disappointed because of native literature :(

[heethar73]

I was thinking where are all the ambitious young writers, that are so omni-present in Europe? But probably we are just too fond of watching TV
I decided not to write the name of the country {not to spread infamy}... but for the record, most would probably call us eastern Europe....

Here's the problem with what you wrote: Chuck Palahniuk is from America.... so if you're going to lie in one post and say you're from Eastern Europe, you might want to make sure you didn't give up your location in a very easily sorted out mess.

[mal4mac]

You can't expect much in the way of great literature when nations are so strongly influenced by other cultures that their own identity is stifled by them.

Then how do you explain Rabbie Burns and Walter Scott? You might argue that the Scots retained their own identity, but, if so, it's amazing how it wasn't stifled by the English empire at its peak...

[kiki1982]

Let's say that the Scottish identity of the kilt-wearing tough highland man was created by Scott. And the rest jumped on the waggon and made great wild romantic poems about the Highlands. Probably the Scots wondered what was the thing with it..

By the way, Scott was before the great British empire. Britain only had extensive colonies in America and had lost them in the meantime, but still held onto the all-important sugar trade from the Caribbean. They did not have their colonies in the east yet and that is what was the base of the Victorian empire. So, Scott cannot have been influenced by that great empire, because as he died, it was only emerging.

It would be interesting to ask a Scotsman what he thinks makes one Scottish. Before Scott, it is arguable there was nothing really strictly Scottish or English. Apart from a tribe culture that ventured to have the whole of Britain under its thumb. But for that, one needed loyalty of others and that needed to be bought. If anything, there was no unity, only clans. So, possibly, that identity was made romantically in the early 19th century with the highlands as its backdrop with Friederich in the back of Scott's heads.

[kiki1982]

Exactly what I meant. His sentences are so long they are a drag to read. Even in the original Latin, which is supposed to be a rather compact language, his sentences seem endless.

Not that I have dislike of long sentences in general, but I feel that a writer doesn't have to needlessly tie otherwise short sentences together to form one long sentence. I suppose it's personal taste more than anything though.

Three lines is not endless. Have you read Dumas or Hugo? Even Sarmago does better (and he is modern). Now, sometimes that is long and needless (even critics used to complain about Dumas in his day), yet that is mastery. At some sentences you cannot help wondering how fantatically they are put together. One good modern author who writes admirable sentences is Jeroen Brouwers, for example. He sometimes works twenty days on one paragraph because he is not satisfied.

The thing is not to write short or long, the thing is to write with a flow. That can be done with short sentences too. It is not a matter of where the full stop is, it is a matter of how the language interlocks. Then the full stop does nt matter. Cicero does not seem to drag on. Even in Latin. If anything, he is quite simple and straight to the point. Yet Claus stops and starts. It drives me up the wall!

Nope, and to be fair, I wasn't aware of that statistic either. I was merely saying that despite everything, Flanders does have a handful of good literary authors. Although I don't know where the OP is from exactly, I'd assume there's a handful of good authors from his/her native country as well. I simply can't imagine how a population of more than a million people can fail to produce at least one good writer.

Look through history and compare. Only comparing the Dutch amount is enough. Though, it might be that the problem is that most of the intellectual class wrote in French. However, it cannot be denied that that phase was over by the late 19th century, though maybe the market was a little poor for a writer to make his bread from writing in Dutch.

Also, number of translations aren't a great way to measure the level of literary activity in a country. Iran and China, for example, both have a lengthy and wealthy literary tradition, but are rarely translated, mostly because they do not write the western 'novel', but instead have their own disciplines in literature. Same, to a lesser extent, can be said of Indian and Indonesian literature.

They have a disadvantage of culture. Sadly, no-one seems to be interested, although Chinese literature seems to do well for some publishers, like De Geus. But one must be able to understand their culture in order to understand their 'novel' (their symbols; conventions etc). That is not straightforward and it already shows in Russian, f.e., which requires some history classes and some general info on what they tought of certain things and what happened in certain eras, because it is so different from the society our ancestors used to live in. But... Flanders does not have that excuse. We are no different than the French or the Germans, we do not have a very different culture, yet, we have practically no great writers translated all over the world. One can count them on one hand (three I believe no on Wikiedia).

[Amoxcalli]

Three lines is not endless. Have you read Dumas or Hugo? Even Sarmago does better (and he is modern). Now, sometimes that is long and needless (even critics used to complain about Dumas in his day), yet that is mastery.

I've had the fortune to read Hugo (I haven't read Dumas) in my native tongue, while I struggled for hours on Cicero's jungle of words in Latin, so maybe that has something to do with it. Either way, long and needless sentences aren't mastery.

The thing is not to write short or long, the thing is to write with a flow. That can be done with short sentences too. It is not a matter of where the full stop is, it is a matter of how the language interlocks. Then the full stop doesn't matter.

That is mastery. Thanks for wording it perfectly!

They have a disadvantage of culture. Sadly, no-one seems to be interested, although Chinese literature seems to do well for some publishers, like De Geus. But one must be able to understand their culture in order to understand their 'novel' (their symbols; conventions etc). That is not straightforward and it already shows in Russian, f.e., which requires some history classes and some general info on what they tought of certain things and what happened in certain eras, because it is so different from the society our ancestors used to live in. But... Flanders does not have that excuse. We are no different than the French or the Germans, we do not have a very different culture, yet, we have practically no great writers translated all over the world. One can count them on one hand (three I believe no on Wikipedia).

On the other hand, Flanders has a population of just over 6 million. Far less than Russia (145 million), the United States (307 million), the United Kingdom (61 million), France (62 million), Italy (58 million), Spain (46 million), the Netherlands (16 million) and even Greece (10 million). How many contemporary Greek authors could you name? I doubt it'll be more than a handful.

I'm not saying Flemish literature is great, but misunderstood or anything like that, I'm merely saying that they've got a perfectly healthy literary community that, while not producing the greatest works, does quite alright when the population is taking into account.

[JBI]

They have a disadvantage of culture. Sadly, no-one seems to be interested, although Chinese literature seems to do well for some publishers, like De Geus. But one must be able to understand their culture in order to understand their 'novel' (their symbols; conventions etc). That is not straightforward and it already shows in Russian, f.e., which requires some history classes and some general info on what they tought of certain things and what happened in certain eras, because it is so different from the society our ancestors used to live in. But... Flanders does not have that excuse. We are no different than the French or the Germans, we do not have a very different culture, yet, we have practically no great writers translated all over the world. One can count them on one hand (three I believe no on Wikiedia).

There is actually a lot of good publication, with fantastic scholarly introduction and annotation by American sinologists available widely, in thick volumes - anything from Contemporary Chinese Literature to Taiwanese Novels and Poetry, to Ancient Drama and Essays, and even now a larger focus on translations of female writers. To say that it is particularly difficult is not so true as to say there just isn't that much of an interest on major presses - Russian lit, because of Dostoevsky and to a lesser extent Tolstoy seems absorbed into American imagination, Chinese however is, as a literary culture (mind the Orientalism in this passage) only beginning to be absorbed, with the crumbling of the concept of "Red China" (which was pretty much a myth to begin with anyway), and the emergence of China as a field, in the sense that Japanese was a "field" after WW2. Korea too is beginning to get much focus, not particularly from Americans, so I am told, but Oxford and Cambridge are tossing huge amounts of cash into their programs to bring up a stronger tradition of "Korean Studies".

It is actually, surprisingly, strange why such texts aren't read. The new annotated unabridged edition of Three Kingdoms, for instance, reads much more easily than Cervantes, and certainly is like Hemingway in comparison to Dante. It's all just ethnic bias, I don't think it has much to do with distance.


Ok, some poetry doesn't translate well, I'll agree with that, but prose translates as easily as anything, and the bulk of poetry translates just fine. Beyond that too, places like Universite de Paris in France are great publishers and scholars on subjects like Daoism, and in Holland now they have a very strong area of scholarship on contemporary Chinese fiction, including much translation work done. It just all depends really on where one looks.

[Veva]

Here's the problem with what you wrote: Chuck Palahniuk is from America.... so if you're going to lie in one post and say you're from Eastern Europe, you might want to make sure you didn't give up your location in a very easily sorted out mess.

You probably didn't get me right, I said that I liked Chuck to give evidence that I am not easily shocked by a novel.... He has nothing to do with my country...

[kiki1982]

@JBI:

I meant of course the popular press is not interested. Although they are slowly coming away from that, maybe because of the great interest in Chinese studies as 'the laguage of the future', and by extention the rest of the Oriental world. I am not saying it is particularly difficult to read it, but still, you'll admit that reading a French book like Les Misérables, even without detailed knowledge of the French Revolution and the aftermath, is culturally easier than a Russian one at first sight. Or maybe it is because I had classes in Fench Revolution and almost nothing on Russia until the Communist Revolution of 1917. Still, to know what they write about is what they know and in that their own culture and what they think/thought is important, as important as for reading other cultures.

Of course it's all just bias when publishers think it is not worth it to put money into it 'because we will not make any'. So we do not even get the chance to try.

Of course there are in the academic world good edition (one would hope so), but in the popular domain? Let's say one has to look hard.

@Amexcalli:

I was just saying, and I am still of the opinion, that proportionally, Flanders should have had more good writers than it has had.


One of the leading writers of contemporary lit in Flanders (Tom Lanoye) made a compilation of the Kings' Dramas of Shakespeare, a piece oF12 hours. Firstly, to me, it speaks of great if not incredible arrogance to attempt to make the work of an auhtor better; certainly if one is talking about Shakespeare. Secondly, he made one Edward (I have forgotten which because I was so apalled; it might be Edward V) swear every two words with '****ing'. No joke. May I ask why he did that to Shakespeare. If he had done it in English, he would have been lynched. Nothing against reworkings of Shakespeare, within bouderies, but a play of 12 hours is not a play, and certainly not if one is going to disgrace one of the great. Thankfully this has not happened any more after it.

But I suppose I have made my opinion clear. Let's not hog this thread 'cause otherwise I also go and on and on and on.

So anyone else disappointed in one's own lit?