What time is it?
Michael Wood, 16 February 1989
Dreams of Roses and Fire
by Eyvind Johnson, translated by Erik Friis.
Dedalus, 384 pp., £11.95, December 1988,0 946626 40 5 Show More
by Eyvind Johnson, translated by Erik Friis.
Dedalus, 384 pp., £11.95, December 1988,
Women in a River Landscape
by Heinrich Böll, translated by David McLintock.
Secker, 208 pp., £10.95, February 1989,0 436 05460 4 Show More
by Heinrich Böll, translated by David McLintock.
Secker, 208 pp., £10.95, February 1989,
The Standard Life of a Temporary Pantyhose Salesman
by Aldo Busi, translated by Raymond Rosenthal.
Faber, 430 pp., £12.95, January 1989,0 571 14657 0 Show More
by Aldo Busi, translated by Raymond Rosenthal.
Faber, 430 pp., £12.95, January 1989,
“... If it’s December 1941 in Casablanca,’ Humphrey Bogart moodily asks in a famous movie, ‘what time is it in New York?’ The answer is not as obvious as it looks. Time, especially political time, has snags, hitches, runs; lags behind in some places, suddenly catches up. Reading translations, which have often travelled to us across all kinds of odd delays, we could do worse than adapt Bogart’s question to our texts ... ”
