Thanks for the long message.

I don't have time to go into it in detail, but I can answer it on a few points.

I take great pleasure in translating Whittemore, but I'm doing it as a professional: the Quartet has been acquired by French publisher Robert Laffont, and editor Gerard Klein--who usually handles their SF line--has asked me to translate it.

Le Codex du Sinai, aka Sinai Tapestry, has just been released, and the cover can be seen on this site.

As for your musings on the character of Joe O'Sullivan Beare, I think they are right on target. I think the Quartet, among other things, charts a process of what John Clute calls "thinning", ie the passing of the legends (Strongbow, Menelik Ziwar, Yakouba...) and the dawning of a more prosaic world. See Joe's line in Jerusalem Poker, where he wishes he had been one of these characters.

This is a very complex and very moving theme, with a lot of resonance in literature. And Whittemore's work manages to be more than that, too.

About Borges: his work contains multitudes.

Back to deadline-fighting,
Jean-Daniel

--Previous Message--
: M. BREQUE,
: Are you translating the Quartet for a new
: French edition? Was there ever a French
: edition? Even if you're doing it for
: pleasure I applaud your project. I agree
: with you that the Quartet needs some serious
: looking into by the critics. Regarding your
: observation about the shadows of the past
: the reviewer for Harpers Magazine compared
: it to the winding down of a top. I agree up
: to a point. I think the kind of magic that
: Whittemore works is that even as the
: characters become less "fantastic"
: as we go from Strongbow to Yossi these
: people are no less extraordinary for the
: things they do. Like David Jerusalem in
: Borges' Deutsches Requiem (which is really,
: for me, the most terrifying thing I've ever
: read)they become hymns to every minutia of
: existence. That's one of the reasons why i
: think Joe is such a wonderful and unique
: character. You can really kind of chart this
: progression through him in his three books.
: In the beginning he was just as mythic as
: Wallenstein or Zawir but as we get to Nile
: Shadows he's become quieter. He's learnt in
: his capacity as medicine man to listen. And
: then at the end of the book he's just
: "a small man." And then in the
: last book he's there just in passing and
: only once (I was a little pissed actually,
: being such a joe fan and all, that Bell
: never even spoke of him. But that's just my
: one gripe) but, and here is where I think
: the end becomes really cool, we've kind of
: adopted the Joe of Nile Shadow's capacity to
: listen. We've become a little more sensitive
: to life. We've gotten more involved in
: regular, earthy, mundane things. I think
: that's just a brilliant move. The only other
: author I can think of who kind of turns
: greatness on it's ear like this is Tolstoy.
: there's probably others but Tolstoy sounds
: just right. Here's the other thing though...
: I've really gotten to love that special kind
: of enjoyment of reading someone whose an
: obvious creative genius and yet is ignored
: by and large by the lit. establishment. And
: by that I mean the academic establishment.
: For my own part I never much cared for the
: folk that I've known professors to lap up
: like John Barth, Vladimir Nabokov and David
: Foster Wallace...yuk! (no offense, I hope,
: to any fans of these authors) Up there with
: Whittemore I also think Mervyn Peake and
: Richard Brautigan have yet to recieve their
: deserved accolades as being some of the best
: wizards of the language in the last century.
: And yet...and yet... what if they did?... I
: don't know. Maybe I just don't want to
: share. Time for me to grow up.
: -Pat
: