Breathturn by Paul Celan and Pierre Joris

Association of Austrian Studies
Review
Reviewed Work(s): Breathturn by Paul Celan and Pierre Joris
Review by: Jerry Glenn
Source: Modern Austrian Literature, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1996), pp. 157-158
Published by: Association of Austrian Studies
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24648605
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Book Reviews 157
It is a shame that the creative, marvelously Celanesque sub

title "The Strain of Jewishness" was rejected by the Yale Universi
ty Press. My only major criticism is probably also a publisher's
decision: the otherwise extensive indexes do not include a list of
German poem titles.
Jerry Glenn
University of Cincinnati
Paul Celan, Breathturn, translated and with an Introduction by

Pierre Joris. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon, 1995. 263 pages.
In a substantial and significant introduction, Joris discusses

Celan's life, works, and poetics, stressing the cyclical nature of his
collections of poetry, and pointing to the advantage of offering
the complete volume Atemwende in English. Although some, per
haps many, of the cyclical aspects are lost in translation (Kreuz /
kreuzen and würfeln are prime examples of verbal echoes that
cannot be consistently maintained), the dual-language format will
enable readers with some knowledge of German to get a good
feeling for Celan's poetic cycles. The volume concludes with elev
en pages of "commentaries," for the most part notes on specific
complicated or untranslatable aspects of individual poems, "a few
exempla that should not be mistaken for an annotated translation
of any completeness" (251). While this disclaimer is justified, the
value of the notes should not be minimized. Serious and attentive
readers will find much food for thought here.
Joris rightly emphasizes the otherness of Celan's German,
and accordingly states that he does not want his translations to
sound like "normal" American or British English. Among the
most interesting and effective devices he utilizes in pursuit of this
aim is the retention of the German word order in extended-modi
fier constructions. This has the advantage not only of sounding
strange, but also, and more significantly, of retaining the empha
sis implicit in the original word order, for example: "in dem von
Herzzähnen hell- / gebissenen Kronland" is rendered "in the by
heartteeth light- / bitten crownland" (142-43). Another interesting
158 MODERN AUSTRIAN LITERATURE
strategy addresses one of the primary problems faced b

translators: how to handle compounds like "Windfang," when
the normal meaning of the word (Hamburger translat
"porch") and the independent meanings of the compound
tive. Joris often retains the meanings of individual elem
German compounds, sacrificing the superficial meaning
taining the individual elements, and, in the process, contr
to the sense of strangeness, of otherness: "HOLLOW LIF
STEAD. In the windtrap / the lung / blown empty / flo
(113).
Given the translator's intention to stress Celan's otherness,
I hesitate to call anything an "error;" in any event, a few words
that sound very much like careless errors did bother me: "open
it laid" for "offen lag es" (124-25), "Sown" for "genäht" (130-31),
"coffin-beautiful morning / swimming" for "sargschön / schwim
mendes Morgen" (154-55), as did the occasional use of what
seems like German punctuation with subordinate clauses: "all is
less, than / it is" for "alles ist weniger, als / es ist" (186-87). Such
details, of course, do not detract from Joris's significant accom
plishment. In his introduction, he speaks of the "need for all great
poems ... to be retranslated, generation after generation" (37).
In the case of Celan, the final three words should be amended to
"within the same generation." Joris thus does not replace, but
nicely complements Hamburger, the most prolific English Celan
translator, and the numerous others who have offered English
versions of smaller numbers of poems.
Jerry Glenn
University of Cincinnati
Renate S. Posthofen, Treibgut. Das vergessene Werk George Saikos.

Wien, Köln und Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 1995. 170 pages.
The critical literature on George Saiko (1892-1962), the

man and the work, is anything but extensive. It consists predomi
nantly of newspaper and journal articles. Renate Posthofen is cor
rect in stating that the author's name continues to sound strange

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Association of Austrian Studies

It is a shame that the creative, marvelously Celanesque sub

Paul Celan, Breathturn, translated and with an Introduction by

In a substantial and significant introduction, Joris discusses

strategy addresses one of the primary problems faced b

Renate S. Posthofen, Treibgut. Das vergessene Werk George Saikos.

The critical literature on George Saiko (1892-1962), the

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