Adam Thirlwell

What was that, exactly? I got the 'story', sort of Bret Easton Ellis does Les Liaisons Dangereuses and recognised some of the real life figures from the French Revolution era, but the essays turned sermons on every subject from language to colonialism and feminism, especially when written by a man, left me cold. Also, this should have been a novella at best - I wasted a week reading on instead of DNF'ing because of the aforementioned eighteenth century setting and also because I had already wasted far too much time to give up. On the plus side - gorgeous cover and I did actually like the characters, such as they were.… (more)

This issue takes on two of McSweeney's obsessions: translations and antiquated literary forms and turns it into a game of phone tag. Easily one of the strangest issues they've ever done, the physical format is also unwieldy with a cover system that leaves nearly three inches of the interior pages uncovered so that they have curled over time. The issue is also so wide, it hangs out from the bookshelf.
The premise starts with twelve relatively obscure stories in eleven different languages. The next author translates the work, unusually into English, trying to maintain the original author's style. The next author works strictly from that translation into another language, the next translates that translation and so on. Each story can have up to six iterations. The end result isn't always in English, but often is.
While it's a clever exercise highlighting the importance and difficulty of translation, it doesn't always result in good writing. Unless you are able to read multiple languages, you won't be able to read much of the effort. Most interesting is the translator's notes and the fact that editor Adam Thirlwell was able to get so many big name international writers to join the game.… (more)