Can I say that we translators are fundamentally Litvaks, persnickety and rationalists?
If we have a hint of mysticism in us, we better hide it in the depth of one of our most secret sins, maybe a footnote. That a great literary figure can reduce a profession and a craft, a honest parnose, un métier, a skill, to an opportunist function is maybe not total surprise, but a blatant expression of a lack of loyalty to something, probably not to these women, and not to one woman in particular. Maybe to the translators union ? How much were they paid, Bashevis' translators? The question of loyalty is at the center of the film as it is at the center of Bashevis' character. He is the one who declares with much coquetry that he would like to ask god ... to rewrite one of the commandments, the one about adultery. He has a more modernist conception of human relationship and has put this conception in practice. I would as a commandment about the salary of the translator and forbid any natural or emotional reward.
Desire is supposedly the fuel of everything. So - guided with this secret commandment to come - he did use his muses or he did misuse his muses. It is not very clear to me that they were (the so-called muses) a source of inspiration for him, or if his own power of seduction was a sort of matrix of his writing. What I know is that as compelling are his stories, and I have read some in Yiddish too, his vision of the Jewish people incorporates some sand into the salt and pepper that makes him such a fascinating writer. Some of the experts I spoke to (interview to come... for Radio yiddish pour tous ?) consider him as a genial imitator of the Russian literature that he knew very well. Of course, over the years, I have found myself among those who hold Hayim Grade, my Litvak miror, as the ultimate greatest author who would have deserve a price for his Yiddish writings. Nevertheless, der tayvl is much more charming than der tsadik oder der nozir (the ermite). The tayvl is sexy and he as more than one trick in his saddlebag. Enough to read his children stories as "Mazel & Shlimazel" to be convinced of this charm.
But what I really learned was that I would not like to have a Bashevis kind of grand-father, the Magicien of Lublin type ... And it seems that I had one, including the first name Isaac, the piercing blue eyes and leaving a family behind him.
The talent of IBS was undeniable, but its nature is not only literary. He understood early the mechanism of global fame and believed in his fate.
The film hurts and it is a good sign, it moves something deeply. The women who translated, accompanied, reflected Bashevis' life and work are presented under a very fond light. They are clever, they are fun and spiritual, they are literary enthusiasts when not great experts. Sometimes they are experts and scholars. Bashevis' Hebrew translator who fascinated me absolutely refused to translate his work from the English supposed original and firmly chose to go from the Yiddish text. yesher koyekh.
If there was a literary Nobel Price (or Field medal as we are speaking of adultery) for translation, the fond, angry, loyal, attaching collective (more than 40 according to film author Asaf Galay) that worked to produce the literary oeuvre under the baton of the master would certainly deserve it.
