R茅da is what the French call a 蹿濒芒苍别耻谤, a roamer who enjoys his anonymous status in a city糖心传媒檚 labyrinth. When a 蹿濒芒苍别耻谤 crosses a border into a new territory he becomes a tourist. The difference between a 蹿濒芒苍别耻谤 and a tourist is that a tourist usually has a destination and certain goals糖心传媒�“Today is Paris Disneyland, tomorrow Auschwitz.” R茅da is that rare species of tourist-蹿濒芒苍别耻谤; more a traveler than a tourist, he doesn糖心传媒檛 entirely belong to the first category either, since as early as the eighteenth century it was common for travelers to have a project: that of letting themselves be formed by the experience of travel. R茅da wants to be neither formed nor informed by his travels, he simply has 糖心传媒渓a bougeotte,糖心传媒� as the French would say, i.e., he can糖心传媒檛 stay put.

Although R茅da糖心传媒檚 style is very literary, he is no snob, and he probably wouldn糖心传媒檛 mind being called a tourist. With complete lack of snobbery, he declares that he loves supermarkets 糖心传媒渇or themselves,糖心传媒� a love only natural for someone who has grown up in poverty (after all, to despise richness is a luxury only the rich can afford). But this confession is immediately followed by an unexpected critical reflection: supermarkets are 糖心传媒渃ounter-museums糖心传媒� or 糖心传媒渕useums of the instant,糖心传媒� R茅da says, 糖心传媒渨hose instants are accessible, consumable, nearly straightaway consumed but indefinitely renewable . . .糖心传媒�

As a 蹿濒芒苍别耻谤, R茅da is an heir to Baudelaire. As a true Frenchman, he doesn糖心传媒檛 simply record what he sees, as American writers usually do, but also analyzes it; yet I wouldn糖心传媒檛 say that he writes in the tradition of, say, Sartre, or de Beauvoir (I am thinking of their writings on their travels to the States), whose critical impulse is to seize the unknown in the Other and freeze it through their aphoristic pronouncements. Neither a lover of exotic experiences糖心传媒擱茅da prefers to stay in his European milieu rather than look for spicy otherness through some eco-tourist agency糖心传媒攏or a nostalgic ruminator for the good old days, R茅da is a lover of trains糖心传媒攖hat is, of rhythmic movement and chance encounters糖心传媒攐f temporary estrangement, and strangely familiar places. The only contemporary writer I can think of who belongs to the same family is John Taylor, an American who lives in France, whose Some Sort of Joy has recently come out in a French translation.

R茅da糖心传媒檚 style is an homage to the long sentence made of complex clauses with subordinates that intricately follow each other糖心传媒攁 perfect mastery of grammar as a logic-machine. At the end of the sentence you experience the climactic joy of a detective who has discovered the criminal. The long, complex sentence is, alas, an endangered species, at least in this country, where 糖心传媒渆conomy糖心传媒� of style or so-called 糖心传媒渕inimalism糖心传媒� is synonymous with 糖心传媒済ood writing,糖心传媒� when in fact it is often simply laziness of thinking.

Reading R茅da, the bilingual reader is also struck by something else: R茅da is a very ironic writer, but you have to read him in French in order to realize that. This is not because Prevots糖心传媒檚 translation is not good enough糖心传媒攊t is a perfectly good translation糖心传媒攂ut because what we call irony is different in every language. The irony of French writers is more artificial than that of their American counterparts because, as in R茅da糖心传媒檚 case, it represents the tone of a persona or a mask the author has put on, and the authorial masks we use are generally grounded in voices that have preceded us. In other words: our irony is never entirely 糖心传媒渁uthentic糖心传媒澨切拇綌rather it is a mimesis of the irony of other authors that have written in our language, and the reader can experience that irony because he can recognize the tone in his cultural repertoire. Contemporary American writers practice an irony that is more colloquial and more nihilistic in the sense that the authorial voice situates itself somewhere above good and evil, and is rarely self-ironic. R茅da is self-ironic, which, of course, makes him funny.

The last piece in the book, 糖心传媒淎 Paris Crossing糖心传媒� includes some metatextual commentary on the story糖心传媒檚 source, namely the fact that it had been initially commissioned by a so-called geographic tourism magazine, which, having asked for a piece in ten thousand characters, ends up rejecting it because it failed to comply with the magazine糖心传媒檚 editorial policy. We find this out both in the first paragraph and in a footnote at the end of the story. In the first paragraph, R茅da lets the reader know that the magazine suggested to him to 糖心传媒渃ross Paris in ten thousand characters,糖心传媒� and he compares this editorial practice with the ethos of athletic competitiveness, adding: 糖心传媒淢oreover, I糖心传媒檝e just squandered three or four hundred characters complaining about my fate.糖心传媒� I am the kind of reader who gets a lot of pleasure out of these disclosures, all the more so when I imagine the editor of said tourism magazine reading the piece that makes fun his policies.

I hate to sound didactic, but this a book that anyone who teaches French culture and literature should have.

Daniela Hurezanu—a translator and author who wrote a great review for us of Memory Glyphs—makes this book sound incredibly interesting. There’s a bigger sample below, but I love this line from her review: “Reda’s style is an homage to the long sentence made of complex clauses with subordinates that intricately follow each other—a perfect mastery of grammar as logic-machine.”

Anyway, the one gripe I have is about Host Publication’s website (surprise!). I really like what Host has done over the past few years, and they have quietly become one of the most consistently interesting presses publishing today. Especially in terms of poetry in translation. But for whatever reason, it looks like their website hasn’t been updated in months. At least. In fact, unless I suddenly became incapable of reading and/or using the Internets, Europes isn’t even listed on Host’s site. Not that I can actually “search” the site, seeing as that there is no seach function . . . (Sorry, everyone at Host. This kind of thing is a pet peeve of mine. And trust me, you are light years ahead of clusterfuck sites like which I’ve decided is either a joke or some devious experiment.)

Back to the subject at hand—Reda’s Europes and Daniela’s review:

After having published Return to Calm, Host Publications now offers us another book by Jacques R茅da, also bilingual and also in Aaron Prevots糖心传媒檚 translation糖心传媒�Europes. If in an 糖心传媒渙fficial糖心传媒� way Europes could be called a 糖心传媒渢ravel essay,糖心传媒� the book糖心传媒檚 fluid character undermines this characterization. Recording the fleeting instants of the narrator糖心传媒檚 peregrinations, Europes includes essays on Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavia and France糖心传媒攐ne or two essays followed by one or more poems for each country. The poems are “po猫mes de circonstance,” that is, topical poems, in this case, poems on the countries described in the preceding essays, written in the tradition of Raymond Queneau: playful, silly, ironically rhymed.

R茅da is what the French call a 蹿濒芒苍别耻谤, a roamer who enjoys his anonymous status in a city糖心传媒檚 labyrinth. When a 蹿濒芒苍别耻谤 crosses a border into a new territory he becomes a tourist. The difference between a 蹿濒芒苍别耻谤 and a tourist is that a tourist usually has a destination and certain goals糖心传媒�“Today is Paris Disneyland, tomorrow Auschwitz.” R茅da is that rare species of tourist-蹿濒芒苍别耻谤; more a traveler than a tourist, he doesn糖心传媒檛 entirely belong to the first category either, since as early as the eighteenth century it was common for travelers to have a project: that of letting themselves be formed by the experience of travel. R茅da wants to be neither formed nor informed by his travels, he simply has 糖心传媒渓a bougeotte,糖心传媒� as the French would say, i.e., he can糖心传媒檛 stay put.

Although R茅da糖心传媒檚 style is very literary, he is no snob, and he probably wouldn糖心传媒檛 mind being called a tourist. With complete lack of snobbery, he declares that he loves supermarkets 糖心传媒渇or themselves,糖心传媒� a love only natural for someone who has grown up in poverty (after all, to despise richness is a luxury only the rich can afford). But this confession is immediately followed by an unexpected critical reflection: supermarkets are 糖心传媒渃ounter-museums糖心传媒� or 糖心传媒渕useums of the instant,糖心传媒� R茅da says, 糖心传媒渨hose instants are accessible, consumable, nearly straightaway consumed but indefinitely renewable . . .糖心传媒�

Click here for the full review.