Of her award-winning novel, Three Apples Fell From the Sky, Armenian-Russian author Narine Abgaryan said: “I wanted to write a story that ends on a note of hope.” We at Asymptote were proud to present, as our March Book Club selection, this magical realist folktale exploring both the merciless procession of worldly tragedies and the human capacity for courage and imagination. In the following interview, our own Josefina Massot speaks to Lisa C. Hayden, the translator of Three Apples Fell From the Sky and other renowned Russian fictions, about the book’s internal logic, the relief of routine amidst a global strangeness, and the instinct of switching between narrative voices.
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Josefina Massot (JM): You’ve made a point of only translating books you love, and many of them delve into the concept of history. Vladislav Otroshenko’s Addendum to a Photo Album and Marina Stepnova’s The Women of Lazarus seem to specifically explore it through the lens of family, which is also the case with Abgaryan’s Three Apples Fell From the Sky—the story of Maran is reflected in a series of family sagas: Anatolia’s, Vasily’s, Vano’s, and Valinka’s, etc. Tolstoy’s own War and Peace, which you’ve referred to as your favorite novel, chronicles early-nineteenth-century Tsarist society by honing in on five aristocratic clans . . . Could you elaborate on why you’ve been so consistently drawn to the theme of family history, and whether there’s something eminently “Russian” about it?
Lisa C. Hayden (LCH): I’m not sure I have a good direct answer to your questions! I’ll try to approach them from a slightly different angle, though. One of the elements I look for in books is a solid sense of internal logic: ideally, I want each piece of a novel, each layer, each word, to fit together harmoniously. That doesn’t mean they can’t be chaotic, but the chaos should fit the book’s logic. I wonder if perhaps fictional families—be they functional or dysfunctional, chaotic or calm—inherently bring a natural order to a novel. And if that order, which may at least hint at genre- and/or family-related hierarchies, structures, and motifs, might give the novelist a sort of head start on writing a book where all the pieces fit together. All that said, other aspects of novels draw me, too. Psychology and even a certain voyeurism are important to me as is (always!) interesting writing that innovates without becoming overwritten, purple prose.
JM: You’ve gained a reputation (and a high-profile award!) as a translator of “complex novels” like Vodolazkin’s Laurus, but Three Apples is exquisitely simple in style and content. Have you noticed yourself inhabiting a radically different mindspace when working on each?
LCH: Yes, I have. Each book has its own feel, its own way about it, and each requires its own frame of mind. I think most of us work on more than one book at a time, which can make for interesting partitions within the translator’s brain. When I was just getting started in literary translation, Marian Schwartz told me she works simultaneously on multiple books. I remember (mentally) gasping because I couldn’t imagine doing that. But now I love it. Shifting from one voice to another is more fun than I’d expected (I find it happens pretty naturally) and varied tasks sharpen the mind and make the workday more productive. Reading through a final draft for an entire day takes tremendous concentration, since I’ve already read that book so many, many times, but alternating that task with, say, a rough draft or reading something out loud can feel like a big relief. (And vice versa.)
JM: You’ve often mentioned how much you enjoy consulting with the authors of the books you translate, and of course, each exchange must be quite distinct. What was it like, working with Narine?
LCH: It was a delight to work with Narine! We have several mutual friends, so I’ve been hearing about her and her books for years. Between that and translating Three Apples, I feel like I’ve known her for ages, even though we’ve never met. Translation is a very intimate line of work and translating an author’s text tells you a lot about them as people. I always try to keep my lists of questions for authors as short as possible (I work with a wonderful Russian colleague, Liza Prudovskaya, who helps me sort out most of the questions) because I don’t want to overload my authors. But I love their responses because in addition to giving me answers, they give me another angle on the voices in their books. In Narine’s case, our correspondence reinforced the warmth, optimism, and humor of Three Apples. I can’t wait to finally meet her in real life when we can travel again!
JM: This next question may be antithetical to your statement that you “like (. . .) not understanding all the decisions [you] make when [you] translate,” but I have to ask: there’s a particular term in Abgaryan’s novel, enbashti, that refers to a “scary” period of time between midnight and daybreak. What prompted you to leave it untranslated? Can you mention any other “tricky” choices you’ve made related to terms or concepts in the novel?
LCH: You chose well, since these are decisions I usually remember! I often transliterate words that aren’t familiar to Russian readers: sometimes the authors already explain them in their texts, meaning I just transliterate and translate. Others, like enbashti, are footnoted in the Russian text. Since I’m not a footnote fan, I find ways to make a stealth gloss (I’m borrowing Susan Bernofsky’s term) by working the footnote information into the English text. The trick, of course, is to make that information fit the logic of the text so it doesn’t sound like Wikipedia or something. That was relatively easy with Three Apples, thanks to the narrative voice. Units of measure can be especially tricky, since so many are unfamiliar to anglophone readers. I transliterated grvankan, which appears seven times, adding a parenthetical note that it’s “nearly half a kilo” since the grvankan footnote in the Russian text defines it as 408 grams. I have a tendency to transliterate words that appear several times and can become at least a bit familiar. Vershok is a measure—4.45 centimeters, according to the Oxford Russian Dictionary—that seems to recur in my books. With only one use in Three Apples, though, it didn’t make the cut for stealth gloss and transliteration. Besides, it would have sounded really weird to say that there was a “tiny 4.45 centimeter piece” of horse sorrel sticking out of the ground. So I opted for “a tiny stub.” Somehow, that felt just right, given the context.
JM: You’ve kept a wonderful blog on Russian literature for years now, and in your latest post, you’re open about how hard it’s been to focus on more “subtle” reads in the midst of the global health crisis (I’m in the same boat, by the way, as are many acquaintances). You do venture, though, that you might go for something like Chekhov or Sologub once you feel up to the task. Have you managed to do so? If so, have you indeed gone for Chekhov or Sologub, or has something else caught your eye? Has it granted you the consolation you speak of in your post?
LCH: It’s funny but I opted for Turgenev instead! I’d never read On the Eve, a novel I’d been keeping on the shelf for when I really needed something that would feel new yet familiar, hence comfortable in some sense. Though I have tremendous appreciation for his Fathers and Sons and Rudin, Turgenev isn’t one of my top favorites and On the Eve isn’t as good as the other books I mentioned. Even so, the book reads along just fine and there’s something reassuring about it with (yet more!) elements of history and family, a love story, and portraits of individuals and a time. (Part of me wishes a character hadn’t gotten very sick with a pneumonia-like illness, though.) On the Eve has just the right balance of predictable and new material for reading in a difficult time. I’ve also just started Marina Stepnova’s new novel, which is set in the past, and (surprise!) is largely about family, at least so far. I’m enjoying it very much.
JM: You also mention you’ve found solace in translation over the past few weeks—an admirable feat, I’d say, considering how hard it’s been for many of us to focus on creative work! What are you currently tackling? Any advice on how to go about it in these tough times?
LCH: I think some of the solace comes from the normalcy of the mechanics of a(ny) process: just sitting at my desk and accomplishing something, anything, no matter how small, feels like a victory. Even so, the greater part of the solace of translation is linked to texts, the actual act of translation, my love for books, and the thought that perhaps the translation will reach readers who will also enjoy the book. I’m finishing a very long novel, Kaleidoscope, by Sergei Kuznetsov, that covers a lot of twentieth-century history, plus I’ve been working on some excerpts of novels that address (among other topics) death and funerals, rural murders during the War of 1812, and, hm, present-day societal breakdowns. I can’t say I’ve been especially productive during the first five weeks of COVID-19 quarantine, but I am finding those small victories. As far as advice goes, we’re all different, but some of the best service articles I’ve read about mental health during a pandemic focus on mourning. The head of Maine’s CDC, Dr. Nirav Shah, has spoken about this, too, mentioning “collectively grieving” over sudden losses and changes. He also confesses that he sometimes feels “unmoored”—I think “unmoored” sums up my feeling pretty well, too. I’m glad that recognizing and naming the grief we’re all feeling has helped me regain and retain my focus, if only most of the time. When I can’t quite manage that, I don’t feel guilty about taking breaks to recenter myself.
Lisa Hayden’s translations from the Russian include Eugene Vodolazkin’s Laurus, which won the 2016 Read Russia Prize for Contemporary Russian Literature and was shortlisted for the 2016 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, as well as Vodolazkin’s The Aviator and Solovyov and Larionov. She also translated Vadim Levental’s Masha Regina, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Oxford-Weidenfeld award; Guzel Yakhina’s Zuleikha, which was shortlisted for the 2020 EBRD Literature Prize; and Margarita Khemlin’s Klotsvog. Lisa’s blog, Lizok’s Bookshelf, focuses on contemporary Russian fiction. She is a member of the Literary Academy, the jury for Russia’s Big Book Award. She lives in New England.
Josefina Massot was born and lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She studied Philosophy at Stanford University and worked for Cabinet Magazine and Lapham’s Quarterly in New York City, where she later served as a foreign correspondent for Argentine newspapers La Nueva and Perfil. She is currently a freelance writer, editor, and translator, as well as an assistant managing editor for Asymptote.
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