Dr. Gitta Honegger
Elfriede Jelinek - Translating the Untranslatable

This essay by Dr. Gitta Honegger originally appeared as the foreword to her English translation of Elrfriede Jelinek's Am Königsweg (On the Royal Road - The Burgher King). It is published here with kind permission of Seagull Books (Kolkata / London).

Elfriede Jelinek’s fellow Nobel laureate Toni Morrison once commented about the writing workshops she taught for many years at Princeton University “I don’t write when I am teaching. Teaching is about taking things apart; writing is about putting things together.” The same could be said about translating Elfriede Jelinek and writing about translation. I don’t write about translation when I am translating. Translating Elfriede is addictive. It pulls you into an inescapable vortex. This is where I have been for many years translating her recently published opus magnum The Children of the Dead (Yale University Press, 2024) The Jelinek vortex is where I am translating her most recent works, a trilogy based on the Pre-Socratics’ notion of the four elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air in the context of human-caused climate change and her most autobiographical play Open Disclosure, all to be published by Seagull Books (Kolkata, London) thanks to editor Naveen Kishore’s steadfast commitment to Jelinek and to challenging literature from around the world. This is the reason I present in the following an adapted excerpt of the introduction I wrote for the publication of my translation of Am Königsweg - On the Royal Road. The Burgher King (Seagull Books, August 2020), which Jelinek wrote immediately after Trump won. Since it is impossible to explicate the difficulties of transposing the complex web of her linguistic strategies into another language and culture in a brief essay without resorting to well-known generalities, I adapted an excerpt from my introduction to the play, which eerily reflects the continued, if not more urgent topicality.

Since she received the Nobel prize in 2004, I translated most of her plays or texts for “speaking” as she calls them, into English, American English. Talking, theorizing about translation means taking the text apart, translating is absorbing the author’s voice, not unlike an actor internalizing the character.
 
When I asked Elfriede in one of our many conversations, why she wrote so many texts for the stage, “texts for speaking” as she calls them, she said “Na, da hab ich mir gedacht, jetzt kann ich endlich . . . ich selbst sprechen, weil die Stücke, die sprechen, also das ist meine Art, meine Art zu sprechen, ich bin ja sehr zurückgezogen und hab kaum Freunde, also das, was andere machen, mit Freunden essen gehen und sich unterhalten, diese ganze Konversation, das habe ich eigentlich nicht. Ich bin immer allein und schau mir Filme an oder hör mir was an und das ist jetzt . . . . ich erlaube mir jetzt zu sprechen, als Subjekt und die Frau musste sich den Subjektstatus immer erkämpfen und das ist jetzt eine Art Triumphgefühl, jetzt spreche ich. Und meine Stücke sind alle ja im Grunde Monologe.”

“Well, I thought, now I can finally speak myself, because the plays speak, this is my way, my way to speak, I live quite secluded and I hardly have friends, so that what other people do––have dinner with friends, have conversations with them, I don’t really have that. I am always alone and watch movies or listen to something and now I permit myself to speak, as the subject and a woman always had to fight for her subject-status and now this feels like some kind of triumph, now I am speaking. All my plays are basically monologues.”

Shortly after I finished my translation of Am Königsweg (On the Royal Road. The Burgher King) I visited Elfriede Jelinek in Munich to talk about the challenges of translating the text, which I discuss in my introduction to the play. It was an opportunity to demonstrate her linguistic strategies with specific examples, which she very much appreciated.

First off, Elfriede’s spontaneous comments during our conversation:

“Übrigens muß ich dir tausend Mal danken, in deinem Essay, hast du im Nebenbei, ganz im Nebenbei hast du meine Kalauer erklärt, das ist der Text über meine Kalauer. Indem du diese Beispiele gebracht hast, wie du die Wortspiele übersetzt und wie du, was nicht geht, was aber dann schon geht, aber nicht so gut ist und da ist es dann––du hast im Grunde meinen Kalauer Essay geschrieben, indem du die Übersetzungsproblematik angesprochen hast. Das hätte ich so nicht gekonnt, weil du hast ja Beispiele, ganz konkrete Beispiele, aber dadurch kannst du nicht mehr sagen, es ist Kalauergewitter und das ist es nur noch, sondern du hast ja nachgewiesen, dass es ein Denkprozess ist und dass die Sprache jetzt nicht irgendwas bleibt, sondern dass sie sehr genau politisch wird, indem man nur das einzelne Wort umdreht und es geht nur darum, dieses Wort zu finden, also im Grunde ist das der Kalauer Essay, du hast mich, du hast es mir erspart, es zu schreiben [lacht].”

“By the way, I have to thank you a thousand times, in the essay you sent me you explained my Kalauer just in passing, totally in passing, this is the text about my Kalauer. By presenting these examples of the way you translate the wordgames and how you play with them, what doesn’t work, what works but isn’t so good–you practically wrote my Kalauer essay by talking about the problems of translation. I couldn’t have done it that way, because you have examples, concrete examples, and so you can’t just say, it is a Kalauer tempest, and that’s what it is  and that’s all it is, rather, you proved that it is a process of thinking and that language doesn’t just remain something arbitrary, but that it becomes very exact, politically just by turning the individual word around and it is about finding that word, so, basically, this is the Kalauer Essay, you spared me writing it. [Laughs].”

For the most entertaining and astute introduction to the translator’s challenges of Jelinek’s linguistic strategies I refer the reader to Mark Twain’s chapter “The Awful German Language” in his book A Tramp Abroad. (As I first typed the latter title an obvious typo – a Jelinek bug? – the unnamed ruler’s name slipped into the title of Twain’s book). The following is a quote from the chapter. I quote it at length, because it goes straight to the heart of her critical, satirical use of the ambiguities in a single German word.

“There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. "Schlag", for example; and "Zug". There are three-quarters of a column of "Schlag"s in the dictionary, and a column and a half of "Zug"s. The word "Schlag" means blow, stroke, dash, hit, shock, clap, slap, time, bar, coin, stamp, kind, sort, manner, way, apoplexy, wood-cutting, enclosure, field, forest-clearing. This is its simple and exact meaning - that is to say, its restricted, fettered meaning; but there are ways by which you can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning, and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please to its tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can begin with "Schlag-ader", which means artery, and you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to "Schlag-wasser", which means bilge-water -- and including "Schlag-mutter", which means mother-in-law.“

For laughs, perhaps at those who think they know German and might not get the joke, Twain offers his own witty, albeit sexist interpretation of "Schlagmutter" (literally “hit-mother)” the German term for stop-nut. It is a striking (schlagendes) example of Jelinek’s hilarious, over-the-top and somewhat hidden plays on words. Her text proves Twain’s claim regarding the wide-ranging usefulness of the term "Schlag", both as noun and verb ("schlagen" – to beat). In various combinations and variations, she teases 15+ wordgames out of them. As Jelinek’s fellow Viennese and as an aside for the sake of completeness let me add "Schlagobers", whipped cream, or "Schlag" for short, in Viennese German. Overlooked by both authors, the Viennese perceive their beloved fluffy concoction as the only authentically historical one, the crowning on their coffee and sweets. Miss Piggy would certainly pig out on it all. Critics of the Viennese’s fabled sweetness see it as an apt metonym for the kitschification of local culture and the sickening hypocrisy in all that sugary charme.
   
Now a few samples of Jelinek’s diversifications of "Schlag" and the translator’s woes. Already the first paragraph offers a perfect introduction to both:

“Der König sieht mir nicht danach aus, als würde er überhaupt irgendwas tun wollen. Außer Schulden machen, daran sind aber auch wir schuld. Er hat sich Geld geliehen in der Gewißheit, daß er es mit einem Abschlag zurückzahlen wird. Der Abschlag wird ein neues Loch aufreißen. Er ist mit den Schulden sehr gut gefahren, sagt er. Natürlich war er ein Draufgänger, aber es hat sich für ihn ausgezahlt, es war gut für ihn."

Let’s start with a literal translation of this passage:

“The King doesn’t look to me as if he wanted to do anything at all. Except contract debts but that’s also on our account. He borrowed money, secure in the knowledge that he will repay it with a discount. The discount will tear open the next hole. Debts got him very far, he says. Of course, he was a go-getter, it paid off, he made a few killings.”

My translation:
 “The King doesn’t look to me as if he wanted to do anything at all. Other than default. But that too is our fault. He borrowed money knowing that he will pay, no play his debts to a tee. The tee gets him to the next hole. Debts got him very far, he says. Of course, he was a go-getter, it paid off, he made a few killings.”
 
First the promising news: The English translation of "Abschlag" offers meanings that establish an additional allusion to Trump beyond the obvious financial connections: Deduction, punt (football, rugby, etc), tee (golf), drive (golf), markdown (discount), reduction (in price); haircut (financial loss), kick out (goal keeper), (lithic), flake, anticipated payment, pay on account, partial payment. (Needless to say, “haircut” is a glorious no-brainer for further punning on the king, which follows later in the play.)

Now the complications: Jelinek uses the same word "Abschlag" (in the sense of reduction in price, partial payment) twice. This would also work with the English “deduction.” However, the second "Abschlag", while continuing the monetary meaning, contains in its etymological root the verb "schlagen". Google offers three words: beat, hit, strike, each branching out into its own subset of meanings in German depending on the context. Translating them back into English, this is what happens:

– "Beat" mutates into: hit, defeat, surpass, beat up, outdo, overbid, outpace, one-up, break the record, to be a hard act to follow.

– "Hit" can also mean to hoe, cut, carve, bash up, pound out, shoot; it can also drag in "crack open" with another subset of meanings.

– "Strike" adds "zuschlagen" for shut, close, nail shut, and more. Yours truly can pitch in with “go for it.”

You get the picture of confusion and possible double-entendres Jelinek can feed on; and how the translator can be misled to multiple detours and unexpected discoveries that turn out to be dead-ends. As an example, this translator gets distracted by dict.com, which pointed out the German idiom "Brücken schlagen". Amid an array of synonyms for “hitting,” it does not mean hitting, but quite the opposite, “building bridges.” Cynics might see this as an indication of the difference between Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon methods of establishing connections. Unfortunately, there is nothing to be done with this find right at this place of the text. So the translator adds it to her Jelinek vocabulary for possible future use and gets back to the business at hand.

Luckily, as shown above, "Abschlag" and "schlagen" are also golfing terms. We all know only too well what golf means to America’s Commander-in-Cheat. (Compliments to Rick Reilly for his book with this title about his subject of presidential golf). This opens an unexpected line of word-games pertinent to the Unnamed and justifies the deviation from the original word-play:

“He borrowed money knowing that he will pay, no play his debts to a tee. The tee gets him to the next hole. Debts got him very far, he says. Of course, he was a go-getter, it paid off, he made a few killings.”

This new word game must compensate for the loss of Jelink’s play on the double meaning of the German "Schuld", for both debt and guilt.

Following up on the golfing terminology somewhat shifts the emphasis of “tearing up a new hole” that refers specifically to the digging of a new construction site thanks to the Unnamed’s machinations to repay, if at all, only a part of his debts; it is also an only tongue-in-cheek reference to his shameless perception and use of the female body. The suggestive holes in the golf-course remain rather in the realm of the sophomoric dirty joke which, nevertheless, is never below our ruler’s limited vocabulary. Google pulls me further down with the heading of a link: “What is the Size of a Golf Ball Hole.” Jelinek would certainly have a ball with that one. The reader might think that “honi soit qui mal y pense". It is the tendency common to Jelinek translators to suspect an obscene subtext even where none was intended. What should at least be clear by now is that getting into the vortex of Jelinek’s chains of possible associations can turn into an unending exponential roller coaster.

If the reader is still holding on to some reason (keep in mind, the subject is a totally unreasonable individual and a world around him, foreseen by Ms. Jelinek/Piggy, which, in real time is out of joint), find below a totally different, much stickier example of Jelinek’s linguistic strategies:

“Wenn Sie ihm eine kleben wollen, müssen Sie einen Briefumschlag kaufen, der auch wirklich klebt, und ihn abschlecken und abschicken oder auch nicht, [Sie haben die Wahl, und dem Engel kommen Sie dann nicht mal in die Nähe, wenn Sie das Geschick Ihres Landes nicht mitbestimmen wollen.] Nehmen Sie doch diesen Herrscher, der ist geschickt, wenn auch nicht vom Himmel.”

“If you want to stick it to him, you must buy an envelope that really sticks together and lick it and send it or don’t. (You have the choice. You don’t even get near the angel, if you don’t want to co-determine the fate of your country.) Go ahead, take this Cheeto Caesar, he is quite sticky, though you may be the one to get licked.”

The sentence starts: “If you want to punch him ...” The German "kleben" is a (lesser used) vernacular synonym for "schlagen". Jelinek, however, takes it into a dizzying play of silly double-entendres that reflect the rapidly increasing global awareness of said ruler’s dangerous mental imbalances. The “him” refers to a previous reference to Paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus, famously analyzed by the philosopher Walter Benjamin as the backward-turned “Angel of History.” It shows

“an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.” (Walter Benjamin)

Miss Piggy/Jelinek says that the blind seers have to constantly turn backwards, like the Angel of History because they don’t know where to look:

“Yes, indeed, the King’s victory is the best news in centuries, well, let’s say, in some time, where did he go now, the ruler? We can’t find him at the moment, but we find him terrific. Just a few more steps and you’ll see the future for the blind, there it is, we didn’t even have to look so carefully; we would have seen it right away! The one for seers is always behind them, because it is hard for the seers to orientate themselves, even though they’ve got eyes in their heads, so they don’t know where in front is.”

Always ready to mock herself, Jelinek adds: “(The blind seers) have to turn around constantly, which does not help them, like the Angel of History, whom I drag in every time I can’t think of anything else.”

So then, let us look again at this passage:

“Wenn Sie ihm eine kleben wollen, müssen Sie einen Briefumschlag kaufen, der auch wirklich klebt, und ihn abschlecken und abschicken oder auch nicht, (Sie haben die Wahl, und dem Engel kommen Sie dann nicht mal in die Nähe, wenn Sie das Geschick Ihres Landes nicht mitbestimmen wollen. (Nehmen Sie doch diesen Herrscher, der ist geschickt, wenn auch nicht vom Himmel.”

The translator is already somewhat puzzled about the term "kleben". The first meaning that comes to mind is “stick,” rather than “punch,” but what about it? Why here, why now? The second sub-clause, which, at first glance, seems like a non-sequitur, explains why she needs the term “stick.” It is, because she introduces the context of mailing a letter.
“ ... you must buy an envelope that really sticks together and lick it and send it or don’t.”

But beware, now more double entendres are kept in play.

Knowing Jelinek’s predilection for obscenities (to reflect the obscenities of power plays) and knowing the anonymous ruler’s obscene ways in every respect, words like licking and sticking support such subtextual suggestions, this translator gets rewarded in the end with the punchline derived from “licked:”

“Go ahead, take this Cheat-o Caesar, he is quite sticky, though you may be the one to get licked.”

But the different starting point for the punning in translation led by necessity to a different attack on the Unnamed in question, (with Jelinek’s always encouraging support), though not a change in the spirit of it.

Still elated about her luck with lick, the translator takes another liberty in the same sentence. While Jelinek speaks of “the ruler,” the translator, googling for our ruler’s nickname found “Cheeto Ceasar” and could not resist turning it into Cheat-o Caesar (with the author’s own enthusiastic approval of cheapo puns). But, alas, a major stumbling block follows right after in the next sentence, which at first sight looks harmless enough:

“Nehmen Sie doch diesen Herrscher, der ist geschickt, wenn auch nicht vom Himmel.”

“Go ahead, take this ruler, he has been sent, albeit not from God.”

Waiting in ambush once again is the word "geschickt". On the one hand, it contains the verb "schicken" that fits into the context of mailing, dispatching, but as an adjective in this sub-clause shifts it’s meaning to “skilled.” Depending on the tone of voice, it communicates a sardonic “he’s a shrewd one” or “that one sure knows what he’s doing.”

Furthermore, and here the fun and games are over, as Jelinek reintroduces the Angel of History with a serious warning or, as the case may be, an advise for ambitious followers of the King:

“... dem Engel kommen Sie dann nicht mal in die Nähe, wenn Sie das Geschick Ihres Landes nicht mitbestimmen wollen.”

“You don’t even get near the angel, if you don’t want to co-determine the fate/destiny of your country.”

That is, only if you are willing to follow this leader will you get near the angel and see what you have done or will be doing – that is, contribute to the skyward growing pile of debris of history. Geschick translates into “fate” or “destiny.” Neither one offers the same root as schicken. No big deal, the translator thinks at the first try. There is no punning in that sentence anyway. And from the perspective of the Never-Trumper, it is a cynically true assessment of the current situation.

But – there always is still a “but” – the word "Geschick" as fate and in conjunction with "schicken", to send, brings Heidegger into play, who fuses "Geschick" with "Geschichte" (history). And the ominous mythological resonances of the ancient Greek fate in conjunction with blind rulers out to make unsurpassable history are applicable to both Heidegger’s Führer and Jelinek’s King. The philosopher’s etymological investigations set off the author’s most mind-boggling verbal acrobatics on the topic of the use and abuse of historical legacies threatening the global future.  

In the last volume of his controversial Black Notebooks, Heidegger derives his notion of "Geschichte", history, from the root word, the noun "Schichte" or "Schicht", layer, and the verb "schichten", to layer. Against the common view of history as a sequence auf cause and effect, he sees it as a "Geschicht", a layering of "Schichten", layers, which he compares to the layers of sediments in his beloved mountains. Seguing from the verb "schichten" to "schicken", Heidegger transforms "Geschichte", history, via "Geschicht" (layers) into "Geschick", (fate/destiny) and results in the equation that History ("Geschichte") = Destiny/Fate ("Geschick"). “Fate” comes closer to Heidegger’s identification with ancient Greek thought, while “destiny” also connects to “destination,” thus still suggesting "schicken" (to send something to someone). Alas, neither term contains the root for either Heidegger’s further historical ruminations or Jelinek’s satirical twisting of them. 

Stay with me. Jelinek does not get into a highly philosophical examination of the president. Quite the contrary. She uses Heidegger’s technique to mock him and, as is her habit, also herself.

Nevertheless, she also learned a lot from his etymological digs, his fusions of roots in archaic neologisms to express with utmost precision his philosophy in a new language that he deems required for the depths of his thinking.. But... here’s the important “but” again, her strategy goes way beyond mockery for its own sake. Heidegger’s dense interweaving of roots provides the underpinning for his vehemently contested assertion that history is not made by the individual. Rather, one is overcome by one’s destiny of being in history, that is, "Geschichtlichkeit", (historicity).

To appreciate Jelinek’s subversively self-deprecating appropriation of Heidegger “speak” and its academic interpretation I include an extensive quote from Professor Dahlstrom’s more accessible explanation of the philosopher’s notion of history and historicity as opposed to Historie, as it is usually studied and taught.

“History can stand for a story about, a means of recounting something in the past and therefore making it an explicit object of consciousness or knowing. All the while, the past is observed and explained from the perspective of the present. But such recounting and explanations presuppose that something happens. History can also stand for what happens itself. Thus we distinguish a historical study from a historic, i.e. history-making event. In a cognate way Heidegger distinguishes history in the most fundamental sense of the term, i. e. Geschichte as happening from historical studies, i. e. Historie – and similarly historicity ("Geschichtlichkeit") from historicality ("Historizität"). History is what happens ("geschieht") but not, at bottom, in the sense of an occurrence in time. Rather the essence of history is historical being itself, namely, the happening of the appropriation of human beings to the presence of beings and vice versa. This happening has a beginning that is still coming to us and, in that sense, is futural.
We are caught up in history and hence, it is never an object as the past is for historical studies that recount or chronicle it.”

One of the play’s key passages is a wild send-up of Heidegger’s terminology that ultimately reveals Trump’s perversion of tradition into something sold as new. It starts with a variation on the theme of schicken, sending something, that is intended to be delivered, geliefert, which mutates into the "Überlieferte", a Heidegger term meaning tradition, something that has been passed on, handed down. Here the English language can be stretched beyond the available German synonyms for tradition and downgrade it to hand-me-downs, which compensates for the impossibility to match the puns Jelinek squeezes out of the root words "schicken" – "liefern" (send – deliver):

“So. Sind wir jetzt alle geliefert?  Nein, nur das Überlieferte ist geliefert worden, das eh schon jeder kennt, [. . .] “

Literally translated the section’s opening passage reads: “So now. Have we all been delivered? No, only that which has been passed on to us, tradition, which everyone knows already anyway.”

In view of the unnamed ruler in question, the English language offers a temptingly ironic translation of “deliver”: "to save someone from a painful or bad experience". However, this is not the case in German. Frustratingly, in the context of the previous section, the German idiom "geliefert sein" unequivocally means the opposite: “to be done in.” The translator has to choose between transmitting a sense of Jelinek’s punning on “deliver,” or stay within her original context. In this case she opted for the second choice, because the following untranslatable pun "das Überlieferte" takes Jelinek into a riff on the function and abuse of tradition, which her translator is unable to deliver (!) verbatim in English. With the author’s blessing, the translator is on her own. She tweaks “being done in” into “having had it,” that still vaguely suggests “having got something (whatever has been sent ["geschickt"], which is the "Geschick"; i.e. the destiny/fate destined for/sent to humans). The deviation from the German original allows her to introduce a prophetic connection to the later President Trump, that is, his claim to be the savior, in answer to the question: “So, have we all had it now? No, you just have it coming, a second coming, a tradition anyone knows already anyway...”

The continuation of this section is quoted in full, because it gets to the core of Trump’s staging of his historic moment: From Plato’s cave, peopled by human stock, capitalism’s founding capital, with the market’s writings on the wall, to historical stock traded in historical costume shops and presented at the White House in a charade of pompous and, as we thought, long overcome customs in the costumes of the passed on, the handed down, fake hand-me-downs overcoming us as the fake New:

“So. Sind wir jetzt alle geliefert? Nein, nur das Überlieferte ist geliefert worden, das eh schon jeder kennt, die Höhle ist ja klein, in der wir wohnen, man sieht alles, sogar als Blinder, als Sehender kann man es als Zeichen an der Wand sehen, und diejenigen, die mit uns hausen, werden sofort gefragt, aus welchem Stall sie stammen. Sie sagen, sie stammen aus keinem Stall, sie herrschen aber trotzdem wie ein König, bis sie wieder befreit werden?, dabei haben sie ihn grade erst auserkoren, egal. Das historisch Überlieferte ist inzwischen verkleidet worden als das, was war und gleichzeitig kommen wird, gewählt ist gewählt, und so maßt sich das Überkommene, das über uns gekommen ist wie die Pest, die heilsam ist, nein, heilbar, warum ist es überhaupt gekommen?,  wozu?, an, über uns zu bestimmen. Um das Überlieferte, also das Ewige zu spielen, muß es ein andres Kostüm anziehen, das etwas länger hält, vielleicht sogar bis zur Himmelstür, denn hier auf dem Land ewig sein kann es nie, hier muß geerntet werden. Das schafft es nicht, echt nicht? Eine Überlieferung kann nicht nachträglich geändert werden, sonst wäre sie ein Orakel, von dem man weiß, daß es höchstens in der Hälfte der Fälle stimmt; das Überkommene also maßt sich an, in seinem unschöpferischen Prunk dann doch nur in dieses Haus einzuziehen, das der Herrscher noch nicht einmal selbst gebaut hat, wer will das schon, hier einziehn, doch die Leute bringen sich gegenseitig fast um dafür?, tja, ich sage halt unschöpferisch, denn was uns überkommen ist, ist ja schon längst da, es ist vielleicht erschöpft, aber geschöpft muß es nicht mehr werden, es ist das Alte, das wir schon kennen und das jetzt wieder als neu begrüßt werden darf, weil es nötig ist, immer wieder einen neuen Menschen zu bekommen, und wäre es in der eigenen Familie. So, das wird uns gesagt, diesen Schimpf müssen wir auf uns nehmen: zu sein wie jeder. Der König hält es jedenfalls nicht aus, zu sein wie wir. Vor dem Neuen haben wir Angst, das wird uns ja nie gehören, jetzt gehört uns alles andre doch auch schon nicht mehr!, wie viele Leasingraten noch?, wie viele von uns dürfen als Arbeiters verbraucht werden, ohne Verbraucherschutz, den uns der König nicht gewährt, wozu?, er braucht ihn ja auch nicht? Wir warten immer noch drauf, was das Überkommene sich anmaßt, nur das Haus vorhin, das ist uns zu wenig, es muß einen höheren Grund dafür geben, wir haben noch nicht gesagt, wozu und wie das alles überhaupt gekommen ist!, das müßte doch wenigstens jetzt kommen!, wir haben viel gesagt, aber das nicht, oder? Genau hier müßte es stehen, von Ihnen müßte es lauthals benannt, vom Podest hinuntergeschrien werden, maßt es sich die Anmaßung an oder nicht oder was andres, das uns plötzlich überkommt? Da kann ja jeder kommen! Die Raten schaffen wir nie, die wachsen uns über den Kopf, wir schaffen es ja nicht mal, unseren Wünschen eine echte Chance zu geben, denn ihre einmalige Chance hatten sie schon. Wir haben gewählt, ich nicht, aber andere, an meiner Stelle, doch dort, wo ich sie haben wollte, waren sie nicht, sie waren an anderer Stelle und haben das Falsche gewählt, und die Wünsche müßten dann ja auch mal bezahlt werden. Gut, was das Überlieferte tut, wissen wir jetzt ungefähr, wissen Sies?, ich habe das geschrieben, aber wissen tu ich es auch nicht. Die Früchte des Globus, nein, der Globalisierung sind endlich so unfair wie möglich verteilt, die Unzufriedenen wachsen auf Bäumen und werden gepflückt und zu Saft verarbeitet, das bringt mehr, als sie roh zu essen, denn für Saft kann man auch die fauligen und die matschigen und die gemeinen nehmen. Was das Überlieferte tut, wen interessierts?, na, Sie wissen es nicht, aber ich, ich glaube es zumindest, ich kann es bloß nicht sagen, also was macht das Überkommene wirklich, das würden wir gerne erfahren, wenigstens jetzt?, das sind Sie uns noch schuldig geblieben, und wir haben Schulden nicht so gern, die Banken mögen sie eher schon. Da können sie dann ordentlich was draufschlagen, womit dann wir geschlagen sein werden. Kommen Sie bitte dort rüber, dann kriegen Sie es.”

“The cave we live in is quite small, everything can be seen even by a blind man, a seeing one can look at it as writing on the wall, and those who dwell with us are asked right off what stock they come from. They say they don’t know stock from Adam, but they still rule like a king, until they get freed again?, even though they just elected one, whatever. Meanwhile, the historical stock, i.e. tradition, has been traded, disguised as that which has been and will be at the same time, elected is elected and thus the past we overcame came over us like the plague that’s curative, no, curable, why did it come at all?, what for?, to decide for, over us?  To perform this tradition, to wit, the eternal, it has to put on a new costume that will last a bit longer, maybe all the way to heaven’s gate, because here on this land it can never be eternal, here it must be harvested. It won’t make it; won’t it, really? A tradition cannot be altered retroactively, otherwise it would be an oracle that’s known for being right in only half the cases; so the overcome arrogates to itself the move, with all its uncreative pomp, into this house only, which the ruler hasn’t even yet built himself, who would even want to move in there?, but people almost kill each other for it, well, I say uncreative, since what came over us has long been here already, it might seem done in, but it is far from done, it is the old we already know and are now permitted to welcome as new, because it is always necessary to get a new person, even in one’s own family. Thus we are told and we must accept this disgrace: being like everyone else. The King, at any rate, can’t stand being like us. We are afraid of the new, it will never belong to us, nothing belongs to us anymore anyway!, what more leasing rates  could there be?, how many of us can be consumed as workers without consumer protection, which the King does not grant us, what for?, he doesn’t need it either. We are still waiting for what the overcome has come to arrogate to itself, just that one house mentioned before, that’s not enough for us, there must be higher grounds for it, we haven’t yet said for what and how all this came to be!, it should at least be coming now?, we said a lot, but not this, right?  It should be saying it right here, and you would have to name it, at the top of your voice, shouted down from this platform, does it arrogate this arrogation or not, or something else that’ll suddenly come over us? Well, then just about anyone could come along! We’ll never come up with the rates, they got us way in over our heads, we don’t even manage to give our wishes a real chance, because they already had their one and only chance. We voted, I didn’t, but others did in my place, but they were not where I wanted them, they were elsewhere and made the wrong choice and such wishes must also be paid for at some point. Okay, so now we know more or less what this tradition does, do you?, I wrote this, but I don’t know either.  The fruit of the globe, no, of globalization are finally distributed as unfairly as possible, the disaffected grow on trees and get picked and processed into juice, that yields more than eating them raw, because for juice the mushy and rotten ones can also be used. The doings of tradition, who cares?, well, you don’t know it, but I, I at least have an idea, I just can’t say it, so then what does the overcome, no, that what’s coming over us really do, we’d very much like to know, at least now?, and you still owe it to us, we don’t like debts all that much, the banks are more likely to. Then they can really slap it on, and we’ll be the ones to get hit. Move over there please, that’s where you’ll get it.

Afterword (September 2024)

Perhaps the biggest challenge to the translator of Jelinek’s “Texts for Speaking” is catching up with her Kassandra vision of our times and the breakneck speed at which she intervenes in contemporary crises. She started to write On the Royal Road the morning after Donald Trump’s shocking election as president of the United States.

As I am writing this, his shameless campaign for re-election is in full swing. The unthinkable, a second term of his presidency is discussed as a viable possibility. The world watches in shock the breaking down of democracy and the further destruction of the earth under his rule. And even if he loses, the virus of his legacy might take generations to contain. In her stage essay “rein Gold” (sic), published (in my translation) by Fitzcarraldo Editions, London, 2021, Wotan’s words can be read as a message to Donald Trump’s United States.

“Ein Gespenst geht um, und das ist kein Gott mehr, auch wenn ich es bin, das ist niemandes Gott, ich will jetzt auch kein Gott mehr sein. Ich bin jetzt endgültig, und bei einem Gespenst ist beides gültig, das Ende und die Endgültigkeit, ein Gespenst ist ewig gültig, weil man es nicht überprüfen kann, man sieht es zu selten.”

Happy with this fitting final quote I was about to cut and paste my translation into this document and unexpectedly stumbled over the keyword that triggers the resonant punning on "endgültig".

The solution I settled for seemed passable, accessible, if nothing else, albeit without an equivalent pun, let alone the political message emerging from it:

“Now I am a has-been once and for all, and a specter is both: the end and forever. There is no end to the specter, because it cannot be checked out... “ 

At first sight a “has-been” God seemed to fit Jelinek’s sense of humor and the logic of the following thought. However, it does not convey the oracle-like ambivalences of her Wotan speaking of his "Endgültigkeit" in the context of the mythological "Götterdämmerung" which she maps through the millennia to this day. (Nevertheless, Jelinek doesn’t leave it at that. With deadpan humor the last part of the sentence drops us into our times: “ ... ein Gespenst ist ewig gültig, weil man es nicht überprüfen kann, man sieht es zu selten.”)

In my final version of this passage I aimed at suggesting the ambiguous resonances of "Endgültigkeit" in the God’s farewell speech:

“I have passed on. For good, if not for the common good, but valid; and for a specter, both are valid, the past and its definitive infinity. There is no end to the specter, because it cannot be checked out ... “

Remarkably, the text was published 3 years before the 45th American president’s rise to power. At the time of this writing it reads as the foreshadowing of the unbelievably grotesque historic spectacle of  the first ever conviction of a former American President and a candidate in the current race for the 27th presidency.

Jelinek’s subversion of Marx’s specter presents the current incarnation of Brecht’s Arturo Ui: “The womb he crawled from is still going strong.”