This text was part of an address delivered at the Creative Writing Program of the University of Philadelphia, September 2005.
Fiction and the Dream John Banville
A man wakes in the morning, feeling light-headed, even somewhat dazed. Standing in the curtained gloom in his pyjamas, blinking, he feels that somehow he is not his real, vital, fully conscious self. It is as if that other, alert version of him is still in bed, and that what has got up is a sort of shadow-self, tremulous, two-dimensional. What is the matter? Is he “coming down with something”? He does seem a little feverish. But no, he decides, what is afflicting him is no physical malady. There is, rather, something the matter with his mind. His brain feels heavy, and as if it were a size too large for his skull. Then, suddenly, in a rush, he remembers the dream.
It was one of those dreams that seem to take the entire night to be dreamt. All of him was involved in it, his unconscious, his subconscious, his memory, his imagination; even his physical self seemed thrown into the effort. The details of the dream flood back, uncanny, absurd, terrifying, and all freighted with a mysterious weight—such a weight, it seems, as is carried by only the most profound experiences of life, of waking life, that is. And indeed, all of his life, all of the essentials of his life, were somehow there, in the dream, folded tight, like the petals of a rosebud. Some great truth has been revealed to him, in a code he knows he will not be able to crack. But cracking the code is not important, is not necessary; in fact, as in a work of art, the code itself is the meaning.
He puts on his dressing gown and his slippers and goes downstairs. Everything around him looks strange. Has his wife’s eyes developed overnight that slight imbalance, the right one a fraction lower than the left, or is it something he has never noticed before? The cat in its corner watches him out of an eerie stillness. Sounds enter from the street, familiar and at the same time mysterious. The dream is infecting his waking world.
He begins to tell his wife about the dream, feeling a little bashful, for he knows how silly the dreamed events will sound. His wife listens, nodding distractedly. He tries to give his words something of the weight that there was in the dream. He is coming to the crux of the thing, the moment when his dreaming self woke in the midst of the dark wood, among the murmuring voices. Suddenly his wife opens her mouth wide—is she going to beg him to stop, is she going to cry out that she finds what he is telling her too terrifying?—is she going to scream? No: she yawns, mightily, with little inward gasps, the hinges of her jaws cracking, and finishes with a long, shivery sigh, and asks if he would like to finish what is left of the scrambled egg.
The dreamer droops, dejected. He has offered something precious and it has been spurned. How can she not feel the significance of the things he has been describing to her? How can she not see the bare trees and the darkened air, the memory of which is darkening the very air around them now—how can she not hear the murmurous voices, as he heard them? He trudges back upstairs to get himself ready for another, ordinary, day. The momentous revelations of the night begin to recede. It was just a dream, after all.
But what if, instead of accepting the simple fact that our most chaotic, our most exciting, our most significant dreams are nothing but boring to others, even our significant others—what if he said to his wife, All right, I’ll show you! I’ll sit down and write out the dream in such an intense and compelling formulation that when you read it you, too, will have the dream; you, too, will find yourself wandering in the wild wood at nightfall; you, too, will hear the dream voices telling you your own most secret secrets.
I can think of no better analogy than this for the process of writing a novel. The novelist’s aim is to make the reader have the dream—not just to read about it, but actually to experience it: to have the dream; to write the novel.
Now, these are dangerous assertions. In this post-religious age—and the fundamentalists, Christian, Muslim and other, only attest to the fact that ours is an age after religion—people are looking about in some desperation for a new priesthood. And there is something about the artist in general and the writer in particular which seems priest-like: the unceasing commitment to an etherial faith, the mixture of arrogance and humility, the daily devotions, the confessional readiness to attend the foibles and fears of the laity. The writer goes into a room, the inviolable domestic holy of holies—the study—and remains there alone for hour after hour in eerie silence. With what deities does he commune, in there, what rituals does he enact? Surely he knows something that others, the uninitiates, do not; surely he is privy to a wisdom far beyond theirs.
These are delusions, of course. The artist, the writer, knows no more about the great matters of life and the spirit than anyone else—indeed, he probably knows less. This is the paradox. As Henry James has it, we work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, the rest is the madness of art. And Kafka, with a sad laugh, adds: The artist is the man who has nothing to say.
The writer is not a priest, not a shaman, not a holy dreamer. Yet his work is dragged up out of that darksome well where the essential self cowers, in fear of the light.
I have no grand psychological theory of creativity. I do not pretend to know how the mind, consciously or otherwise, processes the base metal of quotidian life into the gold of art. Even if I could find out, I would not want to. Certain things should not be investigated.
The dream world is a strange place. Everything there is at once real and unreal. The most trivial or ridiculous things can seem to carry a tremendous significance, a significance which—and here I agree with Freud—the waking mind would never dare to suggest or acknowledge. In dreams the mind speaks its truths through the medium of a fabulous nonsense. So, I think, does the novel.
The writing of fiction is far more than the telling of stories. It is an ancient, an elemental, urge which springs, like the dream, from a desperate imperative to encode and preserve things that are buried in us deep beyond words. This is its significance, its danger and its glory.
end
Литературата и сънят
Джон Банвил
Един човек се събужда сутрин, чувства се замаян, дори малко зашеметен. Стои по пижама в затуления с пердета сумрак, премигва, има чувството, че някак не е своят истински, пълен с живот, осъзнат аз. Сякаш онази друга, будна негова версия е още в леглото, а тази, която е станала, е нещо като сянка, трепетлива, двуизмерна. Какво става? Дали не се разболява? Изглежда е малко трескав. Но не, отсича той, онова, което го мъчи, не е физическо неразположение. По-скоро става нещо с ума му. Усеща мозъка си натежал, като че ли е един номер по-голям за черепа му. Тогава, изведнъж, като в пристъп, той си спомня съня.
Беше един от онези сънища, на които явно им трябва цяла нощ, за да бъдат изсънувани. Целият той беше въвлечен в него: неговото безсъзнание, неговото подсъзнание, неговата памет, неговото въображение; дори физическият му аз като че ли беше впрегнат в усилието. Подробностите от съня нахлуват отново: обезпокоителни, абсурдни, ужасяващи и носещи загадъчен товар – товар, какъвто изглежда носят само най-дълбоките преживявания в живота, тоест в будния живот. И наистина, целият му живот, всичко съществено в живота му, беше по някакъв начин там, в съня, плътно свито като листчетата на розова пъпка. Някаква голяма истина му е била разкрита в код, който той знае, че няма да може да разбие. Но разбиването на кода не е важно, не е нужно; всъщност, също като в произведение на изкуството, кодът сам по себе си е значението.
Той си слага халата и пантофите и слиза на долния етаж. Всичко около него изглежда странно. Дали очите на жена му са придобили през нощта това леко несъответствие, дясното стои малко по-надолу от лявото, или той не го е забелязвал по-рано? В ъгъла си котката го гледа тайнствено притихнала. Звуци идват от улицата, познати и същевременно загадъчни. Сънят заразява будния му свят.
Той започва да разказва на жена си за съня, малко се стеснява, защото знае колко глупаво ще прозвучат сънуваните събития. Жена му слуша, кимайки разсеяно. Той се опитва да придаде на думите си нещо от тежестта, която характеризираше съня. Стига до същността на въпроса, до момента, в който сънуващият му аз се буди в тъмната гора, сред шепнещите гласове. Изведнъж жена му отваря уста – дали ще го помоли да спре, дали ще извика, че намира онова, което той ѝ разказва, за ужасяващо? – дали ще изкрещи? Не – прозява се, широко, с леки вдишвания, краищата на челюстите ѝ изпукват, завършва с дълга, треперлива въздишка и пита дали той би искал да изяде остатъка от бърканото яйце.
Сънуващият посърва обезсърчен. Той беше предложил нещо ценно и то беше отхвърлено. Как така тя не чувства значението на нещата, които той ѝ описваше? Как така тя не вижда голите дървета и стъмнения въздух, споменът за който стъмнява въздуха около тях сега – как така тя не чува шепнещите гласове, както ги чу той? Той се качва тежко отново горе, за да се приготви за още един обикновен ден. Важните откровения на нощта започват да отстъпват. Беше просто сън в крайна сметка.
Какво би станало обаче, ако вместо да приемем простия факт, че нашите най-хаотични, нашите най-вълнуващи, нашите най-важни сънища са неминуемо скучни за другите, дори за партньорите ни – какво би станало, ако той кажеше на жена си, Добре, ще ти покажа! Ще седна и ще опиша съня с толкова силни и завладяващи фрази, че когато го прочетеш, ти също ще го сънуваш; ти също ще скиташ в дивата гора по здрач; ти също ще чуеш гласовете от съня да ти казват собствените ти най-тайни тайни.
Не мога да се сетя за по-добра аналогия от тази на процеса на писане на роман. Стремежът на романиста е да накара читателя да сънува съня – не само да чете за него, а действително да го преживее: да сънува съня; да напише романа.
Сега това са опасни твърдения. В настоящата пострелигиозна епоха – а фундаменталистите, християнски, ислямски и други, само свидетелстват за това, че живеем във време след религиозността – хората отчаяно търсят ново духовно призвание. И има нещо в твореца изобщо и в писателя в частност, което напомня духовник: непрестанната отдаденост на безплътна вяра, смесицата от арогантност и смирение, всекидневните ритуали, изповедническата готовност да обръща внимание на слабостите и страховете на миряните. Писателят отива в една стая, неприкосновената домашна светая светих – кабинета – и остава там часове наред, сам, в тайнствена тишина. С какви божества влиза в общение, какви ритуали изпълнява? Без съмнение той знае нещо, което другите, непосветените, не знаят; без съмнение той притежава мъдрост, далеч надхвърляща тяхната.
Това са заблуди, разбира се. Творецът, писателят не знае повече за големите житейски и духовни въпроси от всеки друг – всъщност той вероятно знае по-малко. Ето го парадокса. Както казва Хенри Джеймс, ние работим в тъмното, правим каквото можем, даваме каквото имаме, останалото е лудостта на изкуството. А Кафка с тъжен смях добавя: Творецът е човекът, който няма какво да каже.
Писателят не е свещеник, нито шаман, нито свят мечтател. Творчеството му обаче е извлечено от онзи мрачен кладенец, където съкровеният аз се свива от страх от светлината.
Аз нямам велика психологическа теория за творчеството. Аз не претендирам да знам как умът, съзнателно или не, превръща тенекията на всекидневния живот в златото на изкуството. Дори да можех да разбера, не бих искал. Някои неща не бива да бъдат проучвани.
Светът на сънищата е странно място. Всичко там е едновременно действително и недействително. Най-тривиални или нелепи неща могат сякаш да имат огромно значение, значение, което – и тук съм съгласен с Фройд – будният ум никога не би посмял да загатне или признае. В сънищата умът говори истините си чрез посредничеството на невероятни безсмислици. Същото според мен прави и романът.
Писането на литература е много повече от разказването на истории. То е древен, изначален порив, който идва, също като съня, от отчаяна нужда да се кодират и съхраняват неща, заровени в нас дълбоко отвъд думите. Това е неговото значение, неговата опасност и неговото величие.
край
Some Notes on John Banville’s Fiction and the Dream by Teodora Tzankova
I am grateful to Prof. Hedwig Schwall for inviting me to translate Fiction and the Dream by John Banville, an author whom I admired as a reader, without the thought of being his translator ever crossing my mind.
There are many interesting aspects of John Banville’s essay: the allusions to Freudian psychoanalysis and the mocked but still viable Romanticism being the most obvious ones.
I would like to point out the sense of immediacy in the first half of the text, the ‘here and now’ of the story, conveyed to the reader by means of the Present Tense, the self-corrections (‘life, waking life, that is’) and the self-questioning (‘what is the matter?’, ‘is she…?’) of the protagonist. The immediacy of the story brings character and reader close and thus the reader has the story fulfilling the novelist’s aim as it is defined in the essay itself. A fine metatextual move but we actually expected it from a writer of such calibre, did we not?
From the point of view of translation, the immediacy predefines the verbal forms to be used in Bulgarian. In our verbal system the category of evidentiality is essential: if the speakers have not witnessed an event they report, they usually use renarrative forms. Nevertheless the renarrative forms express not only unevidentiality but doubt and disbelief as well. The narrator in the first half of Banville’s essay is a third person, moreover omniscient, which does not necessarily suggest evidentiality. It was rather the immediacy of the story, the closeness between character and reader that made me set aside all possible connotations of distance and mistrust and opt for evidential forms.
Another feature worth noting of Banville’s text is its peculiar architecture: it starts with confusion, which soon gives way to a revelation, but the attempt of the character to share his extraordinary experience fails dramatically. The second part of the essay mirrors the first one: it presents itself as a salvation from failure, a potentially more successful way to share, and posits an analogy between the writer and the priest; then the analogy is ridiculed, the knowledge and the wisdom of the artist are denied. The denial is not absolute, however, since the ability of the writer to deal with dark and hidden aspects of human nature remains beyond doubt; and that is what counts ultimately. The rise from uncertainty to a high point, then the sudden descent to a low one, the bifurcation of the line which lets the movement go up again, defines Banville’s essay. It is all the more telling then that the high point on which the text ends brings forward covert and yet unspoken depths. High and low cannot exist separately, it turns out, and the writing of fiction is at its highest when it goes deep down.
The architecture of the essay does not affect translation directly. However, it makes translators aware of the importance of the vocabulary associated with highs and lows, and urges them to transfer it to another language with special care.
Finally, there is hardly anything less original than to talk about John Banville’s style. Yet even in a short text like Fiction and the Dream one cannot help but marvel at the carefully ordered adjectives (‘shadow-self, tremulous, two-dimensional’), the peculiar comparison (‘the essentials of his life... folded tight, like the petals of a rosebud’), the alliteration right after the climax (‘the dreamer droops, dejected’), the captivating rhythm. All of them are not easily rendered in another language but I would rather draw the attention to the translation of the key words of the essay: fiction and dream.
The Bulgarian word ‘фикция’ derives from the same Latin root as ‘fiction’ and looks like an obvious choice. Nevertheless, its use in Bulgarian is limited: outside academia it is rarely used – it cannot be seen in libraries or bookstores designing the section of prose fiction – and has a slightly pejorative connotation, meaning something invented, nonexistent. That is why I decided to translate ‘fiction’ with ‘литература’ (‘literature’), a neutral word of common use.
The English word ‘dream’ means both ‘an experience in sleep’ and ‘a deep aspiration.’ Different words – ‘сън’ and ‘мечта’ respectively – are used for these meanings in Bulgarian, although ‘сън’ may also, in rare occasions, stand for ‘an illusion, an unrealisable aspiration.’ In Banville’s essay the character has a terrifying experience in sleep so I chose the word ‘сън’ as appropriate for almost all cases. Yet there are instances in which the meaning of ‘a deep aspiration’ is underlying (‘he knows how silly the dreamed events will sound’); despite that I opted for ‘сън’ here too because otherwise the primary, literal meaning would be lost. And just once the word ‘dreamer’ is used in the sense of ‘a visionary’ (‘the writer is... not a holy dreamer’) so here I decided to render it in Bulgarian with ‘мечтател’.
John Banville