• Complain

Ilija Trojanow - The Lamentations of Zeno

Here you can read online Ilija Trojanow - The Lamentations of Zeno full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 0, publisher: Verso Books, genre: Romance novel. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Ilija Trojanow The Lamentations of Zeno
  • Book:
    The Lamentations of Zeno
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Verso Books
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    0
  • Rating:
    5 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 100
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

The Lamentations of Zeno: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "The Lamentations of Zeno" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Bavarian glaciologist Zeno Hintermeier is taking his last voyage to the Antarctic as a lecturer on board an international cruise ship. He attends to the curiosity of a privileged few as they marvel at the least explored continent and pay witness to its rapid degradation. In his early sixties, Zeno mourns the loss of his beloved glaciers, the disintegration of his loveless marriage, and the crumbling of his increasingly irrelevant career (he compares giving lectures on glaciers to teaching veterinarians who had specialized in the subject of dinosaurs.)
The desperate Zeno hatches a horrifying plan, and driven to the brink, he is convinced that his only option is to shake his fellow passengers out of their complacency and send a wake-up call to the world. With poignant, playful prose, The Lamentations of Zeno is a portrait of a man in extremis, a haunting tale that looks at the greatest challenge of our age from a uniquely human angle.
From the Hardcover...

Ilija Trojanow: author's other books


Who wrote The Lamentations of Zeno? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

The Lamentations of Zeno — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The Lamentations of Zeno" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

The Lamentations of Zeno - image 1

THE LAMENTATIONS OF ZENO
THE LAMENTATIONS
OF ZENO
ILIJA TROJANOW
Translated by Philip Boehm

The Lamentations of Zeno - image 2

The translation of this work was supported in part by a grant from the - photo 3

The translation of this work was supported in part by a grant from the Goethe-Institut, which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

First published in English by Verso 2016

Translation Philip Boehm 2016

First published as EisTau

Carl Hanser Verlag 2011

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Verso

UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG

US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201

versobooks.com

Verso is the imprint of New Left Books

ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-219-1

ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-222-1 (US EBK)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-221-4 (UK EBK)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Trojanow, Ilija, author. | Boehm, Philip, translator.

Title: The Lamentations of Zeno : a novel / by Ilija Trojanow ; translated by Philip Boehm.

Other titles: EisTau. English

Description: Brooklyn, NY : Verso, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015039884| ISBN 9781784782191 (hardback) | ISBN 9781784782221 (US e book) | ISBN 9781784782214 (UK e book)

Subjects: LCSH: GlaciologistsFiction. | GlaciersFiction. | Political fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Political.

Classification: LCC PT2682.R56 E4713 2016 | DDC 833/.92dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039884

Typeset in Electra by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

Printed in the US by Maple Press

At each slow ebb hope slowly dawns that it is dying.

Samuel Beckett, Company

Contents

With The Lamentations of Zeno, Ilija Trojanow charts new territory in prose as well as geography. Not a native speaker of German, he has adopted that language and adapted it to his own purposes, taking full advantage of its lexical fecundity, creating words at will, and of its suspended syntax, with which he unleashes whole currents of consciousness. Alternating painterly descriptions of the natural world with cacophonic passages composed of song snippets, adspeak and breaking news, he contrasts the majestic stillness of the Antarctic with the clamor of human civilization. And all of this is framed within a confessional log that allows the reader to reconstruct the emotional course of the troubled protagonist.

The sheer range of registers is impressiveand quite a challenge for the translator. The title itself is a case in point: A literal IceThaw not only lacks the aura of the original EisTau, it also fails to convey the layers of meaning lurking in the German. Melting Ice seemed a bit lackluster, while Meltdown was more appropriate for any number of TV movies. Instead we decided to focus on the narrator who is the soul of the novel.

My primary task in translating the book has been to recreate the voice of Zeno Hintermeierhis gruff demeanor, deprecating self-irony, bone-dry wit, and great erudition. To this end I have broken up single-sentence paragraphs and recast them with somewhat shorter sentences easier on Anglophone ears. Otherwise punctuation remains light, echoing the German, although quotation marks have been added to set off some speech. Songs cited in the shorter bricolage passages have been substituted with popular English lyrics from the same period, and elsewhere I have similarly opted for equivalence over literal rendering.

Most of all I hope to have captured the deeper musicality of the prose, by paying as much attention to the rests as to the notes. Because for all his linguistic virtuosity Trojanow is equally a master of the unsaid, so that the words on the page are like the icebergs themselvesa sparkling intimation of what lies below.

THE
LAMENTATIONS OF

THERES NO WORSE nightmare than no longer being able to save yourself by waking - photo 4

THERES NO WORSE nightmare than no longer being able to save yourself by waking - photo 5

THERES NO WORSE nightmare than no longer being able to save yourself by waking up.

Whenever we set sail from Ushuaia, we gather the evening before in one of the local dives thats a little ways uphill and off the main streets, just when the last band of light is slipping from the sky. We havent seen one another for half a year, so were in the mood to celebrate as we crowd around a long wooden table. The man waiting on us is old, and judging by his face not very adventurous, although at one parting he confessed to me that he was getting along well apart from an occasional urge to puncture his hand with a knife. His place doesnt have much on offer, but hell fill your glass for very little and Im content to sit here holding my drink, surrounded by the hardworking Filipinos that make up most of the crew, now smiling broadly at our reunion. Every payday brings them closer to settling down to a home and the sheltering shade of a large family, and so they soldier on, slogging through their working days with an astounding ease. For me they will always be an enigma. Ushuaia is incapable of dampening their mood, as is any echo of the butchery, any painful reminder of the pasttheir ears are simply not tuned to that frequency, that legacy belongs to Europeans, those are the scars of the white man. They drift through this place just as they do through all the other places that have been defiled, all our ports of call (what a pretentious phrase from some liturgy of advertising), seeming not to touch the ground when they go ashore. That is what separates us, we have no common past: what paralyzes me seems to fill them with life. Apart from that, theyre easy to handle, as our onboard hotel manager never tires of repeating (by which he means: much better than the unruly Chinese), as if he had personally trained them to be so diligent so patient so tame. The Filipinos zeal would bother me were it not for Paulina, who at this moment is probably busy giving a personal touch to our shared cabin, equipping it with artificial flowers and photographs depicting an entire menagerie of relativesthe numerous grandmothers perched in front on dilapidated rattan armchairs dragged into the garden just for the occasion, and standing behind them all the daughters and sons, loyal to a man except for the one who ran off and is rumored to be chopping vegetables in a New York restaurant. I raise my glass to Paulinas countrymenmechanics, cooks, pilotsand to Ricardo, our dining room manager, as unobtrusive as a shrink-wrapped suitcase, but watch out, his true power will be revealed during the course of the trip, every passenger will get to know him and a few will appreciate him (Howzit going, Mr. Iceberger? he says, giving me a thumbs-up, always concerned to clear potential misunderstandings out of the way before they happen). Its a sight for the gods, the way the millionaires from the northern hemisphere line up in front of his desk, eagerly bowing as they slip him an envelope to thank him for the coveted starboard table with a box-seat view of ice floes and leopard seals. My recent years at sea have taught me that rich people are prepared to pay considerable sums for little privileges. That sets them apart from the masses, feeds Ricardos confidence, and finances the expansion of his guesthouse in Romblon. Hes no more interested in fur seals, leopard seals or penguins than he is in glaciers or icebergs, but he takes advantage of every scenic opportunityWhat a view, fantastic, fantastic, please take your seats,as he parades his teeth in a broad grin. Im sure hed squeeze in just as many fantastics in front of a garbage depot as long as there were people willing to pay for a premium seat. All he really cares about is whether something is sellable or not. Whenever were all together he flirts with the blonde whale lady now sitting to his left, always resorting to the same lines, which he polishes like a fingernail, You know some day Im going to sit in on your lecture, I mean it, I really want to learn all about these fish, now that Ive watched them from the restaurant and seen them spouting, they really are very beautiful creaturesbut when it comes to the beautiful Beate he has a hard time understanding why she prefers whales to people, which is why hes going to sit in the first row during one of her next lectures and write down every single word she says. He promises this before every trip, when were gathered at the long wooden table thats pitted and scored with random dents and notches. This time I mean it, he says, I swear to heavenand the whale lady pinches his arm. She speaks English with a German accent, German with a hint of Spanish, and Spanish with Chilean intonation. Despite his assurances, nothing will come of Ricardos cetacean education. But what he will do for certain at the end of the trip is pass a chefs hat around on behalf of the men in the kitchen, while they line up in front of the curved buffet and perform a song in Tagalog that sounds like the Hymn to the Unknown Server and is always received with thunderous applause.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The Lamentations of Zeno»

Look at similar books to The Lamentations of Zeno. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «The Lamentations of Zeno»

Discussion, reviews of the book The Lamentations of Zeno and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.