thought to share with you, after having posted "Mother Tongue".
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i feel this strongly, nora, thanks for asking...i regularly fall into spasms of guilt over not writing in german. i rationalise it away, or i write it away, because when i want to put what's inside me out, i always return to english.
the truth is, i am less than impressed with what i see in the bookstores and mags in germany. i never pick up a (modern) book in german and think "oh-i must read this or i will die poor". happens a lot to me in english.
that dream could also be my own with my father and grandfather whipping me wordlessly for not appreciating the language of goethe and musil and kafka and mann and ... in the dream i hope i'd have the presence of a dreaming mind to respond "you set me up for this - shouldn't have been so darn cosmopolitan. shouldn't have made me travel. learn languages. have foreign wives." etc.
i am calm now, thanks for asking. and i don't feel the pressure to write the "great american novel" or something like that. just "great novel" is good enough.
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that's so interesting, finn. especially what you say about reading material. i am also 99.9% drawn to books written in english, and i read them because i WANT to read them.
"whipping me wordlessly" is some image. the cosmopolitan part is true too... i think the more cosmopolitan you are, the more likely to explore literary possibilities.
PS i have met someone who might become a member of our group. actually met her today on the PicFic live chat: a romanian lady who has lived in US past 40 years and writes in english. i said i will send her an invite.
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"Foreign wives" Finnegan. That sounds very Biblical!
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such an interesting topic!
english books -- for me, they were the keys to learning english. i have vivid memories of going to the library, to look for novels in the english section, and then look for the german versions in the 'A-Z' rooms. if i came across a match, i would take both book homes, start in english, and catch up in the german version if i lost track of the storyline.
at one point, i came across one of Toni Morrison’s novels - i think it was “Sula”. i read it, in the english original, and in a (bad) german translation that took so much away from the book. it was back then that i realized how much goes missing in translation. that reading Toni Morrison or Paul Auster or Henry Miller in translation, isn't exactly reading what they wrote.
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@louise: my forefathers were biblical types, as am i, and as, i suppose were my wives...there's a story there. for my father's strong views, see http://bullmensfiction.com/STORIES/Flawnt.html
@nora great catch her like a fly with the syrup that we have begun to brew here...strong and sweet. we're such head hunters...
@dorothee i never could get through toni morrison novels...will have to give it another try (often it needs a nudge, but my reading list is sooooo long already!) - you're absolutely right about translation. i only read spanish, russian & french with some difficulty besides english, but it's the same in all languages i think.
having said that, translations can be wonderful and i know one translator (from the russion) who is a genius and has created something for which he will never be remembered cuz he's "only" a translator...but really a re-creator and re-author.
another thought: an audience creates art with the author (some sort of collective unconscious mechanics i suppose). or else the author will not be recognised for what he's done, not be seen. my audience is english-speaking and so the longer i write in english the stronger the ties become (it does lessen the guilt towards german somewhat).
Group Description
Second Tongue is the group for the bi- and multilingual fictionaut.
It doesn't matter to us whether your first language is French, Chinese, Greek, Swahili, Italian, Urdu, or any other of the world's groovy languages:
Make this your home, share your English writing and discuss with us what it means, for you, not to write in your mother tongue.
We also welcome native English speakers, who live and write abroad or who write in another language than English.
Share the pain - and the gain!
Dorothee, Finnegan and Nora
This is a public group.
Anyone can see it and join.