Product Description

A novel of tremendous scope and beauty, The Translator tells of the relationship between an exiled Russian poet and his American translator during the Cuban missile crisis, a time when a writer's words -- especially forbidden ones -- could be powerful enough to change the course of history.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111274 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-01
• Released on: 2003-03-04
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.com
John Crowley's The Translator is a novel with a time bomb ticking over its head. It takes place during the dark days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as an American coed develops a complicated relationship with an exiled Russian poet who is her college professor, poetic collaborator, and perhaps lover. Innokenti Falin is a man of many secrets--but then, so is Christa Malone. Growing up, her father spoke only vaguely about his work with the government and computers; her Green Beret brother died under mysterious circumstances in Southeast Asia; and Christa herself has a few things in her past that she'd rather not contemplate.

In their power to evoke the physical pleasures of poetry, the scenes in which Falin and Malone work together evoke A.S. Byatt's Possession, another gripping novel about language and the life of the mind. Improbably, Crowley even makes the act of translation sexy:

She thought, long after, that she had not then ever explored a lover's body, learned its folds and articulations, muscle under skin, bone under muscle, but that this was really most like that: this slow probing and working in his language, taking it in or taking hold of it; his words, his life, in her heart, in her mouth too.

The novel's principal shortcoming is that it can't quite make up its mind whether it's a cloak-and-dagger cold war novel or a less realistic fable about love, loss, and the power of art. Nonetheless, as the depiction of an era, a passion, and one woman's helplessness in the face of history, The Translator succeeds. Much can be forgiven of a book that makes us feel that words are important--that they can in fact change the world. --Mary Park

From Publishers Weekly
Writer's writer Crowley, who has been working for years on a series that weaves fantasy elements into larger, more naturalistic plots (Love and Sleep; Aegypt; Daemonomania), here abandons the otherworldly for a novel that builds realistically toward a historic event: the Cuban missile crisis. Christa "Kit" Malone and her brother, Ben, have rarely lived anywhere longer than a year: their father works on some hush-hush, inexplicable cybernetic business for the Department of Defense, and their mother has become an expert in packing. When Ben, with whom Kit is very tight, joins the Green Berets at the end of the 1950s, Kit, partly in protest, gets pregnant. Teenage pregnancy being more scandalous then than now, her folks stash her with some nuns until she has the baby, which is born dead. With this secret behind her, she goes to a midwestern university and meets a recently exiled Russian poet, Innokenti Falin. Kit, who has written prize-winning poetry herself, is attracted by Falin's story. An orphan raised on the street, his poems grow out of the intersection between learned and street culture, and are indigestible to the Soviets. After Kit receives news that Ben has died in a freak accident in the Philippines, she returns to the university and becomes, if not Falin's lover, at least his partner. Then the Cold War heats up over Cuba, an unnamed government agency starts nosing around Falin and the poet himself begins to act mysteriously. Since novels are built to show, not tell, few novelists, outside of Nabokov in Pale Fire, can both outline a great poet and produce the poetry. Although Falin does emerge as a vivid figure despite the faltering verses attributed to him, Kit never rings true. Crowley won't break out of cult status with this novel, and his fans may be puzzled by his hiatus from the fantastic.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Crowley's latest novel, set during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, demonstrates to the reader, among other things, the escape that poetry and literature can provide in times of trouble. Kit Malone, an aspiring writer at a small midwestern college, develops a relationship with exiled Russian poet Innokenti Falin. Poetry becomes common ground for these two people with troubled pasts. They develop a close friendship, and eventually Falin asks her to help translate his poems into English. Working with Falin enables Kit to face her own demons and troubles. Their friendship turns to romance as the international crisis builds. The world survives the Soviet-American crisis, but their relationship does not. Finally, on a trip to Russia years later, Kit can come to terms with their relationship. A moving, thoughtful book. Ted Leventhal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Customer Reviews

Beautifully written
Told during the 1960s with the Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop, John Crowley has created a smart love story in The Translator. The story follows Christa, a college student who develops a relationship with one of her instructors, Falin, a Russian poet who has been exiled from his country under mysterious circumstances. Much like the translations that Christa is making for Falin of his poems, their relationship is complicated and intricate. John Crowley's prose is beautifully written and the story is well paced. An overall enjoyable book.

Love, Poets, and the Cold War
This is a beautiful and heartbreaking novel, set in a time that is fading for many of us: the Cuban missile crisis. The heroine, Christa Malone, is awakened from the coldness and desolation of her family life by her love for the poet Innocenti Falin, who himself survived a devastating childhood as one of the lost children of the post-war Soviet Union. The writing, especially the poetry of the two main characters, is very fine. There is a touch of magic realism to the ending, which will make you want to reread and reread. A lovely lovely book.

Lost in Translation
I thought this novel would be interesting, and it was, at the outset. I found myself engrossed in the lead character and in the misplaced Russian literary figure teaching somewhere in the midwest. There were good pieces of poetry that were being analyzed, and an interesting relationship was being developed between student and teacher.
But somewhere in the middle, I lost interest because there was just too much preciousness about it all, too much meandering in the writing, and I didn't seem to care anymore.
I did read the work all the way through, but never regained interest in it.
I wouldn't recommend it.