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Tag Archives: Arthur C. Clarke Award

In transitiontranslationinterpretation

01 Wednesday Feb 2023

Posted by Paul Kincaid in awards, books

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Arthur C. Clarke Award, Harry Josephine Giles, Maureen Kincaid Speller

I was pleased that Deep Wheel Orcadia by Harry Josephine Giles won the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award. For one thing, at some point during the final months of her life Maureen read the book and was impressed. Secondly, it is formally innovative, more so than any other book I can remember being in contention for the Clarke Award, and I firmly believe that such literary experimentation should be celebrated and rewarded.

But it is only now that I have read the book myself. Despite the relatively few pages, and the high percentage of white space per page, it is not an easy book to read.

As probably everybody knows by now, it is structured as a series of poems written in the Orcadian dialect:

“I sayed tae see wiss at wir best,
no this,” he says. Noor wis waatched
the meeteen, takken notts. Sheu laaghs,
“It’s better than a research committee.”

Each poem is accompanied on the same page by a prose translation into standard English:

“I said to see us at our best, not this,” he says. Noor had watched the meeting, taking notes. She laughs. “It’s better than a research committee.”

But that is to make the whole thing way too simple, and I deliberately chose a relatively straightforward example. Even here there are things to pay attention to. There are two near-identical words with very different meanings, for instance: “wiss” is translated as “us” while “wis” is translated as “had”. Though elsewhere in the novel you will encounter “wis” being translated as “was”, which suggests it is a form of the verb to be, though not necessarily always the same form. The other thing to note is that Noor is a visitor to the space station, so her speech is rendered in standard English. Even this can be deceptive, as your eyes suddenly light upon familiar spellings it can feel as though the whole poem is suddenly opening up to you, becoming accessible. It isn’t.

The problem is that translation is a creative act. It is not simple substitution. As the use of “wis” to mean either “was” or “had” in the above passage indicates, there is never a precise match between words in two different languages. Even languages as close as Orcadian and English can differ in subtle and often not so subtle ways. Take, for instance, the translation that Giles offers for the very next verse after the one quoted above:

Eynar’s head is throbfestering from ringcirclebanging, crowdquarrellurching debate.

The equivalent line on Orcadian is:

Eynar’s heid is tiftan fae ringan and rallyan debate.

So we might conclude, for instance, that “tiftan” could be rendered as either “throbbing” or “festering”, while “ringan” and “rallyan” each have three possible translations. Giles’s habit of running the alternative translations together both emphasises the point and confuses the issue further. After all, throbbing and festering are not synonyms for each other, so which we choose is going to affect the thrust of the entire sentence. There is, of course, the further issue that there are several other synonyms for both throbbing and festering which might, by implication, come into play here. Given that we don’t have the clue that pronunciation might provide, since that avenue is closed to us (unless we are lucky enough to hear Giles, or another Orcadian, read the work aloud), our only guide in making the choice is context. But context doesn’t really help here, since the collision of throbbing and festering takes us straight into two other congeries of not-entirely-synonymous words. In fact in this one sentence we are looking at something like 18 possible readings, and that is assuming that we don’t take into account other possible alternatives for the words on offer.

Sometimes the choice doesn’t matter, or at least it doesn’t seem to. But that’s not always the case. And anyway, can we safely assume that the word choices we make are not just what we would expect to find, and that another choice, which may feel more awkward to the ears of a native English speaker, might not be more appropriate or more revealing?

What we are offered in the English passages, therefore, is not a translation of the Orcadian. It is an opportunity for interpretation, but with no way of knowing how reliable our particular interpretation might be.

At its simplest, therefore, the novel tells us one story in Orcadian and another story in English. We expect one to be a translation of the other, so we expect them to be forms of the same story. But how do we know? And in fact, even assuming that the English resonates with the Orcadian, the multiplicity of choices we have to make in simply reading the English tells us that we are never reading exactly what the Orcadian is saying to us. And that very multiplicity of choices suggests that rather than two versions of something like the same story, what we encounter is in truth an almost infinite variety of versions.

I don’t, therefore, really know what I read. It was thrilling for what it was doing, and even more for what it was making me do. But what it was remains obscure. Two visitors arrive on a wheel-shaped space station somewhere out in the galaxy, a place as distant, as in-turned, as distinct as the Orkney Islands. Here we encounter the trappings of isolated life: tentative romances, tedious local bureaucracy, petty secrets, local rituals and almost orgiastic dances. There is an ordinariness but an inwardness in all we see. And yet what gives life to the station and what threatens it lies outside, in the silent, deadly ocean of space. Just as the Orcadians live and die by thrusting their frail craft out onto the raging sea, so these Orcadians make their living by sailing out into space to harvest wrecked craft and the mysteries of the deep. Here, the thing harvested is known simply as Light, an everyday thing except in deep space where the only light is artificially generated. Light is the essential element in sight, yet when the creatures of Light invade the great wheel they are unseen by its inhabitants.

It is a mysterious story, one whose greatest emphasis is upon the mundane, and whose most science fictional elements are, contrary to the normal practices of the genre, the things least seen, least explained, least rationalised. It is, we must remember, a poem in the original Orcadian, and poetry often progresses by mood, by allusion, by symbol. Story presented through such a mechanism does not work in the way of the usually plain prose of most science fiction. And the prose we have here is less reliable, less accessible simply because it leaves the reader with assumptions to make, choices on offer, that can drastically change the very thing we are reading.

Stories are made up of words, but here the words are not whole, not complete, not reliable. So what does that make of the story?

Shadowing the Clarke

15 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by Paul Kincaid in awards, Shadow Clarke

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Adam Roberts, Anne Charnock, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Christopher Brown, James Bradley, Jaroslav Kalfar, Jeff Vandermeer, John Dos Passos, John Kessel, John W. Campbell Memorial Award, Kim Stanley Robinson, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Mohsin Hamid, Nick Harkaway, Nick Hubble, Nicola Barker, nina allan, Omar El Akkad, Paul McAuley

This time last year, I was engaged in the struggle to compile my personal shortlist for the first Arthur C. Clarke Award Shadow Jury. It was an interesting and revealing exercise. I was glad to step down from the Shadow Jury this year only because it is a time-consuming process and time is something I don’t have right now. But in every other respect, I was sorry to go and a part of me is itching to put together a personal shortlist again this year.

So why the hell not? Continue reading →

Sharke infested custard

08 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by Paul Kincaid in science fiction, Shadow Clarke

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Arthur C. Clarke Award, David Hebblethwaite, Jonathan McCalmont, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Megan AM, Nick Hubble, nina allan, Vajra Chandrasekera, Victoria Hoyle

I am, it turns out, a puritan.

This comes as something of a surprise to me. After a childhood brought up on The Children of the New Forest and its ilk (in my last year of primary school, when the class was told to write a story, I produced an 11-chapter, 22-page “novel” that was effectively a rewrite of The Children of the New Forest), I have always felt more inclined towards the wrong but wromantic Cavaliers than the right but repulsive Roundheads.

Nevertheless there it is: when it comes to science fiction, I would appear to be a puritan. Not, I hasten to add, in terms of what constitutes science fiction. On that issue I am decidedly catholic. But when it comes to criticism of, and commentary upon, science fiction, then I am most certainly a puritan. Continue reading →

Shadow Clarke: Occupy Me

30 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by Paul Kincaid in books, science fiction, Shadow Clarke

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Ali Shaw, Arthur C. Clarke Award, David Hebblethwaite, Emma Geen, Joanna Kavenna, Jonathan McCalmont, Lavie Tidhar, Lily Brooks-Dalton, Matthew de Abaitua, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Megan AM, Naomi Alderman, Nick Hubble, nina allan, Steph Swainston, Tricia Sullivan, Victoria Hoyle

Discussions of the Shadow Clarke choices continue apace. Since my last piece here, several more reviews have appeared.

Jonathan McCalmont on A Field Guide to Reality by Joanna Kavenna

Nina Allan on Fair Rebel by Steph Swainston

David Hebblethwaite on The Many Selves of Katherine North by Emma Geen

Megan AM on Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton and The Destructives by Matthew de Abaitua

Victoria Hoyle on Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

Nick Hubble on The Power by Naomi Alderman

Maureen Kincaid Speller on The Trees by Ali Shaw

and me on Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan

I’ve included my review below the fold, but you really should go and take part in the discussions. Continue reading →

Shadow Clarke: Azanian Bridges

17 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by Paul Kincaid in Shadow Clarke

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Arthur C. Clarke Award, Christopher Priest, Colson Whitehead, David Hebblethwaite, H.G. Wells, Nick Wood

My reviews for the Shadow Clarke jury are coming just a little too thick and fast right now. There’s only been time for one other review since my last one: this very interesting piece on Christopher Priest’s The Gradual by David Hebblethwaite.

And now here’s my review of Azanian Bridges by Nick Wood, which I very carefully position in relation to Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad.

My review is below the fold, but as ever you should go to the Shadow Clarke hub to join the conversation. Continue reading →

Shadow Clarke: The Underground Railroad

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by Paul Kincaid in awards, books, Shadow Clarke

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Aliya Whiteley, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Colson Whitehead, Joanna Kavenna, Johanna Sinisalo, Jonathan McCalmont, Lavie Tidhar, Matthew de Abaitua, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Megan AM, N.K. Jemisin, nina allan, Victoria Hoyle

The work of the Clarke Award Shadow Jury continues apace. The jurors are now taking turns to review the books they chose for their personal shortlists. So far you can find:

Nina Allan on The Destructives by Matthew de Abaitua and A Field Guide to Reality by Joanna Kavenna

Jonathan McCalmont on The Arrival of Missives by Aliya Whiteley

Victoria Hoyle on The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Megan AM on The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo

Maureen Kincaid Speller on Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

And now there’s my review of The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.

I’m reproducing my review under the fold, but you really should head over to read the other reviews, and keep up with the Shadow Clarke hub, because that’s where the conversation is taking place. Continue reading →

The Clarke Award and Me

17 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by Paul Kincaid in Shadow Clarke, Uncategorized

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Amitav Ghosh, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan McCalmont, Kim Stanley Robinson, Margaret Atwood, Marge Piercy, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Megan AM, Nick Hubble, Thomas Pynchon, Vajra Chandrasekera

This is the introductory piece I wrote for the Clarke Award Shadow Jury:

I’ve written about all of this before, how I was there when the Arthur C. Clarke Award was created, how I’ve judged it and administered it, and edited the anthology. There’s nothing new to add, except for one memory: the first time I ever saw a bookshop display devoted to the Clarke shortlist, it was in Seattle.

That is how I want to see the Clarke award continue: that international status, that sense of being central to the entire conversation about contemporary science fiction.

I believe, devoutly, that the award should be controversial, that it should engender debate. In the early years, the Award got a lot of flack for shortlisting mainstream writers rather than the familiar genre names. Giving the first award to Margaret Atwood for The Handmaid’s Tale was dismissed as pretentious, as the judges sucking up to the literary establishment; though we see now that it is a novel that has endured. At the time when Marge Piercy’s Body of Glass won the award over Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, I heard people complain that there wasn’t even a rocket ship on the cover (in fact, none of the books on that year’s shortlist had a rocket ship on the cover). After that, the proudest moment in my engagement with the Clarke Award came in the year that Amitav Ghosh won for The Calcutta Chromosome. After the announcement of the award, I had people come up to me and say: “I thought that was just the Clarke Award being pretentious again. Then I read the book and … you were right!” Not long after I finally stood down from the Clarke Award I was amused that the judges were being criticised not for including mainstream fiction, but for omitting Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day.

That is what makes the Clarke Award great. The fact that it doesn’t conform to genre stereotypes, the fact that it bucks the trend, the fact that it regards science fiction as the broadest of broad churches, and will look anywhere within that spectrum for the best. And that restless, wide-ranging aspect of the award is what gets people arguing about it. And that argument is good, not just for the award itself (though it does keep the award alive in people’s minds), but for science fiction as a whole. Because the more the Clarke Award challenges our expectations, the more it opens us up to an ever wider, ever changing sense of what science fiction is and can be.

Let’s face it, the biggest debate within science fiction at the moment is the debate surrounding the Sad and Rabid Puppies, and that debate is all about narrowing science fiction. The Puppies want to enclose and limit the genre, restrict it to a narrow spectrum that resembles the science fiction they remember from the 1950s: overwhelmingly masculine, almost entirely American, distinctly technophiliac, and ignoring the literary changes that have occurred within the genre over the last half century. This is science fiction that repeats what has gone before, that depends upon its familiarity; this is science fiction that is not going anywhere new. Okay, some work that fits within this spectrum can be interesting and important, but it cannot be, it should not be, the whole of science fiction. The best way to counter the Puppies’ argument is with the sort of expansionist, innovative, challenging argument about science fiction that has traditionally been associated with the Clarke Award.

The way I see it, a lively debate is essential for the health of the Clarke Award, for science fiction in Britain, for science fiction throughout the world. I want to encourage that debate and to be a part of it. It is time to demonstrate once again that the very best science fiction, the science fiction that is worthy of a place on the Clarke Award shortlist, is the sort of science fiction that shocks us with its novelty. And if that shock doesn’t generate argument, then the Clarke Award is failing, and science fiction is failing.

We’re all written similar pieces. So far you can find pieces by Megan AM; Maureen Kincaid Speller; Jonathan McCalmont; Nick Hubble and Vajra Chandrasekera, with the rest to come over the next few days. There was no collusion in any of this, but there is an awful lot of overlap in our thinking about the award. Believe me, it is making the Shadow Jury a very interesting experience.

From the Shadows

08 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by Paul Kincaid in Shadow Clarke

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Anglia Ruskin Centre, Arthur C. Clarke Award, David Hebblethwaite, Helen Marshall, Jonathan McCalmont, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Megan AM, Nick Hubble, nina allan, Vajra Chandrasekera, Victoria Hoyle

You may have seen that a Shadow Jury has been announced for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, (follow that link to keep up with announcements and other stuff about the Shadow Jury).

I am pleased, if somewhat daunted, to say that I am on the jury, along with David Hebblethwaite, Vajra Chandrasekera, Nick Hubble, Megan AM, Victoria Hoyle, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Jonathan McCalmont, and of course Nina Allan whose idea this was.

I have never been involved with a shadow jury before, so I’m probably going to be making it up as we go along. But my take on it is that the Clarke Award has become central to the way we see science fiction in Britain, so the shadow jury will use it as a jumping off point from which to expand the discussion of science fiction.

We’ll be starting with the submissions list, which is due to be published shortly and which is probably the best and most convenient way to discover what science fiction has been published in Britain during any particular year. From this we will each, individually, draw up our own preferred shortlists, based on what we’ve read and what we want to read. (No plan survives an encounter with the enemy, so I assume that as we read through our chosen books our views about what should or should not be on the shortlist will change. In many ways, I suspect that will be the most interesting part of the exercise.) We will also, of course, be reading the actual shortlist when that is announced, so the whole exercise will be a scaled-up version of Maureen Kincaid Speller’s wonderful Shortlist Project from a few years back.

All of these readings and discussions will of course be online, thanks to Helen Marshall and the Anglia Ruskin Centre, and I suspect I’ll be reprinting some at least of my contributions here.

And at the end of the day: I suspect and hope that we will have a spectacular multivalent view of the state of science fiction in 2016, and we will be seeing the Clarke Award winner and the shortlist in the wider context of what they emerged from. More important, I hope we will have had an informative and enjoyable conversation that changes the way all of us look at contemporary science fiction.

 

Elsewhere

10 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Paul Kincaid in science fiction

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Arthur C. Clarke Award, Charles Stross, Jan Morris, Ursula K. Le Guin

The old and long defunct Vector website has now been archived, which means that a number of pieces are now accessible again. The whole gives a fascinating glimpse of the sf world a decade ago, and there are some good essays and reviews there. There also happen to be a few of my pieces, as follows:

Founded on the Shambles – an essay about Ursula Le Guin’s wonderful story, ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas’, that is also the direct precursor of my recent ‘In Short’ columns.

Hav by Jan Morris – a review of an extraordinary fantasy.

Accelerando by Charles Stross – a review of what is possibly one of the key texts of early 21st century sf.

Twenty Years After – a piece about the first 20 years of the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

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