UNIVERZITA KARLOVA V PRAZE
FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA
ÚSTAV ANGLOFONNÍCH LITERATUR A KULTUR
THE ROLE OF LITERARY STUDIES IN TRANSLATION:
AN INTRODUCTION TO SWING HAMMER SWING!
BAKALÁŘSKÁ PRÁCE
Vedoucí práce: Zpracovala: PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, PhD Křepelová Dana, DiS.
Konsultant: Studijní obor: Colin S. Clark, M.A. Anglistika a amerikanistika
Praha, září 2013 I declare that the following BA thesis is my own work for which I used only the sources and literature mentioned, and that this thesis has not been used in the course of other university studies or in order to acquire the same or another type of diploma.
Prague, 14 August 2013
______
Křepelová Dana, DiS. I would hereby like to thank my supervisor PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, PhD for his beneficial, patient, and professional guidance regarding his comments on my translation and my thesis, and I would also like to thank my consultant Colin S. Clark, M.A. for the invaluable insight into the Scottish language and culture.
I have no objections to the BA thesis being borrowed and used for study purposes. ABSTRACT
This thesis analyses the process of translation of the opening four chapters of the novel Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington with regard to the cultural, literary and linguistic point of view in order to point out the holistic approach to translation, which has been previously omitted as the functional aspect of translation. In other words, the original text needs to be analysed with regard to its literary, cultural and social context, so the functions of the text are properly reflected in the actual translation. The thesis is based on Jiří Levý´s functional structuralism, who is nowadays being discovered by the western linguistic theorists, whereas, in the Czech context, he was well-received and always associated with Prague Linguistic Circle. The thesis is divided into three main parts predominantly based on Halliday´s (2001) macro and micro level approach to translation, which strategically combined both the literary and linguistic experience of the translator.
In the first section “Macro level approach”, the novel as well as the author are placed in their literary and social contexts, additionally, the novel is respectively analysed in terms of its structure, themes and the overall agenda of the author. In the second section called “Micro level approach”, three main approaches of the field of discourse, the tenor and the mode, Halliday (1978), serve as the structure for the subsequent analysis of stylistic features of the text, and the process of translation.
It is impossible to find the sole solution of the individual practical translational issues because these decisions are highly subjective. Therefore, the translational examples stated in the translational analyses are emphasising rather 1 the role of literary criticism in translation of belle-letters than arguing for the particular solution. The last section is the appendix, as it contains the actual translation of the opening first four chapters of the novel with both the original
English and the translated Czech text so that the actual translation could be available in full.
KEY WORDS
Glasgow, Torrington, modern Scottish literature, translation, literary criticism, Halliday, Levý, hysterical realism, word play
ABSTRAKT
Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá procesem překládání na konkrétním překladu prvních čtyř kapitol románu Jeffa Torringtona Swing Hammer Swing!.
Tento proces zohledňuje kulturní, literární a lingvistické překladatelské uchopení překladu jako celku z pohledu anglo-americké překladatelské teorie, která dlouhou dobu opomíjela funkční hledisko použití literární teorie v překladu. Tato překladatelské práce je založena na teoretických i praktických výstupech Jiřího
Levého, jehož funkční strukturalismus je v současné době objevován lingvistickými teoretiky anglo-americké tradice, kdežto v českém prostředí je jeho práce známa a spojována s Pražským lingvistickým kroužkem. Bakalářská práce je rozdělena do třech hlavních oddílů, které jsou strukturovány podle Hallidayova
(2001) přístupu k analýze překládaného textu na základě kulturního a literárního kontextu (makro level) a následného stylistického a překladatelského rozboru
2 (micro level) podle tématu, vztahu účastníku komunikace a způsobu komunikace
Halliday (1978).
Je nemožné tuto bakalářskou práci stavět na subjektivních překladatelských závěrech, proto jsou příklady konkrétních překladatelských
řešení částí textu uvedené jako argumenty pro Hallidayův model, který nejen zohledňuje literární teorii vpřekladatelské praxi, ale také ho staví před klíčové rozhodnutí kpřistoupení k uvažování nad konkrétní realizací překladu krásné literatury. Posledním oddílem je příloha, kde je text přeložen kompletně, který tak není rozdroben na příklady mimo svůj zamýšlený kontext, a je proto přístupný
čtení jako celek.
KLÍČOVÁ SLOVA
Glasgow, Torrington, moderní skotská literatura, překlad, literární teorie,
Halliday, Levý, hysterický realismus, hra se slovy
3 I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………...……………6
II. ON TRANSLATION………………………………………...…………...….10
III. MACRO LEVEL APPROACH…………………………..…………………13
1. Introduction…………………………………………………...………13
2. The Working Class Novel……………………………………….……17
2.1. The New Glasgow Novel…………………………………...20
3. Main Themes in Swing Hammer Swing! ...... 27
IV. MICRO LEVEL APPROACH………………………………………..…….34
1. Field of Discourse……………………………………………….……34
1.1. Stylistic Analysis……………………………………………35
1.2. Translational Analysis………………………………………39
2. Tenor……………………………………………………………….…44
2.1. Stylistic Analysis……………………………………………44
2.2. Translational Analysis………………………………………50
3. Mode……………………………………………………….…………55
3.1. Stylistic Analysis……………………………………...…….55
3.2. Translational Analysis………………………………………59
V. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………....……66
VI. WORKS CONSULTED AND CITED...... 67
VII. APPENDIX – THE TRANSLATION...... 74
4 Les loups encoquilles sont plus cruels que les loups errants.
Gaston Bachelard, La poetique de l´espace
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.
Allen Ginsberg, Howl
A passive understanding of linguistic meaning is no understanding at all,
it is only the abstract aspect of meaning.
Bakhtin (1994)
5 I. INTRODUCTION
The framework of the translational process includes not only dealings with the various strategies of the languages, but it can also be seen as a process of communication based on Osgood and Schramm model (Schramm, 1954), which decodes the original message in the original language in order to subsequently encode it into the target language. This model was criticised for its linearity in the dynamics of acts of speech, but works very well in translation as there is no interchangeability,1 in the sense of altering of the original piece of literature by the reader. Therefore, it is common to see many translations of the same original work based on the individual translator´s strategies of decoding and encoding as there is a great degree of subjectivity involved. The subjectivity does not involve only the linguistic craft of transforming a text from one language code into another, but the knowledge and insight into the literary context as well. As
Jovanka Šotolová points out, the translator possesses a great power to influence both the reception of the author and his works, and the widening of the cultural and linguistic awareness of the reader.2
This thesis focuses on the role of literary studies in translation from the point of view of the theory of communication, which points out that the linguistic prism in translation is not necessarily the dominant one in interpreting the overall focus of the writer of the translated belles-lettres in the target language, here being obviously the Czech language. This thesis is not a display of examples of the
1 “Osgood and Schramm model of Communication.” Communication Theory. 2010. Web. 16 June 2013.
2 Jovanka Šotolová, “Moc a bezmoc překladatele.” Eva Kalivodová et al.,Tajemná translatologie. Praha: FF UK, 2008.
6 ultimate mastering of the art of translation, but it hopes to show, in specific examples of the actual translation of Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington, how the linguistic and literary features of the text combine in order to achieve a coherent and comprehensive approach to the novel´s translation into Czech, especially in the approach of stylistics which according to Short (1996), uses linguistic description in the analysis of literary texts.3 However, it needs to be repeated that such an approach means a great degree of subjectivity on the critic´s/the translator´s emphasis of their standpoints, which could be here rather leaning towards literary criticism.
The thesis relies on the growing trend in the Anglo-American theories of translation, which views the text, first and foremost, from the standpoint of macro level approach dealing with the cultural, historical and local context; literary allusions; the relations between the author and their readers; and a type of text and his primary function. In other words, this standpoint deals firstly with the literary criticism. This criticism is termed strategic decision, which only then leads to micro level approach, undertaking the grammatical and lexical structures, the text´s genre, and what other linguistic functions the text employs, which need to be respected and retained in the translation with the functional focus of the primary text as the prism.4
This shift towards the literary criticism in translation was described and analysed by Dagmar Knittlová in Překlad a překládání (2010) and Gabriela
Miššíková in Analysing Translation as Text and Discourse (2007) who based it
3 Gabriela Miššíková, Analysing Translation as Text and Discourse. Praha: JTP, 2007. 28
4 Dagmar Knittlová et al., Překlad a překládání. Olomouc: FF UP, 2010. 27
7 mostly on Halliday (2001) and his “functional linguistics which combines the micro level language vehicles with the communicative function of the text and its social and cultural background.”5 Such a communicative approach to translation concurs with the functional sentence perspective, which can be understood in terms of Halliday´s theme and rheme in organizing a sentence, or in terms of
Mathesius´s jádro and výpověď and the subsequent Firbas´s discourse dynamism.6
Nevertheless, such an appropriation is not a new one in the Czech context of translational theory, especially in the context of translating belles-lettres. It is
Jiří Levý (1963), who in his The Art Of Translation, laid out the approach to text and its translation as being primarily focused on the function of the text within its historical and literary context, and only then followed by the appropriate linguistic analysis, thus reassuming Mukařovský´s basic principles of structuralism and, consequently, laying down the basis of functional structuralism, especially in structural aesthetics and semiotics, within the Prague linguistic school, therefore, refusing formalism, which ignored the literary and social context of a text, as well as differentiating from positivism, which focused on finding a singular cause of a feature. Positivism was popular in the western countries until the 1990s, as it followed the French structuralism of linguistic function, culture and ideology. The
Czech Levý´s functional structuralism has always involved all these aspects,7 and his work is the more appreciated, as he was trained especially in an Anglophone
5 Ibid, 28.
Gabriela Miššíková, Analysing Translation as Text and Discourse. Praha: JTP, 2007. 28
6 Dagmar Knittlová et al., Překlad a překládání. Olomouc: FF UP, 2010. 33
7 Zuzana Jettmarová, “Foreword to the fourth edition.” Jiří Levý, Umění překladu. Praha: Miroslav Pošta – Apostrof, 2012. 8-12
8 background and the English language. Therefore, it is worth pointing out that there is a shift occurring in the Anglophone countries in terms of linguistic and translational approach in favour of literary criticism in order to maintain the artistic effect of the translated text, and thus confirming that for a correct interpretation of fiction, simple language knowledge is insufficient.
This thesis is structured into two main sections, based on the macro and micro level approaches with the complete translation of the first four chapters of
Swing Hammer Swing! in the appendix where the subjective translational choices can be compared instantly with the original text. In the envelope attached to the hard covers, there is a copy of the original text of the novel published in 1993 by
Minerva Paperback; the first publication was done by Secker&Warburg in 1992.
9 II. ON TRANSLATION
Translation is the process of analysing a text and transforming it to another set of arbitrary system of cultural references. Thus the translator interprets literature; it is not simply a process of adaptation, as Milan Hrdlička points out.
The aim of this thesis is to attempt to show how language analysis is entwined with literary analysis to uncover various layers of the written work in order to be translated in the same spirit, and to point out that translation can benefit as a means of critical literary studies as well. This thesis does not propose to present an exhaustive list of such topics; it intends to map the most vital ones connected to the process of translation as a method of attempting a deeper understanding of the author´s making of the text. The source material Swing Hammer Swing! by
Jeff Torrington was chosen specifically for its language, and metaphorical and cultural complexity, which could be challenging not only to translate, but also in terms of literary criticism.
Olga Krijtová stresses that in order to maintain the powerful imagery which springs from the figurative speech of the lower classes, what must be maintained is the flow of the images, the lightness of the rhythm of speech, not in individual clauses but rather in the tone of whole paragraphs. Therefore, some specific expressions cannot be translated literally but the expressivity can be maintained by different semantic units or word classes.
This thesis is based on the scholarly translational theories of communicative translation and conclusions of Milan Hrdlička´s Literary translation and communication, Jiří Levý´s concepts of “looseness and faithfulness” in his Introduction to the Theory of Translation and general 10 guidance in translation of his The Art Of Translation, and lastly, Olga Krijtová´s most practical Invitation to translation praxis: chapters on the translation of belles-lettres.
Additionally, not only consultations of the translated and published
Scottish novels were taken into account, such as Irvine Welsh´s Trainspotting translated by Ondřej Formánek, and Alasdair Gray´s Lanark: A Life in Four
Books translated by Barbora Punge Puchalská, but so also was the diploma thesis of Marek Náprstek dealing with the translation of Alan Bissett´s novel Incredible
Adam Spark. Interestingly, Pavlína Flajšarová thoroughly mapped the published translations of Scottish literature between the 1900 -1980 and issued the list in
Skotská próza v letech 1900-1980. It is clear there is an already established tradition of translation of Scottish literature, especially R. L. Stevenson, Walter
Scott and Robert Burns, along with the translations of many others contemporary
Scottish authors, mentioned respectively in Skotská próza v letech 1980-2009, and that there is a Czech readership that is familiar with certain degree of imagery of the Scottish landscape and culture.
The linguistic analyses are based on the publications of Libuše Dušková´s
Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny, and practical analysis of texts of
Libuše Dušková et al.´s Morfologie současné angličtiny and Syntax současné angličtiny, along with C. M, Millward and Mary Hayes´s A Biography of the
English Language; the theoretical source of literary theory is mainly based on
Martin Procházka´s Literary Theory: An Historical Introduction.
The purpose of the Appendix with both the texts laid out for comparison is to offer the subjective choices and strategies of the individual translation issues on 11 every linguistic level – grammatical, pragmatical, semantic, and graphical level.
Those examples used in the linguistic analyses in the body of the thesis should provide argumentation for the key role of literary criticism in translating and interpreting the text with the regard to the author´s authentic message and its artistic appeal as much as possible. Therefore, various translational theories, neither synchronic nor diachronic, will be extensively discussed, as well as all the subjective choices of the individual phrases or idioms. However, it must be emphasised that it is Jiří Levý´s structural functionalism and Halliday´s macro and micro level approaches that are the underlying methodology in dealing with not only the structure of the thesis, but the essential approach to the actual process of translation as well.
12 III. MACRO LEVEL APPROACH
1. INTRODUCTION
This thesis “Memento literary criticism: the commentated translation of the first four chapters of Jeff Torrington´s Swing Hammer Swing!” deals with the four opening chapters of Swing Hammer Swing!, a novel by Jeff Torrington, a
Scottish writer who belongs to the generation of writers reflecting the claustrophobic and underground era in modern Scottish literature, roughly dating from the 1950s to the early 1990s. This era culminates with the critical acclaim of
James Kelman´s novel How Late It Was, How Late, being awarded The Man
Booker Prize for Fiction in 1994 and brought to attention the whole generation of writers, such as Alasdair Gray, A.L. Kennedy, Tom Leonard or Agnes Owens. It took Jeff Torrington over thirty years to finish Swing Hammer Swing!, and, to a great degree, the novel does not only encompass the era between its setting, the
Christmas in 1959, and its publication in 1993, in terms of the Scottish sombre urban atmosphere and imagination, dialect preservation or vast potential for social or political satire, but Torrington preserves in it a great degree of nostalgia, for “it does for Glasgow what James Joyce did for Dublin,”8 inspiring the next generation of Scottish writers in the 1990s, such as, for example, Irvine Welsh.9
Jeff Torrington had been contributing with numerous short stories to various journals and his second novel Devil´s Carousel was published in 1996; however, none of the pieces of literature achieved such literary merit as Swing Hammer
Swing!.
8 Ronald Carter, John McRae, The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland. London, UK: Routledge, 1997. 535
9 Stephen Bernstein, Alasdair Gray. USA: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1999. 18 13 Swing Hammer Swing! is a very complex novel, multilayered in narration
(hysterical realism, stream of consciousness, direct speech, palaver, flashbacks), in its use of language, which is full of metaphors, neologisms, various slang, cultural and literary references; and crude social and political satire to such an extent that the judges for Whitbread First Novel Award depicted it as a magic realism.10 Torrington´s narrative style can be labelled hysterical realism, a term used by the literary critic James Wood in 2001 when reviewing Zadie Smith´s novel White Teeth.11 He says “it is characterized of fear of silence” – the theme of silence in Swing Hammer Swing! is, however, not of the Beckettian kind, which is the welcoming void beyond the dysfunctional rants and misplaced utterances.12
Torrington´s fear of silence here, on one hand, reflects the nostalgia for what is being lost in the rubble of the demolished the Gorbals as is typical for post- colonial literature, and, on the other hand, the fast-paced narration filled with details emphasised by the stream of consciousness concurs with the Scottish tradition of storytelling and oral culture, which relishes in colourful metaphors, slang and a clever combination of registers in order to achieve an entertaining
10 Christopher Brookmyre, “Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington.” Scottish Book Trust 2013 Web. 28 April 2013.
11 “The other casualty of recent events may well be - it is to be hoped - what I have called "hysterical realism." Hysterical realism is not exactly magical realism, but magical realism's next stop. It is characterised by a fear of silence. This kind of realism is a perpetual motion machine that appears to have been embarrassed into velocity. Stories and sub-stories sprout on every page. There is a pursuit of vitality at all costs. Recent novels by Rushdie, Pynchon, DeLillo, Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, and others have featured a great rock musician who played air guitar in his crib (Rushdie), a talking dog, a mechanical duck and a giant octagonal cheese (Pynchon), a nun obsessed with germs who may be a reincarnation of J Edgar Hoover (DeLillo), a terrorist group devoted to the liberation of Quebec who move around in wheelchairs (Foster Wallace), and a terrorist Islamic group based in North London with the silly acronym Kevin (Smith).”
James Wood, “Tell me how does it feel?” The Guardian. 6 Oct 2001. Web. 17 Dec 2011.
12 Ihab Hassan, “Acts Without Words.” The Literature of Silence: Henry Miller and Samuel Beckett. NYC: Alfred. A. Knopf, 1967. 174-200
14 rhetorical effect. Swing Hammer Swing! thus points out the horrors of the Scottish urban topics of estrangement, loss of identity, deprivation, and a deep drive to escape with the expressive function of storytelling and without the ever present danger of pathos and melodrama. It would be, rather, Torrington´s unfinished novel, Go Down Laughing, about a group of people trying to take off with a cement plane, which would be much more in compliance with Beckett´s dissatisfaction with the language and the sense of failed ability to produce meaningful utterances.
Lastly, there are very few and quite scattered pieces of literary criticism on
Jeff Torrington or Swing Hammer Swing!; they can be found in the online obituaries of the big newspapers, e.g. The Guardian, The Independent, Scotsman or Telegraph, and in several reviews on various sites. There is one interview with
Jeff Torrington and Phillip Hobsbaum by journalist Deborah Orr for The
Guardian in 1993. However, this thesis has mainly focused on scouring various collections of short stories and numerous monographs on contemporary Scottish literature where Jeff Torrington is usually explicitly mentioned in a paragraph or not much larger portion of the critical text. He is generally regarded as one of the authors representing the urban Scottish novel capturing the grimness of the post- war years and
However, being in close connection with James Kelman and the literati of the working class then, becoming familiar with the other authors and their literary criticism proved to be very helpful in creating a closer understanding of the imaginative, cultural, and often political agenda of the authors, as well as researching the area of Glasgow since the early 1900, as Jeff Torrington places the
15 novel in its political and social context. Additionally, the transcript of the staging of Swing Hammer Swing! by Glasgow´s Citizens Company in 1995 was taken into account as a form of a review of the original material.
16 2. THE WORKING CLASS NOVEL
Torrington uses the general and wide-spread presupposition about Scottish working class people being more lost and devoid of Scottish identity than Scottish unsophisticated rubes per se, lacking proper manners, morals and education, and being the urban vermin, as it was the cliché of the 1990s “that the only culture most Glaswegians saw was growing on the walls.”13 Interestingly, Torrington points out that it is not only the outside power structures which impose such notions on the proletariat, but it is the working class themselves who nurture such an identity and refuse to see any alternative to their infamous role of hard man who holds on to a grudge. 14 Therefore, what is scandalous about the protagonist
Thomas Clay is not his ponderings, constant complaints and lack of any restraint, but the fact that he is a writer in the making in the working class milieu and actually longs to stay and preserve to a certain degree what is being lost in the demolition of the Gorbals. Nevertheless, he is traditionally refused by publishing houses in London, but, interestingly, struggles much more with the severe resistance and criticism of such a career from his family and friends. The theme of talented working class people´s inability to rise above their working class mates, whose credo is simply to take blind pride in being working class, and thus keeping themselves and others caged in self-destruction, has been recorded in various novels or autobiographies; Tom Gallagher mentions Jimmy Boyle, a former
13 Crawford, Robert, Anne Varty, Liz Lochhead´s Voices. UK: Edinburgh University Press, 1993. 32
14 Christopher Whyte, “Masculinities in Contemporary Scottish fiction”. Forum for Modern Language Studies. 1998, volume xxxiv No. 3, 274-285
17 violent offender, later the author of A Sense of Freedom (1977),15 and his brother´s reaction to Jimmy´s rehabilitation:
We´re not meant to be educated. All these books you´re reading,
all this art stuff – this is not our world. Stop this.16
Torrington manages to elegantly work with this theme through with the depositions of pub talk, and street/tenement life in the atmosphere of ultimate doom represented by the Hammer, in order to point out the buried potential and the consequent intellectual starvation in these very places. Here the Hammer is the symbol of the labour, or even communist poster character, the hammer and the scythe being held up to forge the bright future of the industrial world, which
Glasgow, and the Clydeside especially, had been - the Victorian craft shop of the world. This pathos of bright future is being mocked in the ruins of the Gorbals, whose inhabitants lose their community and authenticity, but the rhetoric does not rid them of any pressing social problems of the former slums, or help them improve their social status.
Swing Hammer Swing!´s topics of literary criticism were not exhausted here, e.g. the topic of the protagonist´s own literary criticism in Swing Hammer
Swing! within the context of Alasdair Gray´s character of the omnipotent writer in
Lanark: A Life in Four Books, or possibly comparison of the other portraits of
Glasgow by A. McArthur´s No Mean City, Archie Hind´s The Dear Green Place, or Alasdair Gray´s Lanark, reflecting the fact that Glasgow is traditionally seen as
15 “Jimmy Boyle agrees to £2m film deal with Disney.” The Scotsman. 8 Nov 2003. Web. 20 Feb 2013.
16 Gallagher, Tom, Illusion of Freedom: Scotland under Nationalism. USA, NY: Columbia University Press, 2011.
18 working-class only, a place outside Scottish identity, traditionally connected with the landscape and the country’s cultural, linguistic, and economic differences from Glasgow in particular. Nor is Jeff Torrington´s personal life comprised here even though it reflects much of what was moving Scotland culturally and politically. However, extensive analysis of the political changes is beyond the scope of this thesis, and therefore, they are mentioned only in connection with the prevailing themes in Swing Hammer Swing!.
19 2. 1. THE NEW GLASGOW NOVEL
Swing Hammer Swing! is structured into forty-three chapters that can be read separately, so the novel could, to a certain degree, represent a collection of short stories. The reasons for such seeming looseness in structure are complex associations on many levels: in characters, settings or cultural references, and ironic assessments of the main narrator. Such a variety in sequencing the chapters is intentional, as the narration not only ends in a cycle with pondering on the very first scene of the deepsea diver stepping out of the cinema, but Torrington stresses that the time sequence, the novel, between its very first action and the recollection of it is by no means causal, but rather encloses the space for capturing the fleeing moments of the physical existence, represented in the demolishing of the Gorbals, as well as the elusive web of thoughts, saturated with numerous images, recollections and cultural allusions.17
This great degree of variety in sequencing of the chapters was reflected in the staging of the Glasgow´s Citizens Company in 1995 which actually used/staged portions of the dialogues and stream of consciousness word by word from the novel, but in a different order making the play emphasises the drudgery of the hasty politics behind the Gorbals slum eviction, where the novel ends with the a comic relief device, labelling all the violence, moral and intellectual decay,
17 “Was it only Friday last that a deepsea diver was to be seen stepping hesitantly from the auld fleapit? It seems years ago somehow. Maybe it was years ago. Maybe it hasn´t happened yet. Have a chat with Mr Dunne the next time you see´m doddering along like an amiable old mole in one of his improvised time-warps.”
Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing! UK: Minerva, 1993. 407
20 and claustrophobia to be just a dark cloud,18 events which could be shifted for the time elasticity embedded in the narration from the start, similar to Lewis Carol´s frame narration of a dream in Alice in Wonderland or Alasdair Gray´s Lanark.
However, compared to these novels, Swing Hammer Swing! is flatly straightforward in its sarcasm and criticism, and nothing is spared, not even the narrator himself.
Swing Hammer Swing! is a modernist novel in the sense that it lacks a plot and the narrative strategy is the stream of consciousness cleverly combined with a first-person narration. Nevertheless, Thomas Clay, the narrator, functions also as a reflector as he tells the story by showing the situations and letting them speak for themselves. Therefore, there is no strict line between the narration and stream of consciousness, meaning difference between the narration and reflection.
Nevertheless, Torrington is not solitary in pursuing such literary strategies.
It is Torrington´s friend but not mentor,19 James Kelman, who seems to be the representative of this era in Scottish urban writing, the 1980s-early 1990s, for his vocal active political and social agenda, and critical acclaim of the establishment, both literary and political, and therefore, he attracts the most academic attention,
18 “Effie, my personal Harpy – that´s right, the one who looked like Nobby Stiles with teeth – has vamoosed. [...] How do I know that Effie´s really gone? Well, how do you know whether your head is or is not up a camel´s ass? You just know. And what a difference her departure has wrought: hitherto clamped and curtained windows are flung open; light pervades my being.”
Ibid, 396-397
19 “Kelman, who had a book published in the US more than a decade before a British publisher would touch him, taught a writing class in Paisley that Torrington attended. But he is at pains to explain that he´s not been a mentor to the older writer. Kelman thinks that “there is a danger of Scottish writing being seen as a genre.” Diversity has developed because “in Scotland there´s a strong sense of literature as an art form, not something to be pursued as a career, for money.”
Deborah Orr, “School of hard knocks.” The Guardian. 26 Jan 1993. Web. 15 May 2013
21 and his work is the most discussed platform for various Scottish themes to such an extent that this period is labelled as New Scottish Renaissance.20 However, the writers in question resist this label21 as there are many more authors unconcerned with the specifically urban setting yet who are equally enriching and shifting the imaginative space within the Scottish culture. Admittedly, other critics see
Alasdair Gray as the literary persona which marks the beginning of this fervent decade by the publishing of Lanark in 1981, while others argue that it is the failed referendum for Scottish home rule in 1979. Regardless, the source of support and immediate criticism for Kelman, Torrington and few others in Glasgow was an informal writer´s group of the influential literary persona and professor at the
University of Glasgow, Phillip D. Hobsbaum.22 The group did not have a manifesto of any kind, and the writers´ styles and their agenda were not homogenous at all; however, it is the imaginative, post-modern and existential upsurge of energy and inspiration based on the individual experiences of
Glasgow, the continuance of its community and language that is the common ground for these writers and inspiration for the next generation of Scottish writers in the 1990s; for example, Ian Bell specifically mentions Duncan McLean, Alan
20 Christie L. March, Rewriting Scotland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. 3
Petr Anténe,et al., Skotská próza v letech 1980-2009. Olomouc: FF UP, 2010. 11
21 Roderick Watson, The Literature of Scotland: the 20th century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 229
22 Without any commentary as the scope of this thesis is limited, the list of writers who attended at different times the Hobsbaum´s writer´s group until 1979 is as follows; the list does not profess to be exhaustive but should provide a general overview and mapping of names: Alasdair Gray, Liz Lochhead, Tom Leonard, James Kelman, Aonghas MacNeacail, Agnes Owens and Jeff Torrington.
Roderick Watson, The Literature of Scotland: the 20th century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 223
22 Warner, James Ferguson, and Irvine Welsh in connection with Jeff Torrington´s influence.23
It must be pointed out, however, that Hobsbaum´s writer´s group was not the only one being held in Glasgow at that time: there were others, usually connected to various libraries. As Ian Bell describes his meetings with Jeff
Torrington in his obituary of Jeff Torrington in The Herald, Torrington went through many groups and was a patient and cheerful critic of many. “In January
1979, I began as writer-in-residence- to Renfrew District, Jeff came to a writer´s group I started at Paisley Central Library. He had tried different writer´s groups over the years. [...] He never hid in these writer´s groups and was generous with his time, generous with his criticism.”24 Bell compares Torrington´s vigour and literary outlook as much unique as Alasdair Gray or Tom Leonard´s, furthermore, acknowledging their shared fondness and source of inspiration in Chekhov,
Camus or especially Kafka.
After the WWII, awareness began forming in Scottish literature that the literature is neither a linguistic construct based on Gaelic as it was with the
Scottish Renaissance before WWII, nor a dialectical eccentricity of literature in
English, defined and restrictive from the point of view of especially James
Kelman and the poet Tom Leonard. Scottish literature refused the previous naive fascination with the countryside and the liberating lifestyle it seemed to provide.
They refused this Kailyard legacy and turned to what was left in the wake of the
23 Ian Bell, “Jeff Torrington.” The Herald. 13 May 2008. Web. 4 April 2011.
24 Ian Bell, “Jeff Torrington.” The Herald. 13 May 2008. Web. 4 April 2011.
23 great urbanization on the Victorian and British Empire scale when, e.g., in 1900, almost a half of the Scottish population lived in Glasgow and its industrial belt.25
Undoubtedly, there is a great number of authors whose works deal with the post-industrial urban estrangement at various levels, in combination with unemployment, ongoing racism and class division, and the ever present yet failed desire to go beyond such drastic circumstances and move upwards, and what is more, these works precede the generally accepted dating of the working class novel as being after WWII. Such an example is surely H. Kinsley Long and A.
Arthur´s No Mean City (1935), based on real newspaper articles from 1930´s
Gorbals, Glasgow, or, according to Petr Anténe, Edward Gaitense´s Dance of
Apprentices (1948). For the record it is worth mentioning even Gordon Williams´s
From Scenes Like These (1969), which seems to be a representative working class novel as well. Nevertheless, in comparison with the Hobsbaum´s group, these predecessor novels´ aim is to deal rather with the influence of the horrendous social conditions from the omnipotent 3rd person narrator´s point of view, which would be the traditional technique when handling working class topics, whereas, e.g. Torrington as well as Kelman employs the stream of consciousness and 1st person narration in order to access both the narration and reflection at the same time to give this objectified mass of people, the working class, individual voices and paint the urban atmosphere an almost a post-apocalyptic world between dreaming and desolate reality, and unfortunately, many times producing nightmares.
25 Petr Anténe,et al., Skotská próza v letech 1980-2009. Olomouc: FF UP, 2010. 10
24 Therefore, the stress is mostly on portraying the various states of mind and interior psychological analysis which is the pivotal point of the narration, very well contrasting or outlining the destitute circumstances or physical decay of the surrounding architecture, usually tenement housing schemes. These external dwellings could be described as a type of shell that protects and encloses on one hand, but could end in self-destruction on the other hand. As Gaston Bachelard points out in The Poetics of Space, in the chapter of “The Shell,” such an enclosed and twisted space is a place for change or metamorphosis. He references the medieval notions recorded in paintings of e.g. Hieronymus Bosh, where something between the human and animal form, or instinctive and monstrous, comes out of the shell, along with a great and released creative power.26
On the other hand, Torrington is faithful to the Scottish tradition of duality in character, which can be either connected to religious zeal, as it would suggest of John Knox´s legacy, represented by James Hogg´s The Private Memoirs and
Confessions of a Justified Sinner, or duality springing from the Victorian suppression of the inner forces in favour of a humanistic and proper manners, as it is represented by Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a novella by Robert
Louis Stevenson. Similarly, at the end of the novel, we as readers cannot be absolutely sure “whether this is a supernatural visitation or evidence of psychological derangement.”27
26 Gaston Bachelar, Poetika prostoru. Praha: Malvern, 2009. 121
27 Roderick Watson, The Literature of Scotland: the 20th century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 269
25 Correspondingly, the narrator and reflector Thomas Clay ends his storytelling by informing the readers that all throughout the novel there was some part of him taking part in the narration, and that it has just left him at the end.
Interestingly, the name of “his personal harpy” is Effie – a name which could very well have been chosen for its closeness to effigy, meaning a portrait or a kind of rendering, or an alter ego. As it is going to be discussed in more detail in the chapters following that Thomas Clay by his name and fictional character stands for the common working class Scotsman and whose character can thus be registered as the character of Everyman in The Somonyng of Everyman, a well known Medieval English morality play, in which quest for salvation is embedded.
With the prism of the permeating scheme being irony in Swing Hammer Swing!, the quest here is implied on similar levels, such as, firstly, the pursuit of new housing or minute social mobility within the working class, which is being mocked in the novel, possibly being the Goods character from Everyman, secondly, the quest for survival within such run-down spaces containing people without any future, as it resembles the city of Unthank from Alasdair Gray´s
Lanark, and moreover, survival when refusing to act as an object either of a
Protestant or working-class community, referring to Fellowship; and lastly, the quest for keeping one´s dignity and creativity while dealing with life in general, alluding to the character of Knowledge. Torrington supports this reading by linking the Catholic basis of the play with the jewellery crucifix that the narrator wears around his neck, thus completing a full circle of allusion considering that the word catholic literally means universal,28 i.e. everyman.
28 http://etymonline.com/?term=catholic (16 Dec 2011).
26 Torrington is well aware that such topics are very prone to pathos, which he attempts to avoid by not only combining several narration strategies but also by not simplifying any matters, and ultimately succeeding in it.
.
3. MAIN THEMES IN SWING HAMMER SWING!
There is a general notion that says that the most important thing in comedy is timing. The notion of time, or rather timelessness, is the key notion of Swing
Hammer Swing!. Torrington sees time as flexible fabric, as Albert Einstein would state that “time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it.”29 It is fabric, in which the individual characters´ lives flow and exist with consequences, but those consequences usually surface in different occasions than the characters would expect or would understand and see them as such. The concept of linear time perception is embedded in the Scottish lowland religious culture of John Calvin´s doctrine of predestination, embodied especially in the person of the 16th century protestant preacher John Knox. It helps to create the suffocating atmosphere of powerlessness, isolation and freak show, which pervades many books of Torrington´s fellow writers of this era, with the characters dreaming about leaving the grim Scotland, predestined for doom, e.g. in James Kelman´s How Late I t Was, How Late and Irvine Welsh´s
Trainspotting, or escaping reality through some perversion, in many cases sexual, e.g. in Bunker Man by Duncan McLean or Janine 1982 by Alasdair Gray.
Torrington acknowledges it, mocks, and reveals the horror of the society of no
29 http://everythingforever.com/einstein.htm (16 Jan 2013).
27 alternatives. In Swing Hammer Swing!, the notion of time is impersonated in many forms: firstly, in the narrator´s, Thomas Clay, Grandfather Gibson´s
Grandfather Clock, which accompanies him throughout the book only to be broken in an accident in the end. The clock metaphor is enlarged by Thomas
Clay´s disdain for those people who do not understand the flexibility of time, and try to take control of it through religion or regular work hours which kill creative potential. Such a person is called “a clockroach”, a compound neologism, based on the words clock and roach, designating a low domestic insect which despite its connection to human beings is dehumanized and objectified, similarly to Kafka´s
Gregor Samsa in the novella The Metamorphosis. However, Torrington reversed
Kafka´s story for Tom Clay´s living members of his family, especially Eddie
Carlyle, his brother-in-law, are a grotesque display of clockroaches where only he stays different, a real human being.
Indeed, it is the church clockroach mentality which is subjected to most criticism, not only but mostly in the character of Eddie Carlyle, of the Scottish society as a whole, which, consequently, has metamorphosed in a big clockroach.
Torrington thus copies the atmosphere where the status quo is violence, bullying and displacement, specifically the displacement of Gorbals. However, he differs in the denouncement of the book, because when the Grandfather Clock is broken, the spell is broken too, and the presence of powerlessness and depression leaves
Tom. In the end, Tom is looking forward to his wife and baby, and does not see their future together as a sacrifice to his own identity; he actually does not need to turn into a clockroach to be part of the community. Here Torrington breaks the escapist tradition in pondering and resolving such conflicts. He reminds the reader
28 that breaking and destroying Gorbals brings nostalgia for the continuity of generations and tradition but, on the other hand, the Hammer could be also a positive tool to break free both from the infested tenements and hostile mindsets, to question all that seems unchangeable, and to remind the Scottish readers of their great past and potential, mastering this task without succumbing to the ever- present danger of pathos.
The name Thomas Clay is a tell name based on Doubting Thomas from
The New Testament and the word clay, which could be an anagram of Clydeside, the famous shipbuilding and engineering place in Glasgow area, and possibly also a reference to Adam, the first man, moulded by God in Genesis from “the dust of the ground,” 30 the clay. The same reference is used in 2 Corinthians 4:7, where in the NIV the word clay is specifically in a reference to a body: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” Therefore, Thomas Clay here stands for the ordinary (Lowland)
Scotsman, working in the industry and soaked in Christianity and drink; however, there is also the twist of the Doubting Thomas, who is an allusion to special insight into the status quo, the insight being the ongoing acknowledgement of flexibility of time and human mortality.
The character of Thomas Clay could be read as Everyman in The
Somonyng of Everyman,31 thus Swing Hammer Swing! can be read also as a morality play, as it was argued in the previous paragraphs.
30 Both King James Version (1611) and New International Version (1971), Genesis 2:7
31 In Everyman we meet the death in the end; in Swing Hammer Swing! we meet it allegorically at the public lavatory, nevertheless, at the end of the novel. It is not clear whether Tom is an 29 Another pervading theme in Swing Hammer Swing! is literary and cultural allusions, which are employed in various ways, such as direct quotes; motifs; symbols; complex metaphors; or narrative strategies of structuring, characters, choice of motifs. Torrington specifically defines Glasgow by the spirits of the
American beatnik generation,32 alluding possibly not only to the similar bohemian lifestyle but also the upsurge of creativity, which Torrington could see happening in the writer´s groups, still with the sense of inward doom. He was to die young, in his early forties, diagnosed with Parkinson´s disease, but in the end, lived to age seventy-two.33
Swing Hammer Swing! is, on many levels, a story of an ongoing metamorphosis: a child being born soon, Kafka-ish metamorphoses of characters, community and religion, and the displacement of the protagonist´s family and the
Gorbals demolition. The latter is explicitly connected with the name of Scottish architect Basil Spence, whose story of reconstructing the Gorbals cannot be analyzed further here despite both the factual and severe community consequences it had on Glasgow area and mentality. Torrington does not comment on it any further either, perhaps because for the readers at the time of
Swing Hammer Swing!´s publication in 1992, it had already been a memento of the epic failure of bright future, which Torrington ironically points out as the
everyman or death as well, on the other hand, he definitely seems to have transcended himself, as he is liberated of the suffocating atmosphere of doom and seem to be standing out of time in the linear sense of the past determining the future per se.
32 “To get into the boozers you´d plod through drifts of Hemingways and Mailers. Kerouacs by the dozen could be found lipping the Lanny on Glesca Green. Myriads of Ginsbergs were to be heard howling mantras down empty night tunnels.”
32Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing! UK: Minerva, 1993. 16
33 Ian Bell, “Jeff Torrington.” The Herald. 13 May 2008. Web. 4 April 2011.
30 paradox of the Hammer. Basil Spence´s Hutchensontown C Development, “Big
Stone Wigwam in the Sky,” a part of the Queen Elisabeth Tower Blocks project, was under such severe criticism that the Blocks were finally demolished in
1993.34 Castlemilk and Toryglen were also part of the experiments of the multi- storey housing in 1950s and 1960s, and it can be generally said that they ended better: they have been undergoing partial reconstruction since the 1990s.35
Nevertheless, Torrington´s protagonist does not keep only to his flat and the nearest pub, throughout the novel, but he is constantly on the move, mapping the city and its inhabited spaces in a similar fashion as James Joyce did in Ulysses, as
Carter and McRae points out.36
Jeff Torrington was an erudite man who learned French in order to read
Camus in its original language.37 In the interview with Deborah Orr, he points out that he was an existentialist all his life, as his main goal was always human dignity,38 which explains his use of Kafka´s Metamorphosis in combination of
The Somonyng of Everyman as they deal with objectifying other people, the price of losing one´s dignity, and the human mind being the place of warring philosophies (called Effie in the novel).
34 http://www.basilspence.org.uk/living/buildings/gorbals (February 2013).
35 http://www.scotcities.com/cathcart/castlemilk.htm (February 2013).
36 Carter, Ronald, John McRae, The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland. London, UK: Routledge, 1997. 535
37 Ian Bell, “Jeff Torrington.” The Herald. 13 May 2008. Web. 4 April 2011.
38 Deborah Orr, “School of hard knocks.” The Guardian. 26 Jan 1993. Web. 15 May 2013.
31 There are countless literary references to authors: Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel
Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov, Anton Chekhov, Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas,
Franz Kafka, James Joyce, the Beatniks, and many more. These are ultimately used to interlace the metaphor and structuring of the novel as well as the characters: e.g. the narrator suffers from a hurting arm in Beckettian fashion. This thesis cannot encompass a full analysis of these allusions except for the main narrative strategies and a few relevant examples; however, it needs to be pointed out that, e.g., Alasdair Gray consciously worked with the intertextuality by listing plagiarisms in the margins whereas Torrington seems to naturally follow the writer´s instinct to recycle and reaccentuate cultural material into a new perspective.
What is also frequently alluded to and symbolized in Swing Hammer
Swing! is the Holy Bible. The traditional version of the English Holy Bible is the
King James Version, which corresponds to the Bible kralická, but the Bible of
Czech ecumenical translation is more commonly used nowadays, so both versions are consulted in the course of the translation. Nevertheless, the Holy Bible is not quoted as such, so it is not prerogative to specify the preference of one version over the other, as such decision would have been actually connected to the specific wording and context of the original text in the novel.
What is more, Torrington does not subject the Holy Bible itself to criticism and irony, it is the people and their application of the Holy Bible in everyday life which he criticizes for intolerance and bigotry, and surprisingly, he seems to be doing so from the relaxed attitude of a dormant Catholic in a community which is historically and culturally tied to conservative Protestantism. This allusion to
32 Catholicism could again express Torrington´s emphasis on universality in the character of Tom Clay and the overall appeal to common sense and basic humanity within the Scottish community rather than defined doctrine in the face of the characters, including the protagonist, who remains morally and humanly questionable.
Lastly, the cultural references are numerous as well, mostly connected to the Hollywood of the first half of the 20th century and comics, as well as musical references to Dixieland and post-WWII American music. In other words,
Torrington uses a complete range of metaphors, mainly visual, but he neither does he shy away from music. At the end of chapter four, he uses the 1934 Christmas song Winter Wonderland in a metaphor. The song is introduced by an American slang word groovy, which originated in the Jazz Age in 1930s to denote brilliant performing of jazz or similar sophisticated music, and later denoted something that is simply excellent or very good.39 As the immediate context in the novel introduces here an image of affluence and luxury, the word groovy alludes to it as something to be relished.
39 http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/81741?redirectedFrom=groovy#eid (February 2013).
33 IV. MICRO LEVEL APPROACH
INTRODUCTION
Swing Hammer Swing! is prose in first person narration which can be defined as stream of consciousness. Despite the subjectivity of the text, as the narrator is simultaneously a reflector, and contrary to James Kelman or Alasdair
Gray, the author makes a clear distinction between direct and indirect speech by conventional use of punctuation, and the graphical format of paragraphs. On the other hand, Torrington uses non-standard transcription of the Glaswegian dialect or any other, e.g. Irish, vernacular.
In order to interpret the style of Swing Hammer Swing!, in the following chapters Holliday´s (1978) three key criteria of stylistics are used: the field of discourse, tenor, and mode (which was suggested in Urbanová´s Stylistika anglického jazyka [The Stylistics of the English Language].40 These will be discussed from a stylistic point of view as well as from a translational point of view based on the publications on Czech stylistics along with Czech linguistic works and the translational prism of especially Jiří Levý´s The Art of Translation and other current leading Czech translational voices.
40 Ludmila Urbanová, Stylistika anglického jazyka. Brno: Barrister&Principal, 2008. 24.
34 1. FIELD OF DISCOURSE
The field of discourse is defined by Crystal (1991) as “a classification of registers in terms of subject-matter.” In other words, the choice of the motif then influences and controls the stylistic forms of the writing. On the other hand, the author must be erudite in the subject; otherwise he would not be able to argue properly.41
1.1. Stylistic Analysis
As was previously discussed in the chapter on the macro level approach,
Torrington´s leitmotiv is the question of creative potential within the context of the working class. In the interview with Deborah Orr, he admits that the choice of the first person narration was conscious, as he felt unable to provide them with their own voices through the use of Received Pronunciation.42 Such a decision had been already made by Tom Leonard and James Kelman, but in contrast,
Torrington´s writing is not politically charged per se. He relies, rather, on the intertextuality, dialogism, and heteroglossia embedded in the first person narration and stream of consciousness, which consequently makes the text discursive in nature.
This nature has been labelled here as hysterical realism, and it was pointed out that it functions as the post-colonial means of attempting to preserve that which has been witnessed to be disappearing. Therefore, the choice of setting the novel at the end of the demolishing of the Gorbals in Glasgow is symbolic, as
41 Ibid, 21-22
42 Deborah Orr, “School of hard knocks.” The Guardian. 26 Jan 1993. Web. 15 May 2013.
35 Glasgow could be the symbol of the condition of the Scottish nation, which until
WWII had a defined space within the British empire as the “craft shop of the world” in the Victorian era, and was the home of the factory workers and labourers and their legacy of the radical proletariat movement in the first three decades of the 20th century. In this metaphor, he criticizes the authorities for not actually dealing with the pressing social problems of housing and unemployment in the slums in any constructive way,43 as well as his community for either buying into it, as his wife´s family did, or simply living the belief that the working class has nothing more to offer than labour.44
The underlying theme is art and the process of creation. As Torrington opposes the general assumption that the working class is rather hindering and limiting in terms of creativity as it cannot offer any stimuli outside itself, he also stresses that such an oppression can be reversed and changed into an advantage.
There are forty-three chapters in the novel, and each one of them represents at least a singular short story, or an anecdote with an extensive commentary, which manifests great insight into the human psyche as well as the technique typical for oral storytelling, where each story should end in a pun. Torrington´s preceding
43 „Housing Planners had taken up their slum-erasers and rubbed out the people who´d lived there.”
43Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing! UK: Minerva, 1993. 9
44„ I would soldier on at the writing game. Those goons who urged me to be sensible and not to strain my working-class braincells beyond their inherited capacity.”
44Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing! UK: Minerva, 1993. 23
36 literary production only confirms this, as he himself called his short stories scorpions, scorpion tales, because “they had a sting in the tail.”45
The main character and narrator walks through many places within the area of Glasgow, which are typically portrayed in vivid, elaborate, poetical language which is quite visual in the cinematic sense as the cinema´s images are an integral part of the literary, pop and musical culture of the intertextuality. As
Torrington preserves both the human colour and the beauty of past everyday life without sentimentality or pathos, he is claimed to be doing for Glasgow what
James Joyce did for Dublin, as it was quoted earlier. Phillip D. Hobsbaum, a famous literary critic and artist, characterizes his style as a product of a painful writing process.46 Similarly to Joyce, the various spaces are more than a mere literary strategy for engaging storytelling, which is analyzed by Beatriz Colomina, who explains “that a building is interpreted when its rhetorical mechanism and principles are revealed.” Additionally, the organization and meaning of urban spaces translates into its transformation and experience.47 As the traditional space for Scotland has always been the countryside, the contrast to the urban spaces, the creative suffocation, and a certain degree of resignation, as well as pathology of the parochial hard man, seem to have tangible foundation in the experience of the slums. Moreover, the Glasgow novelists and poets of the second half of the 20th century repeatedly point out that the working class is capable of artistic
45 Ian Bell, “Jeff Torrington.” The Herald. 13 May 2008. Web. 4 April 2011.
46 Deborah Orr, “School of hard knocks.” The Guardian. 26 Jan 1993. Web. 15 May 2013.
47 Craig I. Saper, Laura Kipnis, “Urban Decay and the Aesthetics of Social Policy.” Artificial Mythologies. A Guide to Cultural Invention. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 100- 101
37 achievement and is ultimately frustrated by the general presupposition “that poor people cannot afford aesthetical considerations: more pressing and primary issues demand priority.”48
Naturally, the setting of the novel in 1968 during the clearances of the
Gorbals slums is not accidental, and it serves as a metaphor of the need for redevelopment in Scotland not only in terms of new housing schemes, but redevelopment of the political and cultural milieu as Scotland wanted to see itself as Scottish rather than British in the devolution. Clandfield and Lloyd point out that Torrington, similarly to James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, handles the spacial areas as reflections of “individual consciousness.”49 Through the clearances of the
Gorbals, there is the tearing of the particular community life and giving way to desolation of the Elisabeth Queen´s Tower Blocks, which only nurtures violence and resignation. Therefore, Torrington tries to create a time capsule, and on the other hand, he gives way to the chaos and unpredictability by declining to give his as well as his protagonist´s novel a structured plot: “Plots are for graveyards”
(Torrington 1993: 162), in other words, a plot is a symptom of naivety and immaturity. Torrington repeatedly stresses the loss of dignity in such architecturally uprooted and, consequently, compressed states of mind. Clandfield and Lloyd also intriguingly suggest Welsh´s novel Marabou Stork Nightmares to be a record of the consequences of such condescending and unprofessional social
48 Craig I. Saper, Laura Kipnis, “Urban Decay and the Aesthetics of Social Policy.” Artificial Mythologies. A Guide to Cultural Invention. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 98- 99
49 Peter Clandfield, Christian Lloyd, “Redevelopment Fiction: Architecture, Town-planning and Unhomeliness.” Berthold Schoene, (ed.), The Edinburgh Companion To Contemporary Scottish Literature. 2007. 128
38 redevelopment in the main character who remains the modern pathological hard man.50 Therefore, Swing Hammer Swing! is more than a mere record of the
Glaswegian vernacular and few amusing stories: it employs commentary of the
Scotland interior of the period between the 1960s-1980s.¨
1.2. Translational Analysis
In agreement with the functional translation of Jiří Levý, the overall ironic tone needs to be maintained as well as the deliverance of the individual puns. A challenge in this area is represented by the proper names of the various characters since those names are mostly also tell-names. Moreover, the translation of toponyms shifts the text´s expressive function slightly more in favour of a phatic one as these do not have a Czech equivalent and need to be explicated.
Swing Hammer Swing! strongly resembles morality plays, for all the characters´ names are tell-names, including the word Hammer in the title of the book, and there is the quest for salvation implicated. Therefore, it would be preferable if they were translated, at least partially. Nevertheless, the names of the members of the narrator´s family can be left unaltered because the English forms of the names hint similar sinister quality in Czech; for example, in the case of the narrator´s brothers-in-law, Eddie Carlyle, who is based on the Scottish missionary in Germany in the mid-19th century, or Jack Sherman, based on the infamous
American tank M4 Sherman from the WWII.51
50 Peter Clandfield, Christian Lloyd, “Redevelopment Fiction: Architecture, Town-planning and Unhomeliness.” Berthold Schoene, (ed.), The Edinburgh Companion To Contemporary Scottish Literature. 2007. 126-128
51 The connection of Tom Clay ´s family to members of Nazi Germany and its stereotypical connotations of rigidity, cruelty and material gain by the means of bullying others is quite 39 On the other hand, not all the names which serve as puns can be translated for the difference in the English and Czech language properties. The following example reflects that the names are intended as puns as they are preceded by indefinite articles in reference to infamous characters. Even though it would be possible to find the etymologically correct equivalents in the stock of Czech surnames—Dr Sword as Mečíř and Dr Butler as Podržaj— the final “sting” of
Sword´n Buckler, two inseparable tools of termination, would be lost in the translation completely, and thus fail the whole point of the metaphor. Therefore, it seems more correct to resign the idea of translating the tell-names in favour of the pun. a Dr Sword, who while he was no great jakéhosi doktora Sworda, který sice shakes with a scalpel was blessed with a nebyl zručný se skalpelem, zato se mu magic fountain pen [...] “About as classic a dostalo zázračného inkoustového pera [...] case of self-induced narcolepsy as I´ve “To je ten nejučebnicovatější příklad come across,” he told his assistant, a Dr vsugerované narkolepsie, jakou jsem v Butler, this duo became the infamous životě viděl,“ řekl svému zdravotnímu “Sword´n Buckler”. asistentovi, jakémusi doktoru Butlerovi. Nakonec se z doktorů stala nechvalně známá dvojka Luk a Šíp.
(21)
Similarly, this applies to the surname of the narrator, Clay, which is the most significant name in question. It refers to the role of Everyman, which would be lost in translation if it was translated as Novák, the most common Czech name, or to an etymologically corresponding name, e.g. Hlinka, for Clay is a real palpable, e.g. when Eddie is driving a WV and is called “an insufferable little Volkswagenführer” (12). Nevertheless, this is not only metaphor of their cruel company but it alludes to the Kafkaish plot of The Metamorphosis and the metaphor of the clockroach. On the other hand, mocking the Nazi Germany in British comedy has a very strong tradition, which proves the success of e.g. the British sitcom “Allo Allo” (1982-1992).
40 surname in English as well, and literally material for pottery production. On the other hand, if it were the only surname translated from the rest of the other supporting characters, it would stand out from the text and differ in a way which is unprecedented in the original, as it could make Thomas rather a foreigner in his own community. This would, in fact, have the opposite effect than the original text suggests and Tom Clay would be anything but Everyman. Therefore, all names of the family and friends are left as they were in the original, and only the female surnames were derivated by the Czech feminine suffixes –ová.
Additionally, the characters are not depicted by their names only, but the function they play in the story. As it was argued earlier, there is a double leitmotif
- the Kafka´s Metamorphosis and The Somonyng of Everyman. One of the key terms in the novel is a compound neologism from the following extract, a clockroach.:
From the verdigrised rim of the alarm Na do zelena zkorodovaném okraji budíku se clock a tiny bug, a molecule on legs, objevil maličký brouček, molekula na had emerged. I studied it as it began an nožkách. Sledoval jsem, jak se vydal na epic journey from twelve to six, its polar slavnou výpravu na protilehlý pól, opposite. A time-beastie? No. Time- z dvanáctky na šest. Časová zvířena? Ne. Tak beetle, then? Nope. How about a časovej brouk? Taky ne. Co takhle clockroach? Bingo! Aye, a clockroach, clockroach? Bingo! Jo, švábodka, maličká a wee time-beastie that lives in a nine to časová zvířena, co žije ve vesmíru stálé five universe. pracovní doby od devíti do pěti.
(22)
The term clockroach is a compound of the words clock and roach. The translation of roach, into Czech, šváb, presents no difficulty, but it is the word clock which cannot be compounded in Czech the same way as in English.
41 Compounding is one of the most productive ways of word formation in English,52 whereas Czech, being an inflectional language, prefers derivation meaning newly formed words made more difficult by the need for altering of the new words in order them to be conjugated properly. The literal translation of clockroach could be píchačkový šváb for the clock refers to the most common regular work hours in
Britain which in Czech is represented by píchačky. However, such an expression is too long and explanatory to be taken as playful language. The translation
šváboďka retains the insect part of the original term, with the clock shifting in connotation to hodina and, subsequently, translated and compounded as its slang form hoďka. What is more, the Czech term suggests the connotation of the word srábotka, a little spineless coward, which emphasizes the rather disgusting insect connotation of the roach. The time reference is lost from the translated expression, however, it is fully explained in the original text so it is possible to limit the neologism´s connotation in its translation.
Lastly, toponyms are not generally translated here because they are usually limited to articles in magazines from the 20th century, but they are not preceded by any significant experiences in the 18th and 19th century when the Czech
Renaissance was forming, and the preferred method of translation transcribed foreign toponyms into the Czech language.53 Therefore, the original toponyms here needed to be designated by an additional attribute of the sort of places they actually refer to. This resulted in a slight shift in favour of the referential function
52C. M. Millward, Mary Hayes, A Biography of the English Language. USA: Wadsworth, 1996. 283-4
53 Jiří Levý, Umění překladu. Praha: Ivo Železný, 1998. 195
42 of the text because the Czech reader is informed about the actual locations in
Glasgow.
Kerouacs by the dozen could be found Celé tucty Kerouaců byly spatřeny, jak slovem lipping the Lanny on Glesca Green. tvoří tu postavu Lannyho v parku Glesca Green.
(16)
Toponyms can be subjected to irony as well, and there is a figure of speech to translate in the following example, which concerns wordplay based on homophony: a rhyme of Nat Smollet and Fat Wallet. Nevertheless, the toponym is handled similarly to the previous example, meaning it is left in its original transcription with the general specification of the toponym added, i.e. estate being here zástavba.
When I awoke from this doze we were Když jsem se probral, byli jsme už v okolí already in the environs of the recently nedávno vybudované zástavby na Nat built Nat Smollet Estate. [...]It was here Smollet. [...]Je to tady v Šrajtoflově, jak in Fat Wallet, as I called it, that those tomu říkám, kde mají svůj příbytek star-favoured creatures Mr and Mrs Jack miláčkové bohů, a to pan Jack Sherman Sherman, had their abode. s chotí.
(24)
43 2. TENOR
The mode (Halliday, 1978) deals with the various registers which are connected to the immediate communication based on various social roles or, according to Firth (1957), on the degree of linguistic specialization. Tenor deals with the interrelations of the participants of the registers in terms of power relations or the level of closeness.54
2.1. Stylistic Analysis
Torrington´s choice of hysterical narration reflects the nostalgia with which he tries to preserve what is being demolished and destroyed, not only in terms of the place itself, but especially of the community life in the slums of the
Gorbals, criticizing the people in power for breaking social relations, uprooting the community as a living and self-preserving organism, in fact, encouraging personal gain to take over nurture and support in the face of very hard living conditions in the slum, consequently denaturalizing humanity. He exemplifies this in the condescending characters of the narrator´s relatives, who had left the
Gorbals as a consequence of social mobility. The great feature of Scottish community life is the tradition of storytelling, which is the mode Torrington bases his novel on. On the other hand, the written form and over thirty years of writing presented him with the opportunity to stylize this oral tradition into the written form of a novel. Furthermore, he blended into this a stream of consciousness narration, creating such a novel is a discourse rather than a text. This is supported by the novel lacking any central plot; moreover, the main narrator, who is also a
54 Ludmila Urbanová, Stylistika anglického jazyka. Brno: Barrister&Principal, 2008. 25
44 writer, claims that plots are futile (Torrington, 1993: 162). Therefore, Swing
Hammer Swing! can consequently be seen as a compact cross-referenced collection of short stories. The flexibility of the text had been proven by the re- arranging of unaltered paragraphs for the staging of Glasgow´s Citizens Company in 1995. Fowler (1996) defines discourse as “the whole complicated process of linguistic interaction between people uttering and comprehending texts.”55 He follows to emphasize that discourse need to be analyzed not only as a reaction to immediate actions, but as a result of various contexts. Indeed, Torrington uses great variety of language: the formal, the English vernacular, and the Glaswegian vernacular.
The first point is that as the novel´s mode/scheme is irony, at times even sarcasm, Torrington achieves his goal through mixing formal sentence structures with vernacular and subsequent poetical metaphors, which are either reaccentuated or brand new. This way he manages not only to create the aloof distance irony provides in order to avoid pathos in dealing with human place, but to point out the oppression of the mind within the Scottish society as well from the prism of a working class which has generally been regarded as incapable of any ponderable intellectual or artistic achievements. Therefore, the function of the text is not only expressive, Bühler (1934), but attitudinal and referential as well.
The second point of the variety of language used in the field of discourse is the tension between Standard English, its informal form charged with mostly the
Glaswegian vernacular. There are other vernaculars present not only as particular voices, e.g. the character of the Irish Paddy Cullen, the narrator´s friend, but also
55 Ibid, 27
45 other English vernaculars are present in the artist´s mix of street talk.
Interestingly, DJ Taylor in his review of Swing Hammer Swing! in The
Independent claims that “in an inspired moment he manages to harness three dialects (Yorkshire, Merseyside and Cockney) into a single sentence: 'Nowt wrong with that. But worrabout the wurkers? Nuffink doing.'”56
The language tension is apparent on two levels: in which language
Torrington´s characters speak to each other, and also in the choice to use the
Scottish vernacular of the Glasgow area in the first place as the language of the narration in a novel, the language which accesses both the narration and reflection.
Regarding the individual characters´ utterances as well as the narrator´s voice, they vary in their use of vernacular on the basis of the social strata of the community and subsequent power relations.57 It is clear that the narrator´s relationships are quite asymmetrical with his family members, or at least, the other party in question assumes so. In comparison with the dialogues between
Tom Clay and the people from the Gorbal´s community, there is contrasting symmetry in Tom´s ability to command the demotic urban speech perfectly, as he is able to command Standard English with members of his family or people assuming a certain degree of authority—educational, medical or religious. He is perfectly well capable of performing with any level of formality the situation requires, thus repeatedly manifesting the class segregation as artificial, while
56 DJ Taylor, “BOOK REVIEW / Grime and punishment in Glasgow: 'Swing Hammer Swing!' - Jeff Torrington: Secker & Warburg.” The Independent. 19 Dec 1992. Web. 2nd January 2012 57 Ludmila Urbanová, Stylistika anglického jazyka. Brno: Barrister&Principal, 2008. 25
46 additionally, through the distance created by irony, he criticizes his community for maintain those prejudices about the working class.
As Ludmila Urbanová points out, authentic dialogues have “the phatic function, i.e. establishing social contact and common ground,”58 whereas fictional dialogues reflect “the inner world of the protagonists as well as their status, identity and psychology,” and are, consequently, more varied and less stereotypical.59 Torrington´s discourse strategies reveal his insight into the politics of language and, along with Kelman, react to the general assumption that belle- letters should not be written in demotic speech, which can be read e.g. from various conservative critical reactions to Kelman´s How Late It Was, How Late, which was awarded the Man Booker Prize for 1994, labelling it “crap, literary vandalism or time for a change.”60 Admittedly, Torrington avoids the prolific F- word, which Kelman dared to maintain in his prose, but the judgement on working-class man writing is performed by the narrator´s family or their friends in
Swing Hammer Swing!, which is a recurring topic of several working-class novels, e.g. Hind´s The Dear Green Place, or Gray´s Lanark. Torrington´s novel does still maintains some crudeness, especially in the pub talks, but it is found to a great degree in the metaphors or similes, as well as in only some of the settings
(e.g. the public lavatory, the private lavvy, and the pub), or in the subject of the individual stories (e.g. the sex scene with Becky MacQuade), and lastly in figures
58 Ludmila Urbanová, “English Conversation: Authentic and Fictional.” Theory and Practice in English Studies. Proceedings from the Eighth Conference of English, American and Canadian Studies. Volume 3. Brno: Masaryk University, 2005. 156
59 Ibid.
60 James Kelman,"Elitist Slurs Are Racism By Another Name: James Kelman's Booker Prize Acceptance Speech." City Strolls. 2004. Web. 22 Dec 2011
47 of speech (e.g. various double entendres). This creates immense comical effect, which DJ Taylor readily glosses as “the fixture of the modern Scottish novel - the philosophical Scots vagrant who hasn't the price of a cup of tea but can still offer you his opinions on Dostoyevsky.”61 Therefore, Torrington managed to oppose social determinism embedded in the class based repression of British culture.
The third point is that the use of the Scottish vernacular in Swing Hammer
Swing! is not a political agenda. In the first half of the 20th century, the issue of national preservation manifested in synthetic Scots, an attempt led by Hugh
MacDiarmid to return to the Gaelic origins of the Scottish language, which remained in the present Scots only in occasional word stock, i.e. DJ Taylor in his review of Swing Hammer Swing! calls them “the traditional Gaelic obscurities,” using the example of crabbit wee nyaff.62 Nevertheless, in Torrington´s literary generation, the use of the vernacular outside the quote marks and in legible spelling, as it was the traditional even in Sir Walter Scott´s novels, is revolutionary. It has been promoted and charged with political agenda especially by James Kelman and the poet Tom Leonard. Kelman in his essays claims that excluding the vernacular from the first person narration cannot subsequently encompass for a realistic depiction of the working class, or anything outside the middle and upper white class.63 As Michael Gardiner points out, Kelman´s
61 DJ Taylor, “BOOK REVIEW / Grime and punishment in Glasgow: 'Swing Hammer Swing!' - Jeff Torrington: Secker & Warburg.” The Independent. 19 Dec 1992. Web. 2nd January 2012 62 Ibid.
63 “Whenever I did find somebody from my own sort of background in English Literature there they were confined to the margins, kept in their place, stuck in the dialogue. You only ever saw them or heard them. You never got into their mind. [...] And another striking thing: everybody from a Glaswegian or working class background, everybody in fact from any regional part of Britain – none of them knew how to talk! What larks! [...] Their language a cross between 48 existential method emanates from “Tom Leonard, generally accepted as one of the first writers to use narrative Scots in an entirely serious way, resisting Standard
English.”64
Torrington acknowledges this as a status quo and endorses the power relations in the setting of the novel, through the dialogues and in the narrator´s ponderings on his family relations as well as on ways to circumvent it in order to get the same privileges (e.g. to get a sabbatical), or to fight it simply by not giving up his humanity and artistic appeals in writing a novel. As the real Jeff Torrington is in the same circumstances as his protagonist, he shows that social background is by no means limiting, as he is able to defamiliarize Standard English and generally reaccentuates the prose by rich poetical language, which at times exceeds the creativity of the English poet Christopher Reid, who similarly acquires new connotations through reaccentuating the metaphorical language of everyday objects in a vivid and humorous way.65 In addition, it is apparent that
Torrington succeeds in a blissful combination of Standard English—its informal
semaphore and more code; apostrophe here and apostrophe there; a strange hotchpotch of bad phonetics and horrendous spelling. [...] In other words, in the society that is English Literature, some 80 to 85 percent of the population simply did not exist as ordinary human beings.”
63James Kelman, “The Importance of Glasgow in My Work.” Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural and Political. Stirling: AK Press, 1992. 81-82
64 Michael Gardiner, From Trocchi to Trainspotting: Scottish Critical Theory Since 1960. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. 158
65 Christopher Reid is generally acknowledged to be part of the Martian poetry movement, which received its name from Martin Amis. Interestingly, in an interview with Kelman in The Guardian, Theo Tait, the interviewer, tries to pacify Kelman with pointing out that generation wise “he and his peers are a lot better than the Martin Amis generation – that a lot of Glasgow novelists - Kelman, Alasdair Gray, Jeff Torrington - make their London-based equivalents look parochial and choked by comparison.”
65Theo Tait, “In his own words.” The Guardian. 12 April 2008. Web. 16 Nov 2011.
49 use and the Scottish vernacular—along with other various voices—Gaelic,
American or Northern English possibly—min order to send the English language
“racing”.66 Additionally, American English and its culture of the 1930s and 1940s with Hollywood and Dixieland fascinated Torrington to such a degree that there even was an American version of Swing Hammer Swing!, which he mentions in the interview with Deborah Orr for The Guardian in 1993.67
2.2. Translational Analysis
From the translational point of view, language as a political issue is pointless in translation into the Czech language because nowadays there is not such class and dialectically based diversification to distinguish the level of social hierarchy, education, or cultural asset, or in other words the power relations defined by these categories. Fortunately, as this is not Torrington´s implicit agenda, it is apparent rather through the characters’ assumptions explicated by the narrator´s stream-of-consciousness commentary, and the Czech translation does not lose any of the political denotations of the original. On the other hand, the
Czech reader would not appreciate Torrington´s wide knowledge of various vernaculars, and his artistic craft in combining them in a completely natural first- hand experience.
66 Michael Gardiner, From Trocchi to Trainspotting: Scottish Critical Theory Since 1960. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. 170
67 “I wrote a version [of Swing Hammer Swing!] in American usage as well. The Scots readily became of American culture that it sometimes seems like ours is body-bagged ready for dumping.”
67Deborah Orr, “School of hard knocks.” The Guardian. 26 Jan 1993. Web. 15 May 2013.
50 Another conceivable danger for the Czech translator and the reader of
English could be to convert the various vernaculars into various Czech local dialects in order to express his attitude towards the artistic appreciation of the vernaculars in opposition to the Received Pronunciation. The translation should not reflect these dialectal differences in the source text, however intriguing they may be. The first reason is that the translator would hardly be capable of mastering various dialects in current form within the Czech and Moravian districts; secondly, it would localize the characters into social contexts which are not historically and culturally precedent in the British denotations. Moreover,
Czech authors used dialects in the 18th and 19th century for the depiction and localization of especially fictional characters from rural communities.68 Lastly, it is not always clear from the text which words or pronunciation can be labelled as specifically Scottish, Glaswegian, American, Cockney, Irish or Gaelic, etc.69 As there is a great degree of heteroglossia present, the translator would imply connotations that would hinder not only the understanding of the text, but the appreciation of it as a piece of art, which was already discussed as an essential element in writing for the modern Scottish novelists. Olga Krijtová acknowledges such a temptation of establishing dialectic differences in the translation,70 but
68 Marie Čechová, et al., Současná stylistika. Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2008. 73
69 but it´s difficult to specify which words are Scottish or American as there had been a continual exchange) – quote the slang in black notebook/ copies - translation
70 “Jen my víme, jaká je to slast, když naše už trochu trénované ucho zachytí, jak zní skotské nářečí v angličtině, dolní němčina v němčině, bretonština ve francouzštině, sladká vlámština v chrochtavé nizozemštině. […] A teď bychom měli všechny ty mluvčí nechat mluvit stejně? Bože, jaké ochuzení!”
Olga Krijtová, Pozvání k překladatelské praxi: kapitoly o překládání beletrie. Praha: Nakladatelství Karolinum, 1996. 45
51 points out that this localization would fail to deliver the author´s original intention,71 which is the working class palaver in Torrington´s elaborate style based on puns, rhythm and flow of speech, and most expressive function, which should meet the attitudinal function, Bühler (1934), in order to prove the deeply rooted oppression based on class and religion within the Scottish community.
The following extract is an example of the Glaswegian vernacular, which is translated into common Czech, Middle Bohemian dialect, which is generally regarded as the least marked from the Czech and Moravian dialects, in addition, with the appropriate translation of slang. In translation of pardál there is a conscious inspiration by previous translations of Scottish literature, here specifically Alan Bissett´s The Incredible Adam Spark, where Marek Náprstek convincingly argues for pardál,72 which could poetically enrich the Czech translation of the Glaswegian colour. On the other hand, admittedly, punter is very common in Scottish slang, semantically close to another common slang word chancer, a speculator or gambler betting on horse racing, but with a shift in connotation meaning simply a man or bloke.73 Therefore, the translation could be generalized into “one of us here in Glasgow,” náš člověk z Glasgow.
71 “Zkušení teoretici nás nabádají, že i pro označení venkovské řeči je záhodno užít jazykových rysů regionálně bezpříznakových, tedy ne přímo konkrétního nářečí, jež je příliš spjato s určitým zvláštním krajem. Lokalizace nářečím působí stejně rušivě jako podsouvání českých místních narážek.”
Olga Krijtová, Pozvání k překladatelské praxi: kapitoly o překládání beletrie. Praha: Nakladatelství Karolinum, 1996. 46
72 Marek, Náprstek, Incredible Adam Spark: Between Translation and Transformation: Final BA Thesis. Praha: PedF UK, 2011.
73 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/punter (10 July 2013)
52 That´s whits wrang wae this country, To je to, co je s touhle zemí špatně, synku – son – nae balance – ower much gold žádná rovnováha – a moc zlata na straně těch at the English end. Ask yersel, go on, Anglánů. Jen se sebe, jen se zeptejte, proč by why should a Londoner get three měl takovej Londýňan dostat třikrát tolik než sheets mair´n a Glesca punter? Aye, pardál z Glasgow/ než náš člověk z Glasgow? for doing the same job? Jo, když odře tu samou práci?
(48)
The following extracts exemplify the narrator´s use of different registers with regard to his relation with them, i.e. the intimacy of their relationship and reflection of power relations.
[Eddie] And the same goes for some of that [Eddie] To stejné platí pro ty další krámy, other chunk you´ve foisted on us. Take that které jsi nám vnutil. Například ta skříň…“ wardrobe for a start...” „Díry po šipkách. Kolikrát ti budu…“ “Dartholes. How many times have I...” „Prosim tě, kdo věší na skříň terč na “Who´d hang a dartboard on a wardrobe.” šipky.“
[Tom] „My ne, ale některý mí kámoši jsou [Tom] “We didnae. Some of my pals were strašný střelci. Třeba Potsie Green, hellish aimers. Take Potsie Green for v porovnání s nim má pidlovokej pan starters: compared wae him Mr McGoo McGoo oči úplně v pořádku. A navíc… had twenty-twenty vision. I´ll tell you Pozdrav Pánbůh!“ another thing... Bless you!” (20)
According to the characterization, socially, both men come from the same strata, and even though Eddie´s family moved socially within the working class, his job in the textile warehouse places him as no different from Tom, the narrator.
His character, however, is lofty and patronizing, which is reflected in his speech because he uses formal words, and at times rather formalized syntax, e.g. to foist,
Take that wardrobe... Tom, on the other hand, uses vernacular in conversation
53 with him, which is marked by the deviated spelling, wae, didnae, and the use of slang. In translation, style markers need to be reinforced in order to make these characters´ voices distinguishable from each other, which can be contrived by using standard concordance of the grammatical gender, e.g. krámy, které, not který, or using rather formalized words if the Czech translation differs in formality, e.g. to foist is formal whereas vnutit is neutral.
54 3. MODE
Crystal (1991) defines mode as “a term referring to the medium of language activity which determines the role played by the language in a situation.”74 The distinction used here is based on Halliday (1994), who sees the channel of communication to be based either on written or spoken communication.75
3.1. Stylistic Analysis
Undoubtedly, Swing Hammer Swing! is the written text of a novel, and it is not a documentary recording of the Glaswegian speech; therefore it is static and features the preservability and surveyability of a written material.76 Nevertheless, as it was argued in the previous chapter, the novel is characterized by its compendious discursiveness which manifests in the use of stream of consciousness and highly stylized dialogues. Additionally, the influence of hybrid forms of language, i.e. the media language and its structure of narration can be detected in certain passages as a means of hyperbole.77
The graphical features of the text are rather conventional concerning the genre of the stream of consciousness: the direct speech is marked by quotation markers, and the punctuation does not deviate in any way; however, it is the spelling which does not always correspond with the prescribed use. One reason is
74 Ludmila Urbanová, Stylistika anglického jazyka. Brno: Barrister&Principal, 2008. 26
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Torrington, Jeff, Swing Hammer Swing! UK: Minerva, 1993. 292
55 connected with the fact that such spelling occurs in words or phrases that would be considered style markers of recording a vernacular, as a vernacular is often characterized by ellipsis in pronunciation; on the other hand, Torrington´s utterances are so stylized that complete elision is rare, therefore, it is possible to define the text as familiar in terms of it implicating a share pool of cultural and social norms with the readers. Additionally, Ludmila Urbanová points out that authentic dialogues have “the phatic function, i.e. establishing social contact and common ground,”78 whereas fictional dialogues reflect “the inner world of the protagonists as well as their status, identity and psychology,” and are, consequently, more varied and less stereotypical.79
Another supporting argument is the functional aspect of many of the recorded dialogues, which can be depicted as small talk, creating the atmosphere of social mutuality.80 Torrington yet again in the use of the stream of consciousness emphasizes the phatic function of these dialogues as he uncovers the real subject of the conversations full of social rituals and polite formulae. On the other hand, it must be stressed that the recipient of the text, the reader is not a passive element because in the sheer volume of cultural and literary allusions,
Torrington leaves the detailed interpretation open, and the dynamic process of
78 Ludmila Urbanová, “English Conversation: Authentic and Fictional.” Theory and Practice in English Studies. Proceedings from the Eighth Conference of English, American and Canadian Studies. Volume 3. Brno: Masaryk University, 2005. 156
79 Ibid
80 Ludmila Urbanová, Stylistika anglického jazyka. Brno: Barrister&Principal, 2008. 46
56 negotiating meaning happens. This emphasis on the interactive meaning Bakhtin
(1994) calls dialogism.81
One of Torrington´s focuses is to keep some fraction of the atmosphere and culture of the Gorbals in whose disseverment he sets the novel in; therefore, he decides to use the urban dialect as the main language platform. It has been already argued that this decision is also of an attitudinal function reflecting the reception of a member of the working class´s art by the general British public as virtually impossible. Nevertheless, it needs to be pointed out that the urban dialect performs a phatic function, Malinowski (1972), as well because the dialect is an expression of closeness and intimacy of a group of people who can at the same time show their distance from those uninterested receivers who could easily find the novel incomprehensible and obscure. Therefore, it can be assumed that Swing
Hammer Swing! was not necessarily intended for mainstream reading, even though it can offer a few amusing short stories in its shallowest form of reading.
Similarly, the cultural and literary allusions are so frequent that they can be fully grasped only by those heavily interested in literature and philosophy. As it was argued in the first section of the thesis, Torrington´s literary expertise was wide, as he read e.g. Camus in original, along with many publications of the translated
Russian, French, German, American or other western cultural writers, poets and philosophers.
From the grammatical point of view, spoken language is generally characterized by structured clause complexes, Halliday (1990), and can be loosely
81 Ludmila Urbanová, Stylistika anglického jazyka. Brno: Barrister&Principal, 2008. 29
57 coordinated, as the ellipsis is a very common phenomenon in utterances.82
Torrington, in the written form of a novel, deals with this looseness by various techniques: firstly, he employs the ellipsis in dialogues quite often, thus ensuring both the effect of natural flow in dialogues, and secondly, he relies on comical effect, as the ellipsis in dialogues is a figure of speech called asteismus and is used in humorous or sarcastic dialogues. The hysterical realism in the form of the stream of consciousness additionally ensures that the reader is drawn into the context-bound dialogues, which are often indirect, Grice (1991) so there is a great deal of opacity of meaning,83 and thus a certain form of mutual knowledge can be settled between the narrator and the reader. Moreover, Torrington uses the rhetorical device of the declamatory style to draw the reader´s attention, and prefers colloquial style in addressing the reader along with the immense employment of word play, slang, and figures of speech such as alliteration, puns, metonymy, personification, metaphor, oxymoron, etc.
The non-verbal communication which necessarily accompanies spoken speech is supplied by the narrator as much as possible by additional descriptions of sensual nature, e.g. sounds of various voices, mechanical devices, lack of any sound, colours, textures, etc. Therefore, the overall effect of the individual chapters is rather visual in the cinematic sense. The richness of the poetical images, however, reveals the artistic potential of the author as well as the careful minimalistic art of manipulating with the language in such a way as to change it from the inside and employ neologisms.
82 Ludmila Urbanová, Stylistika anglického jazyka. Brno: Barrister&Principal, 2008. 43
83 Ibid.
58 3.2. Translational Analysis
The style markers of ellipsis are the occasional and intentional missing of a letter, e.g. sweepin (sweeping), and deviation in spelling, e.g. wae (with), to reflect the different phonological aspects of the dialectical forms. The following example is a dialogue between the narrator and the pawnbroker in his own shop in the third chapter. This extract is presented because the ellipsis is not secluded only into the direct speech but emphasizes the utterance style of the stream of consciousness as well.
He straightened. When he spoke his Narovnal se. Když promluvil, měl hlas voice was loused up with catarrh and a zavšivený katarem, takže z něj padaly crack ran through all of his words. naprasklý slova. “What´s this, then?” „Co je tohle?“ When I told´m he snapped. “Aye, I Když jsem mu to řekl, utrh se na mě. „Jasně, didnae think it was for sweepin carpets! nemyslel jsem si, že se s tim zametaj But what´m supposed to do wae it?” koberce! Ale co s tim mám jako dělat? Zase Again I told´m. “Buy it?” he squawked. jsem mu to řekl. „Koupit?“ zaskřehotal. “I thought maybe you wanted it rebuilt.” „Řikal jsem si, jestli sis to sem nepřišel nechat předělat.“
(15)
The ellipses are reflected in translation rather by the shortening of long vowels in demonstrative words, e.g. tim instead of tím, or in stressed long syllables in verbs, e.g. řikal instead of říkal, as well as by adding demonstrative pronouns to indicate informal register. Ellipses are possible in the written form of
Czech as well, and were earlier marked by an apostrophe as well as they are so in
English. However, current use prefers occasional ellipsis in clusters with silent letters, e.g. the final cluster hl in which the l is silent, i.e. utrh. Such a stylistic
59 strategy was endorsed by Formánek in 1997 translation of Welsh´s Trainspotting, which was written in the Edinburgh vernacular.
The following extract is an example of discourse in the form of the stream of consciousness, in which Torrington uses a blend of various registers: the general English description enriched by few slangisms at the beginning; followed by full Scottish English, or possibly Northern English dialects; clauses with the mutated spelling to indicate the different pronunciation, marked in bold here; and, lastly, rather informal register at the end with few formal expressions, e.g. the aid of, I sabbied forth, to indicate the ironic intention.
Additionally, few neologisms can be named: to sabby which is based on functional shift of the word sabbatical which is used in the previous paragraph of the novel (see the Appendix, 27), or a Clydesider, which is based on affixing, here specifically with the suffix –er indicating the resident of the Clydeside, a cultural reference of not only the slums in Glasgow by the Clyde River, but additionally a suggestion of the radical left-wing politics bearing the name Red Clydeside, involving Glasgow districts of Clydebank, Greenock and Paisley, a legacy of political radicalism of the labour movement from 1910-1932 in Glasgow.84
Additionally, the declamatory style is exemplified here as well in rhetorical questions as expressive function device.
This is so that their mental and physical To proto, aby si celkově dobili baterky tím, batteries can be recharged while they že si někde na nějakým nevšedním místě enjoy a little exotic nookying, surfing, or pěkně zašpásujou, zasurfujou nebo proletí hang-gliding. Fair enough. Nowt wrong na rogalu. V pohodě. Na tom není nic
84 “Red Clyde.” Glasgow Digital Library 2013. Web. 16 Feb 2013
60 with that. But worrabout the wunkers? špatnýho. Ale co my břídilové tam dole? - Nuffink doing; they were to remain Nic nedělaj; zůstanou sabatem unsabbied. Bloody liberty. Was I, the son neposkvrněný. Zatracená drzost. Nic of a dead Clydesider going to stand for nebude; zůstanou šábesem neposkvrněný. it? No way, Comrade! So with the aid of Zatracená drzost. Copak si to nechám já, syn that rascally old anarchist, Doc Munn, zesnulého levičáka ze slumů u řeky Clyde, who willingly covered my trail with sick líbit? Na to, soudruhu, zapomeň! A tak lines, I sabbied forth from my workplace jsem si za asistence toho starýho rošťáka (at that time I was a fireman on the doktora Munna, který bez okolků railways) to give my braincogs a good nemocnými řádky za mnou zahlazoval airing. stopy, zašábesil od rachoty (v té době jsem dělal topiče na lokomotivě), a trochu si provětral mozkový závity.
(21-22)
Torrington heavily prefers wordplay and puns over idiomatic expressions even though there still remain a great number of the latter. In translation, it is important to interpret the image with regards to the register and the immediate textual context of the phrase, not the original wording. Idioms reflect the cultural, political or religious milieu the most, and need to be translated with the respect to both the target and the original language and culture.85
Even though British and Czech cultures do not differ dramatically as they both come from the Indo-European family, and are both influenced by Latin, there are differences. Czech culture is heavily influenced by Germany as well, and thus familiar with the German mindset and its use of language, while Britain has undoubtedly always been a naval country, and so the sea represents a vast landscape for imagination and cultural references. Conversely, the Czech
85 Olga, Krijtová, Pozvání k překladatelské praxi: kapitoly o překládání beletrie. Praha: Nakladatelství Karolinum, 1996. 44
61 language evolved rather as an inland language, so the sea is not so prevalent in its metaphorical language. Torrington uses the sea as one of the underlying metaphors, suggesting again both the suffocating, predestined roles within not only the working class community, but the Scottish and British society as well.
On the other hand, there is the metaphorical liberating aspect of the sea, with its unremitting horizon. These differences are taken into account in distinguishing which idiom has its equivalent in the target language or whether the idiom enriches both the original and the target language as well.
The following extract is such an example where the original English idiom is nautical and does not have an equivalent idiom in Czech using the same images:
The movie house was bracketed by the Kino držely v klepetech z jedné defunct O´Leary´s betting shop and the strany Sazka zesnulého OĹearyho a derelict Blue Pacific Cafe, mention of z druhé strany kavárna Modrý Pacifik, což which is made in local bard John Scobie´s ve své písni „Óda na Bleší ranč“ zmínil “Ode to a Flea Ranch”, where he described místní bard John Scobie, kde popisuje the kinema as being “A crackit planet biograf jako „ bezvadnou planetu mezi betwixt the deil and the deep blue sea...” ďáblem a mořskou hlubinou…“
(9)
The idiomatic phrase between the devil and the deep blue sea means choosing from two options where one is not much better than the other. In Czech, there is conceptually the same idiomatic phrase, which actually uses water metaphors as well, z deště pod okap or z bláta do louže. On the other hand, the devil and the deep blue sea are immediate references to the betting shop, being the devil, and the Blue Pacific Ocean, being the deep blue sea metaphor, so the Czech translations would not work very well here, as the usage of the idiomatic phrase is metaphorical at the same time. Therefore, it is translated literally since the terms 62 the devil and the deep blue sea do not have a positive connotation in Czech as well, suggesting an unknown threat.
What is more, Torrington consciously employs a surprising visual mode of the film camera lenses,86 which has the effect of both the sense of extreme detailed descriptions in few words, as the so-called camera glides through the described image or situation, and, at times, exhaustive lists of objects being described, e.g. in the junk shop in chapter three. Actually, the text would be positively suitable for screen, and it is a question to consider whether the hysterical realism is not only an attempt to capture what will soon be lost completely, an attempt to deal with nostalgia, but also how the visual media modifies the style of narration in the text when life is no longer seen to be acted on the theatre stage, but rather on the screen for the world and gods to see. The following example is of a complex but singular sentence is from the opening of the chapter three:
To be found in this shop with its V tomhle obchodě s pronikavým pervasive stink of Time-rot were their pachem zpuchřelého času najdete jejich scrub-boards, their quaint old wireless, staré plechové vany, sportovní kočárky, wind-up gramophones, dusty piles of 78s, ruční ždímačky a valchy, podivné EPs and LPs, twelve-inch tellies, tranzistoráky, gramofony na kliku, wallydugs, wag-at-the-wa´s, brass zaprášené hromady velkých gramodesek, fenders, fire-irons, fretworked pipe-racks, singlů a LP gramodesek, dvanáctipalcové marquetry pieces, box cameras and telky, porcelánové vázy, stojací hodiny,
86 “What of yours truly, then – was my life about to dribble out in farce as well? [...] (In this scenario, which´ll be ditched just as soon as the promised hotel hoves into view, the script committee insist on the, to my mind, hackneyed notion of having the snowploughman whistling a few snatches from “Stranger on the Shore”).”
86Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing! UK: Minerva, 1993. 292
63 speckled photographs scattered as far and mříže od krbu, železné žehličky, wide as no doubt were the people vyřezávané stojánky na dýmky, řezbářské depicted, cartons stuffed with picture kousky, dřevěné foťáky a fotky stejně postcards, old music sheets and books, skvrnité jako jsou lidi pihovatí na nich, hundreds and hundreds of books, every krabice nadupané pohlednicemi, staré domestic prop you could think of, aye, notové sešity a knihy; stovky a stovky knih, and including not one but at least half a cokoli do domácnosti, včetně ne jednoho dozen kitchen sinks. ale aspoň půl tuctu kuchyňských dřezů.
(14)
The last extract depicts the complex metaphors which Torrington often uses in combination with wordplay and poetic language, creating thus a highly artistic effect, and emphasizing the expressive function of the novel. His inventiveness and playfulness is palpable not only in the utterances but, predominantly, in the descriptions and commentaries which the protagonist constantly makes. Torrington´s metaphorical expressions are the hardest to translate because there are mostly neologisms based on functional shift, alliteration or unusual connotation, therefore, such expressions are multilayered in meaning, and more than one translational solution is plausible. Such an approach to writing and the high frequency in applying it is comparable to the poetic techniques of Christopher Reid, one of the exponents of Martian poetry, which deals with presenting everyday life and objects with unusual metaphors, as it was argued previously.
Over there, still standing but only just, was Tam stál, nebo spíš ještě držel pohromadě, the Brandon Snooker Hall. Dampness had Brandonův kulečníkový klub. Vlhkost laid a green baize on its bricked-up potáhla jeho zazděná okna zeleným windows. Where were they now, those kulečníkovým suknem. Kde je jim teď gallus geometricians whose wordless konec, těm matematikům vkšandách,
64 lectures on the properties and projections jejichž němé přednášky o oběžných of the moving sphere had us leaning on the drahách koulí jsme v údivu sledovali a smoke in awe? opírali se při tom o kouř?
(8)
65 V. CONCLUSION
This thesis provided mapping of the translational process with the objective of showing that it is not only the linguistic analysis that is prevalent in translation, but it is also the literary criticism which preserves and communicates the author´s authentic message. Translation should not copy words, but be context based regarding the literary tradition, social and cultural allusions, and the author´s original appeal, including its underlying commentary.
Nevertheless, it is not possible to separate any approach to translation in the course of its making as it is shown in the extracts where the linguistic and literary approaches complement each other, being based especially on the Prague
School approach and Jiří Levý´s functional structuralism, which is being rediscovered by the western linguistic approaches.
The thesis was divided into three sections: the first two are based on
Halliday´s macro and micro level approach to translation to support the proposed argument of the prerogative of consciously and methodically involving literary criticism as an integral part of the process of translation, and the closing section is the Appendix with the actual translation of the first four chapters of Jeff
Torrington´s novel Swing Hammer Swing! in such a format that an immediate subjective translational solutions could be available for reading.
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73 THE APPENDIX
74 The translation concerns first four chapters of Jeff Torrington´s novel Swing Hammer Swing!, pages 1-18
CHAPTER I KAPITOLA 1 Something really weird was Ve čtvrti Gorbals se dělo něco happening in the Gorbals – from the hodně zvláštního – z kina Planeta, které battered hulk of the Planet Cinema in ošlehané živly stojí v Scoobie Street, se Scobie Street, a deepsea diver was vynořil potápěč. Zaváhal, možná emerging. He hesitated, bamboozled rozhozený třpytivou plochou světla maybe by the shimmering fathoms of tyčících se stěn činžáků, které sníh light, the towering rockfaces of the obrostl stejně, jako korály pohlcují útes. snow-coraled tenements. After a few Po chvilce pustil vstupní dveře, které se moments the diver allowed the za ním se zhoupnutím zavřely, a vestibule door to swing closed behind vycupital na chodník, kde pod him then, taking small steps, he came vytahanou plátěnou stříškou ležel jen out onto the pavement which in the nízký kobereček sněhu. Tento pokojný area sheltered by the sagging canopy hrobeček pro vybrané sněhové vločky bore only a thin felting of snow. Up the čísi nohy znesvětily vyšlapanou centre of this quiet little grave for cestičkou po horním okraji, která se teď privileged snowflakes desecrating feet leskla jako mokrá tulení kůže. Ale had trudged a pathway which shone kdosi, holčina - soudě podle stop, with a seal-like lustre. One person ignorovala tuto zaběhanou trasu a though – a young girl, to judge from skočila do netknutého sněhu, kde po the footprints – had ignored the sobě zanechala stopy neznámého tance. conventional route, and skipped off into the untrodden snow where she´d left the steps of an unknown dance sparkling in her wake. The diver´s gear was from Potápěčova výbava pocházela z Laughsville: it consisted of a heavy Chechtálkova: skládala se z těžkého grey plastic boilersuit which was šedého gumového overalu, který byl studded all over with fake rivets. The hustě osázený falešnými cvočky, a na chest area was cluttered by a harness of hrudi měl zavěšený jakousi změť
75 entwining pipes and pseudo valves, z proplétajících se trubiček a rádoby fanciful apparatus which, had it been ventilků. Kdyby se tato technická translated into reality, would´ve bizarnost doopravdy prubla, nechala rendered the suit´s occupant woad-blue by nositele obleku, ať si lapá po dechu a and windless before his boots had so chladem zmodrá, ještě než by si vůbec much as dipped into the briny. It also stačil smočit botky ve slané vodě. gave the impression, this suit, of having Z tohoto obleku jste vůbec měli dojem, recently passed through the business- že jí nedávno nějaký žralok nebo jiné end of a shark or some other multi- zuřivé zubatisko ukázalo, zač je toho toothed predator; so badly holed was it, loket, takže vedle ní děrované tričko that a string vest would by comparison vypadalo úplně nepromokavě. Helma have looked watertight. The helmet, skafandru poskytovala nulovou apart from offering a cramped but ochranu, i když jinak nabízela stísněné, nevertheless very private place to nicméně privátní místo pro utonutí; ta drown in, provided zero protection; the věc měla rozseknuté čelo a rzí byla thing has a gashed brow and had been prolezlá jak rakovinou v terminálním all but eaten out by a virulent strain of stádiu. Na nohou měl potápěč natažené galloping paint cancer. The diver´s feet záplatované gumáky a celý tento were stuffed into patched gumboots podmořský obleček doplňovaly dámské and, to complete his submarine palčáky s norským vzorem, akorát na ensemble, he wore on his tiny hands a jeho drobné ručky. pair of ladies´ Fair Isle patterned mittens. The diver´s identity wasn´t hard Nebylo těžké rozlousknout, kdo to crack. Like a clue slipped within se v obleku skrývá. Křivé nohy ho brackets his bandy legs gave the game naprášily raz dva, pěkný óčka, jak away. Sensing rather than seeing me – nápověda v závorkách. Když moji the faceplate was completely misted přítomnost vycítil - vidět mě nemohl, over – the diver stopped, turned quickly protože průzor měl úplně zamlžený - in his tracks, then scuttled back in the potápěč se zastavil, udělal čelem vzad a direction of the vestibule´s grotto-like po vlastních stopách zběsile cupital gloom. Before he´d reached it, though, zpátky směrem k přítmí, které I´d caught´m by the elbow. From vyplňovalo vestibul jako ztemnělou 76 within the helmet there sounded a jeskyni. Než se tam ale dostal, stačil muffled sigh, then his hand rose to jsem ho čapnout za loket. Z vnitřku unlatch the faceplate. As it swung open helmy se ozval tlumený povzdech, pak with a thin squeal, a pungent aroma of zvedl ruku a otevřel průzor. Po jemném peppermint confirmed that the suit´s zaskřípění se ven vyvalila pronikavá occupant was indeed Matt Lucas, the peprmintová vůně, která tak s konečnou chief operator of the Planet Cinema. platností potvrdila, že se uvnitř opravdu Lucas was a mint imperial junky; skrývá Matt Lucas, hlavní promítač totally hooked on “Granny´s kina Planeta. Lucas těžce ujížděl na Windbreakers” he was. Only during mentolu, totální závislák na větrových mealtimes or sleep itself was his bonbónech. Jen když jedl nebo chrněl, luckless tongue spared the chore of nenutil chuděrku jazyk pořád prohánět lobbing one of these flavoured pebbles ty ochucené kamínky po dásních. around his dentures. No conversation S Mattem nebylo vůbec možné si with Lucas was possible that wasn´t poklábosit bez doprovodu klap- accompanied by the clack-clacking klapavého zvuku jedné z nejnudnějších sound of the world´s most boring bonbónů na světě. sweetie. “Lo, Matt.” „Hoj, Matte.“ “Aye, hullo Tommy.” „No, zdar, Tommy.“ “You´re a wee bit late for Halloween, „Hele, nezdá se ti, že už je na eh?” Halloween trochu pozdě?“ The helmet waggled. “Ach, it´s a stunt Helma se zaviklala. „Jo, tohle je Mr Burnett´s dreamed up.” reklamní tah, co z klobouku vytáhl pan Burnett.“ From the bundle of handouts he had Ze svazku letáků, které si vklínil wedged under his arm he tugged a pod ruku, vytáhl jeden a podal mi ho. sheet out and passed it to me. I studied Hezky jsem si ho proštudoval. it. BEETLES BEETLES BEETLES BROUCY BEETLES BROUCY BROUCY THE YELLOW SUBMARINE BROUCY 77 DIVE DIVE ŽLUTÁ PONORKA DIVE DIVE PO HLAVĚ TO THE PLANET CINEMA SKOČTE SKOČTE FOR FANTHOMS OF FANTASTIC PO HLAVĚ FUN DO KINA PLANETA Forget the telly, DO HLUBIN ZARUČENÉ ZÁBAVY Forget the Bingo, Zapomeňte na telku, We´ve got:: Zapomeňte na bingo, JOHN PAUL Tady jsou: GEORGE & RINGO! JOHN PAUL THE DAB FOUR GEORGE & RINGO! ŠUPR ČTVERKA “I´ve to go round handing them out,” „Musim je jít roznýst,“ vysvětloval Lucas explained. Lucas. “You´d be as well chucking them in a „Taky bys je mohl spláchnout do midden.” kanálu.“ “The boss´s coming wae me.” „Šéf jde taky.“ “Did Paddy trap this morning?” I asked „Paddy se dneska ukázal?“ zeptal jsem him. se. He nodded. “Aye, but I don´t know Přikývl. „No, ale netušim proč: nejtěžší what for: heaviest thing he lifted was věc, co dneska zdvihl, byl aspirin.“ an aspirin.” „Bolí ho škeble?“ “Got a nippy turnip, has he?” „Nevyšlo snad dneska slunce na “Did the sun rise in the east the day?” východě?“ Come Judgement Day the V soudný den, až obžaloba prosecution would exhibit the damning předloží jako usvědčující důkaz evidence of Paddy Cullen´s liver – a Paddyho játra, ten alkoholem drink-maimed organ which not even his zmrzačený orgán, ani jeho výtečné good qualities, like his sense of humour vlastnosti jako smysl pro humor a or his generosity, would gainsay. Paddy štědrost ho neobhájí. Paddy by klidně would spend Eternity chasing a mobile strávil věčnost tím, že by bosý po pub barefooted across a jagged terrain krajině rozeklané rozbitými lahvemi of smashed whisky bottles. My own whisky honil pojízdný bar. Samotnému 78 skull was gowping, the outcome of mi palice pulzovala, následek pigging the booze alongside Cullen in včerejšího nasávání u Vlka s Cullenem the Dog, followed by an after-hours až do zavíračky, po kterém následovalo session in the Moderation Bar. After zasedání v baru Umírněnost. Potom se that the shape of Thursday had become už čtvrtek začal přelévat a slévat fluid, very fluid: glints and glimmers of dohromady: třpyt a jiskření glasses half-recalled; faces, and from polozapomenutých rund; obličeje, the holes in them, long idiotic z jejichž černých děr se linulo dlouhé conversations. Later Paddy and me had přiblblé tlachání. Později jsme s pissed steamy shadows on a brick wall. Paddym načůrali na cihlovou zeď The sky had been littered with smashed mapy, ze kterých se ještě kouřilo. tumblers. Cullen had spewed a perfect Obloha byla zaneřáděná rozbitými map of Africa – complete with sklenicemi. Cullen vychcal perfektní Madagascar. Even when he´s bevvied mapu Afriky – včetně Madagaskaru. that boyo shows talent. Ten kluk talent nezapře, i když je nalitej. From the Planet Cinema, its Z kina Planeta se teď vynořil proprietor, Oswald J. Burnett, now jeho majitel Oswald J. Burnett. Cullen emerged. “The Zombie in the Crombie” mu říká Jóžin z bažin, a něco na tom Cullen called him and with good bude. Od smrti svýho manažera reason. Ever since the death of his Rintyho O´Dowda se z Burnetta stal manager, Rinty O´Dowd, Burnett had člověk, co jede na vzduch. Byl been a man motoring on air. But unlike výjimkou v moři majitelů kin ze many film exhibitors of the sixties šedesátých let, kteří horem pádem who´d gone running off to Bingoland proměnili kina v Bingoland, kdežto on as fast as their legs-eleven could carry si odepřel jít s dobou a stále si hýčkal them, Burnett had remained loyally svůj unavený hollywoodský repertoár. behind to nurse fatigued films from this Dokonce i on teď musel přiznat, že kinu choked Hollywood conduit. But even Planetě dohrává poslední kotouč a že k he´d to concede that the Planet was nim nezadržitelně blíží výpravný well into its last reel of existence and velkofilm zvaný Kladivo, co je brzy that the Hammer epic to beat them all všechny převálcuje. Dneska Burnett was fast approaching. Today Burnett předváděl svůj gestapácký model: 79 was wearing his Gestapo outfit: shades, zrcadlovky, papachu, kožený kabát a Cossack mink-fur hat, leather coat and galoše. Jak se přibližoval, říkal jsem si, overshoes. As he loomed closer I found a ne poprvé, kolik zvířátek muselo myself wondering, not for the first zahynout, aby ten široširý kabát mohl time, how many animals had perished žít. Asi za to mohla ta spousta filmů o that his vast coat might live. It´d nacistech, co jsem viděl, ale zdálo se, že probably something to do with all those kabát propůjčuje svému nositeli cosi Nazi movies I´d sat through, but the zlověstného, krejčovská hrozba coat seemed to bestow on its wearer a výslechu. Burnett byl opravdový sort of sinister sheen, a sartorial threat sádelník, pochodujících sto sedm kilo. of interrogation. Burnett was a real Jako obvykle byla jeho tvář plná lard-bucket, shifting sixteen maybe přívětivých záhybů a dolíčků. Mohli seventeen stones. As usual his face was jste na něm dříví štípat, ale když mu full of amicable little pleats and tucks. došla trpělivost, vypadal vedle něho A man slow to anger was Burnett, but Mussolini s migrénou jak úplný when he did get aroused the Mussolini cukroušek. with a migraine would by comparison have looked sweet´n sapsy. As he limped towards Lucas Jak se tak belhal ke mně a and me, a cigar stump was reeking at a Mattovi, z koutku úst mu čmoudil kus corner of his mouth. He dumped his doutníku. Do ruky mi nacpal svazek bundle of yellow handouts into my žlutých letáků. „Podrž mi je na chvíli, hands. “Hold these a minute, Tom. Tome. Skvělý. Dik.“ Měl teď volný That´s it. Ta.” His hands were free now ruce, aby si mohl upravit šálu kaštanové to adjust the maroon scarf he´d wound barvy, kterou si už předtím obtočil about his neck. This done he jettisoned kolem krku. Úkol splněn, poté Burnett the cigar butt, tossing it out onto the odpinknul konec doutníku do břečky na slushy street, “God´s forgotten to shut silnici. „Pán Bůh zas zapomněl zavřít his fridge door again Thomas, eh?” I dveře od lednice, co říkáš, Tome?“ nodded and gave´m back his handouts. Přikývl jsem a vrátil jsem mu letáky. Burnett patted Lucas´s shoulder. “What Burnett poplácal Lucase po rameni. „Co d´you make of this? Came across it in ty na to? Narazil jsem na to v promítací the Rectifier Room. Left over from místnosti. Zapomněli to tam po 80 some salty saga. Can´t recall which. nějakým prosoleným velkofilmu. Kterej But, no matter.” to tak mohl bejt? No, to je jedno.“ I figured he was referring to the Říkal jsem si, že nejspíš mluví diving gear and not to the hapless o skafandru a ne o chudákovi Lucasovi. Lucas. Burnett flicked the faceplate Burnett mu zaklapl průzor a pak shut and then knuckled the helmet´s zaklepal na helmu. „Můžeš vyrazit, crown, “Off you toddle, Matthew. I´ll Matthew. Jdu hned za tebou. A bacha catch you up. Just keep a lookout for na žraloky.“ sharks.” We watched Lucas as he Sledovali jsme, jak se Lucas ventured beyond the canopy´s cover, vydal z bezpečí plátěné stříšky k tabáku his gumboots crackling through the Nelly Kempový, a pod gumáky mu crisp scrolls of shoveled snow outside křupal sníh odházený na chodníku do Nelly Kemp´s fag´n paper shop. A křehkých peřin. Mořskej úhoř conger eel with toothache would´ve s bolavým zubem by se smíchy utopil, drowned laughing if such a figure had kdyby zahlídl, jak si to taková come stomping past its home reef. postavička štráduje kolem jeho útesu. Burnett sighed. “Is it not terrible what´s Burnett si povzdechl. „Není hrozné, to be done to turn a coin these days?” I k čemu se musí jeden snížit, když se was sure the auld goat was referring to snaží si vydělat nějakou tu libru?“ Byl himself and not to Lucas. The fact that jsem si jistý, že ten starej kozel myslí his employee might feel a right eejit sebe a ne Lucase. To, že by se jeho inside that suicidal suit wouldn´t have zaměstnanec mohl v takovém occurred to´m: Fathoms too deep, it sebevražedným obleku cítit jako was. naprostý idiot, ho ani nenapadlo: zkrátka to bylo na hony vzdálené jeho chápání. It´s really mind-blowing how To vám hlava nebere, jak rychle quickly we can accommodate even the si zvykneme na tu nejvýstřednější most outlandish spectacle, taking it in podívanou, jen tak po ní očima our visual stride: “Look – deepsea sklouzneme. „Podívej, potápěč!... diver!... Where?... ower yonder, Kde?... No, támhle, zrovna se plahočí plodding through that urban snowdrift. městskou závějí. No, tam… Jo, už 81 See´m... Yeah, I´ve got´m. A diver, vidim. No, nekecej, potápěč. Kdo by si right enough. Imagine that... ho hum... to pomyslel … no jo no… zívám nudou yawn yawn...” It might well be that …“ Možná, že senilita narušuje naši senility disturbs our shockproofing, schopnost se nechat rozhodit, útočí na attacks the mind´s defensive cladding náš obranný pancíř, stejně jako in much the same way that deserted opuštěné vesnice setřesou střešní tašky, villas shrug off their roof tiles to admit a tak konečně přiznají sílu přírodních the elements. Certainly the kneecreaker sil. Rozhodně to vrzavý koleno, co in the doorway of Nelly Kemp´s fag´n postávalo ve dveřích Nellina tabáku, se paper shop had been stricken proměnilo v solnej sloup právě pro tu motionless by the sheer novelty of naprostou nezvyklost celý situace, když meeting up with a deepsea diver instead se setkala s potápěčem namísto of her usual street encounters with obvyklých psů, toulavých čičin a dogs, moggies and tenuous life-wisps bludných strašidel/ přízraků/ duší like herself. (chomáč unášený životem), jako je ona. Burnett stretched around me to Burnett se přese mě natáhl, aby thrust a handout into the shaking paw vrazil žlutý leták do třesoucí se tlapy of a passing greybeard. The old guy kolemjdoucímu staříkovi. S údivem stared in seeming amazement at the zíral na ten kus papíru, který mu piece of paper that´d so suddenly z ničeho nic rozkvetl v dlani. Jak šel bloomed on his palm. But as he dál, žlutá stránka se oddělila od continued on his way the yellow page křečovité ruky a odvála do jednoho detached itself from his palsied hand rohu zasněženého obdélníku, kde se and drifted into a corner of the snowy přilípla jak poštovní známka. Mezitím rectangle where it adhered like a se Lucas snažil vnutit leták pouliční postage stamp. Meanwhile Lucas was lampě. trying to deliver a handout to a lamp- post. “What the devil´s he doing?” Burnett „Co to sakra dělá?“ zabručel Burnett. muttered. „Má zamlžený vokýnko,“ vysvětlil jsem “His faceplate´s steamed up,” I mu a pak přidal pár nápadů, jak explained, then suggested a method of problém překonat. overcoming the problem. 82 “Shit´n it!” No wonder Burnett looked „Vyser se na to!“ Nebylo divu, že incredulous. Burnett vypadal nedůvěřivě. “Naw, spit´n it,” I said. You must´ve „Ale ne – plivni na to,“ povídám. seen scuba divers doing it?” „Neviděls, jak to potápěči dělaj?“ Burnett seemed to find the idea Zdálo se, že Burnett shledává distasteful. “I believe a smear of liquid tento nápad nechutným. „Přejet to soap is equally effective,” he informed mejdlíčkem by bylo stejně účinné,“ me. informoval mě. Two guys standing in the snow Před kinem, co je odsouzený outside a doomed cinema discussing k záhubě, stojej dva chlápci a řešej, jak the most efficacious method of to nejlíp zařídit, aby potápěč přestal preventing a deepsea diver from trying nutit letáky pouliční lampě! Kdo by to deliver handouts to lamp-posts! mohl přezíravě podceňovat podobné Who, aware that such an absurd takzvané nepravděpodobnosti, když conversation was not only possible but taková absurdní konverzace je nejen had actually taken place, could možná, ale i uskutečnitelná? Například haughtily discount other so-called Eddie Carlyle, můj zbožný švagr, by improbabilities? Eddie Carlyle, my jednou mohl zjistit, že nebe opravdu pious brother´n law, for instance, might funguje jako rekreační střediska Butlins one day be confirmed in his naive s pokojovou službou, jak tomu naivně belief that Heaven is a sort of Butlins věří. Nakonec, proč ne? Z Ježíše by se with room-service. Well, why-not? mohl vyklubat docela milej čahoun, Jesus himself could turn out to be a vlastně ten nejlepší bavič v červeným lanky, likeable bloke, a Red Coat in saku, slamák frajerky posunutý dozadu, fact, with a straw hat tilted rakishly on což by působilo mnohem víc his head – so much more chummy kamarádsky než ten zářící kulatej looking than that luminous doughnut preclík, který mu nad hlavu sentimental artists seem to insist on. sentimentální umělci už asi nepřestanou Burnett was admiring his cpát. handout. “Decent little job, eh? Got Burnett mohl na letáku oči Madge to run´m off on the Gestetner. nechat. „Docela dobrá prácička, viď? Wish I´d thought of it a whole lot Madge mi je projela na cyklostylu. sooner.” Kdybych s tim tak přišel dřív.“ 83 I nodded. “Only a couple of Přikývl jsem. „Akorát tam máš things wrong as far as I can see.” pár věcí blbě.“ He looked a bit miffed. “Wrong?” Trochu se naježil. „Blbě?“ “You´ve got The Dab Four,” I said. „Máš tam Šupr Čtverka,“ řekl jsem. “So?” „No a?“ “Should be “The Fab Four”!” „Má tam bejt přece Čupr Čtverka!“ “Dab, Fab, Crab – what´s the „Šupr, Čupr, Župr – v čem je rozdíl? difference? Anyway, “dab” sounds Šupr ale zní mnohem líp než Čupr, ať better than “fab”, whatever that´s už to znamená cokoliv.“ supposed to mean.” „Jako skvělý.“ “Fabulous.” „Fajn, takže jsme se shodli?“ vypadal “Good, so we´re agreed?” He looked spokojeně sám se sebou. pleased with himself. „Co je ta další věc?“ “What´s the other thing then?” „Ale, jen taková drobnost – jedno “Oh, nothing much – a spelling písmeno, to nic neni. Tady má být mistake, that´s all. You´ve got Beatles Brouci a ne Broucy.“ with two ees when it should be ee-ay.” He shook his head emphatically. Důrazně potřásl hlavou. „Neřekl “I think not, Thomas. Always has been bych, Thomasi. Vždycky se to psalo two ees, always will be. Look it up, Broucy, a vždycky bude. Podívej se do there´s the fellow.” slovníku, ten ti napoví.“ Again he adjusted his scarf, Znovu si upravil šálu, zamával gave me a farewell salute then went off na rozloučenou a vydal se po stopě za in the wake of submariner Lucas who, Lucasem, posádkou jednočlenné after his difficulty with the lamp-post, ponorky, který po těžkostech s pouliční was encountering even stiffer resistance lampou narazil na dokonce větší odpor from an electrical junction box which ze strany svorkové skřínky. Zkrátka despite the lure of a night on the Sticks neměla zájem, přestože jí dneska večer watching the Dab Four just didn´t want lákali na nejlepší místa, ze kterých to know. může sledovat Šupr Čtyrku.
84 CHAPTER II KAPITOLA 2 Our car, a Volkswagen Beetle, Volkswagen brouk si pěkně was fairly buzzing along, so zippily in broukal, když jsme uháněli takovou fact that twice within a minute we´d rychlostí, že jsme dokonce dvakrát overtaken the same hobbling předjeli stejnýho šouravýho dědu. greybeard. “You´re fond of first gear, „Jednička je tvoje neoblíbenější, viď aren´t you, Eddie?” I said to the driver, Eddie!“ řekl jsem řidiči, a na to Otec and old Father Time lolling there on the Čas, co si hověl na zadním polstrování rear cushions like a musical coffin jak nějaká hudební skřínka, zacinkal tinkled out a series of chimes which I několik jednoduchých melodií, které na suppose is as near to human laughter as to, že je vydával mechanický stroj, se any mechanical contrivance can get. už víc lidskému smíchu podobat Eddie, my brother´n-law, made one of nemohly. Švára Eddie teď vydal jeden his hrrumphing noises. Wouldn´t it be a ze svých štěkchrchlů. Byla by to přece pity if after a lifetime of hairshirting, jen velká škoda, kdyby mu svatý Petr hymnifying, and hallelujahing, St Pete přibouchl nebeskou bránu před nosem, slammed the pearly portal in Eddie´s protože se občas oddával nějakému face just because on a few occasions tomu štěkchrchlu, a život prožitý he´d indulged in the odd hrrumph. v ciliciu za zpěvu žalmů a provolávání It had stopped snowing but now Aleluja by na tom nic nezměnil. and then bright flurries of the stuff fell Přestalo sněžit, ale sem tam from humpy window ledges where spadla náhlá sněhová sprška maybe a bird had newly settled. z hrbolatých okenních říms, z místa, Pigeons, beaten to a fine lead by kde se zrovna usadil nějaký pták. hunger, flickered amongst the rusted Holubi, ze kterých hlad udělal jen lesklé girders of the railway bridge. Over šedé šmouhy, se míhali mezi zrezlými there, still standing but only just, was oblouky železničního mostu. Tam stál, the Brandon Snooker Hall. Dampness nebo spíš ještě držel pohromadě had laid a green baize on its bricked-up Brandonův kulečníkový klub. Vlhkost windows. Where were they now, those potáhla jeho zazděná okna zeleným gallus geometricians whose wordless kulečníkovým suknem. Kde je jim teď lectures on the properties and konec, těm matematikům v kšandách, projections of the moving sphere had us jejichž němé přednášky o vlastnostech a 85 leaning on the smoke in awe? Cuts drahách koulí jsme v údivu sledovali a Colquhoun, Spider Sampson, Skinner opírali se při tom o kouř? Kliďas Murphy: gone, all of them – potted by Colquhoun, Sekáč Sampson, Vydřiduch Time, the fastest cue in town. Murphy: zmizeli, do jednoho – pod kytičky je dostal Čas, nejrychlejší frajer ve městě. Fires fuelled by wooden beams Na vyklizených parcelách burned in cleared sites. Rubble was hořely ohně živené dřevěnými trámy. being trucked from busted gable ends Náklaďáky odvážely suť ze zbouraných and demolishers worked in a fume of štítových zdí a demoliční parta dust and smoke. You would´ve thought pracovala v oblacích prachu a kouře. that the Ruskies had finally lobbed over Řekli byste si, že Rusáci konečně one of their big megaton jobs: streets vysokým obloukem odpálili jednu wiped out, landscapes pulverised. On a z těch svých megatunových věcí: ulice gutted site near a fire that drizzled srovnané se zemí, krajina zdevastovaná. sparks on him, a greybeard sat in a Na vykuchaném prostranství blízko lopsided armchair, placidly smoking ohně, který sršel jiskry, seděl na his pipe. I nudged Eddie and pointed to zkřiveném křesle stařík a kouřil si the old guy. He spared the greybeard a dýmku, jako by se nechumelilo. Štouchl cold glace then returned his attention to jsem do Eddieho a ukázal na dědu. Bez the windscreen through which could be zájmu na něj mrkl a dál upřeně zíral na seen advancing streets shorn of their ubíhající silnici, kterou sníh připravil o pavements by the snow, and of their chodníky a Kladivo o budovy. Říkat jim buildings by the Hammer. It was ulice bylo trochu mimo, protože spíš inaccurate to call them “streets” vypadaly jako několik přistávacích anymore for they looked like a series of ploch. bleak airstrips. Most of the old Gorbals had Většina původního Gorbalu už been levelled by now. Housing byla srovnaná se zemí. Ti, co měli na Planners had taken up their slum- starosti územní plán, vzali do rukou erasers and rubbed out the people gumy na slumy a vymazali je i s lidmi, who´d lived there. Some original kteří tam žili. Pár původních zbytků se specks still clung to the Redevelopment ještě drželo v rámci Projektu přestavby, 86 blueprints but these would be blown ale ty se také brzy zametou. Například away shortly. In Scobie Street, for v Scoobie Street ještě dál fungovalo instance, a few commercial concerns několik obchodních koncernů: tabák continued to function: there was Nelly Kelly Kempový, holičství na růžku Joea Kemp´s fag´n paper shop; Joe Fiducci´s Fiducciho; pak hospoda U Mořskýho barbering joint; The Salty Dog Saloon ďasa (jistota mého pivního režimu), a (my local watering hole); and Shug nakonec veřejné záchodky (pouze pro Wylie´s public lavatory (Men Only) pány) Shuga Wylieho, které trůnily which stood out in the middle of the akorát v půlce ulice, hned naproti kinu street almost directly opposite the Planeta. Kino držely v klepetech z jedné Planet Cinema. The movie house was strany sázková kancelář zesnulého bracketed by the defunct O´Leary´s O´Learyho a z druhé strany kavárna betting shop and the derelict Blue Modrý Pacifik, což ve své písni „Óda Pacific Cafe, mention of which is made na Bleší ranč“ zmínil místní bard John in local bard John Scobie´s “Ode to a Scobie, kde popisuje biograf jako „žůžo Flea Ranch”, where he described the planetu mezi rarachem a mořskou kinema as being “A crackit planet hlubinou…“ betwixt the deil and the deep blue sea...” As the car continued on its way Jak jsme jeli dál, do stehen se the bulky typewriter lodged in my lap mi hloub a hloub zařezával masivní dug deeper grooves into my thighs. psací stroj, co se mi uvelebil na klíně. Eddie Carlyle just sat there, his gloved Eddie Carlyle jenom seděl, volant hands on the gloved steering wheel. potažený kůží svíral v kožených Bugs of melted snow glistened on his rukavicích. Na tmavém kabátu se mu dark sombre overcoat, and his tight třpytili brouci z roztátého sněhu a shirt collar, as hard as cuttle bone, kdykoli pohnul krkem, límeček tuhý creaked with his every neck movement. jako korzet zavrzal. Připomínal mi Eddie reminded me of yon defensive Čechovova Člověka v pouzdře. guy in Chekhov´s “Man in a Shell”. Dokonce i jeho voda po holení zaváněla Even his aftershave lotion had a kafrem, což by tak odpovídalo někomu, camphorish pong to it, which is kdo odložil svůj život na později, kdo appropriate for someone who ´d se už tady oloupil o všechna potěšení, 87 mothballed his life, who´d deprived jen aby si jich užil víc v sladkém limbu. himself of pleasure down here all the better to enjoy it in the sweet bye-and- bye. The Beetle crawled into the Brouk vjel krokem do vedlejší crevice of a sidestreet. To our left ulice, úzké jak štěrbina. Po levé straně shuttered warehouses and abandoned jsme mohli vidět nákladové haly s workshops began to pass while on our rozmlácenými okny a kolem se pomalu right a padlocked adventure playground míhaly opuštěné dílny, kdežto napravo could be seen. Within it on a sagging bylo naopak pochmurné hřiště gallows a piebald tyre hung in a perfect s provazovými prolézačkami. Uprostřed lack of motion. na povadlých provazech visela pneumatika s perfektní nehybností oběšence. We came now to a Pak jsme se najednou dostali na thoroughfare that blitzed the senses hlavní třídu, která naše smysly omráčila with its sudden buzz and uproar. Here, hlukem a tím, jak v ní pulzoval život. there were many shops doing business: Tady byla otevřená ještě spousta bakers, fruitshops, fishmongers; banks, obchodů: pekařství, ovoce a zelenina, dairies, butchers. Above these thronged rybárny; banky, mlékárna, řeznictví. premises there were dental surgeries Nad těmito zaškrcenými prostory byly which shared their common stairs with zubní ordinace, které měli společné tenanted flats from between the schody s nájemnými byty, kde bylo curtains of which faces could now and možné občas zahlédnout tváře za then be glimpsed. On the pavements, záclonami. Ze sněhové břečky na shoppers´ feet churned the slush to a chodnících udusali nakupující jemné fine black mud. It was as if černé bláto. Jako by se Cumberland Cumberland Street had returned in all Street zase vrátila do svých starých of its commercial glory. But, alas, it zlatých časů. Ale, běda, nebylo tomu hadn´t. This was in fact Crown Street, tak! Tohle byla ve skutečnosti Crown what remained of it, a barrier already Street, nebo co z ní zbylo, poslední collapsing before the Hammer´s bašta před náporem Kladiva. Nedá se onslaught. There´d be no gainsaying it tomu zabránit – za chvíli bude z nebe 88 – soon from the sky there would fall a padat tvrdá břidlicová suť. hard pelting of slates. “That´s it!” „Tady je to!“ I pointed to a battered-looking Ukázal jsem na otlučený shop on an equally battered corner obchod na stejně otlučeném rohu, který where old election posters hung in a byl ozdoben plakáty starých politických dismal rash of unfulfilled promises. kampani v neutěšených cákancích (Come back Alice Cullen – we need nenaplněných slibů. (Vrať se zpátky, you now!) Eddie brought the car to a Alice Cullenová – teď tě tu crackling halt in the gutter. He potřebujem!) U okraje silnice postavil switched off the engine. Bright sparks se skřípěním Eddie auto do haptáku. of snow drifted by. In a shop window Vypnul motor. Zářivé sněhové jiskry si an xmas tree stood bathed in its poletovaly vzduchem. Ve výloze se sentimental fires. Cradling a polythene- vánoční stromeček rochnil wrapped giant teddy bear a man v sentimentálním osvětlení. Kolem se lurched past. He was doing the potácel chlap s obrovským plyšovým Boozer´s Bolero – three steps forward medvědem zabaleným do igelitu. on tippytoes, two back heavily on Odkrokovával si „ochlastovo bolero“ – heels. Potent stuff this xmas spirit. tři kroky dopředu po špičkách a dva Eddie, being such a switched-off cat, dozadu pěkně na patách. Tenhle špiritus made a nipple of his mouth and milked Vánoc je silná záležitost. Eddie, protože titsing noises from it. A real Paradise je to už takovej studenej psí čumák, put-down is Eddie. Imagine arriving up udělal z pusy bradavku a začal z ní dojit there, sporting your new wings and mlaskavé zvuky. Ten by remcal i v ráji. your “Be A Harp Hotshot in Just Two Představte si, že tam dorazíte, Weeks!” booklet, only to find the place protahujete si křídla, listujete brožurkou stiff with Eddies! „Jak být virtuózem na harfu už za dva týdny!“ a zjistíte, že to místo je nacpaný samýma Eddiema! I raised the typewriter from Nadzvedl jsem stroj z klína a my lap a little and MacDougall (the MacDougall (ta samorozvíjející se self-raising flower), who´d obviously kytka), který se očividně třásl been beset by castration fears, pulsed kastračními strachy, se s vděčností nalil, 89 with gratitude as my manly blood když ho má mužná krev znovu revisited him. “He lives! Praise the navštívila. „On žije! Chvála Pánu – Lord – he lives!” C´mon now, show žije!“ Ale kuš, trochu úcty. Nadešel some respect. A most poignant moment nejbolestivější okamžik mého života. in my life has arrived. I patted my old Poplácal jsem svého starého Imperial Fictionmaster. Sorry pal, hate královského Beletrizátora. Soráč, kámo, doing this, but I need the bread. I je mi to líto, ale ty prachy potřebuju. wasn´t coming the con either. The Sám jsem tady obětí. Vánoční palčák s jingling mitt of xmas had me by the rolničkama mě držel pod krkem. „No throat. “C´mon you tight bastard, buy tak, ty lakomej mizero, kup jednou ženě your wife a decent pressy for a change. pořádnej dárek. Kolik maličkejch lahví How many wee bottles of eau-de- kolínský myslíš, že ženská potřebuje?“ Cologne d´you think a woman needs?” „Musíme ještě pro kočárek, víš o tom, “We´ve still the pram, že jo,“ řekl Eddie. remember,” Eddie said. We´ve-still-the-pram-remember Cože? Odkud se tohle vzalo? Co by to ... Now, where´s that coming from? tak mohlo znamenat? Jakási jazzová What can it mean? Just a mess in a improvizace? Ale kdepak. Máme tady Dixie, is that it? No, not at all. What we variaci na prvotřídní intelektuálský have here is a variation on those hlavolam, při jehož řešení máte za úkol egghead puzzles where you´re required rozeznat skryté geometrické tvary tím, to identify a concealed geometrical že je strčíte do otvoru správného tvaru. shape by coordinating the variant Řešení nebylo ke hře přiloženo, spaces. There´s no lid-of-the-box- všechno záleží na hráčově znalosti solution here, everything´s down to the geometrických tvarů. Stejně tak k manipulator´s geometrical know-how. doplnění hluchých míst v Eddiho Likewise to interlock the voids in poznámce je potřeba vědět, jak se věci Eddie´s remark depends on a shared mají . Pokud se vám takové informace pool of familial knowledge. Given this dostane, všechno do sebe hned zapadne. info, everything soon clicks into place. Takže „musíme ještě pro kočárek, víš o Thus We´ve-still-the-pram-remember tom, že jo“ vydá následující tajemství: unpacks to read: “We´d best step on it „Měli bysme pěkně přidat, páč ještě for we´ve still got that pram to uplift!” musíme vyzvednout ten kočárek!“ Jaký 90 What pram? The one being offered to kočárek? Ten, který mě a Rhoně Rhona and myself by Rhona´s sister, nabídla Rhonina sestra Phyllis, a Phyllis, and her husband Jack too, of samozřejmě taky její muž Jack. Měl course. I was to uplift it from their jsem si ho u nich vyzvednout dneska place this very afternoon. At the odpoledne. Rhona je teď v porodnici, moment Rhona is in the Maternity předčasně kvůli zvýšenému krevnímu Hospital, prematurely as it happens, tlaku… Dešifrování zprávy ukončeno. due to an elevated blood-pressure condition... Decoding of message complete. “C´mon,” Eddie now urged, „No tak,“ naléhal Eddie, „ hni sebou!“ “move yourself!” It´s amazing how contact with Je neuvěřitelné, jak kontakt his Nazi steering wheel – gloved or not s jeho fašistickým volantem, v kůži – turns Eddie into an insufferable little nebo bez ní, udělá z Eddieho Volkswagenführer. It´s like he´s nesnesitelného malého hooked a jump-lead into a super ego- Volkswagenführera. Jako by mu to booster. Ex auto, of course, he lives a přefouklo ego. Samozřejmě, že ex auto vapid existence, snailing along at the vede duchaprázdný život, kdy se šourá heels of his mother Letitia Dalrymple dva kroky za svojí matkou Letitií Carlyle. When he´s not doing this then Dalrymple-Carlyleovou. Když se he´s slaving away in a textile zrovna nešourá, otročí ve skladu warehouse in the despatch room of textilního závodu, kde připravuje which he prepares for consignment k odeslání balíky batistu, organdy, parcels of cambric, organdie, buckram hrubého plátna a bavlněného mušelínu. and tarlatan. “Right,” I responded, “get your „Jasně,“ řekl jsem na to, „tak arse roon here and haud the door. This pohni zadkem a podrž mi dveře. Tohle thing´s a ton weight.” má snad tunu.“ Bugged by my tone, not to Otrávený mým tónem a to mention my language, he snapped. nemluvě o výrazech, se na mě utrhne. “This could´ve waited. I´m not a flippin „Tohle mohlo počkat. Nejsem žádná taxi service. You do realise that I´d to blbá taxislužba. Uvědomuješ si laskavě, 91 get – “ že jsem si kvůli tomu musel –„ “ – time from your work? Aye, I think „ – vzít volno z práce? No jo, myslim, you mentioned it a couple hunner žes to už zmínil aspoň stokrát.“ Pokrčil times.” I shrugged my shoulders. jsem rameny. „Stejně nechápu, proč “Anyway, I don´t see what all this máme tak naspěch – Rhona má čas až hurry-hurry´s about: Rhona´s no due do února.“ tae February.” He caught me adrift at the nets Chytil mě do chapadel a začal with a moralistic backhand volley, “It´d políčkovat morálními soudy. never cross your mind of course, that „Samozřejmě tě asi nikdy nenapadlo, že since her hyster – her operation, Phyllis Phyllis od té doby, co jí dělali hystero – might get depressed by the very sight jako tu operaci, nemusí snášet pohled of the pram. na kočárek.“ “Heavy, man.” „To je těžký, kámo.“ His shirt collar crackled, at least Zapraskal mu límeček, teda I think it was his collar though it might aspoň si myslím, že to byl jeho límeček, well´ve been his indignant soul i když by to mohla klidně být jeho stretching its astral muscles. How rozhořčená duše, která rozpínala godalmighty powerful he looked all of hvězdicovitou svalovinu. Najednou a sudden – like a thrush unzipping a vypadal jako všemohoucí – jako drozd, worm.” co cupuje žížalu. “ “Heavy, man” “ he mimicked „To je těžký, kámo“, zopakoval me. “What´s that supposed to mean? po mně. „A cože to má vůbec Why can´t you speak normally instead znamenat? Proč nemůžeš mluvit of... of...” normal words failed him. I normálně místo toho… toho.“ Došla mu got a Zen buzz: “Man who rides on normální slova. Začalo se o mě Beetle should refrain from stamping his pokoušet zenové rčení: „Muž, jenž jede foot...” v brouku, by se měl zdržet dupnutí…“ “Eddie,” I said, “get the door, „Eddie,“ povídám, „konečně will you – before my bastard´n legs pořeš ty dveře – nebo mi ty zatracený drop off!” nohy upadnou!“
92 CHAPTER III KAPITOLA 3 The shop was crammed floor- Obchod byl od podlahy ke to-ceiling with junk. Every nook and stropu přecpaný krámama. Každý kout cranny had been utilised to a škvíra byly využitý, aby pojaly ten accommodate the domestic fall-out domácí spad, který byl důsledkem té which had resulted from that most nejtragičtější exploze společnosti – disastrous of community explosions – Gorbals zvoní umíráček. Celé kmeny the dinging doon of the Gorbals. Činžákčů za sebou nechávali hmotné Leaving in their wake the chattels of an statky překonaného životního stylu a outmoded way of living, whole tribes odešli do rezervací Castlemilk a of Tenementers had gone off to the Toryglen, nebo podobně jako hrstka Reservations of Castlemilk and těch, co zbyli, vystoupali do „Velkého Toryglen or, like the bulk of those kamenného vigvamu na obloze“ Basila who´d remained, had ascended into Spence. V tomhle obchodě Basil Spence´s “Big Stone Wigwam in s pronikavým pachem zpuchřelého času the Sky”. To be found in this shop with najdete jejich staré plechové vany, its pervasive stink of Time-rot were sportovní kočárky, ruční ždímačky a their old zinc tubs, their steamie prams, valchy, podivné tranzistoráky, their wringers and their scrub-boards, gramofony na kliku, zaprášené hromady their quaint old wireless, wind-up velkých gramodesek, singlů a elpíček, gramophones, dusty piles of 78s, EPs dvanáctipalcové telky, porcelánové and LPs, twelve-inch tellies, wallydugs, vázy, stojací hodiny, kukačkové hodiny, wag-at-the-wa´s, brass fenders, fire- mříže od krbu, železné žehličky, irons, fretworked pipe-racks, marquetry vyřezávané stojánky na dýmky, pieces, box cameras and speckled řezbářské kousky, dřevěné foťáky a photographs scattered as far and wide fotky stejně skvrnité, jako jsou lidi as no doubt were the people depicted, pihovatí na nich, krabice nadupané cartons stuffed with picture postcards, pohlednicemi, staré notové sešity a old music sheets and books, hundreds knihy; stovky a stovky knih, cokoli do and hundreds of books, every domestic domácnosti, včetně ne jednoho, ale prop you could think of, aye, and aspoň půl tuctu kuchyňských dřezů. including not one but at least half a dozen kitchen sinks. 93 Into this shop too, like so many Do tohoto obchodu, podobně stale pizzas, had tumbled wall plaques jako do tolika zatuchlých pizzerií, se which showed every sentimentalised také dostaly nástěnné plakety, které rural scene imaginable. Ours had been zobrazovaly úplně všechny možné “The Watermill”, though its stream had výjevy ze sentimentálních venkovských been diverted after Da Clay´d vented scén. Mezi naše patřil Vodní mlýn, i his spleen on it with a flying boot (a když tok řeky byl odkloněn od té doby, great spleen-venter was my old man). co si na něm otec Clay na ní vylil The leader of the “Ducks in Flight” had světobol za pomoci létající boty (uměl winged on for many a year with a svůj světobol krásně dávat najevo, ten broken neck caused by – who else? – můj tatouš). Hlavní kachna z „Kachen v Vic Rudge, when he´d taken a potshot letu“ mnoho let plácala křídly se at it with his Webley air pistol. Those zlomeným krkem, o což se nepostaral selfsame ducks might very well be here nikdo jiný než Vic Rudge, když na ni as might also my old bike, a royal- vystřelil naslepo z vlastní Webley blue´n white Argyle with a wee kiltie vzduchovky. Klidně tu můžou být ty on the handlebar stalk. With some stejné kachny, stejně jako moje starý rummaging I might even be able to kolo, modrobílý Argyle s maličkým howk out those stookie ornaments Ma kiltem na řidítkách. Kdybych se v tom Clay´d been fond of: Boy with trochu víc přehraboval, určitě by se mi Cherries, for instance. Poor bugger, he podařilo vyčmuchat i ty přiblblé was always getting his conk knocked dekorace, které měla matka Clayová off before he´d a chance to sample the vždycky tak ráda: například chlapec fruit. “Tantalus” I´d nicknamed him, s třešněmi. Chudák malej, vždycky being at that time a raggedy-arsed kid dostal po frňáku, než stačil to ovoce who mainlined on bookprint. poválet v puse. Říkal jsem mu Tantalus, v době, když jsem byl klučinou s odřenými koleny, co si píchal knižní produkci. “Don´t put it there – you´ll „Nedávej to tam – poškrábeš scratch it!” to!“ The typewriter, about to mate Rychle jsem zvedl psací with its dim reflection on a dust- stroj, který se už chystal spářit se se 94 streaked table was hastily transferred to svým vlastním mdlým stínem na the lid of a travel-weary trunk. The zaprášeným stole, a přendal ho na víko shop´s owner, a crabbit wee nyaff came lodního kufru, co viděl svět. Majitel over now and, looking aggrieved, obchodu, nabručenej skrček, přišel ke rubbed a finger across the table´s stolu a začal prstem leštit zaprášený stourie surface. If I´d scratched it I´d povrch. „Kdybys to poškrábal, škodu make good the damage, he warned me, bych ti pěkně spočítal,“ varoval mě, což which was really rich considering the bylo fakt vtipný, protože tenhle stůl byl tabletop already had more scrapes and víc poškrábaný a ulepený než moje blemishes on it than there were on my sbírka desek Jimmieho Rodgerse. Jimmie Rodgers record collection. Podíval se na mě a mumlal si pro sebe. Muttering under his breath he fixed his „To seš ty, co? A co za krámy mi tu querulous glance on me. “You, is it? chceš nechat tentokrát?“ And what rubbish are you trying to unload this time?” Starej bručoun se nahnul, aby The old yap bent to give the si ho pořádně prohlídl. Šťouchnul do machine the once-over. He poked at it něj prstem tam, kde byla natažená with a finger, mainly in the area of the páska, ale ani jednou ho nenapadlo ribbon spools but never once pressed a zmáčknout klávesu, což bylo stejně key which was about as nutty as buying pošahaný jako si koupit auto podle a car solely on the design of its toho, jak vypadá popelník. Narovnal se. ashtrays. He straightened. When he Když promluvil, měl hlas zavšivený spoke his voice was loused up with katarem, takže z něj padaly naprasklý catarrh and a crack ran through all of slova. his words. “What´s this, then?” „Co je tohle?“ When I told´m he snapped. Když jsem mu to řekl, utrhl se “Aye, I didnae think it was for sweepin na mě. „Jasně, nemyslel jsem si, že se s carpets! But what´m supposed to do tim zametaj koberce! Ale co s tim mám wae it?” Again I told´m. “Buy it?” he jako dělat? Zase jsem mu to řekl. squawked. “I thought maybe you „Koupit?“ zaskřehotal. „Řikal jsem si, wanted it rebuilt.” jestli to nechceš dát předělat.“ “It´s a fine auld machine,” I „Je to poctivá stará mašina,“ 95 assured him, then slipped in a quick ujistil jsem ho a pak jsem rozjel malou commercial which glossed over the reklamní kampaň, která jemně zastřela typewriter´s crucial lack of the letter I. klíčový nedostatek ve funkčnosti “I´ll give you a wee demo if you like.” písmena I. „Jestli chcete, předvedu vám Adjusting the creased sheet of paper I ho.“ Narovnal jsem pomačkaný papír knelt beside the chest and briskly do stroje a poklekl vedle truhly a svižně typed: “The fast brown dog jumps over napsal: „Rychlý hnědý pes skáče přes a lazy fox ... Now´s the hour to come to lenocha kočku… Nastal čas potřást the help of the party...” pomocnou ruku této straně…“ “There, how´s that?” „Tak, co vy na to?“ He shrugged his skinny Pokrčil hubenými rameny. „Ať shoulders. “Hanged if I know. Havnae se propadnu, jestli vim, co tam je. got on ma readin specs.” He tugged Nemám u sebe brejle na čtení.“ Vytáh now from his pants pocket a hankie, so z kapsy u kalhot kapesník tak špinavej, clatty it would´ve been the talk of the že by se to hned rozneslo po všech steamie. Raising the pestilent rag he sousedkách. Ukázkově si do toho proceeded to snort his brains into it. nakaženýho hadru vysmrkal mozek. When the messy job was done and his Když bylo po všem a částečně se mu sight had been partially restored he vrátil zrak, vypadal naštvaně, že mě tam looked cross to find me still there. ještě jsem. „To už by si spíš prodal “Better chance of sellin a cracked prasklej gramafon. Kdo by teď a tady chantie. Who´d want a typewriter aroon stál o psací stroj?“ these parts?” What a question. A blizzard of To je mi otázka. Glasgowem vál authors was sweeping through blizard plný autorů. Člověk se musel Glasgow. To get into the boozers you´d prodírat závějemi Hemingwayů a plod through drifts of Hemingways and Mailerů, aby se dostal do putyky. Celé Mailers. Kerouacs by the dozen could tucty Kerouaců mohly být spatřeny, jak be found lipping the Lanny on Glesca slovem tvoří tu postavu Lannyho parku Green. Myriads of Ginsbergs were to Glesca Green. Mohli jste slyšet, jak be heard howling mantras down empty prázdnými nočními tunely kvílí mantry night tunnels. myriády Ginsbergů. “I thought maybe a ten-spot,” I 96 said, as in the classical manner I „Řikal jsem si možná tak assumed the stance of the black-belted desítku?“ řekl jsem v klasickém postoji Haggler. klasickým způsobem smlouvače “Ten bob for that rubbish! s černým pásem. You´re off your trolley, sonny.” „Desítku za takovej krám! Tys My Haggle-Master wouldn´t be snad upad.“ chuffed with me. Recklessly I´d Mistr vyjednávání by se mnou exposed myself to the Haggler´s prime nebyl spokojen, protože jsem se foe – the non-Haggler. Mindless of odkopal před úhlavním nepřítelem tradition, ignorant of the rules of všech smlouvačů – Nesmlouvačem. engagement, the subtle testing of Nějaká tradice balancování na ostří balance until the fulcrum of nože pro dosažení kompromisu ho compromise had been attained, the auld vůbec nedojímá, zkrátka mě rovnou bugger´d simply waded in and fetched kopnul do koulí. Otočil se a mžoural me a boot in the cheenies. Turning now chvíli do přítmí vzadu v obchodě, a pak he peered into the backshop gloom then zakřičel: „Alice, poď sem na chvilku.“ shouted, “Alice, come here a minute.” After a few moments a peely- Po chvíli se mezi námi objevila wally lassie of around fourteen, a čtrnáctiletá schlíplá bledule, v jedné comic in one hand, a half-gnawed apple ruce komiks a v druhé nahryzané in the other slouched into our presence. jablko. Na sobě měla krátké lila šaty a She wore a skimpy mauve dress and a na čele ošklivý pruh akné. Očima, za nasty line in facial acne. There was a kterýma se skrývala modravá stydlivost, blue shyness to the eyes that slid from sklouzla ze mne na můj „výborný me to my “fine example of British příklad britského řemesla…“ craftsmanship...” “What d´you want, Gramps?” „Co je?“ zeptala se přes she asked through a gobful of mushed rozžvýkané jablko. apple. “You say you get typing at „Máte ve škole hodiny psaní school? Right, have a bash at this thing, na stroji, že jo. No, tak mi tady něco then.” vyťukej.“ She wasn´t overkeen (me even Moc nadšená z toho nebyla (a já ještě 97 less so) but Gramps insisted. The girl míň), ale její děda trval na svým. sighed then placed the half-chewed Holčina si povzdechla, položila apple on Biffo the Bear and kneeled nakousaný jablko na medvěda Biffa a before the machine. Very self- poklekla ke stroji. Pečlivě nastavila consciously she adjusted her skinny hubené prsty nad hlavní klávesy. fingers on the guide keys. I leaned over Nahnul jsem se nad ní. „Jestli to her. “If it helps just copy what I´ve pomůže, jenom opiš, co jsem už typed.” But with a nervous gulp she napsal.“ S nervózním polknutím ale began to rap out something entirely začala psát něco úplně jiného: different: “Of all the f shes n the sea the „P rát je pol t k moře.“ Zkusila to merma d s the one for me.” She tried znovu, ale výsledek byl jak přes again with identical results. Next, with kopírák. Mrkla na mě a rychle zaťukala a glance up at me, she struck a rapid několikrát na klávesu „i“: Amputovaná tattoo on the i key: the amputated leg nožička bušila bez výsledku. kicked impotently. “Well?” her grandfather „Tak co,“ vyslýchal ji děda. queried. Holčina vstala. „Řekla bych, že The girl rose. “It´s alright, I na svůj věk je dobrej.“ Když se na mě suppose, considering its age.” Her s výsměchem v očích podívala, měla už mouth sappy once more with pulped zase pusu plnou jablečný šťávy. apple she turned mocking blue eyes on me. “A pound,” the junkman „Libru,“ nabídl vetešník. offered. „Určitě pět.“ “A fiver, surely.” „Třicet pencí.“ “Thirty bob.” „Takže čtyři libry?“ “Four pounds, then?” „Dvě, víc ne.“ “Two, no more.” Povzdechl jsem si. „Tak jo, ale je “I sighed. “Okay, but it´s to loupež za bílýho dne.“ daylight robbery.” The old man, still grumbling Děda si nepřestal bručet pod under his breath, creaked off into the fousy, ale odšoural se po vrzající 98 backshop where presumably he stashed podlaze dozadu pro peníze. Vnučka se his loot. His granddaughter grinned at na mě šklebila, přestala jen, aby me then, pausing only to spit out an vyplivla jadérko, a pak mi povídá: apple seed, said, “You´d better give me „Radši mi dejte pět pencí nebo mu to five bob or I´ll tell´m...” vyklopim…“
CHAPTER IV KAPITOLA 4
Underway again, if beetling along Zase na cestě, teda pokud se dá at walking pace could be called that, I´d šourání takhle říkat, ale já se musel to grin to myself at the recollection of zašklebit při vzpomínce na malou Nell Little Nell and her Grandfather. Smart a jejího dědu. Dneska jsou děcka kids around these days, real bright chytrý, pěkně jim to pálí. Už to buttons. The backdrop depicting the vypadalo, že se pohled na Městský soud High Court seemed to have jammed but zasekl, ale po pořádné dardě se kulisy with a supreme heave the scene-shifters zase daly do pohybu, a nahradil ho got it on the move and replaced it with důstojnější na Městskou márnici. a solemn view of the City Mortuary. Zprudka jsme před ní zastavili. We came, appropriately enough, to a dead halt beside it. “What´s that ticking noise?” „Co to tady tiká?“ zeptal se Eddie. Eddie asked. Ohlédl jsem se. Pendlovky dál I glanced over my shoulders. The ležely na zadním sedadle, ciferník jim Grandfather clock lay as before on the bledě svítil, a jako dotekem rear seat, its white face glimmering balzamovače sevřely dávnou půlnoc and, the embalmer´s touch, a long-ago nebo poledne mezi svoje ručičky. Tyhle midnight or noon caught in its clasped hodiny to už měly spočítané, to je jasný, hands. It was a gonner all right, had rozhodně už měly o kolečko víc. well´n truly popped its cogs. Family V rodině se traduje, že se navždy tradition has it that it stopped short, zastavily krátce poté té noci, co se to never to go again, the very night its s jeho stvořitelem, dědou Gibsonem maker, Granda Gibson had taken a turn obrátilo k lepšímu natolik, že se v for the better and was soon on his way 99 to a sprightly recovery in the Victoria Nemocnici královny Viktorie uzdravil Infirmary. už úplně. Eddie was shaking his head. Eddie potřásl hlavou. „Opravdu jsi “You surely don´t imagine that it´s přesvědčený, že to může vycházet z té coming from that thing?” věci?“ I shrugged. “Why not?” Pokrčil jsem rameny. „Proč ne?“ “Grow up. A box of junk, that´s all it „Nebuď jak malej. Tohle není nic víc amounts to. Mother won´t let it in the než starý harampádí. Matka to v domě house. Don´t say you weren´t warned.” nebude chtít ani vidět. Pak nebreč, že “How no?” jsem tě nevaroval.“
„Jak to?“ Eddie, bravely, and completely without Eddie si prohlížel svůj odraz ve an anaesthetic, studied his own zpětném zrcátku statečně a úplně bez reflection in the rear-view mirror. He umrtvení. Zatahal se za úzký vrchní ret, plucked at his flat overlip, drawing it aby si pod ním mohl prohlídnout jeden up to examine one of his yellow ze svých žlutých předních zubů. Tyhle incisors. They looked like old piano tesáky vypadaly jako staré, zažloutlé keys choppers did. Mercifully, he klávesy u piána. Slitoval se a zavřel nad dropped the lid on them. “I´ll tell you nimi víko. „Řeknu ti, jak to – protože why not – because that chiming orange- tahle odbíjející/ načasovaná bedna od box is riddled with dry rot. If it´s pomerančů je prožraná suchou plísní. ticking then it can only be a deathwatch Jestli tiká, tak to může bejt akorát tak beetle.” červotoč.“ “Garbage.” „Blbost.“ “Agreed. And the same goes for some „To souhlasí. To stejné platí pro ty další of that other chunk you´ve foisted on krámy, které jsi nám vnutil. Například us. Take that wardrobe for a start...” ta skříň…“ “Dartholes. How many times have I...” „Díry po šipkách. Kolikrát ti budu…“ “Who´d hang a dartboard on a 100 wardrobe.” „Prosim tě, kdo věší na skříň terč na “We didnae. Some of my pals šipky.“ were hellish aimers. Take Potsie Green „My ne, ale některý mí kámoši jsou for starters: compared wae him Mr strašný střelci. Třeba Potsie Green, McGoo had twenty-twenty vision. I´ll v porovnání s ním má pidlovokej pan tell you another thing... Bless you!” McGoo oči úplně v pořádku. A navíc… Pozdrav Pánbůh!“ “I wasn´t sneezing, I was going shhhh...” „Nekýchnul jsem, dělal jsem psssss…“ “Shhhhh?” „Psssss?“
„Sklapni. Pořád to slyšim.“ “Shut up. I can still hear it.” „Co?“ “What?” “Ticking.” „To tikání.“ His gaze swivelled suspiciously in S podezřením na mě stočil pohled my direction then homed in on the a správně ho zabodl na bouli pod mojí bump in my Marine combat jacket. mariňáckou bundou. „Co to tam máš?“ “What´ve you got in there?” “A bomb.” „Bombu.“ From beneath the jacket I produced Zpod bundy jsem vylovil budík. an alarm clock. It was a blue Byla to škodolibě vypadající prácička, malevolent-looking job, the destroyer zezelenalá korozí, zkrátka ničitel tisíců of a thousand sleeps: the thing had spánků: když jsem odcházel z obchodu, leapt unasked onto my person as I´d ta věc si na mě bez dovolení vyskočila. left the shop. “Vicious looking bugger, eh? A „Vypadá dost drsně, co. double-action rouser. If you don´t hit Dvoufázový budič. Když nevyskočíš the rug after the first bell it pishes on z postele hned po prvním buzení, you.” pochčije tě.“ “For any favour!” A look of „Co bych za to dal!“ Na zachmuřené sufferance creased his lugubrious face. tváři se mu objevil výraz utrpení. Co je What was it with this creep? Wasn´t 101 this proof positive that I was going to s tímhle trapákem? Copak tohle není change my ways? Hadn´t I dumped the průkazný důkaz toho, že se můj život very machine that´d threatened to turn změní? Copak jsem neodvezl a nezbavil his sister´s life into a fiction? Not only se té mašinky, která hrozila udělat that, I´d replaced it with a clock – the ze života jeho sestry vybájený příběh? symbol of regularity and responsibility. Nejen to, ale taky jsem psací stroj Come Monday next I fully intended to nahradil hodinami – symbolem cease being Dr Munn´s catspaw in his pravidelnosti a zodpovědnosti. Hned v attempt to sabotage the National Health pondělí hodlám přestat být doktoru Service system by choking it with Munnovi nápomocen v jeho pokusech paper, lots and lots of paper. Sick lines sabotovat státní zdravotnický systém by the shovelful; first, intermediary tím, že ho zadusí papírem, hodně then, with much reluctance, final velkou spoustou papíru. Vagóny certificates; rambling letters to hospital neschopenek; nejdříve zprostředkovaně consultants about rambling patients; X- a s velkou neochotou, výstupní rays which often not only failed to posudky; užvaněné, nesouvislé zprávy match the afflicted part but also the ohledně mimózních pacientů pro afflicted patient; and overprescribing specialisty v nemocnicích; rentgenové on a scale so mega it must´ve been snímky, které nejenom neodpovídají keeping at least a couple of pill barons postižené oblasti, ale neodpovídají ani in pink caddies. postiženému pacientu; a nakonec předepisování takových tun léčiv, že z toho musí několik práškových baronů My illness – a nomadic back pain jezdit v kadilacích svých snů. (the malingerer´s mate) eluded Dr Moje vlastní nemoc – nomádská Munn´s perfunctory attempts to pin it bolest zad (kamarádka simulantů) se down, but the Health Board, really vzpírala ledabylým pokusům dr. Munna concerned about my welfare, ji přesně lokalizovat, ale Zdravotní summoned me to the cave of their rada, které skutečně o mé zdraví jde, mě resident shaman, a Dr Sword, who předvolala do jeskyně služebně staršího while he was no great shakes with a šamana, jakéhosi doktora Sworda, který scalpel was blessed with a magic sice skalpelem nevládl, zato se mu ale fountain pen which in about as long as 102 it takes to write “Fit for work” could dostalo zázračného plnícího pera, které “cure” even the most tenacious dokázalo na místě „vyléčit“ i ty illnesses on the spot. His steely gaze nejhouževnatější nemoci – tedy pokud had soon focused on the source of my to vyžaduje napsat do karty ailment. “About as classic a case of „uschopněn“. Jeho ocelový pohled brzy self-induced narcolepsy as I´ve come ulpěl na zdroji mého neduhu. „To je ten across,” he told his assistant, a Dr nejučebnicovatější příklad vsugerované Butler (this duo became the infamous narkolepsie, jakou jsem v životě viděl,“ “Sword´n Buckler”, the very utterance řekl svému zdravotnímu asistentovi, of whose names sent foreboding jakémusi doktoru Butlerovi (z doktorů shivers through the sub-world of se stala nechvalně známá dvojka Luk a means-testees, tribunalees, and appeals- Šíp, kdy pouhé vyslovení oněch dvou panelees). jmen vyvolává mrazení v zádech všem těm, kdo žádají o finanční vyrovnání, předstupují před komise a odvolávají se). The first painlets of my affliction První bolístky mého neduhu byly were sown the day I´d been doing some zasety v den, co jsem se duševně pásl mental grazing in my dictionary and ve slovníku a narazil na slovo „vědecký came across the word “sabbatical”. It šábes“, nebo-li tvůrčí volno, což seems that there´s this racket pros and umožňuje vypečeným profíkům a parsons are into which allows them to duchovním asi na rok vypadnout ze sod off from the state gallery for a year státní pracovní mašinérie. To proto, aby or so. This is so that their mental and si celkově dobili baterky tím, že si physical batteries can be recharged někde na nějakým nevšedním místě while they enjoy a little exotic pěkně zašpásujou, zasurfujou nebo nookying, surfing, or hang-gliding. Fair proletí na rogalu. V pohodě. Na tom enough. Nowt wrong with that. But není nic špatnýho. Ale co my břídilové worrabout the wunkers? Nuffink doing; tam dole? - Nic nedělaj; zůstanou they were to remain unsabbied. Bloody šábesem neposkvrněný. Zatracená liberty. Was I, the son of a dead drzost. Copak si to nechám já, syn Clydesider going to stand for it? No zesnulého levičáka ze slumů u řeky way, Comrade! So with the aid of that 103 rascally old anarchist, Doc Munn, who Clyde, líbit? Na to, soudruhu, zapomeň! willingly covered my trail with sick A tak jsem si za asistence toho starýho lines, I sabbied forth from my rošťáka doktora Munna, který bez workplace (at that time I was a fireman okolků za mnou neschopenkami on the railways) to give my braincogs a zahlazoval stopy, zašábesil od rachoty good airing. (v té době jsem dělal topiče na lokomotivě), a trochu si provětral mozkový závity. Instead of indulging in some mild Místo toho, abych se oddal eccentricity like, for instance, trying to nějaké lehké výstřednosti, jako construct an atomic mousetrap or například pokusit se postavit atomovou designing a navel-fluff remover for pastičku na myši nebo navrhnout blind persons, I decided to fulfil a long- odstraňovač humusu z pupíku pro slepé, cherished ambition – the writing of a rozhodl jsem se splnit si dlouho novel. And why not? I´d writing talent, hýčkaný sen – napsat román. A proč bags of it. Hadn´t my English teacher, ne? Talentu mám fůru. Cožpak mi to Mr Ironsides, said so? No, as a matter můj učitel, pan Ironsides, netvrdil? Ne, of fact he hadn´t. Ironsides saw himself vlastně netvrdil. Ironsides se vzhlídl in the role of a literary Sheppard. He v roli pastýře psaného textu. Tyčil se na stood on the mound of his ego, ever hoře vlastní důležitosti, vždy bdělý nás vigilant to preserve us from ochránit před gramatickými běsy, které grammatical howlers. Using specialised nás hrozily zadávit. S použitím signals, he sent his dogs into the heart zvláštních signálů posílal do samotného of a paragraph to snap at the heels of středu odstavce své psy, kteří měli za wooly adjectives, sniffing out ellipses povinnost chňapat po nohou vlněným and split infinitives, before urging them přídavným jménům, vyčenichat to drive the word-flock into tight, jazykové výpustky a rozdělené pedantic pens where the casualty rate infinitivy, než je popohnal, aby zahnaly from suffocation was often high. slovní stádobu do těsných ohrad Ironsides deprecated what he called my pedantských per, kde procento ztrát “lone wolfishness” and he harped on způsobené zadušením bylo často about my vulgarities in matter of style: nemalé. Ironsides zavrhoval to, čemuž “I asked for an essay, boy – not a 104 billposter.” říkával „nátura osamělého vlka“, a stylem „žádal jsem o napsání úvahy, ne úvahy lepiče plakátů“ neustále omílal, At last the traffic lamp close by jak nestojí o mé vulgarismy. mortuary gave us the come on and the Konečně nám semafor u márnice snow-mottled traffic, with a grinding of dal zelenou a se skřípěním řadicích pák gears, began to surge towards Glasgow se sněhem mramorovaná doprava Cross. From the verdigrised rim of the vzdmula ke křižovatce Glasgow Cross. alarm clock a tiny bug, a molecule on Na okraji budíku pokrytého měděnkou legs, had emerged. I studied it as it se objevil maličký brouček, taková began an epic journey from twelve to molekula na nožkách. Sledoval jsem, six, its polar opposite. A time-beastie? jak se vydal na slavnou výpravu na No. Time-beetle, then? Nope. How protilehlý pól, z dvanáctky na šest. about a clockroach? Bingo! Aye, a Časová zvířena? Ne. Tak časovej clockroach, a wee time-beastie that brouk? Taky ne. Co takhle švábodka? lives in a nine to five universe. I felt Bingo! Jo, švábodka, maličká časová chuffed. It seemed that I was still on zvířena, co žije ve vesmíru stálé the Muse´s mailing list. I glanced from pracovní doby od devíti do pěti. Pýchou the window as the VW chuntered up jsem se jen dmul. Zdálo se, že Múza se the High Street, the vestigial spine of ke mně ještě pořád hlásí. Podíval jsem ancient Glasgow. se z okýnka, když se brouk zrovna šinul po High Street, tou tepnou, co ještě In a shop window a nude male zbyla ze starého Glasgow. Ve výloze mannequin was to be seen staring up at jste mohli spatřit svlečenou mužskou a silvery tree from the branches of figurínu, jak civí nahoru na postříbřený which handbags and gloves dangled stromek, na jehož větvích jako like mutated fruits. I must sort that zmutované ovoce volně visely kabelky away for the future use of. Aye, despite a rukavice. Musim si to někam napsat, the loss of my I-less pal (I could still bude se to ještě hodit. Jojo, přestože fell its tactile phantom pressuring my jsem ztratil svého bez-íčkového přítele thighs), I would soldier on at the (pořád ještě na stehnech cítím jeho writing game. Those goons who urged hmatovou stopu), co se týká psaní, me to be sensible and not to strain my 105 working-class braincells beyond their svoje karty nesložím. Ti trubci, kteří mi inherited capacity, hadn´t they heard of domlouvali, abych byl rozumný a a jotter´n pen – the only tools required nenamáhal své mozkové závity by a writer? A tannery jotter with all pracující třídy víc, než jim bylo dědičně the arithmetic tables printed on the dáno, cožpak neslyšeli o back cover, not forgetting yon stotting peru&zápisníku – jediné výbavě, na word – avoirdupois! které spisovatel trvá? Pořádný zápisník v pevné kožené vazbě se všemi těmi převodními tabulkami váhových systémů na zadních deskách, kterým vévodí to rozpustilé slovo avoirdupois. “Open your jotters and leaving a „Otevřete si zápisníky a odsaďte margin begin: There was once this první řádek v odstavci: „Žil byl jeden deepsea diver who discovered a potápěč, který na dně oceánu objevil tenement building on the floor of the činžák. Prošel jednou z chodeb, až se ocean. He went through one of its ocitl na dvorečku, kde se vznášely closes and found himself in a backcourt poklidné mrtvoly žen v domácnosti, where the calm corpses of housewives s klepákem na koberce v ruce. Dále with carpet beaters in their hands bylo možné spatřit samotného krále floated around. Also to be seen was Neptuna, jak si ve zmrzačeném křesle King Neptune himself, having forty dává dvacet.“ winks in a lopsided armchair.” Swinging to´n fro on the Nahoře u předního skla se ze windscreen was a tiny plastic skeleton, strany na stranu pohupovala jedna z one of those keyring curios. Eddie těch podivných klíčenek, maličký probably hung it there as a “memento kostlivec z umělé hmoty. Eddie si to mori”, though one glance in the mirror tam asi pověsil jako memento mori, na at his corpsy face would´ve served the což by mu ale stačilo zahlídnout v same purpose. Mentally I saluted the zrcadle vlastní mrtvolnou tvář. V duchu grinning effigy. “Lo there, Morto – this jsem tu šklebící figurku oslovil. Hereafter biz, it´s a bit of a giggle then, „Podívej, Smrťo –celá ta věc s příštím isn´t it?” životem je jen taková komedie, viď?“
106 The car braked as another traffic Auto zabrzdilo na dalším uzrálém lamp ripened. semaforu. “Big night at the Tent Halls, „V Tent Halls, v sobotu, bylo to Saturday, eh?” dobrý?“ Eddie ignored my remark, still sore, I suppose about the time I´d taken Eddie moji poznámku ignoroval, in the junk shop. Or maybe he was too asi pořád nabroušenej kvůli tomu, jak absorbed in watching for a wave from dlouho mi to v bazaru trvalo. Nebo Jesus, out there on the slushy nevnímal, protože sledoval, jestli mu pavement. Could be that he was z břečky na chodníku nemává Ježíš. receiving divine Morse through the Bylo možné, že přes vibrující řadicí juddering gearstick. Must be dead páku přijímal božskou morseovku. comforting to know you´ve got it all Jednoho musí tutově hřát u srdce, když buttoned up on the Other Side, to sit ví, že to má na Druhý straně vyžehlený, here in a crummy Beetle completely at a sedět tady tom v zavšiveným ease with the shuddersome prospect of broukovi úplně v pohodě Eternal Life. In my Father´s Garage s neotřesitelnou nadějí na život věčný. there are many Jags. But also one or V garáži mého Otce je spousta jaguárů. two Minis for the agnostics. Dokonce i jeden nebo dva mini pro agnostiky.
Po levé straně jsme teď míjeli Passing now on your left was the hřbitov Sighthill, který byl daleko Sighthill Cemetery which provided a výmluvnější memento mori pro ty, co much more potent memento-mori for bydleli vedle v paneláku na the residents of the Fountainwell Road Fountainwell Road. Když se nad tím High Flats. Nifty location, when you zamyslíte, je to prima lokace; pohled na thought about it; from the mossy mechem obrostlé náhrobky vám vrátí gravestones you´d get a renewed zest chuť do života. „Ty se válíš tam dole a for living. “You down there, and me up já tady nahoře, nemůžeš si zapálit ani si here, you can´t smoke fags and you dát pivko!“ can´t drink beer!” Eventually we´d shaken off Nakonec jsme setřásli i Springburn Springburn and after a while were a za chvíli jsme jak ještěrky uháněli 107 skittering through the tight streets of uzounkými uličkami v Crabtonu. Je to Crabton. It was the kind of place you´d ten druh místa, který byste navštívili only visit if you plane crash-landed jen, pokud by sem s vámi spadlo there. Its architectural theme was letadlo. Tématem místní architektury je anonymity and this had been so anonymita, takže i kdyby se faithfully subscribed to that even v samotném srdci hlavní třídy nacházel though it´d a graveyard bang at the hřbitov, našli byste ho až na konci heart of its main thoroughfare you´d´ve svých sil. been hard pushed to locate it.
Having shaken off Crabton, an Potom, co jsme setřásli Crabton, Arctic landscape began to impose itself, přemohla mě tato arktická krajina a a slow unpleating of fields like a pomalé odvíjení polí, což dohromady luminous fan that eventually wagged vypadalo jako zářivý vějíř, který mě me to sleep. When I awoke from this nakonec ukolébal k spánku. Když jsem doze we were already in the environs of se probral, byli jsme už v okolí nedávno the recently built Nat Smollet Estate. vybudované zástavby na Nat Smollet. What a groovy Winter Wonderland. Bylo to jak v té přepychové vánoční Even the snow hereabouts had a písni Winter Wonderland. Tady měl luxurious sheen to it, a golden lustre dokonce i sníh odlesk luxusu, zlatavě se derived from a plenitude of sodium- třpytil díky hojnosti sodíkových vapour lighting. Rolling past on either výbojek. Jak jsme si to šinuli kolem, side I could see chunky, snow-capped díval jsem se na robustní hypotéky se mortgages and also many a lofty sněhovými čepicemi, stejně jako na foreclosures with xmas trees chained in vznešené vyvlastnění s vánočními their windows. It was here in Fat stromky přivázané řetězy k oknům. Je Wallet, as I called it, that those star- to tady v Šrajtoflově, jak tomu říkám, favoured creatures Mr and Mrs Jack kde mají svůj příbytek miláčkové bohů, Sherman, had their abode. a to pan Jack Sherman s chotí.
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