In this dual-language edition, Afrikaans novelist Coetzee, the 2003 Nobel laureate in literature, introduces and translates one poem each by five twentieth-century Dutch poets and three by a sixth. His choices all have the capacity to pique poetry readers' interest in more by these striking, thoroughly European modernists. Coetzee says that Gerrit Achterberg's "Ballad of the Gasfitter" expresses the myth of Orpheus; certainly it contains death, resurrection, and second death within a workaday urban setting. Sybren Polet's "Self-Repeating Poem" is a strident 1960s protest, much more artful than most. Hugo Claus' "Ten Ways of Looking at P. B. Shelley" dissects an earlier radical poet in the manner, paradoxically enough, of Wallace Stevens. Cees Nooteboom's "Basho" follows the peripatetic Japanese as "through him the landscape is turned into words." Rutger Kopland's "Descent in Broad Daylight," even more repetitive than Polet's piece, questions the senses and whether the mind can ever apprehend natural reality. The three poems by Hans Faverey are paradoxical, abstract, the most engaging pieces in this enjoyably challenging little sampler.
Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
[Coetzee's] choices all have the capacity to pique poetry readers' interest in more by these striking, thoroughly European modernists. . . . [An] enjoyably challenging little sampler. -- Booklist
To lay bare something of the individuality of one poet's voice can be difficult enough. For this book, J.M. Coetzee has translated six 20th-century poets from the Netherlands, rendering all of them with delicate virtuosity. Each poet comes across as having an arresting and distinctive voice, which is then allowed to resonate all the more effectively thanks to the translator's choice of poems of a sequential nature. -- Alan Marsahll, Daily Telegraph
Coetzee's own varied life--as a computer programmer with a doctorate in computer-generated language, as a polyglot 'post-structuralist linguist,' as a world-renowned novelist--rivals that of the most eclectic of the poets he's translated. Way back before the novels that earned him an unprecedented two Booker Prizes, however, he cherished his own hopes of becoming a poet. Clearly, with his faithful translation from the Dutch and his shrewd assessment of this little-known body of literature, Coetzee's earliest ambition is now yielding a surprising late harvest. -- Cynthia Haven, San Francisco Chronicle
Coetzee here demonstrates a sharp ear and deft hand with poems in a variety of voices. . . . [It] is a gift to come upon these translations from six poets definitely worth our attention. -- Library Journal
The book has been lovingly and beautifully produced. . . . I was struck by how much more starkly and conspicuously the effort to grapple with the horrific century just past comes through in the writings of smaller nations. . . . Mr. Coetzee's translations of these cool and astringent poems read well. . . . By relying on slant or partial rhymes, he often succeeds in conveying the music of the originals--no mean feat. -- Eric Ormsby, New York Sun
These poems are whispered in the back pew of some massive cathedral where Stevens and Stein are saying benedictions. But sitting in the back row isn't just an act of humility: back here you can have a little fun at the priest's expense. It is that combination of devout parishioner and irreverent jester that makes these poems breathe. -- Dan Chiasson, Poetry
In Coetzee's artful translations, these poems suggest the power of the half-known. -- Robert Pinsky, Washington Post Book World
