Monday 31 July 2017

The Benjamin Fondane Update




In case you thought this was just a lot of big talk, I actually did pick up Benjamin Fondane's Le mal des fantômes in Paris a few months ago and I've now translated a few of his poems. I'm looking at translating a few more and seeing if I can find a suitable home for them somewhere. (I feel more trepidation over sending out translations than over sending out original work, but that's another story.) 

In the meantime, I thought I'd share this interesting excerpt from a 1985 interview with EM Cioran, who knew both Fondane and Paul Celan. It confirmed my readings of their respective work. (The interview was with Leonard Schwartz and appears in the recent selection of Fondane's work in English translation, Cinepoems and Others, published by New York Review Books, 2016).


Leonard Schwartz: Do you see any sort of connection between Paul Celan and Fondane?

EM Cioran: I knew both Fondane and Paul Celan well, and I suppose it is true that they had something in common. They came from almost the same geographic area in Romania: Bukovina and Moldavia are provinces that border on each other. Both were Jewish poets and both had an intellectual curiosity which is not absolutely normal in a poet. But they were very different as men. Fondane had an immense presence; all became enlivened around him; we were very pleased to hear him speak. Around Celan one felt a kind of uneasiness. As I've told you before, Celan was so susceptible, so vulnerable: Everything hurt him... With Celan one always had to be on guard. He was a wounded man, in the metaphysical and psychological sense of the word, and that was why one felt so uneasy. Whereas Fondane was the contrary: You felt you didn't have to supervise yourself.


2 comments:

  1. That's a very interesting comparison. And you got me started now with Fondane too, I bought a book Cinepoems and Others.

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    1. I hope you enjoy the poems. Fondane's poems are not much like Celan's. The "cinepoems" are more avant-garde, exploring cinematic techniques, but a lot of his other work is rather more romantic. I think Fondane was someone who wanted to try a bit of everything (given that he also wrote philosophical essays, worked in cinema etc). Celan, as usual, is sort of from another planet. But it's inevitable that they'd be compared as they are both Romanian, Jewish, moved to Paris etc. Fondane was more than 20 years older though and by the time Celan was living in Paris, Fondane was dead.

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