A new project

I'm going to start something new here, namely a serial translation of one of my favorite books: Sansibar oder der letzte Grund.  It was written by Alfred Andersch in 1957, a german writer, and translated to english as "Flight to Afar" in 1961, but I don't own a copy of the latter, and I've been meaning to reread it for some time.  A translation is a forcible way to thoroughly read and understand, and I'm a glutton for punishment, anyway, so....

The book is organized in chapters, each chapter subdivided in parts describing something about each of the main characters.  The places (cities and regions) are real, as are many other things in the novel (such as the statue that will make an appearance).  I will offer the spoiler that it is set in WWII-era Germany; this would become apparent after a while anyway, but it helps to know this from the start.

Like most post-war german novels, it is introspective of german society, but does so through the lens of each of the characters' personalities, and their struggles.  Each one seeks something, sometimes desperately, and their efforts to prevail illuminate the oppression of the society.  It's a timely novel for modern-era USA, I think.  I have left in a lot of german notation and names in my translation.  If you're like me, you read some passages aloud to yourself when you read as you go.  Here is a quick german pronunciation primer for english speakers, for those bits that are still native:

• Most letters "read how they look," if you have studied latin languages.  If you haven't, may god have pity on your soul.
• "ä" is pronounced as the letter 'a' in the english word "mate"
• "ö" is pronounced roughly like the first sound in a kid saying "EWWW!"  Just don't purse your lips.
• "ü" is pronounced as if you were to say the letter 'i' the way it sounds in "hit," but through pursed lips
• "ch," as in the pronoun "Ich," is not necessarily as gutteral and rough as american movies might make it.  In the north, where this novel took place, it is often very soft, almost like "ish."  (Listening to a dreamy blond Hamburg girl say "Ich liebe dich" is a rare pleasure.)
• J = 'y'.  Ja, ja, ja!
• V = 'f'.  "Von" sounds like "fon."
• W = 'v'.  "Woher" sounds like "vo hair."
• In a word with a compound vowel (e.g., "erschien") the pronunciation is of the second vowel.  So "erschien" sounds like "air sheen."

It's been ten years or more since I spoke or read german on a regular basis, so I'm sure to muck up the translation.  Anyone who has read this and knows where I made a mistake: please tell me!  That being said, it's really remarkable how fast it returns.

What follows is the first part and installment of this translation.

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Zanzibar, or The Last Reason

And death shall have no dominion

Under the windings of the sea

They lying long shall not die windily;

Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan't crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

Dylan Thomas

The Youth

The Mississippi would be the best, thought the youth.  On the Mississippi a guy could just steal a canoe and get away, if it was true what was in Huckleberry Finn.    On the Baltic Sea nobody could ever get very far, quite apart from the fact that there weren't any canoes anymore but rather just old beat-up rowboats.  He looked up from his book to the brook, the Treene, flowing silently and slowly below; the willow under which he sat hung down into the water, and across the water in the old tannery nothing moved, like always.  The Mississippi would be better than the storehouse in the old deserted tannery and the willow by the slow moving creek.  Out on the Mississippi  a guy could escape, while at the tannery and and under the willow you could only hide -- and only as long as it had leaves, and they had already begun to fall and turn yellow upon the brown water.   Hiding wasn't the way, anyway, thought the youth -- you've got to get away.

A guy has to get away, but he has to end up somewhere.  And you can't do it like dad, who wanted to escape, but who always just wandered aimlessly out on the open sea.  When someone has no other goal than the open sea, they always come back.  You've only really escaped, thought the youth, when you find landfall beyond the sea.