READING ANOTHER COUNTRY: Doggie Bags from the Deli

(NOTE: All around the world everywhere I go/No one understands me no one knows/What I’m trying to say/Even in my hometown/My friends make me write it down/They look at me when I talk to them/And they shrug their shoulders/They go what’s he talking about/But you, you speak my language)

American school kids sputter in panic when first confronted with geography: the world is more than one city in one state and one country. Across the waters dominating most of the Earth’s surface are other lands and people different from them. Palm trees wave, mountains tower into the upper atmosphere, flying fish and dolphins flip and splash in the sea, and music is played on unfamiliar instruments. Panic sufferers are doused with Ritalin and Adderall until they hit their teens, and accept that America is the only country on Earth worth considering when paging through an atlas.

Even after such an education, we have malcontents who insist on understanding other cultures and people beyond our little lump of dry soil. These are the translators, editors, and publishers of books in translation.

PIECE OF THE ACTION

We revel in dour percentages. One percent of the population holds almost all the money, said the Occupy Movement. Seventy percent of Americans swallow prescription drugs, said the Mayo Clinic. Forty-five percent of Americans make New Years resolutions, said the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology. Forty-seven percent of Americans want the government to take care of them, said Mitt Romney, proven wrong by fifty-one percent of the electorate. Twenty-three percent of Americans decline opening any book in any form, said the Pew Research Center. Among the numbers is the embarrassingly low three percent comprising the number of books in translation, said the University of Rochester (www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/).

Being a reader means looking outside your birth and work place. When market-driven novels become a tedious bore, there are riches from other languages waiting to be stuffed into your empty pockets. In a September 27, 2013 article in Publishers Weekly, Chad Post listed twenty of the best books in translation, from Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, Croatian, Norwegian, Persian, Greek, and Portuguese among others. He left out one ignored for too long, and that language is Indonesian.

MORE THAN BALI

Indonesia is made of over 17,500 islands and 258 million people, the fourth most populous country. They read and they write lots of books for publishers from the Lontar Foundation to Gramedia. The influence of an oral tradition going back centuries makes their stories character-driven. For the reader, the differences in culture become similarities. Bad and good people share the same qualities no matter the country.

START RIGHT HERE

Lan Fang (1970–2011) started out as a graduate from the Surabaya University Law Faculty, and made the right choice in switching careers to writing. She had written nine novels and many more short stories before her death in 2011. Until now, her works have only been available in her native language. The independent upstart Dalang Publishing (www.dalangpublishing.com) has recently released Potions and Paper Cranes (original title: Perempuan Kembang Jepun) and the novel is a stunner. Lan Fang uses the first person narrative to tell the stories of Sulis, a young woman selling jamu, or potions, in Surabaya’s harbor district, Sujono, a laborer with dreams of becoming a freedom fighter, and Matsumi, a geisha who danced, sang, recited poetry, played the shamisen, poured tea, and satisfied men. The three battle among each other as the Japanese occupation of World War II roars beyond their windows, followed by the war for independence.

Elisabet Titik Murtisari’s translation does what every good translation does in echoing the rhythm of the original language. Potions and Paper Cranes is a book worth reading and recommending. As a young publishing company, Dalang needs your word of mouth to promote this book. Start talking to other readers and booksellers.

THE SELFISH PLUG

After saying nice things about Potions and Paper Cranes, it’s time to get down to the business of The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish (Cypress House, $13.95). This handy, easy-to-use, plucky, downright affordable, three-cheers-for-the-written-word, comes packed with stuff about writing and the rutted road to publishing. Click over to www.indiebound.com for the independent bookstore nearest your current location according to the GPS app that never works properly. Happy help will take cash or credit card, and hold your umbrella while you look for just one more teeny smidge of an item. Forearms come in twos.

NEXT: When Snow Gets in Your Fur

FOR AN AUDIENCE: A Sleeping Cat is an Easy Target

(NOTE: Measles make you bumpy/And mumps will make you lumpy/And chicken pox will make you jump and twitch/A common cold will cool you
/And whooping cough will fool you/But poison ivy’s gonna make you itch/You’re gonna need an ocean of Calamine lotion/And you’ll be scratching like a hound/
The minute you start to mess around)

Writing gets harder the longer you are committed to the craft. Critical analysis of other writers deepens and sets a greater standard for your work. Only the clueless who depend on formulas can write easier and faster as the years pile up in an auto-da-fé. Leaping out of bed in the morning with enthusiasm for another day at the desk is dampened when confronted with the blank page or screen. Hot coffee grows cold as you question whether you have anything meaningful to say. The pursuit of a ringing story by hours of writing and rewriting and rewriting does not have its own reward. Who do you write for

RIGHT AUDIENCE

A conversation depends on both participants speaking and listening with the same language. When a native English-speaker is confronted with High German, their brain seizes short of an aneurism and no amount of Rosetta Stone software can unravel that tangle. Writing on business calls for the language of business, just as writing on science calls for the language of science. The writer’s talent lies in talking with the reader instead of at or to them.

Any writer goes after an audience, the people who buy the books. The audience is any part of the population invested in the same subject. They may not know your work yet, but it speaks directly to their hopes, ambitions, interests, and dreams. An audience is not easy to find; sometimes the search takes dedicated effort without guarantee of success. Even after the audience is found, they may be busy with another book. The writer grows discouraged as he or she seeks any sign of acceptance for the care and attention and sacrifice in their work. They look for the one reader to get them through the days of doubt.

RIGHT READER

The editor can be the one reader, but once the manuscript is accepted someone in the publishing company knows how to attract the needed audience. Writers need the audience of one before handing in a manuscript, the reader that cares about them as a human being and is willing to say, “You could do better.” Many times the writer’s partner assumes this role, from William Blake and Catherine to Gore Vidal and Howard Austen. Brilliance is only claimed when it appears, and absolute errors in judgment are pointed out with the greatest finesse, especially when they live together. Cold-hearted Vidal stated many times in interviews that he wrote for Austen, and when Austen passed away, the passion for writing left him.

SORTING THROUGH THE MESS

Be prepared to stumble while looking for the one reader. According to the Book Industry Study Group, readers are female, mid-thirties, college-educated, and live on the east or west coast. Writing to this narrowly defined group is dumb on account of their interests are much wider than their demographic. The one reader is able to journey outside their political, social, and economic boundaries, and enjoy the trip. They read what is put in front of them without remarks about punctuation, instead judging for honesty and clarity. A partner can be the one reader, so can a friend, mentor, family member, teacher, bookstore clerk, therapist, astrologer, or tailor, as long as they know the rules: Be supportive. Be honest. Be non-judgmental. Be ready to explain your criticisms. Be supportive one more time.

JOY COMES TO THOSE WHO WAIT

By gosh and golly, two weeks have passed since the beginning of the New Year. Instead of asking where the time goes, or what it has been doing in front of decent people, pull down your well-worn copy of The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish (Cypress House, $13.95). Thrill to the wisdom contained therein, such as not using antiquated words like “therein” and other writing tips, and how publishing companies work to make the book like the one in your hand. Wait a minute. Such a discerning reader as you deserves a brand new copy to read by the fire. Log on to the overrated internet and click over to www.indiebound.com for the nearest independent bookstore. Clerks in sweater vests want to serve you and will offer free gift-wrapping even though the season is finished, dead, over. How much wax would wax paper have if wax paper could have wax?

NEXT: Doggie Bags from the Deli

POP CULTURE ON THE SKIDS: Romping with Dachshunds

(NOTE: If you want to be a bird/Why don’t you try a little flying/There’s no denying/It gets you high/Why be shackled to your feet/When you’ve got wings/You haven’t used yet/Don’t wait for heaven/Get out and fly)

Beanie Babies, Garbage Pail Kids, Fizzies, Pop Rocks, Silly Putty, velvet paintings by Leeteg of Tahiti, Frederick’s of Hollywood, mood rings, pet rocks, surf speak, Alf, apps, Jeffrey Koons, water pipes, Game of Thrones, and Miley Cyrus being nasty with Robin Thicke. Cargo pants, Jerry Garcia neckties, Rocket Radios, Doctor Strange, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Snuggies, The Simpsons, Beavis & Butthead, MTV, Batman, Iron Man, McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, Burger King, and iPod, iPad, and iPhone. America continues to outstrip every other country in generating pop culture. With any luck and in a fairer world than where we live now, every piece promises to eventually fall from the collective memory.

YOU CALL THIS A CULTURE?

Pop culture attracts the generation with the greatest disposable income. The bits consist of ninety-five percent marketing and five percent actual physical material. Pop culture has as much connection to real culture as yo-yos to intercontinental ballistic missiles. Stick a poster for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen next to a landscape by Richard Diebenkorn and you see the difference. One says See, Breathe, and Imagine, while the other waits between Blu-ray and toy sales for the custodian’s recycle bin.

UNTYING THE SILLY STRING

Writers use pop culture references to fix a story in time and place, but they age faster than clichés. Such references also have the ability to disappear before the story hits print. Pop culture is better described as disposable culture applicable to only to this day, this hour, this minute, and not a second more. Forcing the reader to dig through the detritus of network television shows and blister packs from Toys R Us yanks them out of the story about people, and why they are reading in the first place.

YOUNG ENOUGH NOT TO CARE

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote effectively about the Jazz Age from being a participant, as in the short stories “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” and “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.” He used intimate knowledge of the language and attitudes to identify his characters’ generation as different from the previous. Both stories would sound false if Fitzgerald had been older at the time of composition. His involvement engaged the reader then and now.

Pop culture is marketed to those under the age of thirty-seven. After that milestone is passed, income previously used for fun is taken over by doctors, dentists, mortgages, and retirement plans. Marketers in search of the next big thing ignore the men and women who no longer have the means to drop serious money on a 1/72 scale Millennium Falcon. The older and more responsible ignore them in return.

PASS THE CRONUTS

Pop culture is supposed to be a reflection of the zeitgeist yet it rarely rises above the limitless bottom of money-grubbing. Sometimes a crossover occurs, like the really cool Oscar Wilde action figure, but these are meant to be an ironic comment on how shallow the culture in general has become.

Writers should only refer to pop culture they know or are an active participant. Anything else is a trial for the reader, especially when they know more than the writer. More important than mention of Gummy Bears and lava lamps are character, story, and setting, those nice essentials that keep writers writing and readers reading.

JOIN HERE

Never to be outdone or overdone, a new cult has formed in the Carolinas around The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish (Cypress House, $13.95). Members wander the villages wearing oversized white tee shirts with the letters “CTFU,” and harangue passers-by with gospel fervor about the coming of the Big Blue Pencil. “We deserve the right to know about writing,” they clamor. “We deserve the right to know about how publishing works” is writ large on placard signs. To ensure these goofs miss your neighborhood, consult www.indiebound.com for an independent bookstore near you. Buy several copies from the understanding clerks and expect to be congratulated on your fine taste and being far ahead of the crowd. “Pretty soon” is close to happening.

NEXT: A Sleeping Cat is an Easy Target