VITOMIL ZUPAN Playing with the Devil’s Tail Novel Vitomil Zupan – Playing with the Devil’s Tail Novel Sample translation Uredili / Edited by Tanja Petrič, Katja Stergar Prevodi v angleščino / English translations by Jason Blake Založila in izdala Javna agencija za knjigo Republike Slovenije, Metelkova 2b, 1000 Ljubljana Zanjo Aleš Novak, direktor Issued and published by Slovenian Book Agency, Metelkova 2b, 1000 Ljubljana Aleš Novak, Director Grafično oblikovanje in prelom / Technical editing and layout Nenad Cizl Tisk / Print R-tisk Naklada / Print run 300 izvodov / 300 copies Darilna publikacija / Gift edition © Nosilci avtorskih pravic so avtorji/prevajalci sami, če ni navedeno drugače. © The authors/translators are the copyright holders of the text unless stated otherwise. Ljubljana, 2014 CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 821.163.6(048.4) ZUPAN, Vitomil Playing with the devil’s tail : novel : sample translation / Vitomil Zupan. - Ljubljana: Javna agencija za knjigo Republike Slovenije = Slovenian Book Agency, 2014 ISBN 978-961-93270-6-7 275678976 TABLE OF CONTENTS Vitomil Zupan: About the author and his work 2 Igra s hudičevim repom (excerpt in Slovenian) 4 Translations Bulgarian (Translated by Ljudmil Dimitrov) 10 English (Translated by Timothy Pogačar) 16 French (Translated by Florence Gacoin-Marks and Grégoire Labbé) 22 German (Translated by Karin Almasy and Ann Catrin Apstein-Müller) 36 Lithuanian (Translated by Kristina Tamulevičiūtė) 50 Macedonian (Translated by Darko Spasov) 56 Polish (Translated by Regina Wojtoń) 62 Russian (Translated by Marianna Bershadskaya, Aleksandra Krasovets, Nadežda Starikova and Tatiana Zharova) 68 Serbian (Translated by Nemanja Sićević) 94 Slovak (Translated by Kristína Potočňáková) 99 Spanish (Translated by María Estefanía Quiroga) 105 List of Translators 112 Co-financing Publications of Slovenian Authors in Foreign Languages 118 Photo: Andrej Agnič Vitomil Zupan he Slovenian writer, poet, imprisoned and forbidden to write – T playwright and essayist Vitomil having been accused of immorality, of Zupan was born in 1914 in Ljubljana, revealing state secrets, and of producing where he later attended high school and hostile propaganda. While in prison he studied civil engineering. Considered wrote the novel Levitan (Leviathan; 1982). something of a bohemian, in his younger He was released in 1954. In prison he years he travelled extensively and also wrote a number of poems that were worked at a variety of jobs, including as published some 20 years after his death a professional boxer and a constructor of in the 2006 collection Pesmi iz zapora lightning rods. (Prison poems). On returning to Slovenia, he allied After he was released from prison, himself with the leftists in the student Zupan worked as a freelance writer. Many movement and joined the Liberation of his short prose works were published Front as a member of the Sokol in newspapers under pseudonyms. association. In 1942 the Italian occupiers Though he also wrote several radio and interned him in the Čiginj and the television plays and film scripts, it Gonars concentration camps, though he would be many years before his works escaped and joined the partisans. were published. Not until forty years After the war he was editor of the after their creation were his plays cultural program on Radio Ljubljana. In performed. In 1984 he received the 1947 he received the Prešeren Prize for Prešeren Prize for his literary oeuvre. In his 1945 play Rojstvo v nevihti (Birth in a 1987 he died in Ljubljana, where he is storm). A year later, however, he was buried in Žale Cemetery. 2 | Playing with the Devil’s Tail book cover Zupan and His Literary Oeuvre n the 1970s Zupan published seven the prevailing trends in Slovenian I works of fiction, while four of his plays prose of the time and were more saw print, along with the book-length within the contemporary European essay on design in contemporary theatre movements, surpassing late Sholion (1972), and the 1973 poetry modernist prose in Slovenia. collection Polnočno vino (Midnight wine). Zupan’s writing is highly It was at this time that he finally gained autobiographical: Komedija človeškega widespread recognition. Zupan wrote in tkiva (A human tissue comedy; 1980) a variety of styles: initially social-realist, covers his pre-war life, Menuet za kitaro his writing later became more modernist (Minuet for Guitar; 1975; English in style. In his modernist novels he translation published by Dalkey Archive shows the “problematic” heroes of war Press 2011) his life during World War II, time. His novels, which were published the Župančič-Award-winning Levitan more than three decades after they were (Leviathan; 1982) his life in prison, and written, make for a particularly Igra s hudičevim repom (Playing with the rewarding discovery: the Župančič- Devil’s Tail; 1978) his post-war life. His Award-winning Potovanje na konec unfinished novelApokalipsa sedanjosti pomladi (Journey to the end of spring; (Apocalypse of the present; 1988), 1972), Klement (1974), Zasledovalec meanwhile, covers the 1980s or the final samega sebe (The self-pursuer; 1975) and years of his life. The director Živojin Mrtva mlaka (Dead water; 1976). Pavlović based his feature film Potovanje na konec pomladi and Nasvidenje v naslednji vojni (See You in the Zasledovalec samega sebe fell outside Next War) on Minuet for Guitar. Contact Avtorska agencija za Slovenijo (AAS): [email protected], [email protected] | 3 Igra s hudičevim repom (Playing with the Devil's Tail; novel) This work takes us into the very controversial area of the painful-pleasurable sadomasochistic sensibility of an individual who may be the victim of his own deviation without being entirely aware of it. [...] The use of an underground mode brings the text closer to the reader, facilitating reception, while on the other hand of course increasing scruples. All similar works, around the world, must assume such a risk. The most unexplored area of man’s physical and psychological make-up is the experience of pain and pleasure, pleasure and pain, or even one in the other, but (in terms of what is observable in practice) with no entirely clear leap from quality to lack of disquality, or vice-versa; here the observers are rather confused. From an interview with the author On Zupan’s Work This is the most radical “sexually oriented” Slovenian prose text. But by no means is it pornography; on the contrary – it is near to Henry Miller in creating an aversion to, a disgust for, sex. And yet, it is so extraordinarily honest when it comes to describing sex that it is a pioneering act in Slovenia… The text is truly an important breakthrough. TARAS KERMAUNER Zupan’s Playing with the Devil’s Tail asserts itself especially at the level of language, as a real-time, sometimes quite blasphemous, linguistic product. First of all, Zupan does not believe in objectivity, that antiquated criterion, that illusion of novelists and critics of the “golden age of the novel.” His text is intentionally biased, intolerant, “manly,” which can be intrusively suggestive, intentionally “wrongful,” but what of it, if all these words incriminate the author himself and his work? Playing with the Devil’s Tail is a book of human anguish, over-excitement, emptiness, and also naïvely wanton debauchery. This is not a next for the unripe. Never will this be a pornographic book. A book from which nothing can be gleaned. [ ] A book “with an open blouse.” BRANKO MADŽAREVIČ 4 | Igra s hudičevim repom (odlomek) Zelo težko je začeti. Človek bi rad naenkrat povedal preveč, tako rekoč vse v enem stavku. Na srečo ne ve, kje bi začel, mora se zamisliti in poiskali v metežu klopka tisto, čemur pravijo nit. Ni mogoče začeti pri Abrahamu. Ne molim pred jedjo, kolnem samo kot avtomobilski vozač, cele vrste navad sodobnikov nimam, čeprav pripadam srednjemu sloju v socialističnem sistemu. Mislil sem najprej samemu sebi opisati samega sebe. K vragu tako početje! Imam najboljše in najslabše mnenje o sebi, s katerim naj začnem? Zapisal bom tisto, kar mi ne gre iz glave, kar se mi kar naprej vrti po glavi, kakor bi bilo zabeleženo na zvočni trak, tisto, kar mi je rekla sinoči, preden je odvihrala spat: da sem navaden izpridenec, človek brez značaja, kreatura brez sposobnosti za čustvo, nizka duša, pošast, slabič, nekulturna podgana, primitivec in idiot. In da naj se enkrat pogledam v ogledalo. Tu lahko začnem, oziroma – tu moram začeti, saj bi mi sicer zvenelo in zvenelo po glavi tako, da bi preglasilo vse druge misli in spomine. Spolno sem izpriden, saj me sicer ne bi tako zanimala ženska rit. Brez značaja sem, ker bi se sicer nekoliko bolj zanimal za svojo ubogo rodbino in bi bolj skrbel za otroka. Čustva nimam nobenega; če bi bilo kaj v meni, bi videl, kako ona trpi. Nizka duša sem, neznosen sadist. Nemogoč človek, saj me tudi prijatelji in znanci dobro poznajo, nihče me ne mara, in videl bom, kako bom nehal. Vsa moja mladost je bila zavožena, kako pa zdaj živim? Kot zajedalska podgana. Tudi otrok je že ves živčen od mene. Vse to je še dobro utemeljila med vrati, preden je pljunila proti meni, vzkliknila »fej!« in – ker sem začel počasi vstajati – pobegnila v svojo sobo, kjer je potem do štirih zjutraj brala kriminalko za tri dinarje, tisto broširano, ki ima spredaj barvno sliko napadalca Z revolverjem v roki (meri na razgaljeno lepolaso žensko), zadaj pa napis »Oslobodeno plačanja poreza na promet mišljenjem Republičkog sekretariata za prosvjetu, kulturu i fizičku kulturu SRH broj 2935/2-1973 od 26. XI. 1973.« Jaz pa sem pri tem gledal v televizijski zaslon, nič ne vem, kaj. Potem sem hodil gor in dol po dnevni sobi in kadil cigareto za cigareto. To je bilo sinoči, v soboto zvečer. Požrl sem dva apaurina, ki sta delovala počasi ali pa sploh ne.