Zazie Mode d'Emploi

The themes...

2014-11-09T10:06:47Z

The themes, the theses, the exegeses,
the verses never yet penned ;
we needn't deem, we needn't esteem
these were merest 'let's pretend'.
The letters, the sentences : see the shelves !
there, helpless, the wretches shelter :
ever dejected, never respected,
never perfected, never themselves,
where the helter-skelter welter
stresses, messes,
depresses,
represses.
Yes, the excess ! We seethe, we fret :
we'll fettle these letters, we'll get them yet.

- Livres futurs / Lipogramme, Traduction, Timothy Ades, Monovocalisme

Night

2013-08-28T09:13:26Z

Night! Soon as our small mound of dry wood is flaring, night is an invisibility. Soon as that dry stuff is blazing, it's all that counts. And it's hypnotic. Tonight, look, not a cloud is hanging on, not a cloud but has quit our sky. Night has stuck its brass drawing-pins (U.S. "thumbtacks") into our upstairs joists, adding an arc of moon, round, couth and alluring as a manicurist's nail. It's just as chilly now, that's a fact, if not almost frosty - but air is filling our lungs in copious (…)

- La nuit / Lipogramme, Traduction, Timothy Ades

Dora's Painting

2012-10-19T10:37:00Z

It's mainly as night falls that I'm most willing to turn to this kind of work. Sadly, my paintings don't usually last long at all, and may actually vanish almost instantly. Looking at it via radioactivity, you'd find this : as a low point, Thorium A (fairly microscopic : just a blink) ; as a high point, Radium C (viz : a full round in a boxing-match). It all pops off as quickly as anything drawn by rain on a window : glorious works of art simply start to run, as if mimicking a soft and (…)

- La Peinture à Dora / Lipogramme, Traduction, Timothy Ades

It was a dark and stormy night

2011-09-26T05:40:00Z

It was a night of wind, of rain and of mighty blows from Thor. Kathy was off and away,
studying a comic strip of Highblast Moors, a classic book that was to spawn a musical
starring Cliff Richard. A sharp clap, and pronto! not driving rain now, but a cloudburst,
with accompanying lightning, now compact, now forking around, and a crash, crash
whipping twilit fronds into a fury, as you might say. Thin strands of rain got in
around Kathy's ill-fitting window, by dint of vigorous (…)

- C'est un soir de vent / Lipogramme, Traduction, Timothy Ades

Set These Wheels Free ! We need them !

2009-10-01T20:10:10Z

Free wheels! They're the breezes' best exegete.

Let's express these breezes. There's the self-engendered tempest; then there's the dependent breeze. Tempests, heedless essences, feed themselves when the terrene sphere refreshes them. Les sphères célestes engrenées. Dependent breezes need the free wheelers. We're the begetters, we engender them: the less fleet the wheel-speed, the less severe the breeze; yet when we exceed the preferred speed, we get the level three breeze, even the level seven!

The free wheeler gets the terrene tempest between the eyes. Then we need help, we need selflessness, else we're helpless. When cheeks, teeth, temples feel Sweden's entrenched vehemence (needn't be Sweden's: Glenshee's, then), seek the lee, be sheltered. Let the well-fettled helpmeet precede! Be the wee geezer, bent treble, even. Be the stern-keeper, the reverse end. Defer the test. Then when he veers, when he steers elsewhere, when he cedes the precedence... well then, lengthen, strengthen! Press the red steel levers, exert the legs, let the kettle effervesce!

(De l'Engleterre)

Don't stop cycling

2009-09-30T13:02:44Z

Cycling is a school of instruction in wind.
You can count two kinds of wind in cycling: intrinsic wind and fortuitous wind. Intrinsic wind is that which is a product of global contortions or cosmic goings-on; fortuitous wind is that which a cyclist churns out all on his own. It's his magnum opus, you might say, for his output of wind will go up in proportion as his motion is rapid.

Cosmic wind is that wind which hits us full on. Against it, I know no way forward but human solidarity. If you pitch up against a strong north wind that's got truly stuck in, nothing can surpass a good companion with a broad back. You duck down and hang on to his mudguard and wait for it to finish. If I can clarify that, you wait until your man turns away to hand to you that all-important baton, and it's your turn to put a bit of coal in your buzzbox.

From ‘Don't Stop Cycling' by Paul F, chairman of Oulipo, who is also a cultural official in London. This translation for Oulipo is by Timothy A, who says – ‘Cycling is my sibling's portfolio at Transport for London.'