(...) It is Kafkaesque in the sense of the continual meandering of existence.»
Wednesday 24 June 2020
New City Magazine: The Translator's Bride
«While the plot and action of the novel are minimal, the vivid interiority of the narrator brings his world alive. While the strict practice of the translator’s real-time perspective could come off as tiresome in less-skilled hands, Reis brings out the humor of his character’s cyclical thoughts. The repeated imagery of the bride, the hat and kartofler could come off as a punchline, if Reis were not so careful as to let the reader in on the joke. When the narrator confronts his former employer about past-due wages, he leaves the publisher with the word kartofler, transforming the obsessive thought into a curse on the man who has wronged him. In moments like these, the narrative succeeds in engaging the reader with the translator’s echoes of life.
