American Views Abroad


Monday, December 05, 2005
 
Looking for something special to give an American friend on her birthday, I unexpectedly found the last two hardback copies of The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster in English in a German bookshop for 17 euros each. About Brooklyn, by a very good writer, and for a surprisingly decent price for a 'foreign' book published this year, I couldn't resist buying both. Some books you just don't want to borrow or give away. Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem had me feeling the sidewalk heat and I wondered how those who don't know Brooklyn (like I do) could ever really get it. Yet, Lethem's book was well received here and people were encouraged in reviews to try to read it in the original. Some books translate well, some don't. Some authors seem more popular outside their countries like Auster who is widely read in German. My friend had never heard of him but she is now interested in digging into his older works.

There has been a lot written here on plagiarism recently. What constitutes it, what are an author's responsibilities to previous authors if their work is being referred to or used in a new work, how to appropriately pay homage to another author in a creative work? Lots of grey area but the rule of thumb is to acknowledge what you are doing either at the beginning of the work or at the end. Nobody wants to be hit over the head with a signpost within the story, but give credit where it's due, and think about all your readers, including those outside your language. This is probably not a theme within the US which rarely looks outside its borders. It was, however, what bothered me most in the recent discussion. It seemed rather limited to a handful of those intimately acquainted with Alabama literature, the nature of copyright laws, and writers.

Readers shouldn't have to wander through a desert for forty years looking for what's behind it all. Good books should be able to stand on their own without a roadmap. If, however, the work is experimental or very regional and a map is needed, provide it. It was troubling that neither that author's editor nor the members of the committee who gave him a prize recognized the homage. If they didn't, can a reader in Germany or China, picking up an acclaimed book on the American South, find it on her own? The question, of course, is would it have made a difference? In this case, yes, most probably, because it would have shown an important link to the past. A reference to the older book would certainly be of interest to most readers. So why not provide it.

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