Inconsolability
Linguistic Limitations
One of the innumerable elements of my “semi-retirement” portfolio (sounds impossibly pretentious, doesn’t it?) is re-learning French. It’s been a recurrent ambition for almost my entire adult life. Was given a bit of impetus during my twenties living in a former French colony (or a British/French condominium, to be more accurate) when many of the young ladies whose company I craved spoke French, but limited English. But even then, their broken English was inevitably superior to my broken French. At one stage I struck up an arrangement with a young woman which involved my teaching her how to drive in exchange for her teaching me French. When she crashed her car (no injuries) and the story got around town almost before she’d got out to inspect the damage, my French mates delighted in noting the total ineffectiveness of our arrangements. Her driving was not improving and I could not speak any discernable French.
Still, I’d like to think that, at one time at least, I had some capability in “conversational” French. Some years beyond my condominium experience, when I found myself in Paris with my nine year old son, I tried out my skills with a Paris local. A taxi driver. When we arrived at our accommodation, my son declared he hadn’t appreciated I spoke French so well! That might have been the one and only time anyone has complimented me on my foreign language competence. Long since withdrawn by my boy, of course. These days my first born speaks passable French and my second born is fluent in Italian and almost so in Spanish. And my boy speaks some limited French and Hindi. I remain the language laggard.
Unnatural Grief
It has long been noted that there is something particularly tragic about burying your children. Something that offends the natural order of life. My own folks experienced it and never recovered. I gave the eulogy for the young woman with whom I’d grown up and who had become my best mate. To a packed church. I have my memorial rituals still and linger with her from time to time, but I doubt that my grief approached that of my parents. An all-consuming, terrible, unrelenting grief. They weren’t alone in that, of course. My recent visit to the Australian War Memorial provided reinforcement enough. That knowledge hardly a comfort, though. Grief is intensely personal. Not readily shared.
So it was with a certain poignancy that I recently read a poem by Victor Hugo. Didn’t really need it translated because the verse is sparse, uncomplicated and somewhat reminiscent of Hemingway at his best. It doesn’t even have a title, being known simply by its first line. In the poem Hugo describes his own memorial ritual, perhaps a bit more traditional than mine, in commemoration of the death of his then nineteen-year-old, pregnant daughter who drowned in the Seine. It might have been the first of Victor Hugo’s poems that I ever read. His classic novels, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables have long since been devoured, though I haven’t quite been able to bring myself to see the musical of the latter. Either live or in the relatively recent movie. I can only imagine the absolute carnage wrought upon the classical tale by Messrs Crowe and Jackman in the roles of Javert and Valjean respectively. I guess Jackman can at least sing. But I’ve always had an aversion to Hollywood makeovers, designed exclusively for commercial success, meddling with great literature. My beloved tells me I am too reactionary. That the musical adaptation was originally undertaken by a pair of Frenchmen who worshipped Victor Hugo. Fair enough, guess. But why have so few actually read the “roman”?
Hugo’s literary accomplishments are far from the sole reason for his place in my affections. His advocacy of the eradication of poverty, universal suffrage, an end to slavery, free education for all children and the abolition of the death penalty all mark him as a man of moral penetration and ahead of his time. And his fierce opposition to the Catholic Church is yet another reason for me to esteem him! He considered the Church complicit in the oppression of the working class by the monarchy and indifferent to their fate. Quelle surprise! He became a hero of France and his funeral procession was attended by some two million people. But, despite his fame and his undoubted achievements, he mourned the death of his child like any of us. Forever inconsolable.
Re-Learning
For the moment, my meagre attempts to revise and extend my very limited capability in French is largely confined to my use of the on-line language learning tool, Yabla. It may be insufficient in itself, but I’m convinced it has its place. Among its offerings is a series of videos with associated comprehension, vocabulary and grammar testing. The prompt for this throwaway blog has been a two part video presentation of one of Victor Hugo’s most famous poems. Demain, dès l’aube. Tomorrow at Dawn.
I’ve often wondered, when reading what I consider great literature that has been written in a language other than English (whether in the form of novels, poetry or essays), what they are like in their original form. Rilke wrote Archaic Torso of Apollo in German and yet the English translation moves me as much as any piece of verse. What, though, has been lost in translation, however much I may laud the English version? As some will know, I am enamoured of Nietzsche’s famous “God is Dead” pronouncement, voiced by the madman in The Gay Science. I once asked a good friend and German national if the original was even more powerful. No comparison was his response. Now there’s the case, if we needed one, for learning languages. And even I, with my limited French, can see the superiority of the French original of Hugo’s famous poem. The cadence and the rhyme of the French, largely absent from the English translation, is hard to miss.
The word, triggered, seems to have leeched into the contemporary lexicon. We apparently get triggered when some event or conversation conjures up some uncomfortable (or worse) emotion. Something that impinges on our mental health (another contemporary, but still well worn phrase). Reading Hugo’s poem was certainly that for me. I wondered if my Mum had ever read it.
Demain, dès l’aube
Demain, dès l’aube, à l’heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m’attends.
J’irai par la forêt, j’irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.
Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.
Je ne regarderai ni l’or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et, quand j’arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.
Tomorrow at Dawn
Tomorrow, at dawn, when the countryside brightens,
I will depart. You see, I know that you wait for me.
I will go through the wood, I will go past the mountains.
I cannot remain far from you any longer.
I will walk, eyes set upon my thoughts,
Seeing nothing around me and hearing no sound,
Alone, unknown, back bent, hands crossed,
Sorrowful, and for me, day will be as night.
I will not watch the evening gold fall,
Nor the distant sails going down to Harfleur,
And, when I arrive, I will put on your grave
A bouquet of green holly and heather in bloom.