Episode image is a detail from the cover of A Tale Of Love And Darkness by Amos Oz, published in 2005 by Vintage; cover photograph © Julie Joy/Getty Images.
For the 71st Second Hand Book Factory, Charles Adrian is joined by anthropologist and human Karin Eli for talk about the fight to gain one’s place in the world, a little bit of undemanding murder and some of the challenges of translation.
Other writing by Margaret Atwood is discussed in Page One 47 (Alias Grace), Page One 86 (Forty Years Ago And Forty Years Ahead), Page One 108 (The Edible Woman) and Page One 146 (The Penelopiad).
There is more discussion of murder mystery in Page One 63.
A Tale Of Love And Darkness by Amos Oz is also discussed in Page One 182.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
This episode features a jingle written for the podcast by the band Friends Of Friends.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 17th March, 2015.
Book listing:
Hair Jewellery by Margaret Atwood
The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martínez (trans. Sonia Soto)
A Tale Of Love And Darkness by Amos Oz (trans. Nicholas de Lange)
Links:
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the 95th Page One. This is the 21st Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today up in North Oxford is—well, Northish Oxford—is Karin [/kæˈrɪn/]... oh, Eli [/iːliː/]? Eli [/iːlaɪ/]?
Karin Eli
[speaking over] Eli [/ˈeliː/].
Charles Adrian
Eli [/ˈeliː/]?
Karin Eli
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Eli [/ˈeliː/]. Karin Eli [/kæˈriːn ˈeliː/].
Karin Eli
Karin Eli [/kæˈriːn ˈeliː/]. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Karin [/kæˈriːn]... [laughs]
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] So, Karin, hello. How do you describe yourself?
Karin Eli
I describe myself as human, mostly. But my professional description is anthropologist, which is quite related to being human.
Charles Adrian
[agreeing] Mmm hmm. Very related. Are you...? Do you think you will always be an anthropologist?
Karin Eli
I think I will always be an anthropologist at heart. I think I was an anthropologist before I was actually an anthropologist.
Charles Adrian
Right. Okay. And how long have you been here in Oxford?
Karin Eli
Basically a decade.
Charles Adrian
Wow!
Karin Eli
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Oh goodness. Oh, you might have told me that last time we spoke but I've forgotten. That's amazing. Wow. Okay, cool. Um, so what's the... And what's the book that you've brought that you like?
Karin Eli
So the book that I like is actually not a book but a short story featured in a collection so I'm cheating here a little bit. I hope that's okay.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh no, that's perfectly allowed. Yeah. Yeah.
Karin Eli
The short story is titled Hair Jewellery and it's included in a volume called Dancing Girls by Margaret Atwood.
Charles Adrian
Oh, I don't... I've read a lot of Margaret Atwood but I haven't come across that one… that collection.
Karin Eli
So, shall I read the first page?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah, please. Read the... Yeah, read. Read.
Karin Eli
Am I allowed to continue to the second page just to finish a paragraph?
Charles Adrian
Okay. [laughs]
Karin Eli
Is that... is that all right? I feel like I'm doubly cheating already.
Charles Adrian
You're... No, you're only cheating once. But that's okay. You can cheat.
Karin Eli
Hair Jewellery
There must be some approach to this, a method, a technique, that's the word I want, it kills germs. Some technique then, a way of thinking about it that would be bloodless and therefore painless; devotion recollected in tranquillity. I try to conjure up an image of myself at that time, also one of you, but it's like conjuring the dead. How do I know I'm not inventing both of us, and if I'm not inventing, then it really is like conjuring the dead, a dangerous game. Why should I disturb those [sleepers,] sleepwalkers, as they make their automaton rounds through the streets where we once lived, fading from year to year, their voices thinning to the sound of a thumb drawn across a wet window: an insect squeak, transparent as glass, no words. You can never tell with the dead whether it is they who wish to return or the living who want them to. The usual explanation is that they have something to tell us. I'm not sure I believe it; in this case it's more likely that I have something to tell them.
Be careful, I want to write, there is a future, God's hand on the temple wall, clear and unavoidable in the new snow, just in front of them, where they are walking – I see it as December – along the brick sidewalk in Boston, city of rotting dignities, she in her wavering high heels, getting her feet wet from sheer vanity. Boots were ugly then, heavy, shapeless rubber like rhinoceros paws, flight boots they called them, or furred at the tops like old ladies' or bedroom slippers, with stringy bows; or there were those plastic wedge-shaped rain boots, they would yellow quickly and become encrusted with dirt on the inside, they looked like buried teeth.
Charles Adrian
[appreciative] Mmm. Buried teeth. Wow. I'm happy you cheated because we wouldn't have got rhinoceros paws if you [laughing] hadn't cheated.
Karin and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
I love the idea of this woman striding around like a... well, a rhinoceros-pawed woman, presumably. So when... yeah, how... when did... when did that come out?
Karin Eli
So Hair Jewellery is quite an old story and it says here that it came out in 1976. It was first published in Ms Magazine.
Charles Adrian
Oh, wow.
Karin Eli
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Oh, cool. And so this is a collection of older things that...
Karin Eli
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. And what... And what is it about that story?
Karin Eli
Um. I, sort of, discovered—’discovered’ if that's the right word—hair jewellery about four or five years ago and it really resonated with me. It's the story of a downtrodden graduate student and there is something quite touching about the way in which Margaret Atwood describes this, sort of... I guess, like, fight to gain your place in the world without losing yourself, which is sometimes hard for academics and female academics in particular. And there is something really moving about this woman's journey into her own self-defined subjectivity as a scholar and what she loses on the way and the compromises she has to make and the lingering regrets that she has.
Charles Adrian
[appreciative] Mmm. Oh, that sounds really nice. It sounds like [clears throat]... It sounds like similar territory to some of the other Margaret Atwood things that I've read. Surfacing, I think, was a bit like that. This... This... I mean, it's obviously her theme, isn't it, is, like, women finding... Well, not in... Well, not just women finding their place in the world but the world waking up to the existence of women as people. Does that make sense? Does that sound fair?
Karin Eli
Yes but I think she also touches on the lingering tensions between—yes—becoming more visible but then having to make certain parts of you invisible in order to be a woman in the world.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Aha, right. Right. Yeah, yeah, that... that's really interesting.
Karin Eli
And she writes about those personal histories that get buried away or hidden on the path to ‘making it’, supposedly.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Right.
Karin Eli
And what's interesting about it is that there's actually really nothing secretive or dark that happens. She's just a woman who's living life and has some struggles through poverty and grad school and a bad relationship. But these are all things that she slowly renounces as she moves onward. But they're still with her.
Charles Adrian
Right. Right.
Karin Eli
They're still an unseen part of who she is as an ‘establishment’ person by the end of the story.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Uh huh. Interesting. Okay, I'm going to look out for that. Hair Jewellery?
Karin Eli
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Very nice. Okay. Now, I'm going to play the first track that... Well, you gave me a short list and I've only left out one because it was too long but... so I've... so the other two are the ones that I'm playing. But they... I thought they were all amazing. So this is Mano Suave by Yasmin Levy [/ˈjæsmin liːviː/]. Is it Levy [/liːviː/]?
Karin Eli
It's probably Levy [/leviː/].
Karin and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Karin Eli
And she sings with Natacha Atlas.
Charles Adrian
Oh, that's right. It's the two of them. Yes, in... I think on iTunes it's only Yasmin Levy who is credited.
Karin Eli
Yes, because it's on her album.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Yeah.
Music
[Mano Suave (feat. Natacha Atlas) by Yasmin Levy]
Charles Adrian
Okay, so how are you pronouncing her name?
Karin Eli
Yasmin Levy [/jɪsˈmiːn leviː/].
Charles Adrian
Yasmin Levy [/ˈjɪsmiːn leviː/]. Okay. That's not at all what I said. [laughs]
Karin Eli
It's close enough.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] It's not very close. And your father knew her father?
Karin Eli
Yeah. Well, in a cursory way.
Charles Adrian
Well, that's very cool. Okay. Now, my book for you comes with a, kind of, apology. I'm giving this to you essentially because you're the first person that I've interviewed in Oxford. So you get this book. That's... That's... It... If it had been someone else. they probably would have got this. But this is called The Oxford Murders. That's the whole reason why I'm giving it to you. I have a feeling I bought it while I was here. It's probably from Blackwells. I don't know. Is that a Blackwells label on the book?
Karin Eli
Yes, it is.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, so that's probably where it came from. Almost certainly where it came from. It's by an Argentinian writer called Guillermo Martínez I don't know anything else about him. What I thought was... Because I'm guessing you're writing some quite... not writing, you're... well, writing and reading—particularly reading—some quite intense stuff a lot of the time. So this is a kind of holiday. That's what I'm offering you here. [laughing] It's not going to tax you very much. I'm not going to say it's bad but it's... it's not... it's not the most thrilling book in the world. So there are a lot of apologies coming with this book but I'm hoping you might enjoy it anyway. And do you... I mean, do you read murder mysteries ever?
Karin Eli
Not really.
Charles Adrian
Okay. Do you? Is that because you don't enjoy them?
Karin Eli
I don't really know.
Charles Adrian
Oh, you might find out!
Karin Eli
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] This is... And this has a kind of quasi-scientific basis to it, which is [laughing] quite fun. But okay, I'm just going to read you the first page. I won't be offended if you never read this book, by the way.
Chapter 1
Now that the years have passed and everything's been forgotten, and now that I've received a terse e-mail from Scotland with the sad news of Seldom's death, I feel I can break my silence (which he never asked for anyway) and tell the truth about events that reached the British papers in the summer of ’93 with macabre and sensationalist headlines, but to which Seldom and I always referred – perhaps due to the mathematical connotation – simply as the series, or the Oxford Series. Indeed, the deaths all occurred in Oxfordshire, at the beginning of my stay in England, and I had the dubious privilege of seeing the first at close range.
I was twenty-two, an age at which almost anything can still be excused. I'd just graduated from the University of Buenos Aires with a thesis in algebraic topology and was travelling to Oxford on a year's scholarship, secretly...
Which I think is quite a good word to end a page on, actually.
Karin Eli
Yes, especially in murder mystery.
Charles Adrian
Especially in murder mystery. So it has... I'm just going to read from the back here. It has something to do with Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness. Do you... Have you ever heard of Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness?
Karin Eli
No but it sounds really profound.
Charles Adrian
It sounds wonderful, doesn't it?
Karin Eli
Yes.
Charles Adrian
I don't remember what it is because it's years since I read this book but there you are. A bit of cross... What's the word I'm looking for? Cross... [laughing] I know this.
Karin Eli
You'll find it.
Charles Adrian
Cross-disciplinary.... whatever.
Karin Eli
[speaking over] Thank you.
Charles Adrian
There you go.
Karin Eli
And this book continues to establish Oxford's status as the murder capital of the UK.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Yeah. I suspect that... I mean, I... Yeah. I imagine Guillermo Martínez knows his murder mysteries. I imagine he's read a bit of Morse. But I think this is actually... Having read one or two Colin Dexter novels, I think this is better than Colin Dexter.
Karin Eli
That's always a comfort.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] So it does rank... [laughing] It ranks not quite at the bottom. [laughs] Okay. What...? And so now what's your book for me?
Karin Eli
So. Also from Blackwells but...
Charles Adrian
Oh! Wonderful!
Karin Eli
Also from Blackwells but slightly newer...
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Karin Eli
... I got you A Tale of Love and Darkness...
Charles Adrian
Ooo!
Karin Eli
... by Amos Oz.
Charles Adrian
It looks beautiful.
Karin Eli
It is a beautiful cover, isn't it?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's sparkling. Oh, and it's... Yeah, of course, it's a Vintage. I love those books. They make beautiful books.
Karin Eli
That's a key ingredient of a quality read.
Charles Adrian
Oh, definitely. Mmm hmm. Okay.
Karin Eli
So I'll read the first page to you. And I should note that this is another instance of my cheating on this podcast because I actually had to buy this copy. Because I read the Hebrew original...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, I see.
Karin Eli
... and I thought it would make more sense...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Karin Eli
... to give you a book that you could read.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Karin Eli
So...
Charles Adrian
Yeah. I mean, it would be [laughing] lovely to have... because I think Hebrew looks gorgeous. It doesn't—obviously—make any sense to me at all but I might have enjoyed just looking at the pages sometimes. But yeah. Yeah. I think you made the right choice. Yeah.
Karin Eli
And with that in mind:
I WAS BORN and bred in a tiny, low-ceilinged ground-floor flat. My parents slept on a sofa bed that filled their room almost from wall to wall when it was opened up each evening. Early every morning they used to shut away this bed deep into itself, hide the bed clothes in the chest underneath, turn the mattress over, press it all tight shut, and conceal the whole under a light grey cover, then scatter a few embroidered oriental cushions on top, so that all evidence of their night's sleep disappeared. In this way their bedroom also served as study, library, dining room and living room.
Opposite this room was my little green room, half taken up with a big-bellied wardrobe. A narrow, low passage, dark and slightly curved, like an escape tunnel from a prison, linked the little kitchenette and toilet to these two small rooms. A faint light-bulb imprisoned in an iron cage cast a gloomy half-light on this passage even during the daytime. At the front both rooms had just a single window, guarded by metal blinds, squinting to catch a glimpse of the view to the east but seeing only a dusty cypress tree and a low wall of roughly-dressed stones. Through a tiny opening high up in their back walls the kitchenette and toilet peered out into a little prison yard, surrounded by high walls and paved in concrete, where a pale geranium planted in a rusty olive can was gradually dying for want of a single ray of sunlight. On the sills of these tiny openings we always kept jars of pickled gherkins and a stubborn cactus in a cracked vase that served as a flower pot.
It was actually a basement flat, as the ground floor of the building had been hollowed out of the rocky hillside. This hill was our next-door neighbour, a heavy, introverted, silent neighbour, an old, sad hill with the regular habits of a bachelor, a drowsy, wintry hill, that never scraped the furniture or entertained guests, never made a noise or disturbed us, but through the party walls there seeped constantly towards us, like a faint yet persistent musty smell, the cold, dark silence and dampness of this melancholy neighbour of ours.
Consequently right through the summer there was always a hint of winter in our home.
Charles Adrian
Oh wow! That finishes brilliantly, that page. I mean, all the way through I was thinking, ‘Oh, it sounds so dark and dank’. That's great. Thank you. It says: ‘The English-language version has been edited with some cuts and clarification for this edition with the author's approval and cooperation.’
Karin Eli
Yes, I saw that note when I looked at the book today and I really started wondering what it is that they had to clarify.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. It's fascinating.
Karin Eli
I am very curious now [and] might actually read the English version too.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Do you think there's something that you would understand as a Hebrew speaker that would go over a non-Hebrew speaker's head?
Karin Eli
Well, there was a whole section in which he alludes to the double meaning of certain words in Hebrew that the older generation in his time thought were just words and the younger generation understood as quite profane.
Charles Adrian
Oh, really?
Karin Eli
So it might be that entire section didn't quite make sense.
Charles Adrian
Right. Right. Mmm, that's interesting. I mean, yeah, that's... I think translation is always, kind of, interesting. And there have been quite a few books in translation on the podcast. And I always find it a s... I always find it a, kind of... a dilemma because I don't like the idea of reading things in translation because I feel like... I mean, the book I've given you is in translation and I feel like... When I've read something in English that I've also read in another language it almost always feels poorer to me. But on the other hand, yeah, there are all these books I would never read. [laughing] I would never read anything in Hebrew, for example. But I don't know. I suppose part of me... There's this feeling that I must be missing something because this language—say, take Hebrew: it has this amazing form. I mean, we were talking about Arabic during the Mano Suave song and Hebrew is similar to my eyes. It has these lines and this, kind of, shape on on the page—and even printed—which... It feels like that's already communicating something which Roman letters don't communicate. I don't know if that... if it feels like that to you when you read Hebrew, for example.
Karin Eli
Probably not because I don't really focus on the shape of the letters so much.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] You just get the sense immediately.
Karin Eli
Yeah, I think it's quite different when you don't actually understand the meaning of the letters. You can really focus on their aesthetic a lot more so there is a benefit to not being able to read the languages.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. And do you have...? How similar is Hebrew to Arabic? Do you have the same ‘no vowel’ thing?
Karin Eli
They're both Semitic languages so... and they're quite similar in some respects but they're... they also have sufficient differences that, you know, it would require a lot of study to really... you know, for a speaker of one to really master the other.
Charles Adrian
Right. Right. Right. Okay. Because that's another thing that's always struck me. Because that's, I suppose, the first thing—or one of the first things—I was told about Arabic. But also it's the same in Hebrew, isn't it? You don't have the same vowels or you don't have the same clarity of vowels?
Karin Eli
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Is that right?
Karin Eli
That is true.
Charles Adrian
And that always struck me as a bizarre thing to be confronted with—that you have to supply the sounds yourself.
Karin Eli
Yes.
Charles Adrian
I think that's amazing. Anyway, that's all by the by. Thank you so much. I'm going to enjoy this. I enjoy just holding it. I really do think that... [laughs] For some reason, Vintage just... they make good books. I like them. Okay. We should finish. So now I'm going to play... This is a Hebrew song, isn't it?
Karin Eli
Yes.
Charles Adrian
[tentatively] Shir Tikva?
Karin Eli
[with more accurate pronunciation] Shir Tikva.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Karin Eli
Very good.
Karin and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
[laughing] No, I hear the difference. And that means Song of Hope.
Karin Eli
Yes.
Charles Adrian
And it's by Ruth Dolores Weiss [/vaɪs/]. Weiss [/vaɪs/] or Weiss [/waɪs/]?
Karin Eli
Weiss [/vaɪs/].
Charles Adrian
Weiss [/vaɪs/]. [laughing] Thank you, by the way.
Music
[Shir Tikva by Ruth Dolores Weiss]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]