Robert Musil: "Attempts to Find Another Human Being": Burton Pike on Translation

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Burton Pike on Translation

On the occasion of receiving the Friedrich Ulfers Prize for translation, the wonderful Burton Pike provides some wise words on translation and rhythm:

Translator Burton Pike Accepts 2016 Friedrich Ulfers Prize

And Shelley Frisch reflects on her decades-long friendship with the great translator, teacher, and scholar:

Shelley Frisch Reflects on Translator Burton Pike as ...

Congratulations to Burton Pike, who deserves all the awards as far as I am concerned!

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Attempts to Find Another Human Being

Around 1923 Musil planned to publish a collection of his essays under the title, "Versuche einen anderen Menschen zu finden" (Attempts to Find Another Human Being). In his notebooks he wrote:

"In fact, this could be the title for everything that I have ever written. I can think of no other excuse for spending one's whole life at a writing desk to become a beggar. [...] I can only imagine another duty with great difficulty. I have always been a writer, always pursued writing.
It has come to pass in my life that people have scolded me for it and have called me a sick human being, an intellectual, an unmoral human being, a scientist, in short, everything that I am not, and only with resistance, under the pressure of a few, people have become accustomed to thinking of me as what I believe myself to be, and want to be: a writer."