Blindly (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

by Magris, Claudio

  A FEW WORDS of acknowledgment regarding source materials. Citations or quasi-citations from the myth of Jason and the Argonauts that re-echo throughout the book are taken from the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodios (c. 250 BC) and the later Orphic Argonautics (fifth century AD). The specific edition of the former that was used is Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, translated by R.C. Seaton, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1912). Citations from the Orphic Argonautics were translated by the present translator; though there is a French translation of this work by Georges Dottin (1930), to my knowledge there is no English version as yet.

  The description of the 1794 fire at the Royal Palace of Christiansburg in Copenhagen is the author’s invention, except for a passage intentionally paraphrased from that given by the Danish poet Adam Oehlenschläger, who was an eyewitness to the event, and a subsequent passage cited from Jorgensen’s autobiography (The Convict King. Being the life and adventures of Jorgen Jorgenson, retold by James Francis Hogan, London: Ward & Downey, 1891, p. 42ff.). The description of the hot air balloon ride and the optical illusion by which the passengers see themselves as enormous shapes reflected on a cloud is entirely the author’s, though there are occasional echoes from an account by Prince Hermann Ludwig Heinrich von Pückler-Muskau. Reverend Blunt’s sermons, invented by the author, draw their rhetoric and metaphors principally from the volume Ecclesiologia by Hugo Rahner (original title: Symbole der Kirche. Die Eklesiologie der Väter). For the Tasmanian expressions found in the novel, the author consulted Wilhelm Schmidt’s Tasmanische Sprachen (Utrecht-Anvers, 1952), as well as the writings of Jorgensen himself—for example, A Narrative of the Habits, Manners, and Customs of the Aborigines of Van Diemen’s Land, which contains a chapter on the languages of the Tasmanians.

  The verse in Triestine dialect, “Del mio fato no me lagno, go trovà un altro bagno,” is from a poem by Cesare Colussi, one of the many individuals who emigrated from Trieste to Australia after the Second World War; it is found in the volume Giuliano-Dalmati in Australia, edited by Gianfranco Cresciani (1999). Passages regarding Italian emigration to Australia, in particular that of Triestines and Giulians after the Second World War, are drawn from various sources, specifically the work of Cresciani. In the pastiche regarding the war between the Venetians and the Uscocchi pirates from the sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries, the altered, reworked quotations are drawn from Nicola Contarini, Delle Istorie veneziane et altre a loro annesse, cominciando dall’anno 1597 e successivamente, now in Storici e politici veneti del Cinquecento e del Seicento, edited by Gino Benzoni and Tiziano Zanato (Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1982).

  The phrase “entering a nocturnal smoky purgatory” is taken from Marisa Madieri’s Verde acqua, the chapter entitled “April 29, 1983.” The line from Dante’s Inferno, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” is from John Ciardi’s translation (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1954). The lines “Ash tree of the family / master of the sword” are drawn from the Sonatorrek, a skaldic poem in twenty-five stanzas by Egill Skalla-Grímsson (c. 910–990). “But the piglet has to suffer for the piggery of the porker” is taken from Linnaeus, Nemesis Divina IV.i.4.3 (edited and translated by Michael John Petry, Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2001, p. 185). The “final darkness in which metaphors die” is a hidden citation from the novel Un vento sottile by Stefano Jacomuzzi (Milan: Garzanti, 1988). The lines “Grim stings the adder’s forked dart; The vipers nestle in my heart … Fifty times and one I stood Foremost on the field of blood, Tinging my sword with blood, And no king my equal have I ever met” are loosely drawn from two translations of The Death-Song of Ragnar Lodbrok: W. Herbert’s in The Masterpieces and the History of Literature: Analysis, Criticism, Character and Incident, by Julian Hawthorne et al. (Hamilton Book Co., 1906) and Owen Connellan’s in vol. 2 of Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters, by Michael O’Clery et al. (Irish Roots Cafe, 2003).

  The quotations referring to the infant god are from Robert Graves, Hercules, My Shipmate (alternate title: The Golden Fleece; New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1945, p. 158). The lines beginning “She plunged, poor woman, into the sea” are from Euripides’ Medea, v. 1285ff., translated by C.A.E. Luschnig. The bawdy song “Oh! if I had her …” is a Tasmanian shanty reprinted in Shantymen and Shantyboys by William Doerflinger; the excerpts were discovered by Doerflinger in The Quid (London, 1832). The phrase “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes,’ and your ‘no,’ ‘no,’” which the reverend has the natives recite, is a biblical reference to Matthew 5. The singsong verse “cassezigonaiedè siraicrumpira zielahisciaseplema,” a Croatian nonsense rhyme recited by children in the area around Fiume, is taken from the abovementioned Verde acqua by Marisa Madieri, the section entitled “January 18, 1982.” The chant heard as the natives slip away in the bush paraphrases a song contained in Canti aborigeni australiani, collected by Graziella Englaro (Milan: Mondadori, 1999). The book of recipes mentioned is The Australian Convict Recipe Book, Featuring Ex-Convict Bessie Baldwin Cook to Sir John and Lady Franklin at Government House 1842–1849. The episode about the petty officer Barclay, who flogged the convicts to make their scarred backs look like the back of a tiger, is a true story, reported by Robert Hughes in his book The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding (Knopf, 1987).

  —Anne Milano Appel

  October 2009

  CLAUDIO MAGRIS is a critic, journalist, novelist, and translator, and one of Europe’s leading cultural philosophers. He is a professor of German studies at the University of Trieste and writes for Corriere della Sera and several other European publications. His novels and theatrical works include Un Altro Mare (A Different Sea), La mostra, Stadelmann, and Illazioni su una sciabola (Inferences from a Sabre), and his novel Alla Cieca (Blindly) won the Premio Campiello Europa in 2009. Published essays include Il mito absburgico nella letteratura austriaca moderna, as well as Lontano da dove: Joseph Roth e la tradizione ebraico-orientale. Magris’s cultural and literary nonfiction titles have won him particular acclaim worldwide: Danubio (Danube) has been translated into more than twenty languages, and Microcosmi (Microcosms), which has been translated into eighteen languages, received the 1997 Premio Strega. Magris was awarded the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in 1990, the Erasmus Prize in 2001, the Prince of Asturias Prize in 2004, the Österreichischer Staatspreis für Europäische Literatur in 2005, and the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels in 2009. Magris is also the recipient of several honorary degrees.

  ANNE MILANO APPEL is a professional translator and native English speaker. She has been translating professionally for over sixteen years, and is a member of ALTA, ATA, and PEN. Many of her book-length translations have been published, and shorter works that she has authored or translated have appeared in other professional and literary venues. Her translation of Stefano Bortolussi’s novel Head Above Water was the winner of the 2004 Northern California Book Award for Translation, and her translation of Giulio Leoni’s novel Mosaic Crimes was published in 2007. Most recently she translated Elena Kostioukovitch’s Why Italians Love to Talk about Food, Giovanni Arpino’s Scent of a Woman, P.O. Box Love by Paola Calvetti, and Maurizio de Giovanni’s I Will Have Vengeance. To learn more about Anne and her translations visit her website: www.annemilanoappel.com.