I've just finished reading Faces on the Tip of My Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano, which is the latest offering from Pereine Press, as part of the There Be Monsters series. It has been masterfully translated from the French by Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis, who constantly swap translations until they settle on a perfectly blended version that no longer really belongs to either of them. This obviously works as you end up reading a text that no longer even sounds like a translated work.
The book is divided into short chapters, each of which deals with a specific person and event. However, as you read on, you discover that each of the new narratives links into the previous ones, looking at the same event through a different viewpoint or following on (or looking further back from) a specific event. This experimental style, with each of the characters appearing in several stories from different stages of their lives, gives the reader great insight into their lives as a whole, helping to understand how they grew into the people they are today.
Many events seem slightly strange or mysterious ... a thick layer of snow settled on the roof of a car in the middle of summer, a wedding guest who turns out to be an unknown alcoholic rather than a distant cousin, a surprising shimmer of sequins in the pages of a borrowed library book. As a reader, you wonder if they are supposed to be symbolic and search for hidden meanings in the chapters that came before or will come after. Other tales will leave you with a sense of sadness and hopelessness, such as the suicidal driver who wants to drive off the road but ends up picking up a hitch-hiker instead.
You may never really get under the skin of each separate character, but the book delivers a compassionate, thoughtful and often surprising portrait of a rural French community, showing how the different inhabitants' lives are frequently woven together.
star rating : 4/5
RRP : £12
- Paperback: 128 pages
- Publisher: Peirene Press Ltd (22 Oct. 2019)
- ISBN-10: 1908670541
- ISBN-13: 978-1908670540
Disclosure : I received a review copy of the book.
What an unusual translation technique, done by two people. I wonder what they do, if they disagree on something. It sounds like a beautifully-written book, with interesting twists.
ReplyDeleteIt does sound tricky -it must work though as this is the second book they've translated, I believe !
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