Irish Murdoch

IRISH MURDOCH? a cultural investigation by Gabriel Rosenstock Literature Ireland/ Litríocht Éireann supports Irish literature in translation but does not support the translation of literary works in Irish into English, currently the lingua mundi. Classics of modern Irish-language literature such as Mícheál Ó hAodha’s recent translation of Mo Bhealach Féin (This Road of Mine) by Seosamh Mac Grianna appear from time to time, unassisted by Literature Ireland. Why is this? I’m a fan – and a beneficiary, as it happens – of Literature Ireland, but how can support be denied to the likes of Ó hAodha while various books by Iris Murdoch are rewarded over and over again, such as Under the Net into Portuguese; The Sovereignty of Good (three philosophical papers) into Croatian; The Bell into Romanian; A Fairly Honourable Defeat into Bulgarian; The Sea, the Sea into Catalan? By disallowing translations from Irish to English, the international profile of Irish-language writers is severely curtailed, almost to nothing, and their income suffers accordingly. Is this the government’s national policy? Literature Ireland sports the respective logos of Culture Ireland (Cultúr Éireann) and The Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaíon). Is this our national official cultural policy, then, to keep literary works in Irish outside of the vast domain of English? Or is it simply one of those policies which nobody ever bothered to question? How Irish is Iris Murdoch in the first place? It’s not a question I would normally ask as it smacks of that loathsome 1 ‘Little Irelander’ mentality. I don’t really care if, for instance, the great Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer is considered to be Polish or American. It’s the writing that matters, isn’t it? Well, yes and no. For an Anarchist, who doesn’t recognise nation states or borders, certainly it’s the writing that matters; the Anarchist denies national identity, along with flags, emblems and all the various trappings of hierarchical authority. In my own case, I use Irish as a literary medium of choice (not as an expression of cultural nationalism) and if one looks to the foundation of this century-old state, who cannot notice that the new-born nation oversaw the savage shrinking of all Gaeltacht areas due to emigration, lack of employment and ignorance of language planning. We have the so-called New Irish now whom we have welcomed into our multicultural society and they are all as Irish, as far as I’m concerned, as an Irish-speaking lobster fisherman from the Aran Islands. We will surely have Irish writers in the near future – in fact, they already exist – writing in Irish or English, with Syrian, Nigerian or Polish names. (I have a German name myself). But hang on a minute: Iris Murdoch was a mere babe in arms when she moved from Dublin to London. Isn’t it stretching it a bit to label her an Irish writer? I certainly wouldn’t regard her as such, to be perfectly fair about it. Sean Lucy was born in Mumbai but I have never heard of him being spoken of as an Indian poet. Leland Bardwell was born in India as well but India has never claimed her. France has definite claims on Beckett. He actually wrote some of his best work in French. That would seem to be the acid test. Language. But Iris Murdoch moved from Ireland to England before she could babble a single word, in either Irish or English. 2 I suppose we could readily embrace Iris Murdoch as an Irish writer if her writings reflected Irishness in some distinctive way. We’re a very tribalistic nation and if she had anything positive at all to say about her first few weeks in Dublin, she’d be a heroine, a Gráinne Mhaol or a Queen Medbh in our eyes. No doubt about it. The trouble is, Iris Murdoch didn’t think much of us, except for a brief courtship that gradually turned sour. Heinrich Böll spent a lot of time in Achill – indeed I was a playmate there to his son, René, for a while – and Böll’s wife, Annemarie, translated some of the Blasket literature into German. But, no, we cannot claim Heinrich Böll – sympathetic to Ireland though he may have been – as an Irish writer. Yet a babe in arms on leaving Ireland –Iris Murdoch – who grows up to express vitriolic anti-Irish sentiments, is considered to be an Irish writer? Here is an example of one of Iris Murdoch’s anti-Irish tirades (from the Booker Prize novel The Sea, the Sea): ‘Ireland! There’s another bitch. Christ, the Irish are stupid! As Pushkin said about the Poles, their history is and ought to be a disaster. At least the Poles suffer tragically, the Jews suffer intelligently, even wittily, the Irish suffer stupidly, like a bawling cow in a bog. I can’t think how the English tolerate that island, there ought to have been a final solution years ago, well they did try. Cromwell, where are you now when we really need you? (P. 164, Vintage Classic edition, 1999) Strange, is it not – incredible, even – that Literature Ireland, Culture Ireland and The Arts Council should collectively support such a diatribe and yet consistently refuse to grantaid Irish-language literature in English translation? 3 Irish-language writers do not engage in anti-Irish lampoonery to the same extent as their Anglophone counterparts. To prove that bold assertion would require an academic study in itself by a student of Comparative Literature; nevertheless, anecdotal evidence suggests that Irish-language writers may have a more intimate connection with Ireland than Anglophone writers for whom Swift represents their fairly recent beginnings. Maybe we should all move to Lilliput! ‘Ireland’s real past is the ascendancy,’ states Murdoch in her book The Red and the Green. Did she have confused loyalties? At one stage in her life, Ireland was actually an idyll for her. She even learned some Irish! But the Troubles hardened her and she became an admirer of the Rev. Ian Paisley! That was a bit of a jump, wasn’t it: the Communist at Oxford becomes a hard-nosed Unionist. An Post, in its wisdom, decided to issue a stamp to honour the birth centenary of this extraordinary long jumper. I have looked at this vexed subject of mixed identities and loyalties from another angle in a paper which examines an anthology of Irish poetry published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, an anthology that smacks of cultural treason to my mind: https://issuu.com/gabrielrosenstock/docs/windharp_final Invoking Cromwell, as she does above, and mention of ‘a final solution’ goes close to the bone. One could argue that what a character might say in a novel does not necessarily reflect the author’s views. Maybe. I don’t like censorship but the quotation (above) from The Sea, the Sea could be construed as incitement to hatred and, thus, a crime: it comes out of the blue, almost, and brings with it no obvious contribution to the plot, something which could have partially justified it. 4 Her father was in the cavalry (of all things). His regiment was stationed in the Curragh. Daddy’s girl couldn’t let the side down for ever, flirting with Communism and, briefly, with the Irish cause. Eventually, Murdoch became more British than the British themselves as the years rolled by. Among her Anglo-Irish friends was the writer Elizabeth Bowen (rumoured to be a British spy). By the way . . . it’s not by the way at all, actually, but central to our argument: who decided to drop the ‘Anglo’ in Anglo-Irish, and why? In terms of literary politics, it was a master stroke. One could write a book about it! On being made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth, she was not too impressed when the military band struck up The Rose of Tralee and Kathleen Mavourneen. Well, that’s a plus for her! ~ To find out why translations from Irish to English do not qualify for grants, we must go back to the foundation of Literature Ireland itself when one of its partners was what today is called Clár na Leabhar Gaeilge, a body that promotes Irish-language publishing. Fretful board members of that body were afraid, at the time, that if English-language versions of Irish-language books became widely available, nobody would bother with the original. Such nonsense purports that a novel’s charm revolves around its plot, namely what it is about, when in fact much of the pleasure derived from any literary work of art is not what it is about but how it is told and the quality of the language itself, its flow, echoes and resonance. ~ I have met Anglophone Irish writers at airports on their way to book-promotional tours and, by way of making conversation, have asked: ‘Culture Ireland?’ – meaning, who is paying for your flight? More than once I’ve been told, ‘Culture Ireland? No. The British Council.’ 5 This raises the question of the politics of language and literature on this island. Obviously, the British Council is happy to support certain ‘safe’ writers who add to the glory of English writing. Geographical borders do not matter to the British Council: its greatest tool, the English language, can be employed über alles. In India alone, the British Council has four offices. Would the British Council support a reading tour by the author of a book such as My Fight For Irish Freedom? You may answer that question yourself, on the back of a stamp. I was on a radio programme a few years back for National Poetry Day. I read a poem in Irish (and an English translation) by Cathal Ó Searcaigh. The other guest read a poem by Keats. Keats was a superb poet but this was not International Poetry Day, celebrating poetry in general, but National Poetry Day so a blurring of the edges was occurring. Selecting a poem by Keats blurred the twin histories of Britain and Ireland, or merged the two islands as one literary entity, something which is accepted by swathes of the Irish media and many in the writing community, as readers, writers, educationists, publishers, booksellers, librarians etc. In Ireland, English is one of the most important of our compulsory school subjects and Keats is a very significant English poet indeed. However, I don’t think National Poetry Day – for better or worse – would be celebrated in Estonia, for instance, by the recitation of a poem by a Russian poet. Not until the nation-state is abolished will that kind of thing become palatable. Ah well, as Murdoch says in The Sea, the Sea, sic biscuitus disintegrate, ‘that’s the way the cookie crumbles.’ Without urgently introducing what is called ‘decolonisation of the mind’ through which we can view and gauge the quality of information and entertainment that reaches us – a matter of psychological, intellectual, cultural 6 and spiritual necessity – this type of situation will get worse before it gets better. In contrast to the Shakespearian force and bluster of The Sea, the Sea, I am attracted to the meditative stillness of much of Murdoch’s poetry. She was very interested in Zen Buddhism and twice visited Japan. In homage to Iris Murdoch – in case I have wronged her in any way – I would like to offer the reader a translation of one little jewel of hers: AUGUST By the bleached shoulder of the motorway The August traveller released to holiday Sees suddenly a portent perched in air, In meditation aloof near the lethal tarmac The moveless flutter of the fragile kestrel. LÚNASA Ag gualainn thuartha an mhótarbhealaigh Feiceann an taistealaí Lúnasa is é ligthe amach ar saoire Iontas obann crochta san aer, Ag machnamh leis féin gar don tarmac marfach Pocaire gaoithe leochaileach ar snámh gan chorraí. ~ Had she written her poems in Irish, Literature Ireland would not have assisted in their publication in English. Does it make any sense? I have raised a few questions in this article – some thorny, some innocuous – and those who are interested in such matters can draw their own conclusions, or investigate further. I have more questions than answers, really. 7 In answer to the question, ’How Irish is Iris Murdoch?’ my answer would be, ‘About as Irish as Cleopatra’. She herself might say, ‘A more important question, dear boy, might be: is it raining in Patagonia?’ I won’t end by saying ‘in conclusion’ because this matter is far from reaching any conclusion. For the moment, therefore, might I just politely suggest that no cultural body in Ireland has limitless funds but whatever monies are available should not be withheld from Irish-language literature at the expense of the Murdochs of this world. -----------Gabriel Rosenstock’s latest volume of bilingual poems is Conversations with Li He (Cross-Cultural Communications, New York, illustrated by Tania Stokes, translated from the Irish by Garry Bannister. The same publisher has brought out his sixth volume of bilingual ekphrastic tanka, available as a free book on the EDOCR platform: https://www.edocr.com/v/djr6qn6d/gabrielrosenstockbis 99/secret-of-secrets ============================================================ 8