This week’s Translation Tuesday presents a series of absurdist snapshots from one of the modern masters of Catalan literature. In this collection of contes breus (Catalan ‘short stories,’ often only a few sentences in length), Pere Calders embraces fragmentary quips as a mode of subversive storytelling. At times aphoristic, we’re taken through a series of disjointed narratives that shift between a satirical third-person to a self-referential first-person. We can follow this surrealism and satire as a kind of montage, connecting pieces of ironic wisdom to a kind of irreverent philosophical theme. Alternatively we can read the tales as a collage, allowing the shift in point-of-view to reorient ourselves to a new (and again, ironic) life lesson. Like a master class in non-sequiturs, Miller’s translation invites us to laugh and scratch our heads at the hapless soul who speaks here in mordant proverbs.
Biographical Note
My name is Pere plus two surnames. I was born the day before yesterday and it is already the day after tomorrow. Now, I only think about how I will spend the weekend.
Balance
Just as he was about to take hold of the pail, his leg gave way and he plunged into the well. As he fell, he experienced that well-known phenomenon of seeing one’s life flash before one’s eyes. And he found it so predictable, monotonous, and commonplace (to remain strictly between us, of course) that he let his lungs fill with water and drowned with exemplary resignation.
Obstinacy
Between going to heaven and staying at home, he preferred the latter, despite the powerful propaganda against it and the fact that his house was full of leaks and a whole host of privations.
Connecting the Dots
The present is one of those stories that begins in a café and ends goodness knows how. Stood at the bar, or perhaps sat around one of the tables, a patron explains to his friends:
“It’s said that the eyes are a device for perceiving what our surroundings and other people are like. But what about looking inwards? In that sense, we are blind. Or is it that everything we see externally is, in reality, what we harbour internally? It should come as no surprise, therefore, that there is so much misery. In one way or another (at best!) we only see half of what there is, or, put another way, two eyes are either too many or too little, but never the right amount. It’s a compelling reason to affirm that rather than being wise, nature merely knows a couple of things from memory and repeats them parrot-like.”
The Express
No one dared tell him at what time the train would arrive. They saw him so weighed down with baggage that it pained them to explain that there had never been tracks or a station there.
Discretion
They invited him to think, but he said that he did not want to be a nuisance: he would think at home.
False Modesty
He claimed to be a simple man, without considering that he was just as complicated as the next, with an internal anatomy composed of many marvellous pieces.
Son of Venus
One can declare war, an emergency, or the contents of a suitcase, but not love. On the subject of love, all declarations are indiscreet, even this one.
For a Better Tomorrow
(Drama in less than one act)
Stage left: a sunset Stage right: a weekend
At curtain up, the sole character in the play (young and handsome) advances upstage with the aim of reciting an earth-shattering monologue of protest. But the curtain collapses due to a technical fault and crushes him.
END
(No performance on Tuesdays
due to Troupe’s day off)
Mirror to the Soul
We had never seen one another before, nowhere, not even once, but he so resembled a neighbour of mine that he greeted me courteously: he too had gotten confused.
Reciprocity
One of the greatest lovers in modern History (even if it might not seem so) was Louis XVI, who completely lost his head over Marie Antoinette. And he was lucky enough, amid the adversity, to be reciprocated in kind by his lover.
Epithalamium
“Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“Yes.”
“Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“Yes.”
“Stop!” hollered one of the guests, his eyes popping out of their sockets. “These two have the right to know that anything they say may be given in evidence!”
Golden Age
He got up in an irritable mood, on the wrong side of the bed, and immediately began to turn the bedroom upside down. He opened drawers and cupboard doors, flung clothes on the floor, and then suddenly got down on all fours to look under the furniture.
His wife, lying in bed, her hands clasped behind her head, observed him with a wry smile and an air of humouring him. “If you break anything,” she thought, “you’ll soon get a piece of my mind.” Then she asked him:
“Whatever’s the matter? What’s got into you?”
“I’ve lost my memory and I can’t find it anywhere!” he answered in a huff.
His wife opened her eyes wide in disbelief, threw her arms into the air as if appealing to the heavens and then straightened her face, ready to express all the patience in the world.
“Don’t you see, you silly old sod?” she said. “You’re wearing it.”
Mirage
The other day, while shaving, I discovered that I had another face. And it was not at all unfamiliar to me. In fact, it was just like that of a neighbour who I cannot stand, an unbearable man who I argue with over absolutely everything. From that moment I have been completely obsessed, full of self-loathing, and I can no longer be alone with myself.
Other Dimensions
Due to questions of space that the since-deceased architect was faced with, the entrance hall is triangular. Bermuda would not have even entered my head if it had not been for the fact that in a matter of days it swallowed up both Aunt Margarida and the insurance man, a quite splendid chap. It is not because of the inconvenience, because everyone knows that big cities are uncomfortable, but it has me on my guard. Now, when I leave the house, I creep past on tip-toes, because the triangle scares the wits out of me.
Good Manners
The horse, disorientated by an inept pull on the reins, bolted and the horseman landed awkwardly on the ground. The rider had broken his leg, so the horse, convinced that he was fulfilling a pious duty, put him out of his misery with a kick to the back of the neck.
Copyright
Someone has made me and I have been sold. I never have been able to find out who got the rights or if I have been a good investment or not.
Translated from the Catalan by Tiago Miller
Pere Calders i Rossinyol (Barcelona, 1912-1994) was a Catalan writer, journalist, and artist. Exiled after the Spanish Civil War, living at first in France and then in Mexico, he did not return to his native Barcelona until 1962. His literary output was immense and his complete stories (Tots els contes, 2011) runs to almost one thousand pages. His work has drawn comparisons to that of Kafka, Borges and García Márquez. He was the recipient of the highest literary awards in Catalan literature, including the Sant Jordi, the Lletra d’Or and the Crítica Serra d’Or.
Tiago Miller (London, 1987) is a writer and translator. After living and working in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Banjul, and Barcelona, he now lives in Lleida, Catalonia. His articles in Catalan on language, politics, and literature have appeared in Núvol and La República, while his literary translations focus on Catalan literature. In February 2020, he was selected for the ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship and is currently working on a translation of Montserrat Roig under the guidance of Mara Faye Lethem.
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