Read Online Here and Now: Letters (2008-2011) by Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
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I think—had decided to dispense with the teaching of foreign languages. A number of local citizens were interviewed on camera and asked to give their reactions to this new development, and one man said—and this is an exact quote; his words burned themselves into my brain and have been lodged there ever since—: “I have no problem with it, no problem at all. If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”
Stupid and disturbing as that comment might be (and hilarious, too, of course), it seems to touch on something essential about the idea of a mother tongue. You are so thoroughly impregnated by your own language, your sense of the world is so deeply formed by the language you speak, that anyone who does not speak as you do is considered a barbarian—or, conversely, it is inconceivable to you that the son of God could have spoken a language other than your own, for he is the world, and the world exists in one language only, the one that happens to be yours.
Just three generations ago, my great-grandparents spoke Russian, Polish, and Yiddish. That I was raised in an English-speaking country strikes me as a wholly contingent fact, a fluke of history. My father’s mother—my demented, homicidal grandmother—spent most of her life in America but spoke English with such a thick accent that I had trouble understanding her. The only thing I ever saw her read was the Daily Forward , a newspaper printed in Yiddish. Even more interesting is the case of Siri’s father. A third-generation Norwegian-American born in 1922, he grew up in such an isolated rural community—largely inhabited by Norwegian immigrants and their descendants—that all his life he spoke English with a distinctive Norwegian brogue. What was his mother tongue? Siri’s Norwegian-born mother didn’t move to this country until she was thirty, and because her mother came to stay with the Hustvedts in Minnesota after Siri was born (which meant that Norwegian temporarily became the language of the household), the first language Siri spoke was Norwegian. What is her mother tongue? She is an American, a superb writer whose medium is the English language, and yet every now and then she will make a small slip, mostly to do with prepositions (the most daunting element of any language). Water under the bridge. Water over the dam. The two expressions mean the same thing: it’s all in the past. But Siri is the only person who has ever said: Water over the bridge.
You were born in a bilingual country, which complicates matters considerably. But if you spoke English at home when you were a child, then you are first and foremost an English speaker. South African English, later tempered by your long stays in the lands of British English, American English, and Australian English. There is also Irish English, Indian English, Caribbean English, and God knows what else. Just as the English no longer own cricket and soccer, they no longer own English. Laugh at the notion of “American” if you will, but the fact is that when the French publish books by American writers, the title page reads: traduit de l’americain , not traduit de l’anglais . I have many grievances against America, but English in its American incarnation is not one of them.
On the other hand, we who are writers—no matter what our language—should take heart from these words by Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” I am referring, of course, to Harpo’s brother. Whose real name was Julius.
With warmest greetings to you and Dorothy,
Paul
May 27, 2009
Dear Paul,
You say that the title pages of French translations of your books read, Traduit de l’americain . Mine say Traduit de l’anglais (Sud-Africaine). I’d like someone to point to the moments when my anglais becomes sud-africaine . To me it reads like anglais purged of markers of national origin, and a little bloodless for that reason.
I think I
Stupid and disturbing as that comment might be (and hilarious, too, of course), it seems to touch on something essential about the idea of a mother tongue. You are so thoroughly impregnated by your own language, your sense of the world is so deeply formed by the language you speak, that anyone who does not speak as you do is considered a barbarian—or, conversely, it is inconceivable to you that the son of God could have spoken a language other than your own, for he is the world, and the world exists in one language only, the one that happens to be yours.
Just three generations ago, my great-grandparents spoke Russian, Polish, and Yiddish. That I was raised in an English-speaking country strikes me as a wholly contingent fact, a fluke of history. My father’s mother—my demented, homicidal grandmother—spent most of her life in America but spoke English with such a thick accent that I had trouble understanding her. The only thing I ever saw her read was the Daily Forward , a newspaper printed in Yiddish. Even more interesting is the case of Siri’s father. A third-generation Norwegian-American born in 1922, he grew up in such an isolated rural community—largely inhabited by Norwegian immigrants and their descendants—that all his life he spoke English with a distinctive Norwegian brogue. What was his mother tongue? Siri’s Norwegian-born mother didn’t move to this country until she was thirty, and because her mother came to stay with the Hustvedts in Minnesota after Siri was born (which meant that Norwegian temporarily became the language of the household), the first language Siri spoke was Norwegian. What is her mother tongue? She is an American, a superb writer whose medium is the English language, and yet every now and then she will make a small slip, mostly to do with prepositions (the most daunting element of any language). Water under the bridge. Water over the dam. The two expressions mean the same thing: it’s all in the past. But Siri is the only person who has ever said: Water over the bridge.
You were born in a bilingual country, which complicates matters considerably. But if you spoke English at home when you were a child, then you are first and foremost an English speaker. South African English, later tempered by your long stays in the lands of British English, American English, and Australian English. There is also Irish English, Indian English, Caribbean English, and God knows what else. Just as the English no longer own cricket and soccer, they no longer own English. Laugh at the notion of “American” if you will, but the fact is that when the French publish books by American writers, the title page reads: traduit de l’americain , not traduit de l’anglais . I have many grievances against America, but English in its American incarnation is not one of them.
On the other hand, we who are writers—no matter what our language—should take heart from these words by Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” I am referring, of course, to Harpo’s brother. Whose real name was Julius.
With warmest greetings to you and Dorothy,
Paul
May 27, 2009
Dear Paul,
You say that the title pages of French translations of your books read, Traduit de l’americain . Mine say Traduit de l’anglais (Sud-Africaine). I’d like someone to point to the moments when my anglais becomes sud-africaine . To me it reads like anglais purged of markers of national origin, and a little bloodless for that reason.
I think I
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