2012-12-23

The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2)

I've now read 22 chapters of Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, approaching 200 pages.The plot moved quite slowly as the overall scenario of the Jewish colony in Alaska was in the process of being laid out step by step. Chabon's use of language is quite adroit, and his capacity for description is quite rich. Note that the narrative is written in the present tense, rather than in the past tense as is customary in the English language. I cannot comment on Chabon's dialogue, except for noticing some clever turns of phrase, as I am not conversant with Yiddish culture to judge how he re-creates it in his alternate universe.

The novel is heavily sprinkled with yiddishisms, which I do not understand. The characters, particularly the main character Landsman, always refers to Jews as 'yids'.  Whether or not this is a derogatory term in context I do not know, but it does not sound very flattering.

There are references to real-world Jewish public figures. There is a Max Nordau (pioneer Zionist) Street and a Peretz (I. L. Peretz, Yiddish poet) Street. There is an Einstein Chess Club. The murder victim who is the focal point of the plot is pseudonymously known as Emanuel Lasker (named after a chess champion, who also wrote about other games, e.g. Go).

The Jewish society we see here is not very attractive. There's a low class seediness about it, that begins with the run-down Zamenhof hotel, and the vista of crudity spreads out from there.The orthodox fanatics are referred to as 'black hats'. The Verbovers have their own island, and regard Landsman, who is there investigating the murder, as an interloper, and there is no love lost on his part either. They have inordinate political influence, and there is a fraction of them involved in organized crime. The Jews' relations with the Indians, i.e. the indigenous Alaskans, is none too friendly, either. The overall picture is not pretty. Other than storytelling, if there is a thematic purpose to Chabon's narrative, I do not know yet what it is.

Landsman is divorced, but his ex-wife Bina becomes his boss in the police department. Word comes down to scotch the murder case, but he can't leave it alone.  The Jewish settlement faces Reversion, which presumably means the loss of the Jewish franchise of the colony, which means a certain percentage of the Jewish residents will have to disperse.  Israel itself was destroyed in 1948. An interesting alternate history scenario, to be sure.

There is only one place so far where we learn more about the political factions that once were part of the fabric of the colony (p. 76):
For forty years--as Denny Brennan's series revealed--Hertz Shemets used his position as local director of the FBI's surveillance program  to run his own private game on the Americans. The Bureau first recruited him in the fifties  to fight Communists and the Yiddish Left, which, though fractious, was strong, hardened, embittered, suspicious of the Americans, and, in the case of the former Israelis, not especially grateful to be here. Here Shemetz's brief was to monitor and infiltrate the local Red population; Hertz wiped them out. He fed the socialists to the Communists, and the Stalinists to the Trotskyites, and the Hebrew Zionists to the Yiddish Zionists, and when feeding time was over, he wiped the mouths of those still standing and fed them to each other. Starting in the late sixties, Hertz was turned loose on the nascent radical movement among the Tlingit, and in time he pulled its teeth and claws, too.
As much care as Chabon takes to delineate this society, I found my attention flagging after a while, until, while visiting the Verboters, Landsman confronts the rebbe with the death of 'Emanuel Lasker', whose real identity has just been uncovered. From there I've been riveted to the narrative.

Now on to the Esperanto references.

'Elevatoro', an Esperanto word which appears twice so far, does not really mean 'elevator' in the sense of transporting people: that would be 'lifto'. An 'elevatoro' is more like a winch that lifts cargo.

Hotel Zamenhof is a centerpiece of the narrator. As for Zamenhof the man, he is thought to be a ghost:
"You know what Kohn says," says Tenenboym. Kohn says we got a ghost in the house." Kohn is the day manager. "Taking shit, moving shit around. Hohn figures it for the ghost of Professor Zamenhof."

"If they named a dump like this after me," Landsman says, "I'd haunt it, too."

"You never know," Tennenboym observes. "Especially nowadays." [pp. 12-13]
Much later, while Landsman is on forced leave while recovering from a bullet wound, his ex-wife Bina visits his hovel in the Hotel Zamenhof:
She wades through pieces of Landsman's gray suit and a bath towel and stands at the foot of the bed. Her eyes take in the pink wallpaper patterned with garlands in burgundy flock, the green plush carpet with its random motif of burn spots and mystery stains, the broken glass, the empty bottle, the peeling and chipped veneer of the pressboard furniture. Watching her with his head at the foot of the pull-down bed, Landsman enjoys the look of horror on her face, mostly because if he doesn't, then he will have to feel ashamed.

"How do you say 'shit heap' in Esperanto?" Bina says. She goes over to the veneer table and looks down at the last bedraggled curls of noodle pudding lying in the grease-streaked clamshell. [pp. 163-164]

Du poemoj de L. L. Zamenhof tradukitaj de Marjorie Boulton

Ho, Mia Kor'

Ho, mia kor’, ne batu maltrankvile,
el mia brusto nun ne saltu for!
Jam teni min ne povas mi facile,
ho, mia kor’!

Ho, mia kor’! Post longa laborado
ĉu mi ne venkos en decida hor’?
Sufiĉe! trankviliĝu de l’ batado,
ho, mia kor’!

O My Heart

O heart, my heart, O do not throb so wildly,
Nor wildly from my bosom, throbbing, start!
I cannot be composed, sit calmly, idly ...
O heart, my heart!

O heart, my heart! The crucial hour is coming
Shall I not win when I have played my part?
Enough! be calm! no more of this wild drumming—
O heart, my heart!

* * * * * * * *

Pluvo

Pluvas kaj pluvas kaj pluvas kaj pluvas
senĉese, senfine, senhalte,
el ĉiel’ al la ter’, el ĉiel’ al la ter’
are gutoj frapiĝas resalte.

Tra la sonoj de l’ pluvo al mia orelo
murmurado penetras mistera,
mi revante aŭskultas, mi volus kompreni,
kion diras la voĉo aera.

Kvazaŭ ia sopir’ en la voĉo kaŝiĝas
kaj aŭdiĝas en ĝi rememoro...
Kaj per sento plej stranga, malĝoja kaj ĝoja,
en mi batas konfuze la koro.

Ĉu la nuboj pasintaj, jam ofte viditaj,
rememore en mi reviviĝis,
aŭ mi revas pri l’ sun’, kiu baldaŭ aperos
kvankam ĝi en la nuboj kaŝiĝis?

Mi ne volas esplori la senton misteran,
mi nur revas, mi ĝuas, mi spiras;
ion freŝan mi sentas, la freŝo min logas,
al la freŝo la koro min tiras.

Rain

The rain is falling, falling, falling,
Unending, pauseless, never stopping;
From sky to pavement, sky to pavement,
Rebounding water-clusters dropping.
Mysterious through the rainy patter,
I hear a secret murmuring noise;
I listen, dreaming, try to follow
The message of that airy voice.
As if that voice concealed some yearning,
Remembrance through the rain were sobbing ....
Confused by mingled joy and sorrow,
Bewildered now my heart is throbbing.
Are clouds, in memory, returning,
I saw so often in the past?
Or do I dream of coming sunshine,
Although the sky is overcast?
Not questioning these subtle feelings,
I dream, enjoy and breathe; I know
Only a freshness that invites me,
To which my heart would have me go.

SOURCE: Boulton, Marjorie. Zamenhof, Creator of Esperanto (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960), p. 38, 176.


Kaj jen sonregistraĵo de deklamo de unu poemo fare de pioniro Edmund Privat!

Zamenhof - Ho, mia kor' - legas E. Privat 

2012-12-22

Zamenhof: 'Mia Penso'

El la 9 (?) originalaj poemoj en Esperanto de Zamenhof, tri estas pli notindaj preter movada intereso: "Ho, Mia Kor'!", "Mia Penso", kaj "Pluvo". La unuaj du temas pri la psika stato de Zamenhof, kio kompreneble rilatas al lia lukto por Esperanto, tamen, facile abstrakteblas teme aparte de la Esperanto-movado. "Pluvo" eble rilatas al la sama afero, sed pli apartigeblas disde rilato al la Esperanto-movado. Marjorie Boulton tradukis anglalingven "Ho, Mia Kor'!" kaj "Pluvo" en sia biografio de Zamenhof. Mi ne trovis anglalingvan tradukon de "Mia Penso". Jen la originalo:

Mia Penso

Sur la kampo for de l' mondo,
antaŭ nokto de somero,
amikino en la rondo
kantas kanton pri l' espero.
Kaj pri vivo detruita
ŝi rakontas kompatante,
mia vundo refrapita
min doloras resangante.

"Ĉu vi dormas? Ho, sinjoro,
kial tia senmoveco?
Ha, kredeble rememoro
el la kara infaneco?"
Kion diri? Ne ploranta
povis esti parolado
kun fraŭlino ripozanta
post somera promenado!

Mia penso kaj turmento,
kaj doloroj kaj esperoj!
Kiom de mi en silento
al vi iris jam oferoj!
Kion havis mi plej karan –
la junecon – mi ploranta
metis mem sur la altaron
de la devo ordonanta!

Fajron sentas mi interne,
vivi ankaŭ mi deziras, –
io pelas min eterne,
se mi al gajuloj iras...
Se ne plaĉas al la sorto
mia peno kaj laboro –
venu tuj al mi la morto,
en espero – sen doloro!

* *  *  *  *  *

Jen simpla liriko, sed mi trovas ĝin agrabla, kaj la finajn versojn kortuŝaj.

Kaj jen historia trezoro, sonregistraĵo de deklamo de la poemo fare de pioniro Edmund Privat!

Zamenhof - Mia penso - legas Edmond Privat

Jen germanlingvaj tradukoj de Franz Zwach kaj Manfred Retzlaff.

2012-12-20

Zamenhof-Simpozio 2010 ĉe UNo ĉemize


Kio estas ĉi tio? Jen T-ĉemizo, farita de esperantisto-entuziasmulo Neil Blonstein. La bildo estas fotografo farita ĉe Zamenhof-Simpozio kiu okazis en Novjorko la 15an de decembro 2010. En la grupfoto aperas Sam Green, Ralph Dumain, Humphrey Tonkin, George Soros, oficialulino de UNo, Neil Blonstein, kaj filo de Soros.

Kiaokaze Neil surportas ĉi tiun T-ĉemizon, mi ne povas imagi.

2012-12-19

Sam Green's 'Utopia in Four Movements' revisited


by Stephen Squibb; Idiom; October 13, 2010

This is an old review but an interesting one. The reviewer is sharply critical but insightful in dissecting the logic of Green's live documentary  Utopia in Four Movements as well as his earlier documentary The Weather Underground.  Read for yourself.



2012-12-16

Haunted by the Holocaust: The Ghosts of Muranow made visible

The ghosts of Muranow: A journalist's mission to illuminate Poland's haunted past
 By Donald Snyder, NBC News Special Correspondent
 23 Nov 2012



The report begins:
When Polish journalist Beata Chomatowska walks the streets of Muranow, she can’t stop thinking about the horrible things that happened there.

“It’s a daily trauma,” she said.

Present-day Muranow, a district of Warsaw, Poland, is built on rubble and the remains of Jews who perished there during World War II, but many residents are ignorant of the area’s past.

So Chomatowska started a website to educate them called “Stacja Muranow,” which means “Muranow Stop.” And in October she published a book by the same name, chronicling the haunted past of the former Jewish ghetto.

  The stories of the perished, of survivors, of the restoration of historical memory are all interesting.  As yesterday was Zamenhof's birthday, I will point out the following:
Thirty residents have joined Chomatowska’s Muranow education project, meeting in an unfurnished office with no hint of the past. She’s particularly proud of one of the murals painted by members of the group in the entry way of an apartment building. It features prominent Jews who lived in Muranow before the war, such as the creator of Esperanto, Ludwik Zamenhoff, who hoped his universal language would unite people of different cultures.
 All of Zamenhof's children were murdered by the Nazis, but one grandson survived. I had the opportunity to meet Zamenhof's great-granddaughter, now living in Louisiana.

Stacja Muranow [Muranow Station] is a book published in Polish on this project.

Courtesy of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, you can take an audio walking tour of Muranow in Polish.

And here is the web site devoted to the district: Stacja Muranów strona o Muranowie.

Atheist Alliance International meets & greets Esperanto-speaking atheists


Written by Tanya Smith, 09 May 2012

 *   *   *

I co-founded Ateista Tutmonda Esperanto-Organizo (ATEO) in 1987, Esperanto's centennial year. Others are now carrying on the work and forging links with non-Esperantist organizations.

Tanya Smith of Atheist Alliance International met the vice-president of ATEO, Anna Löwenstein, and wrote a greeting in English which Anna subsequently translated into Esperanto and published in our journal Ateismo.  The translation is in the graphic to the left. Here is Tanya's original message:

"Hello atheist esperantists! As is common with native English speakers I am quite bad with other languages (it's embarrassing really), so I appreciate ATEO's translation of this greeting from me. I understand that the key goal of Esperanto is to facilitate communication and cooperation between people of different backgrounds, with the intention that this will foster goodwill and harmony on our small planet. It's a noble goal, and esperantists who are also atheists may appreciate that Atheist Alliance International has similar objectives. By challenging religion and its privileged place in society we seek a secular world that is fair to all people, and ultimately more peaceful. For all our sakes, I hope the efforts of both communities are successful in fostering a better world."

2012-12-15

Zamenhof! En garde!


"Mi trapikis krokodilojn dum 153 jaroj kaj mi trapikos vin."

Nikolao Gudskov pri antikva-greka filozofio

La ofte trovata frenezeco en Esperantujo troviĝas ankaŭ ne malofte inter tiuj esperantistoj kiuj ankaŭ ambicias roli kiel filozofoj. Estas diversspecaj tipoj de filozofia literaturo en Esperanto: tradukoj, popolklerigaj verkoj, historiaj resumoj, kaj originalaj verkoj. Aliokaze mi komentos pri la tuta gamo. Ĉi-foje mi reliefigas analizan historian originalan verkon, kiu estas vere leginda:

Gudskov, Nikolao. Kiel la Homo Ekis Pensi: Eseoj pri la Helena Filozofio. Moskvo: Impeto, 2012.

Ĉi estas tiom serioza, perspektiva, detala pritrakto de la temo, ke mi inkluzivas ĝin en mia nova anglalingva bibliografio interalie pri la sociologio de antikva-greka filozofio:

Greek Philosophy, the Scientific Revolution, Abstraction, Phenomenology, & the Money Economy: Selected Bibliography 
[Greka filozofio, la scienca revolucio, abstraktado, fenomenologio, & monekonomio: elektita bibliografio]

Jen rilata eseo de Gudskov:

Ĉu Taleso estis la unua, aŭ forgesitaj “Sepoj”?, Teleskopo, #1, 2009

Oni pretendas nuntempe pensi tutmonde pri filozofio, sed fakte tio estas ideologia trompo laŭ modo tutmondiga/novliberalisma/postmodernisma. La interagado de lingvosferaj, naciaj, skolaj kaj ideologiaj intelektaj tradicioj restas problemo ne adekvate ekzamenata. Ĉi tio estas pensenda afero en la krokodila makrosocio kaj inter la esperantista intelektularo.

En la verko de Gudskov percepteblas la plej bona influo de la sovetia historiografio de filozofio, kiu estas preskaŭ tute nekonata kaj ne facile konebla en Usono kaj ŝajne estas forigita el la historia memoro. Perspektivo el historia materiismo estas fakte tre utila kontribuo al kompreno de la historio de filozofio kaj ne estas perspektivo el kiu oni instruas filozofion en Usono. (La eroj kaj aŭtoroj en mia menciita anglalingva bibliografio ne estas vaste konataj.)  Do eble taŭgas ke Esperanto ĉi-kaze estu medio ne nur de interlingva kaj internacia sed ankaŭ de intertradicia komunikado.

2012-12-13

The Yiddish Policemen's Union (1)

Opening sentence of Michael Chabon's novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union:

"Nine months Landsman's been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered."

The hotel of course is named after L.L. Zamenhof, creator of Esperanto, whose 153rd birthday is coming on December 15. So in honor of Zamenhof's birthday, I begin reading this alternate history novel. Is alternate history good for the Jews?

"Landsman puts his hand on Tenenboym’s shoulder, and they go down to take stock of the deceased, squeezing into the Zamenhof’s lone elevator, or ELEVATORO, as a small brass plate over the door would have it. When the hotel was built 50 years ago, all of its directional signs, labels, notices, and warnings were printed on brass plates in Esperanto. Most of them are long gone, victims of neglect, vandalism, or the fire code." [p. 3]

Omaĝe al la venonta naskiĝtago de Zamenhof, mi komencas legi ĉi tiun ukronian romanon (La Jida Policana Sindikato/Unio), en kiu situas Hotelo Zamenhof.

2012-12-12

Mario Pei revisited

Pei, Mario. One Language for the World. New York: Devin-Adair, 1958. (Reprint: New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1968.)
Parts 1 and 3 can be found here. The bulk of the history of the international language movement, not included here, will be found in part 2 supplemented by the bibliography & appendixes. Complete text available to Questia subscribers.  You can see the complete table of contents and other snippets at Google Books.
The history of artificial languages and the quest for a universal language has been documented in several languages. There is a selected bibliography of key works under the rubric of Selected General Works on Interlinguistics and History of Constructed and Universal Languages in my bibliography:

Philosophical and Universal Languages, 1600-1800, and Related Themes: Selected Bibliography

. . . which otherwise focuses on the subset of artificial languages indicated.

The most general web guide to the field of artificial/universal languages, which in recent decades as morphed into the conlang phenomenon, can also be found on my web site:

Esperanto & Interlinguistics Study Guide

Until Pei's book came along in 1958, the most prominent work in English was:

Guérard, Albert Léon. A Short History of the International Language Movement [on my web site]. London: T. F. Unwin, Ltd., 1922. (Reprint ed.: Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1979.) [Also offsite.]

You can now get it online, but back in the day, it could probably only be found in large central public libraries or research libraries.

After Pei, the most significant general work in English was:

Large, J. A. The Artificial Language Movement. Oxford; New York: B. Blackwell; London: A. Deutsch, 1985. (The Language Library)

But now, your first English-language go-to place for this subject matter is:

Okrent, Arika. In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2009. See also web site: http://inthelandofinventedlanguages.com.

Many decades ago this field was dubbed interlingustics, but the explosive growth of language invention as a hobby in the Internet age yielded the term conlangs. Large still reflects the old concerns; Okrent reflects the conlang world of today.

When I first became interested in this subject matter, circa 1968, Pei was my major reference point. And I don't think he is entirely obsolete, both in covering the issues and the specifics of artificial language projects.  What has most conspicuously changed is not merely the world of conlangs but the geopolitical and technological picture in general, which does not favor the solution of one world auxiliary language save to the extent that English has become dominant though not universal.

In the same time period Pei recorded a record album with Smithsonian's Folkways Records, also titled One Language for the World (1961). Thanks to the digitized world we now live in, this recording is obtainable via download or CD. I don't believe I ever listened to the original record album.

The liner notes for the album can be found here.

My own interest in this subject matter now is bibliographical, historical, and sociological. The old philosophical languages of the 17th and 18th centuries hold a special interest in the history of ideas and philosophy of science. I suppose I was a conlanger avant le lettre in 1968. In those days the publications of enthusiasts (like the International Language Review which became International Language Reporter which became Eco-Logos) took some effort to track down. Aside from my use of Esperanto, I don't find conlangs in themselves interest me: I approach this area from a distance seeing it as a subcultural and ideological phenomenon. But I can also pay tribute to human inventiveness and creativity, and in the process, to Mario Pei for taking the trouble to document this phenomenon.