Stan
Kelly-Bootle [to JM et alii] "you have (in my book!) earned
Tavares a wider English audience. How can we encourage more translations? ...
readers must never fall for the various dubious Proof Methods in the endless
search for Truth ...Popperian-Nabokovians (like BB, SHB and me) know that
Deduction beats Induction; Induction beats Proof by Assertion...We do allow,
under duress, VN’s Proof by Strong, Superior Authority (see Tavares)...Fun to
guess (or can we deduce, induct?) who the three men are meant to be in Tavares’
tale. With Pale Fire never far from my mind, I wondered if they are
Shade/Kinbote-Botkin/King Charles, having somehow escaped Nabokov’s authorial
control, are disputing their own identities. In comes the creator to end the
meta-meta-fictional nonsense?"
JM: Right! VN's
Proof by Strong Superior Authority (PSSA),apud SKB. And the three men around a table, plus the
dictionaried tall intense one, indeed, could be picturing VN's trio (no
Gradus?).
I'm only half-way
through Tavares's fourth book ( by coincidence the fourth of his
Kingdom tetralogy: "Learning to Pray in the Era of Technique"), but
I'll dare to affirm that Tavares is almost the exact opposite of Nabokov.
Whereas Nabokov's verbal world expands, Tavares' constricts (the reader must
learn the exact meaning of "intense" to remember it whenever he finds it in
any novel, for example). He is a lover of details (at least of
extremely detailed descriptions), he has a fascinating view of
"forking paths" (unlike Borges & closer to Nabokov), and about "un coup
de dées". No exhuberatings but parable-like flatness, metaphors but no
hypertext. A great shattering read...
It's too early to conclude that
he writes like it's said of American Western movies ("seen one,
discover you've seen them all" or "seen them all, discover you've
seen one"). He has enough strength to alter one's optimistic vision of
mankind and its world, but he is in the grip of the book-selling.machine
now.
Search-tools inform that
Tavares has been translated into English * and, very successfully,
into French. He was awarded the prize for "The Best Foreign Book
2010 published in France" (Gonçalo M. Tavares vence Prémio do Melhor Livro
Estrangeiro 2010 - 22 de Novembro, 2010), to the fourth novel of his
series "O Reino." This prize was created in 1948 and is considered the
"antechamber of the Nobel," by the editorial group that sustains it. They
chose Musil, García Marquez, Grass, Rushdie, Sabato, Pamuch, Roth and Antunes.
The surname of one of the members of the jury is Nabokov (Ivan
Nabokov, Plon)**
..........................................................................................................................................................
*..."This is a powerful little book and the Dalkey Archive should be
commended for bringing it to an anglophone audience. Kushshner's smooth
translation makes good work of its deadpan humour and the atmosphere of
oppression. The rest of the "kingdom" series is forth coming; if Jerusalem is
anything to go by, Tavares's standing will soon be global. TIMES LITERARY
SUPPLEMENT .
** André Bay, Daniel Arsand ( Éditions Phebus et Auteur),
Manuel Carcassonne (Éditions Grasset), Gérard de Cortanze (Gallimard), Nathalie
Crom (Telerama), Solange Fasquelle (Femina prize), Anne Freyer (Seuil),
Christine Jordis (Gallimard; Femina), Jean-Claude Lebrun ( L Humanité), Joseph
Mace-Scaron (Marianne), Ivan Nabokov ( Plon), Joel Schmidt (writer) and Laurent
Ebzant (Hyatt Regency Paris-Madeleine).: