IMAGES D’ISTANBUL par Simon R. Gladdish (Traduit de l’anglais par Reine Marie Drury)

IMAGES D’ISTANBUL  par  Simon R. Gladdish

(Traduit de l’anglais  par  Reine Marie Drury)

VOYAGE AUTOUR DE MOI MEME

Je suis arrivé dimanche dernier.

Je suis ici depuis une semaine

Et le turc est un code compliqué

Que je ne parle pas sans gêne.

Mon incompétence linguistique

Me cause bien du tracas.

C’est une de ces langues mythiques

Que deviner on ne peut pas.

Malins sont les vendeurs de rue

Qui savent leur avantage

Et les chauffeurs de taxi se ruent

Pour profiter des gages.

J’ai mon guide par écrit

Et j’ai mon guide parlant.

Mais pour renverser ces rôles-ci

Aurai-je assez de temps?

Je pense que j’aurai développé

Une nouvelle paire de poumons

Avant d’avoir la possibilité

D’être compris dans ces étranges tons.

POLITIQUES

Pour des dirigeants colorés

Il faut se tourner vers l’Est.

Comparer et contraster

Nos chefs occidentaux sans zest

Avec leurs homologues de l’Orient:

Ivan le Terrible,

Vlad l’Empaleur,

Selim l’Irracible,

Saddam le Fou et

Boris le Saoul.

Le prix de la démocratie

Est une éternelle vigilance

Et l’élévation sournoise

De Jean le Modeste

Surpassant Suleyman le Magnifique.

L’HIVER

Les flocons mouillés tombent lentement en virevoltant

Comme des derviches tourneurs sans force

Autour des blocs Ottomans

Mais la pression du trafic humain

Et le piétinement lourd des pieds embottés

Leur donne peu de chance de se poser

Ou de survivre.

Ils ont encore arrêté l’eau

Et comme je rentre sans enthousiasme

Avec mon linge sale

Je remarque en face une femme

Lavant ses carreaux

Pour la troisième fois

En autant de jours;

Essuyant consciencieusement

La saleté imaginaire,

Elle atteint chaque coin déjà propre

Avant de raccrocher soigneusement

Ses rideaux opaques mais clairs.

IZZETIN SOKAK

Notre logement est à Kadikoy près des docks.

Il est très simple. Mais en fait, il est dégueulasse.

Il sent l’assainissant et les chaussettes putrides.

Nous n’avons pas de moquette;

Bien que nous ayons un vieux tapis mité au salon

Mais tout est en blocs couleur de sable

Avec rideaux du même ton –

En vogue à Moscou dans les années cinquante.

La grande entrée est joliment peinte en deux tons:

L’un crème tournée et l’autre crotte de chien marron

Avec un accompagnement approprié d’odeur puante.

(Je ne sais pas si c’est le gaz

Mais il y a toujours une odeur tenace de

Choux, œuf pourri, urine et aliments avariés.)

A l’arrière nous avons un balcon étroit

Donnant sur des terrains vagues

Montrant d’importantes fissures près de la porte arrière.

(ça c’est la partie que nous réservons aux visiteurs.)

A ce propos,

Un soir d’été nous avions des invités pour l’apéro.

Tout à coup, quelque chose tomba du plafond

Et frôla mon épaule gauche.

Quand il atterrit, je vis que c’était un bousier

Avec des pinces effarantes

Et une queue en point d’interrogation.

Apres l’avoir écrasé avec mes pantoufles

Et en le regardant de plus près, je réalisai avec horreur

Que c’était un scorpion qui avait laissé une flaque de venin jaune

Sur le sol du salon.

(ça allait bien avec les rideaux.)

A mon avis, les femmes le prirent magnifiquement –

Elles ne partirent pas toutes sur le champ.

Vous imaginez que notre vie sociale en a pris un coup.

(Heureusement nous ne recherchons pas la compagnie.)

La chose la plus drôle,

J’aime vraiment cet appartement,

Je me sens bien chez moi ici.

BAIN TURC

J’ai passé dix minutes sous la douche

Et une heure à l’essuyer.

Je ne peux m’empêcher de penser

Que ça m’aurait bien aidé

S’ils avaient placé le pommeau

Au-dessus du bac à eau

Au lieu de le placer sur le mur opposé

A une distance très éloignée.

LES ALLUMETTES

Je me promenai le long du Bosphore

Et achetai une boite de phosphore

Afin d’allumer

La lampe du foyer.

Et quand la lampe fut allumée,

Le mot ‘Kibrit’ j’épelai

Sur cette petite boite de phosphore

Que j’achetai le long du Bosphore.

COUCHER  DE  SOLEIL  A  ISTANBUL

On peut voir les minarets

Pointus, pointer vers le ciel

Et les bateaux de pêche solitaires et endormis

Tanguer doucement sur les vagues sans soucis.

On voit le tout comme tel

En observant par-delà le Bosphore;

Les fameuses silhouettes acérées

D’Istanbul et ses célèbres Mosquées sacrées.

Le soleil commence à descendre

Enserrant la cité dans un cercle luminescent;

Des puits de rose-corail et de rouge tendre

Défient brièvement le rideau noir d’une nuit d’encre.

Une scène de tous les jours pour un Istanbulite,

Mais une apparition transcendantale pour moi:

Les contours légèrement flous d’un ciel de pépites

Dans les pastels poudreux des délices turquois.

LA MOSQUEE BLEUE

Même la lune

Etait en forme de croissant et pointue,

Couchée sur le dos

Regardant les étoiles

En s’attardant au dessus de la Mosquée bleue.

Il a fallu un moment pour entrer ;

Croiser avec des pièces argentées

Une armée de mains tendues

Avant de nous mettre pieds nus

Pour y pénétrer.

Les somptueux tapis rubis-rouge

S’opposant aux arches bleues, élancées

Et aux dessins délicats

Des vitraux bleu-turquoise.

Les colonnes colossales intentionnelles et majestueuses

Supportant le front noble du dôme;

Les grands yeux des fenêtres hautes,

Puits de lumière artificielle

Illuminant l’or sur le noir sur l’or

Des versets du Coran spécialement choisis.

Moi, je ne suis pas Musulman,

Mais en accord avec Keats:

La beauté est vérité; la vérité est beauté.

C’est tout ce que l’on sait sur terre

Et c’est tout ce dont on a besoin.

ENNEMIS PUBLICS: A Literary Review by Simon R Gladdish

ENNEMIS  PUBLICS  (Correspondance Janvier-Juillet 2008)

By MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ & BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Pub:  Flammarion Grasset 2008   pp 333   price 20 euros

 

 

Where to begin? I think it was Shaw who said that you should spend hours getting your first paragraph exactly right and then delete it. I suppose it all began in Carrefour. My wife and I are staying in France for a couple of months and although our nearest shop is Shopi, the nearest shop worth shopping in is Carrefour. On our first visit I made a beeline for the books table and there I saw it: Ennemis Publics by Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri Levy. I was immediately struck by the cover which shows photographs of both protagonists. Houellebecq looks genuinely unhappy, grimacing and smoking a melancholy cigarette whereas Levy just looks smug. You can almost smell his aftershave. Bernard-Henri Levy or BHL as he is known here in France is one of France’s leading intellectuals or ‘intello’s’. He was born in 1948 into enormous wealth and has led a charmed life ever since. His daughter Justine Levy is a leading French novelist and his third wife, the actress and model, Arielle Dombasle , is one of the most beautiful women in France. When his father died in 1995, Levy sold the family company for 750 million francs (around 75 million pounds.) Like our own Martin Amis, Levy is at a loss to understand why so many people actively dislike him.  It is no great mystery to me. It is called Jealousy and Envy. Levy is a novelist and journalist and although he keeps popping up in war zones he never quite escapes the sulphurous whiff of being a spoilt dandy. His narcissism is legendary and he often appears on French TV in designer suits with his expensive shirts unbuttoned to the navel.

 

Michel Houellebecq is more my kind of guy. He seems to be a genuine misanthrope in the tradition of Sartre and Camus. His literary heroes are Dostoyevsky, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche who also happen to be my literary heroes. His own mother wrote a book recently in which she described him as a little prick and a talentless social climber and said that if he dared to write about her again, she would use her walking stick to smash his teeth in. Houellebecq first came to my attention with his novel Les Particules Elementaires(1998) translated into English as Atomised. I loved reading this book but all I now really remember is the comic obsession with sex and the world weariness. Houellebecq got into serious trouble with his next novel Plateforme (2001) which is essentially the reminiscences of a sex tourist but also contains some trenchant criticisms of Islam.

 

He was taken to court by a number of Islamic organisations and narrowly escaped being found guilty of inciting racial and religious hatred. He fled to Ireland to escape the possibility of terrorist reprisals. (I kid you not.)

 

Ennemis Publics, their joint book is a kind of literary duel. Each takes it in turn to write a letter of several pages to the other. The tone is set when Houellebecq writes ‘A certaines personnes, peut-etre, il est arrive de faire l’amour dans un etat de pleine lucidite; je ne les envie pas. Tout ce que je suis, moi, arrive a faire dans un etat de pleine lucidite, ce sont mes comptes ; ou ma valise.’ (Other people perhaps, have been able to make love whilst completely sober. I don’t envy them. All I have been able to accomplish while completely sober is to do my accounts or pack my bags.) Levy responds ‘Je peux faire toutes les mises au point possibles et imaginables: je ne ferai qu’aggraver mon cas de salaud de bourgeois qui ne connait rien a la question sociale et qui ne s’interesse aux damnes de la terre que pour mieux faire sa publicite.’ (I can give every possible and imaginable explanation of my work. All I do is is worsen my reputation as a bourgeois swine who has no grasp of social realities and only pretends to be concerned about the world’s oppressed in order to generate headlines.)

 

Together they discuss life, literature, their favourite authors, who they like and dislike in the French media, their families, childhoods and why they are both so disliked by so many people. One of the first questions Bernard puts to Michel is ‘Pourquoi tant de haine?’ (Why so much hatred?)  Houellebecq responds by discussing the possibility of suicide. ‘La longue pente qui constitue la deuxieme partie de la vie: les degradations successives du vieillissement, puis la mort. L’idee m’est venue a plusieurs reprises, par suggestions breves, insistantes, que rien ne m’obligeait a vivre cette deuxieme partie ; que j’avais parfaitement le droit de secher.’  (The long slope that constitutes the second part of life : the successive degradations then death. The idea has occurred to me several times in brief, insistent suggestions that I wasn’t actually obliged to endure the second part; that I had a perfect right to skip it.) Levy doesn’t entertain the possibility of suicide. He could hardly be so lucky next time round.

 

The duo are initially rather wary of each other. Levy is a champagne socialist and Houellebecq a right-wing nihilist. However, by the end of the book they seem almost to have become friends. There is a very useful table of contents at the back which actually tells you what to expect in each chapter/letter. On page 260 for example:

‘On apprend que Michel Houellebecq considere que le roman est ‘un genre mineur’ par rapport a la poesie. Le ‘halo radioactif’ de la poesie ; le ‘pouvoir des mots’.   (One learns that Houellebecq considers the novel ‘a minor genre’ in comparison with poetry. The ‘radioactive halo’ of poetry; the ‘power of words’.)  Michel is a poet and Bernard-Henri is not.

 

I have A Level French and read Houellebecq’s contributions without difficulty. I had more trouble with Levy’s and often found myself reaching for the dictionary. On page 39 for example, there is a typical Levy sentence that lasts for fourteen lines. It is hard to imagine a comparable volume being published in Britain although a literary duel between say, Salman Rushdie and Will Self might generate some interest. Even so one can’t easily imagine an initial print run of 100,000 copies. In the land of Sartre and Derrida, the tradition of intellectualism or (some would argue) pseudo-intellectualism is alive and kicking.

 

Simon R. Gladdish   Copyright  2009

Teacher Talking Time by Simon R Gladdish

TEACHER  TALKING  TIME

 

      When I left university with my degree in philosophy I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with my life until a friend suggested doing a TEFL course. ‘It’s easy wonga, easy work and easy women’ he assured me. Like a fool I fell for it. I enrolled on the preparatory certificate (prep cert) course at International House in London which cost me 400 quid – a considerable sum in those days. When later, people asked me if I’d learnt anything on the course, I would answer truthfully – yes, never to part with 400 quid so easily again. The course lasted a month and although I enjoyed it, I can honestly say I learnt next to nothing.

 

Still, I scraped the certificate and hatched some plans. At the time my girlfriend, Sue, who was studying Spanish at Hull university was spending a year in Granada to improve her language skills. I wrote to her asking if I could join her. Luckily she answered in the affirmative and I more or less caught the next plane to Malaga. She was sharing with a couple of Muslim girls who violently objected to having a man in the flat so I was forced to find alternative accommodation. I eventually moved in with four charming young women who turned out to be lesbians. Because I spoke very little Spanish at the time I would spend many an evening playing chess with the lesbians and usually losing. I survived by giving private English classes to Spanish students. The trouble was I didn’t get many students and I always let them beat me down to a ridiculous hourly rate. If I had to catch a bus to teach them I could even find myself out of pocket. After six months, although my Spanish had improved dramatically, I was considerably poorer than when I had arrived and was beginning to fear becoming a destitute in Granada. I used my last few pesetas to buy a ticket home.

 

     My father was less than enthralled to see me back on his doorstep and immediately set about organizing me another job. This time it would be in Lerida in Catalunya at a proper language school. The boss, Ramon Vidal, interviewed me by telephone and I was offered the job at the end of the conversation. My father was so pleased to get rid of me that he even paid my flight to Barcelona. I was actually quite excited about the prospect of a proper job and a new life in Spain whose language I could now speak. I was driven to a flat and introduced to the other teachers who seemed alright. I shall never forget my first lesson. I was sitting quietly alone in a large classroom when the door burst open and twenty boisterous adolescents trooped in. My International House training kicked in immediately. I thought I was going to have a heart attack and almost fainted. How I survived that first lesson or the ones that followed, I will never know. I staggered punch-drunk out of the school and into the nearest bar. After a few beers I began to feel better and even managed to laugh about the day’s events. The following morning I had an eight o’clock class which I taught with a hangover. This unfortunately set a pattern that lasted the (brief) duration of the contract. Because (thanks to International House) I didn’t really know what I was doing I was forced to wing it (fasten your seatbelts!) which had an extremely deleterious effect on my nerves which I would assuage afterwards with alcohol. In the vernacular, I got pissed every single night. My day of reckoning was not long delayed. After a couple of months I was taken to one side by senor Vidal who informed that he was letting me go but would I carry on teaching until they could find a replacement. I thought it was the least I could do. My successor was a school-leaver who hadn’t even done the prep cert. I gave him my text books and taught him everything I knew which took about ten minutes.

 

      When I returned to Reading my father shook me warmly by the throat and demanded a detailed explanation of my latest disaster. I managed to convince him that I had learnt the job but not fast enough to satisfy the powers that were. My next foray was with Inlingua. I had an interview with an attractive woman in Edgebaston, Birmingham who offered me a job in Manresa, Catalunya, not far from Lerida as it happens. My father, surveying the wreckage of his previous investments, would only shell out for the coach fare. This turned out to be a slightly more successful enterprise, partly because we were largely left alone, and I survived the academic year. I developed a curious hybrid style as an EFL teacher. I was good at the grammar having done French and Russian at ‘A’ level but I was absolutely hopeless at the amateur dramatics so beloved of International House. Some students liked my style and some hated it. Where I really came unstuck was when I was being observed by someone higher up the EFL food chain. It’s actually quite interesting analysing what makes a good teacher. My (new) Spanish girlfriend, Regina, said they loved their English teacher because ‘they had a great laugh’. ‘But you didn’t actually learn any English’ I pointed out unkindly.  ‘Nobody did’ she answered in Spanish ‘but we all had a great laugh!’  I still think that teaching is ninety percent personality. If you are an extrovert and you like people then you stand a far better chance of becoming a good teacher than if you are an introvert who dislikes people – like me. If you get on with your students but not with your colleagues, you stand a good chance of surviving. If you get on with your colleagues but not with your students, you stand a reasonable chance of surviving. If you get on with neither, I would recommend an urgent trip to the nearest travel agent.  The upper classes have long had a fondness for EFL. The oldest son would inherit the estate. The second son would join the army. The third son would enter the church and the fourth (slightly dim) son would become an EFL teacher. During my extremely chequered career (which astonishingly eventually lasted over twenty years) I have met enough TEFL bores and listened to enough TEFL bollox to last me a lifetime.  I have encountered people who are seriously mentally ill who are classified as EFL eccentrics. They can’t go home because they have no home to go to. Quite a few Teflers have ended up marrying foreign partners and going completely native. I met my wife, Rusty, at a language school in La Coruna but she was at least British. I have met my best friends through EFL and made my worst enemies.

 

       Do I regret my more than twenty years at the chalkface? Not at all. I have travelled the world (Spain, Turkey, Tunisia, Kuwait). I have lived and worked in countries that I could not even have afforded to visit under normal circumstances. I have learnt to speak foreign languages (fluent Spanish and survival Turkish and Arabic). For the last three years of my TEFL career for the very first time in my life, I even made some money teaching in Kuwait. Hitherto I had been eking out a meagre living on subsistence wages. What advice would I give a young person thinking of a career in TEFL? My heartfelt advice would be to dive straight  in but expect the waters to be icy cold and bracing rather than warm and enveloping. You don’t have to stay in it for ever. It will furnish you with good, bad and indifferent memories that will stay with you for life and give you something to ponder on your deathbed and at the very least, it will postpone that evil day when you have to get a proper job.

The Sloth Diaries: The Nigerian Lottery Scam

The terrible traumas of the last few weeks are already becoming a distant memory and have been consigned to the brimming recycle bin of life. The sloth appears to have recovered from his duel with the dentist and seems none the worse for his experience. The intensity of summer is at an end and the days are becoming shorter. The garden is being romanced by vibrant Dhalias, dazzling us with the colours of their Mexican heritage. Burnt orange, Fuschia pinks, Marigold yellows, brilliant scarlet and pure, creamy white. They grow in profusion, crowding the borders and competing aggressively with the purple and pink Michaelmas daisies. The feathery leaves on the Sumach ( Japanese Maple) that grows at the foot of the rockery are turning a delicate yellow gold with the occasional vermillion leaf in between. Even the weather has become conveniently autumnal with the mist rolling down the mountain and spreading its moist mantle over the valley below. But the garden heaves a great sigh of relief and welcomes the the torrential downpours that soak the grateful roots of the old apple trees.

However, the peace and quiet of this sunny monday morning was shattered by a triumphant yell from the the study. When I went in to investigate this unruly outburst, I was confronted by the rare sight of the Sloth jumping up and down, waving a letter excitedly in the air. (a rather risky activitiy as he suffers from Angina!!!).

‘We’ve won! We’ve won! Here, look at this!’ He held the letter under my nose with trembling hands.

‘We’ve won the bloody Spanish lottery. We’re rich!’

I snatched the letter from his shaking hand and scanned a smudgy photocopy informing the Sloth that he’d been entered in the Spanish lottery via the internet and his numbers had come up. It stated that he was the lucky winner of 800,815 euros ( roughly £500, 600 ). To collect his winnings he had been given an email address and several phone numbers to contact someone called Steve Gomez. Poor old Sloth! Anyone with half a brain could see that it had SCAM, written all over it. But he desperately wanted to think it was true, as much as he wants to be rich and famous. He has a certain child like innocence that believes the little old ladies who come to our door and con him out of his cash. He’s a sucker for a hard luck story. This is a man who has an unshakeable belief in God and probably believes in Father Christmas too!! Both concepts seem synonymous as we are conditioned from childhood to believe in them. We never actually see them in the flesh though. 

‘Look!’, I say. ‘It’s just a trick. They’ve got your name and address from the internet. You’re always buying things online”.

Sloth sighed heavily. He doesn’t do patience. He began to speak very slowly and loudly as though he was talking to a simpleton or someone who was profoundly deaf.

‘It doesn’t matter where they got my name from does it? I’ve obviously won something and I’m going to ring the number and check it right now. OK?’

‘Ok! But it’s a Spanish number. It’ll cost a fortune on a Monday morning. Why don’t we wait until after six o’clock?’

His shoulders began to shake. The volcano was rumbling. ‘This is irrelevant in the scheme of things. The cost of a couple of phone calls is small beer when it looks like we’ve won half a million!’   Well, there’s no answer to that!

There were three phone numbers. He rang the first number but slammed down the receiver after dialling it several times. ‘It’s giving the unused line signal. I’ll try the other one.’ This time there was an answer.

‘Hola! Buenas dias! Puedo hablar con senor Steve Gomez por favor?’ Sloth said breezily.

‘Quien?’ a female voice crackled down the line.

‘Steve Gomez. G- O- M- E- Z ‘ Sloth spelled the name (using the Spanish alphabet) helpfully. There was a long pause, then, ‘No hay Steve Gomez aqui senor.’

The Sloth stiffened and grapsed the receiver firmly as though it was the arm of the Spanish speaker on the other end and tried again.

‘Mirar! Tengo una ficha sobre la lotteria…………’

‘Senor!’ the voice interrupted. ‘No hay Steve Gomez. No existe’

‘What do you mean? ‘Doesn’t exist’ ?’ Suddenly English had become the lingua franca, born out of sheer desperation.

‘Hello!….Hello!…’ Sloth tapped the phone frantically but was rewarded for his trouble with the irritating purr of the dialing tone.

‘See! I told you it was just a scam! The man doesn’t even exist….’

‘Of course he exists! ‘ exploded the Sloth and pounded up the stairs two at a time to send the non exisitent person an email.

The next morning the Sloth was up bright and early checking his emails. He came into the kitchen excitedly brandishing a sheet of paper.

‘I told you it was genuine’ he said self righteously. ‘ Take a look at this’.

I read the email and saw that it was indeed from someone calling himself Steve Gomez and informing the Sloth that he would be ringing from Spain that very morning. His smugness was unbearable as he began humming a tune from his latest Roy Orbison CD and stiring his capuccino noisily.

At eleven am the phone rang and the Sloth went into a frantic pantomime of manic handsignals worthy of a bookie ’s tic tac signalling the odds on the racecourse! I took this to mean that I was to answer it as the Sloth hates speaking on the phone. Expecting a conversation in Spanish I began by greeting the caller in what I believed was his native tongue. There was a brief silence from the other end, then ‘Er….can you speak English?’

‘Yes of course. Sorry! I thought you were Spanish. You have a spanish name so I thought…………’ I trailed off.

‘You have an African accent’ I ventured. A loud chuckle exploded in my ear.’Well that’s because I was born in South Africa, you see!’ Somehow, I couldn’t make out the clipped , adenoidal vowels of South Africa in his speech. By now I was bristling with suspicion but to prove my point to the gullible Sloth, I continued.

The deep, dark African voice identified himself as Steve Gomez and asked to speak to the Sloth. I explained that he had a cold and had lost his voice, so I was handling things for him. He seemed completely unfazed and told me cheerfully in a lilting African accent that Sloth had won some money in the Spanish lottery. He needed to know if he wanted to be paid by cheque or have the money transferred into his bank account by electronic transfer. ‘Of course we would need your bank details for this operation’ he crooned smoothly. I decided to play the shark a little longer and said ‘It would be better if you sent a cheuque’, I said breezily and gave a false address. ‘Steve’ seemed very happy with this. So much so that he then dropped the (the terribly predictable) bombshell.

‘Well that’s good! Now there’s only one more thing you must do to guarantee payment of the cheque’ he giggled.

‘What’s that exactly’ I said slowly.

‘Well!’ he paused ‘The Spanish bank charges £l,OOO’

‘What for?’ I said my voice beginning to rise.

‘Its the handling fee ma’m’

‘A £l,OOO handling fee’ I repeated.

I looked over at the Sloth who looked so woeful as he gave me the thumbs down. Dreams of a life of Riley fading into the ether. I quietly put down the receiver and switched on the answerphone.