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Reading in
Iowa City, Iowa SOME YEARS
ago, Joseph came to Iowa City, the University of Iowa where I directed
the
Translation Workshop, to give a reading; I was to read the English
translation.
At the end, he was asked a number of (mostly loaded) questions,
including one (alluded
to earlier) about Solzhenitsyn. "And the legend which had been built
around him?" His answer managed to be both artfully diplomatic and
truthful: "Well, let's put it this way. I'm awfully proud that I'm
writing
in the same language as he does." (Note, again, how he expresses this
sentiment in terms of language.) He continued, in his eccentrically
pedagogical
manner, forceful, even acerbic, but at the same time disarming, without
any
personal animus: "As for legend ... you shouldn't worry or care about
legend, you should read the work. And what kind of legend? He has his
biography
... and he has his words. "For Joseph a writer's words were his
biography,
literally! On
another visit to Iowa, in 1987, Joseph flew in at around noon and
at once asked me what I was doing that day. I told him that I was
scheduled to
talk to an obligatory comparative literature class about translation.
"Let's do it together", he said. Consequently I entered the
classroom, with its small contingent of graduate students, accompanied
by that
year's Nobel Laureate. Joseph
indicated that he would just listen, but soon he
was engaging me in a dialogue, except it was more monologue than
dialogue. Finally,
he was directly answering questions put to him by the energized
students. I
wish I could remember what was said, but, alas, even the gist of it
escapes me
now. I did not debate with him, even though our views on the
translation of verse
form differed radically. Instead, I believe that I nudged him a little,
trying
- not very sincerely or hopefully, though perhaps in a spirit of
hospitality
and camaraderie - to find common ground. After the class, I walked back
with
him to his hotel, as he said he wanted to rest before the reading. On
the way,
the conversation, at my instigation, turned to Zbigniew Herbert, the
Polish
poet so greatly admired by Milosz and, I presumed, by Brodsky, and
indeed
translated by the former into English and by the latter into Russian.
Arguably,
Herbert was the preeminent European poet of his remarkable generation.
He was living
in Paris and apparently was not in good health. "Why hasn't Zbigniew
been
awarded the Nobel Prize? Can't something be done about it", I blurted
out
- recklessly, tactlessly, presumptuously. The subtext was: Surely you,
Joseph
Brodsky, could use your influence, etc. Joseph came to a standstill:
"Of course,
he should have it. But nobody knows how that happens. It's a kind of
accident."
He locked eyes with me. "You're looking at an accident right now!"
This was not false modesty on his part, but doubtless he was being more
than a
little disingenuous. Nevertheless, I believe that, at a certain level,
he did
think of his laureateship as a kind of accident. Paradoxically, while
he aimed as
high as may be, he was not in the business of rivalling or challenging
the
great. They remained, in a sense, beyond him, this perception of
destiny and of
a hierarchy surely being among his saving graces. In a
far deeper sense,
though, they were not in the least beyond him, nor was he
uncompetitive, but it
did not (nor could it) suit his public or even private persona to
display this.
Brodsky certainly considered himself to be - and it is increasingly
clear that
he was - in the grand line that included Anna Akhmatova, Boris
Pasternak, Osip
Mandelstam and Marina Tsvetayeva. Even I sensed this, despite my
ambivalence
about his poetry. Indeed, the continuity embodied in his work accounts,
in
part, for my uncertainty: I have tended to rebel against grand
traditions. But
perhaps this is to exaggerate. At times I hear the music, at other
times the
man, even if, as a rule, I do not hear them both together ... But take,
for
instance, this (the last three stanzas of "Nature Morte" in George
Kline's splendid version in the Penguin Selected Poems):
Mary now
speaks to Christ: How can I
close my eyes, Christ
speaks to her in turn: It is true
that, as I listen to or read the English, I hear the Russian too, in
Joseph's
rendition. I even see Joseph, his hands straining the pockets of his
jacket,
his jaw jutting, as though his eye had just been caught by something
and he
were staring at it, scrutinizing it, while continuing to mouth the
poem, almost
absent- mindedly, that is, while the poem continues to be mouthed by
him. His
voice rises symphonically: Syn ili Bog
(Son or God), "God" already (oddly?) on the turn towards an abrupt
descent; and then the pause and a resonant drop, a full octave: Ya tvoi (I am thine). And the poet, with
an almost embarrassed or reluctant nod, and a quick, pained smile,
departs his
poem. Daniel
Weissbort: From Russia With Love
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