Arduous Tasks: Primo Levi, Translation and the Transmission of Holocaust Testimony by Lina N. Insana

Abstract

882 Reviews less familiar writers bymore established figures (Echenoz, Gailly, Redonnet, and Salvayre). Single works of fiction are situated in the context of the author's oeuvre and, to a lesser extent, the field of cultural production, although the chapter on Salvayre surveys the author's output since 1990. Each chapter is a lively and artful mix of description and analysis, which gives the reader a clear sense of narratives at once in terms of form, content, and the relationship between the two, though unfortunately, and no doubt due to editorial pressures, quotations are given only inEnglish. Accessibly, if sometimes fleetingly,Motte draws on critical perspectives includ ing those ofMarc Auge, Michel de Certeau, Roland Barthes, Maurice Blanchot, Guy Debord, Jacques Derrida, Gerard Genette, and Emmanuel Levinas (plus be yond this francophone frame of reference, Gerald Prince, Edward Said, Tvzetan Todorov, and several contemporary critics of recent French fiction). There is, for example, productive reference to Derrida on hospitality as a way of discussing Marie Redonnet's Diego (Paris: Minuit, 2005), though amore predictable recourse toAuge undercuts the claims for originality ofGerard Gavarry's Hop-Id! Un deux trois (Paris: P.O.L., 2001). None the less,Motte's account of Gavarry's inventive metalinguistic perspectives on life in the banlieue otherwise lives up to his claim that it is 'anovel thatpleases and astonishes, not only by virtue of the story it tells, but also by virtue of its form, and the new possibilities it suggests for the genre itself (p. 111). The volume does not have a conclusion, perhaps because Motte seeks toprivilege rather than shut down the heterogeneity of contemporary fiction. However, in addition to drawing comparisons invited by the preceding analyses, some prelimi nary concluding remarks could usefully have served to prompt those who might otherwise be content with Motte's own engaging prose and the citation of that of his chosen writers to go on to read the fictions for themselves. None the less, Motte's analyses remind readers of the diverse critical perspectives which can still be brought to bear on the art of novel-writing, and of how close reading remains a potentially critical and palpably pleasurable practice. Royal Holloway, University of London Ruth Cruickshank Arduous Tasks: Primo Levi, Translation and the Transmission ofHolocaust Testi mony. By Lina N. Insana. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2009. xxi+ 319 pp. ?48. ISBN 978-0-8020-9863-4. As Zaia Alexander has recently noted, the lack of critical attention hitherto devoted to Primo Levi's activities as a translator, as well as to translations of his works, is indeed surprising ('Primo Levi and Translation', in The Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi, ed. by Robert S. C. Gordon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 155-69 (p. 155)). Lina N. Insanas monograph analysing Levi's approaches to and theorization and practices of translation thus constitutes a long overdue contribution to the ever-growing field of Levi studies, and promises to MLR, 105.3, 2010 883 open up new avenues of research in this area. Indeed, itbegins with an overview of how and where translation figures in Levi's work and thought, inwhich she reveals its apparent ubiquity inhis essays, fiction, and testimonial work alike, and asserts its importance in facilitating not only linguistic but also ethical exploration. Providing a convincing catalogue of illustrative examples, she asserts that Levi's engagements with translation range from 'intra- and interlinguistic transmission to other,more anthropological, biological and mechanical forms of reproduction and transmission' (p. x), and shows in her detailed and meticulous analysis how ultimately, forLevi, translation functions as a metaphor forHolocaust witnessing' (p. 11), forwhich the source text is Auschwitz itself (p. 57). Given Levi's not inconsiderable activities as a translator and the frequency with which his writings evoke and narrativize processes of translation, it is therefore somewhat frustrating that Insana chooses to focus on only four case studies: Levi's recurring references to and rewritings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Rime of theAncient Mariner'; the presence ofDante's 'Canto di Ulisse' in his work; and Levi's translations of Jacob Presser's De nacht der Girondijnen and Franz Kafka's Der Prozefi. However, the four chapters dedicated...