{"id":15813,"date":"2023-01-16T09:35:53","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T14:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=15813"},"modified":"2023-01-16T09:35:56","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T14:35:56","slug":"episode-522-ross-benjamin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-522-ross-benjamin","title":{"rendered":"Episode 522 – Ross Benjamin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 522:
\nRoss Benjamin<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_522_-_Ross_Benjamin.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“My kids have never known me to be doing anything else. This is my entire job to them. My daughter found it easier to remember that I ‘do Kafka’ than ‘translation’ as my career. If people ask what I do, she chimes in, ‘Daddy does Kafka!'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Acclaimed translator Ross Benjamin<\/a> returns to the show to celebrate the publication of his translation of The Diaries of Franz Kafka<\/a> (Schocken Books). We get into the twisted history of the diaries, Ross’ monumental achievement of bringing them into English, the how ambiguity and circularity pervade Kafka’s very language, and the question of whether one can be qualified for this sort of task before actually doing it. We also talk about how this edition restores the bodily, sensual, sexual, and public-facing Kafka (& speculate on why K’s literary executor, Max Brod, bowdlerized the diaries in their initial incarnation), what it was like to translate the private writings of someone who was the personification of ambivalence, what the process taught Ross about his own life and how it revealed new aspects of Kafka to him, and what it’s like to catch Kafka in the act of writing. Plus, we discuss the feeling of accomplishing a dream project like this by the age of 40 and having the sense that he’s served the purpose he was meant for (which leads to the question of What Comes Next), the blurbs that made him plotz and the post-pub tribute from his daughter that brought him to tears, and a lot<\/em> more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read The Diaries of Franz Kafka<\/a>!<\/p>\n

(And go listen to our 2016 conversation<\/a>!)<\/em><\/p>\n

“You have to translate something that’s baffling to you, and if it at the end it’s less baffling, then you feel you haven’t done it justice.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n