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: #445650 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-01
• Released on: 2003-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780380815371
• BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Amazon.com Review
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

Clear-eyed cameo of an era - and more
John Crowley's prose, always a delight, just keeps getting better. Here it's polished like fine crystal: no flashy lyricism, no polysyllabic raids on Roget, just limpid phrases that speak freshly and place you, antennae quivering, in the center of the scene. "The Translator" presents itself as a quiet, small, well-lighted novel, a chamber piece with only four or five speaking parts. On those terms, it succeeds just about perfectly.

In a sense, all of Crowley's novels, even those set in some far future, have been historical novels. Lately, he's become confident enough to choose periods his readers can remember. His ongoing tetralogy (begun in "Aegypt") has been bringing the mid seventies back to life with perfect political and cultural pitch; "The Translator" does the same for the repressed, restless, hopeful, doom-haunted Zeitgeist of the few years between Eisenhower's fifties and LBJ's sixties. Within that grey-lit zone unfolds the story of a campus romance. Its special tincture of the erotic with the Platonic - when a Russian interlocutor, many years later, asks our heroine Kit whether she and Professor Falin were "lovers", she is honestly unable to remember - would have rung false in any other epoch.

But while Kit narrates her simple story, Crowley has many other fish surreptitiously sizzling in the fire. He is studying the nature of translation, the nature of personal identity, the nature of national identity; the ways in which poetry fails to be genuine poetry both when it is, and when it is not, politically "relevant." And finally the themes and the personal histories of this uncharacteristically realistic novel do not appear to be resolvable, apart from the angelic mythology explored in Falin's final poem.

I rate this book at four and a half stars, but I round it up because of my strong feeling that there's much more here than has yet met my eye. Perpetually fluttering his wings at this volume's edges and crannies is the figure of Vladimir Nabokov - also a "translator", also a Russian poet in exile, like Kit a fan of Lewis Carroll's Alice, and who famously adopted a position with regard to political relevance in art seemingly diametrically opposed to the one taken by Crowley's Falin. So, I suspect that this book is even more carefully crafted than its exquisite surface would suggest. In particular, its' worth considering whether by the time the story ends it is only poems that have been "translated."

The Next Big Thing
John Crowley is this era's unrecognized literary genius. Working quietly, diligently, precisely, he turns out an exquisite novel every few years. Though lauded by critics, his books rarely seem to achieve commercial success. Don't be surprised, however, if one of these days JC receives a Pulitzer or a National Book Award. Then, perhaps, all of the wonderful gems which have gone out of print will be brought back and celebrated.

As of the writing of this review, both Dale Earnheardt, Jr. and Pat Buchanan have books on the bestseller lists. Keep that fact in mind if you feel any reluctance to proceed further because you've never heard of Mr. Crowley. And if you should come across one of his fans, be wary - they're very protective. Also ask them to point you toward a used book store that carries "Aegypt," and "Little, Big," where you can snatch them up while they're still available.

Those of you familiar with this novel's predecessors may be surprised by the lack of alchemy, Rosicrucians, mythical creatures, etc. in this work. What isn't lacking is Crowley's loving attention, sheer joy, in fact, with regard to language. And though not in the form of the metaphysical or the occult, the reader is also rewarded with a glimpse of the secret or mystical confluence, or inter-connectivity that lies beneath the surface of reality.

The Amazon guide gives an accurate snapshot of the plot, ...the most cursory reading of the first few pages provides a clear indication that what we have is something entirely different from the Clancy or Le Carre plot machine. Rather, Crowley adeptly perceives and makes use of the Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop for his exploration of the themes of exile, privation, fluid identity, and a very essential aspect of the human condition: conflict between opposing loyalties.

Magically written, poetic in its sensibility, poignant in its capturing of human fragility, I recommened this book especially to readers who are discovering Crowley for the first time.

The Translator
This is one of the most powerful and moving books
I've ever read. Couldn't put it down and then couldn't
stop thinking about it afterwards. I'm still re-reading
passages in order to relive the sensations.
The act of translation and the ideas and issues surrounding
it are artfully used as a trampoline for delving into
many other interesting and emotional topics...
A wonderful, layered experience.