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DAMNED STRONG LOVE
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From: Marc Aronson <75664.3110>
Date: 28 Feb 96 12:23:06 EST
Thanks to K.T. for her eloquent comments. Libby Crawford sent a letter with some remarks she wanted to pass to the CCBC group about her experiences in translating the DAMNED STRONG LOVE. We are typing them in for her, so any errors are ours. What follows are her words until or unless we indicate otherwise.
In thinking about what category DAMNED STRONG LOVE falls into -- whether it is a children's book or YA book -- it seems to me thta this book more than most depends on the developmental stage of the person who's going to read it. The central issue -- even more than the love story, I suppose, though I hadn't thought so until now -- is gender identity, and so I think a reader must have reached puberty to be able to understand Stefan's self-discovery and then its consequences. But these day, from what I can tell, puberty seems to be occurring to children at younger and younger ages (pity the poor ones who still are clueless at 16, as Stefan was!) so it's quite possible that readers younger than 12 or 14 can read the story and understand what's going on. (A point of interest
-- seeral people I've spoken with have told me that they have known from earliest childhood that they were "different," but I've never had a chance to find out how they felt it or what made them know or whether that's just wha they think now that they are adults. Since we know that sex begins to operate in children early on, it doesn't seem impossible, though.)
I've told you about trying to find out from my 91-year-old father if the terms I was using were okay -- i.e. terms boys/men would have used. I should have known it would be futile -- the subject is not one we ever discussed, and even over the telephone I could tell he was embarrassed, and also he couldn't remember, though he could remember every object on his workbench and where it was after I'd had to clear it and everything else in the house when I moved him to the home he's in now. (MY memory is of it all in a huge dumpster in the backyard of my parents' house -- bad!) There's another story with a better conclusion, though. In the German book, Stefan calls his dear mother "Mamuschiu" and in the course of translating I was worrying about whether it was an actual Polish word, a Germanic spelling of an actual Polish word, or a German word trying to sound Polish, and how I should treat it in English: it doesn't make sense to spell it the same way if that is a Germanized spelling of a Polish word. I hadn't got around to trying to find anything in a library when I was at a garden party at some friends' and was talking about this nice little problem with some of the guests, next-door neighbors. They had come from Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring. The husband said to the wife, "Don't you have that book?" "Wait," she cried, and took off across the lawn. A few moment later she returned with it. Her father had been a university professor of Slavic languages in Prague and had compiled this comparative dictionary. All the Slavic languages were lined up in columns across the page, and there was the Polish Mamushia. The German spelling was indeed just so German readers would say it right. I was thrilled and so were my benefactors.
That was from Libby's letter to us earlier this month. She is, obviously, not yet on email, but if anyone wants to send thoughts to her, we can print them and mail them to her. We also did find her initial report on the book. Four pages of it consist of plot summary, which we do not have the patience to input -- and anyway, please read the book. Another nine pages consist of sample translations, and again the final version of those pages are in print. Here, though, is her conclusion:
This is a wonderful story. It's hard to resist giving more detail than the scope of a report needs, because the texture is rich. It's a fine war story, but (or because) the human story is always at the forefront. The author is quite good at making us feel sympathetic to Stefan even when he does foolish and thoughtless things. I think American readers would really like this and would certainly learn a great deal, both about history and about the human spirit. You would most certainly have trouble with some adults, however, and there are probably
-surely - some who would try to see that kinds never got a chance to read it. But I recommend it. It's a "damned strong" story!
Again, we'd be happy to respond to any questions or comments about this or any of the intemperate things we wrote about ALA the other day.
Marc Aronson
Received on Wed 28 Feb 1996 11:23:06 AM CST
Date: 28 Feb 96 12:23:06 EST
Thanks to K.T. for her eloquent comments. Libby Crawford sent a letter with some remarks she wanted to pass to the CCBC group about her experiences in translating the DAMNED STRONG LOVE. We are typing them in for her, so any errors are ours. What follows are her words until or unless we indicate otherwise.
In thinking about what category DAMNED STRONG LOVE falls into -- whether it is a children's book or YA book -- it seems to me thta this book more than most depends on the developmental stage of the person who's going to read it. The central issue -- even more than the love story, I suppose, though I hadn't thought so until now -- is gender identity, and so I think a reader must have reached puberty to be able to understand Stefan's self-discovery and then its consequences. But these day, from what I can tell, puberty seems to be occurring to children at younger and younger ages (pity the poor ones who still are clueless at 16, as Stefan was!) so it's quite possible that readers younger than 12 or 14 can read the story and understand what's going on. (A point of interest
-- seeral people I've spoken with have told me that they have known from earliest childhood that they were "different," but I've never had a chance to find out how they felt it or what made them know or whether that's just wha they think now that they are adults. Since we know that sex begins to operate in children early on, it doesn't seem impossible, though.)
I've told you about trying to find out from my 91-year-old father if the terms I was using were okay -- i.e. terms boys/men would have used. I should have known it would be futile -- the subject is not one we ever discussed, and even over the telephone I could tell he was embarrassed, and also he couldn't remember, though he could remember every object on his workbench and where it was after I'd had to clear it and everything else in the house when I moved him to the home he's in now. (MY memory is of it all in a huge dumpster in the backyard of my parents' house -- bad!) There's another story with a better conclusion, though. In the German book, Stefan calls his dear mother "Mamuschiu" and in the course of translating I was worrying about whether it was an actual Polish word, a Germanic spelling of an actual Polish word, or a German word trying to sound Polish, and how I should treat it in English: it doesn't make sense to spell it the same way if that is a Germanized spelling of a Polish word. I hadn't got around to trying to find anything in a library when I was at a garden party at some friends' and was talking about this nice little problem with some of the guests, next-door neighbors. They had come from Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring. The husband said to the wife, "Don't you have that book?" "Wait," she cried, and took off across the lawn. A few moment later she returned with it. Her father had been a university professor of Slavic languages in Prague and had compiled this comparative dictionary. All the Slavic languages were lined up in columns across the page, and there was the Polish Mamushia. The German spelling was indeed just so German readers would say it right. I was thrilled and so were my benefactors.
That was from Libby's letter to us earlier this month. She is, obviously, not yet on email, but if anyone wants to send thoughts to her, we can print them and mail them to her. We also did find her initial report on the book. Four pages of it consist of plot summary, which we do not have the patience to input -- and anyway, please read the book. Another nine pages consist of sample translations, and again the final version of those pages are in print. Here, though, is her conclusion:
This is a wonderful story. It's hard to resist giving more detail than the scope of a report needs, because the texture is rich. It's a fine war story, but (or because) the human story is always at the forefront. The author is quite good at making us feel sympathetic to Stefan even when he does foolish and thoughtless things. I think American readers would really like this and would certainly learn a great deal, both about history and about the human spirit. You would most certainly have trouble with some adults, however, and there are probably
-surely - some who would try to see that kinds never got a chance to read it. But I recommend it. It's a "damned strong" story!
Again, we'd be happy to respond to any questions or comments about this or any of the intemperate things we wrote about ALA the other day.
Marc Aronson
Received on Wed 28 Feb 1996 11:23:06 AM CST
