No point in waxing nostalgic over old New Year's greeting cards… Things change. Fact of life. Yes, when I was a school girl, sending Shana Tova cards was quite a project (only it wasn't referred to as a project, nor an enterprise or an assignment). We walked into the center of town, to our favorite bookshop or kiosk, that now had a table laid out with an enormous selection of cute, small cards with matching envelopes: with and without cherubs and doves, with and without silver or gold sparkles. You had to choose carefully, which you'd send to whom, how much you'd spend, how many plain ones you needed and how many fancy ones. Anyone from my generation, growing up in Israel when I did, remembers this, and I'm sure it's been documented in various novels, short stories, newspaper articles.
So, if there's no point in pining for Old Times, what am I complaining about?
I'm complaining about the other extreme: Sending one Shana Tova greeting to your entire list of Contacts, Friends, or Customers, or your entire Address Book. By email or by texting (SMS, to Israelis.)
I know it's efficient. I know you simply don't have the time to send an individual email greeting to each. I know that most of the people who include me in their Shana Tova mailing list do indeed mean it, and do indeed think of me not only on Rosh Hashana. Still, it simply doesn't have the same impact. No matter how clever and original your copywriting, it's still impersonal, and I have not gotten used to it.
Do I have a solution? Not exactly... not as such. I've become so upset by this phenomenon in the past couple of years that I've stopped sending greetings altogehter. I phone some people; I send a few personal emails; I enclose a real, tangible card when sending, say, an invoice/receipt or any other bit of correspondence that requires the use of snail-mail; and of course I reply to the greetings I receive by email. Because, as I said, the senders are my friends who truly wish me well and whom I really want to wish a Happy [Jewish] New Year. But I just can't bring myself to create and send a mass message.
Hope I haven't offended my friends. I'll probably get my comeuppance next year, when my friends will say, "Well, ma'am, if that's the way you feel about it, no problem, I'll just delete your name from the list." And I'll be the only person in Israel not getting any New Year greetings, and shall feel very forlorn…
I wonder whether there's an in-between method. How would that work?
- First of all, either phone or send a paper greeting card to elderly people who don't have a computer and/or computer skills.
- Next, prepare one e-greeting for family. If you don't have too huge a family, you can even give their names in the body of the email, and/or make the text a bit more specific, e.g., Sweetie – may your enterprise flourish, Honeybunch – knock their socks off, Baby – enjoy your new job/apartment, Auntie – hope you can go back to running this year; and so forth.
- Stage three – prepare one text for friends in Israel, wherein you can allude to local issues; and a slightly different text for friends abroad, wherein you can express your hope of their coming to visit you in Israel next year (or not).
- Stage four – a text for customers, both current and prospective. Should be easy to wish them success in their business ventures, with the implied hope that they count you in and send some work your way. And a separate text for colleagues, who have helped you in the past and whom you wish to thank and wish well.
- Stage five – well, anyone else who has not been included in the previous categories, but whom you do not wish to leave out.
Does this sound like a lot of work?... Almost as time-consuming as going into town and hand-picking paper cards, addressing them and sticking on stamps?... Aw, shucks! I guess it's time I got used to the mass e-greetings.
Thank you, my friends, for thinking of me. Shana Tova to all.
Back to autobiographies
Reading biographies and autobiographies can be a terrible bore. For the most part, unless the protagonist is a figure of note, the tale is relevant and interesting only to close family members. Even autobiographies of famous people can be a bore. I am told that Churchill's contains some very tedious passages…
Years ago, I asked a friend to get me Virginia Woolf's latest biography, a heavy tome, considered by critics to be "definitive". Guess what – it was tedious beyond words, containing entire paragraphs along the lines of "… and the teapot on the mantelpiece described in Woolf's story XYZ turns out to be an accurate description of the teapot that was found in her home, given to her apparently by her Aunt Gertrude on her 20th birthday." Who cares, I ask you?
My mother loved autobiographies, so long as they were written by brilliant people and/or focused on subjects that were close to her heart (the theater, science fiction, Zionism & Israel…) Among her favorites were Neil Simon's memoirs, Rewrites and The Play Goes On; Golda Meir's autobiography My Life; and Stephen Fry's Moab Is My Washpot -- an autobiography of the first 20 years of his life; Clara was so sorry he stopped there, that she wrote to Fry to tell him how much she enjoyed his book and asked him to write another, of the next twenty years… He answered very kindly, but declined. (Am scanning his letter for you as I write, so scroll down to see it.) She also read Woody Allen's biography by Eric Lax, and at least one memoir by Isaac Asimov, I'm not sure which one - he wrote several.
Most of the above are on my bookshelf, of course, just waiting to be read… The only one I read so far, quite a while ago, is Rewrites. What can I tell you – pure agony, what a writer goes through. You read or watch a Neil Simon play, and the witty, funny dialog flows so naturally, so effortlessly. Ha! There's never writing, there's only rewriting, say the real pros.
Clara (a.k.a Mom), too, wrote her memoirs. She wrote them in longhand and dictated them to me on weekends when she stayed with us. I have plenty of letters, diaries and notebooks that can help me fill in gaps, if any. I do intend to complete that document one of these days, before it's too late, bind it and give it to her closest friends and family – should they be interested. I won't blame them if they decline. You can love and admire a person but not have the patience to wade through their autobiography.
And so – I said to myself – I shall do my best with translating the autobiography of the American gentleman mentioned in my previous post, in the hope that some of his kith and kin will read and appreciate it. But meanwhile, the project has been put on hold, or given to someone else, or perhaps canceled. Funnily, I'm a bit curious about this man's history. Maybe I'll read it all the same…
Years ago, I asked a friend to get me Virginia Woolf's latest biography, a heavy tome, considered by critics to be "definitive". Guess what – it was tedious beyond words, containing entire paragraphs along the lines of "… and the teapot on the mantelpiece described in Woolf's story XYZ turns out to be an accurate description of the teapot that was found in her home, given to her apparently by her Aunt Gertrude on her 20th birthday." Who cares, I ask you?
My mother loved autobiographies, so long as they were written by brilliant people and/or focused on subjects that were close to her heart (the theater, science fiction, Zionism & Israel…) Among her favorites were Neil Simon's memoirs, Rewrites and The Play Goes On; Golda Meir's autobiography My Life; and Stephen Fry's Moab Is My Washpot -- an autobiography of the first 20 years of his life; Clara was so sorry he stopped there, that she wrote to Fry to tell him how much she enjoyed his book and asked him to write another, of the next twenty years… He answered very kindly, but declined. (Am scanning his letter for you as I write, so scroll down to see it.) She also read Woody Allen's biography by Eric Lax, and at least one memoir by Isaac Asimov, I'm not sure which one - he wrote several.
Most of the above are on my bookshelf, of course, just waiting to be read… The only one I read so far, quite a while ago, is Rewrites. What can I tell you – pure agony, what a writer goes through. You read or watch a Neil Simon play, and the witty, funny dialog flows so naturally, so effortlessly. Ha! There's never writing, there's only rewriting, say the real pros.
Clara (a.k.a Mom), too, wrote her memoirs. She wrote them in longhand and dictated them to me on weekends when she stayed with us. I have plenty of letters, diaries and notebooks that can help me fill in gaps, if any. I do intend to complete that document one of these days, before it's too late, bind it and give it to her closest friends and family – should they be interested. I won't blame them if they decline. You can love and admire a person but not have the patience to wade through their autobiography.
And so – I said to myself – I shall do my best with translating the autobiography of the American gentleman mentioned in my previous post, in the hope that some of his kith and kin will read and appreciate it. But meanwhile, the project has been put on hold, or given to someone else, or perhaps canceled. Funnily, I'm a bit curious about this man's history. Maybe I'll read it all the same…
-------------------
Brush up your Grossman
The other day I started a new translation project. It's a biggie – over 44,000 words – and – surprise, surprise – it's a rush job. Why did I agree? Heaven knows. Probably because I'm tired of doing little bits and pieces and would rather sink my keyboard keys into a longish, hopefully consistent text. And also because the text is a manuscript, the memoirs of an elderly gentleman, and as such I deem it important. A mitzvah, if you will.
Thing is, the author is American, and the manuscript is in English, which means the translation is into Hebrew. Theoretically, shouldn't be a problem. Been there, done that, and so on; I'm a native Hebrew speaker, lived and studied here in Israel… But after a lengthy period of translating mostly Hebrew > English, I have to brush up my active Hebrew. I need the words to come to me quickly and easily. Can't afford to wrack my brain and agonize over it.
A case in point occurred fairly early on in the text. A certain character's occupation was described – though not in so many words – as a carter or wagoner in a shtetl. The text used the Yiddish word, which was foreign to me. My mind went totally blank. I consulted an online English/Yiddish dictionary, (completely forgetting that I have the original 1928 hardcover on my shelf) but had difficulty finding the word I wanted, because it was misspelled in the manuscript. I gave up in disgust.
Solution? Or rather, pre-emptive action? – Pick up a well-written Hebrew novel and read it, to rev up the literary Hebrew generator, as it were. Especially in this case, since the text calls for elegant, high register Hebrew. Chatty everyday language or cool, modern-day Etgar Keret type style won't cut it.
I can do that. As a matter of fact, the pile of unfinished books on my night table (which includes, for instance, Graham Greene's A Burnt-Out Case and Stamboul Train, mentioned previously on this blog, also includes an Amos Oz and a David Grossman – my two favorite Hebrew writers. Respectively, these are Rhyming Life and Death, and Her Body Knows – Two Novellas.
But as good and enjoyable as these two may be, it means I must put down the book I am currently reading, viz., Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals, with its biting social satire and quirky characters.
It was quite a relief to revert to Pratchett after the last book I read – Larry Niven's A World Out of Time. I found JB Corbell's adventures in Time and Space very tiring, in addition to downright scary at times. I do most of my reading around bedtime, and prefer not to read scary stuff, lest it should give me nightmares.
But I digress.
Back to the problem at hand. As I got up for my lunch-break, an old Hebrew song suddenly started playing itself, loud and clear, in my head: "Kor'im lo Lipa ha'eglon…" [Lipa the carter/wagoner]
Problem solved, this time around.
I really ought to pick up that Grossman. Or Oz.
Thing is, the author is American, and the manuscript is in English, which means the translation is into Hebrew. Theoretically, shouldn't be a problem. Been there, done that, and so on; I'm a native Hebrew speaker, lived and studied here in Israel… But after a lengthy period of translating mostly Hebrew > English, I have to brush up my active Hebrew. I need the words to come to me quickly and easily. Can't afford to wrack my brain and agonize over it.
A case in point occurred fairly early on in the text. A certain character's occupation was described – though not in so many words – as a carter or wagoner in a shtetl. The text used the Yiddish word, which was foreign to me. My mind went totally blank. I consulted an online English/Yiddish dictionary, (completely forgetting that I have the original 1928 hardcover on my shelf) but had difficulty finding the word I wanted, because it was misspelled in the manuscript. I gave up in disgust.
Solution? Or rather, pre-emptive action? – Pick up a well-written Hebrew novel and read it, to rev up the literary Hebrew generator, as it were. Especially in this case, since the text calls for elegant, high register Hebrew. Chatty everyday language or cool, modern-day Etgar Keret type style won't cut it.
I can do that. As a matter of fact, the pile of unfinished books on my night table (which includes, for instance, Graham Greene's A Burnt-Out Case and Stamboul Train, mentioned previously on this blog, also includes an Amos Oz and a David Grossman – my two favorite Hebrew writers. Respectively, these are Rhyming Life and Death, and Her Body Knows – Two Novellas.
But as good and enjoyable as these two may be, it means I must put down the book I am currently reading, viz., Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals, with its biting social satire and quirky characters.
It was quite a relief to revert to Pratchett after the last book I read – Larry Niven's A World Out of Time. I found JB Corbell's adventures in Time and Space very tiring, in addition to downright scary at times. I do most of my reading around bedtime, and prefer not to read scary stuff, lest it should give me nightmares.
But I digress.
Back to the problem at hand. As I got up for my lunch-break, an old Hebrew song suddenly started playing itself, loud and clear, in my head: "Kor'im lo Lipa ha'eglon…" [Lipa the carter/wagoner]
Problem solved, this time around.
I really ought to pick up that Grossman. Or Oz.
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