An elderly woman struggles to make sense of her past; the gripping story of an Arctic explorer; and a humane novel about an ‘illegal alien’. The Observer, January 2021
Gratitude
Delphine de Vigan
Bloomsbury, £14.99, pp160
Gratitude is Delphine de Vigan’s second bleak but poignant look at existence. Where 2019’s Loyalties focused on the insecurities of our early years, this book features an elderly woman, Michka, battling aphasia and degeneration. But as she attempts to piece together an unresolved childhood trauma, the comic edge to her muddled words in George Miller’s translation does lessen the authenticity and intensity somewhat.
Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World
Andrea Pitzer
More than 300 years before Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition, Dutch explorer William Barents set out to try to find a route through the most remote regions of the frozen north to China. On the third occasion, in 1597, his ship was encased by ice. What happened next is the stuff of castaway movies – Barents and his crew spent nine months fighting polar bears and the freezing cold – and Andrea Pitzer does a fine job of telling this gripping adventure, painting a convincing portrait of an obsessive who put his life on the line for glory and knowledge – and succumbed.
Amnesty
Aravind Adiga
Picador, £8.99, pp272 (paperback)
Aravind Adiga will probably never repeat the stylistic effervescence of his 2008 Booker-winning debut, The White Tiger, but his latest novel is a humane and deliberate tale about Danny, a Sri Lankan “illegal alien” in Australia. He is forced to decide over 24 hours whether to inform the police about a murder, which will put him at risk of deportation. Adiga’s insight into Danny’s situation and past is compelling, but the actual story falls short.
The ‘comic edge’ is there in the original. Translators don’t tend to introduce that kind of thing themselves.
Thanks for the comment George. I didn’t mean to imply that you added the comic edge, although the tiny word count may have seemed to suggest it – I was just trying to credit you for the translation. Which is excellent, obviously.
Thank you for that. I realised I had been uncharitable in assuming you were being uncharitable. Translators can get touchy about only ever getting mentioned when a reviewer dislikes something. But I can see now your word count backed you into a tight corner. So thank you for taking the trouble to reply.