the pickup

today, a friend wrote to me, telling me about the film “The Bridge”. and about Truman Capote. just at the day i read an article about novels and novellas in the Zeit.

the article also made me think of the last book i was reading: Nadine Gordimer's “Occasion to Love” – in the german translation. which of course, is a step from the original. as Gordimer writes in English. which i am obviously able to read.

that's what i thought about when i stood in front of my book shelf, looking at the other library books i brought, and feeling like Hustvedt hat put it in her conjunctions-essay:

"maybe i need to read something. or read something else."

so i went to town, to go to the library - and they had one Capote in the english section: “Summer Crossing”. that's the very book the Zeit article referred to. i picked it. and then went to “G”. to find they have one of Nadine Gordimer's books in english: “The Pickup”.

i read the first 5 pages of it already. she is way better in original than in the german translation. the first sentence of the first chapter is a killer, just like the last:

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Clustered predators round a kill. It's a small car with a young woman inside it. The battery has failed and taxis, cars, minibuses and vans challenge one another, reproach and curse her, a traffic mob mounting its own confusion. Get going. Stupid bloody woman. Idikazana lomlungu, le! She throws up hands, palms open, in surrender.

There. You've seen. I've seen. The gesture. A woman in a traffic jam among those that are everyday in the city, any city. You won't remember it, you won't know who she is.

But I know because from the sight of her I'll find out – as a story – what was going to happen as the consequence of that commonplace embarrassment on the streets; where it was heading her for, and what. Her hands thrown up, open.
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ah. to be able to write like that.