All posts by smarrus

Spanning Cultures: Arthur Goldhammer

Interview
Photo courtesy of Arthur Goldhammer - @artgoldhammer
Photo courtesy of Arthur Goldhammer – @artgoldhammer

“When the army found out that I could speak French, they sent me for training in Vietnamese,” Arthur Goldhammer explains. Thus began his foray into translation, which would turn into a career of three decades. With a bachelor’s degree and PhD in Mathematics from MIT, Goldhammer took a less traditional route to translation. That does not seem to have been a problem, however: over the course of his career, Goldhammer has translated over 135 French works, more than any other single French to English translator.

If it had not been for the draft notice Goldhammer received in 1968, it is possible his career would have taken an entirely different path. Goldhammer left for Vietnam intending to return to MIT and pursue a career as a mathematician, but as he says, “unbeknownst to me my passions had changed” during his time as an interpreter and translator in the army. In Vietnam, Goldhammer found that because the Vietnamese officers with whom he was working had been trained under the French colonial system, it was easier for them to communicate using their second language, French. “I really used my French in that capacity,” he explains. Having spent that time abroad, Goldhammer discovered he wanted to see the world. He recalled his first trip to Paris and wanted to go back. But despite his restlessness toward the end of the War, Goldhammer’s pragmatism took over: “I figured that my best shot would be to finish graduate school so I’d have something to fall back on,” if Paris did not work out.

Goldhammer’s translations run the gamut—he has translated both fiction and non-fiction, from Alexis de Tocqueville to Emile Zola and Albert Camus. Most recently, he translated the French economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014) and The Economics of Inequality (2015). Goldhammer’s translation of Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, published by the Harvard University Press, was the first book published by a university press to top the New York Times non-fiction bestsellers list, selling over 1.5 million copies in its first year.

Goldhammer came upon his first translation project, a book by the French sociologist Michel Crozier, somewhat by chance. Living in Paris after graduate school, Goldhammer decided to look for work and turned to translation because, as he recalls, it “was an obvious thing to do.” A friend connected him to Crozier, who was looking for a translator in Paris. Goldhammer had no professional translation experience apart from what he had done in the army. “At the beginning, I did a lot of ancillary reading of works connected with the book that I was translating because I was really learning the subject as I was going along,” he says, the truth of this is obvious from the walls lined with overflowing bookshelves in his living room. “In non-fiction, you’re usually translating for a community of scholars so I wanted to know how similar books had been [done] before, what the established jargon, technical vocabulary in the particular field was.” Despite needing to be abreast of the appropriate vocabularies, he explains that in the end, the shape of the final product is up to the translator: “You have a great deal of liberty.”

Goldhammer translates professionally from French, using English as the target language. He is more comfortable translating into English because he has a stronger grasp on grammar and stylistic conventions: “When I translate into French, I don’t have that same strong feeling that I’ve got it right.” He mentions a theory of translation based on a study that correlates cognitive skills with success translating in both directions. The study found that success translating into the foreign language was correlated with mathematical skill while success translating from the foreign language was tied to musical skill. Given his math background, Goldhammer is an anomaly to this study as his math background is much stronger than his musical ability, but he has had more success and comfort translating from French into English. Goldhammer says, “I thought, ‘this is interesting because mathematical ability has to do with logic, deduction and structure and the ability to have intuitions about structures’—I have that ability, but I don’t have the same confidence translating into French.”

Goldhammer retired in September 2015, after translating Piketty’s The Economics of Inequality. Reflecting on his career of 30 years, Goldhammer says, “translation allowed me to range widely. I’ve learned a lot of things about a lot of different fields that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to become as deeply involved in as I have. I would have been very impatient about having to stick to one thing.” Instead, he explains, “I feel I have a depth of connection with another society that would have been hard to acquire in any other way. So for me, that’s a very privileged position.” He points out that despite only living in France for a short time following graduate school, he travels there often and feels that he’s “really a part of the culture.” It’s almost, he says, like being a French citizen.

Looking ahead, Goldhammer plans to pursue his own writing. “Being able to write well in your native language is just as important as being able to understand the foreign language,” he notes. Goldhammer writes prolifically on his blog, “French Politics” and has a regular column in The American Prospect covering European politics. He describes his newest book project as a comparison of French and American democracy growing out of his translations of Tocqueville. Remembering his translations of Tocqueville and others on democracy, Goldhammer smiles: “part of the challenge was to differentiate styles so that they didn’t all sound like Goldhammer.” Now as he focuses on his own writing, it is going to be all Goldhammer all the time.

________________________________________

Arthur Goldhammer: I was an undergraduate at MIT majoring first in physics and then in math. I started graduate school at MIT in 1967 and at the end of that first year of graduate school, so the summer of 1968, I went to Europe for the first time. When I got to Paris, I fell in love with the city and it was all over. French was the language that I had studied starting from the 8th grade, but since I was totally involved in science I never thought whatsoever about ever winding up in France.

When I got home, I found a draft notice waiting for me. I went in November of ’68. When the army found out that I could speak French, they sent me for training in Vietnamese. So after going through several months of training, basic training and intelligence school, I was sent to Vietnam as a Vietnamese interpreter. When I got to the country and was assigned to an intelligence unit, I found out that the Vietnamese people that I’d be working with had mostly been trained under the French colonial system so they spoke French. My French was better than my Vietnamese. I really used my French in that capacity.

When I came back, I intended to continue with mathematics, but unbeknownst to me my passions had changed. I had always wanted to write fiction as well as to do math, but in those days, the government was giving out lots of scholarships for people who were talented in math and science because Sputnik had been sent up and we were behind the Russians, or so they thought… I figured I’d do math and write fiction on the side.

So I went to Paris. When my money started to run out I thought what can I do to make money while I am living here—translation was an obvious thing. I had an American friend who had taken a job with Michel Crozier, the French sociologist, who had just finished a book and was looking for a translator. Since he spoke English quite well, he wanted to supervise the translation and was looking for somebody in Paris. I was there, so he agreed, even though I had no experience, to take me. He didn’t really supervise the translation. When I was all finished we had lunch and he kind of riffled through the pages and sent it off to the University of Chicago Press.

That was a really fortuitous connection because Chicago, at that point, was very interested in translations. It was doing more translations than any other press in the country and they had signed up a bunch of works in French history by annales historians like Jacques Le Goff, Georges Duby. They liked what I had done with Crozier and asked if I’d like to try those.

They started me on this series of French history works. It was a great opportunity for me because annales history was in vogue and widely read. They had enough to keep me busy steadily for several years and if you’re a freelancer, that’s always the difficult part of the job because there are sometimes lapses in between commissions, and then, how do you survive during that time. So I had pretty steady work, which was very lucky for somebody who didn’t have very much experience at that point. That job got me connected with the Harvard University Press. They had this series, A History of Private Life, which was a five-volume work by different authors. That was great because it meant that I would have work for 3-4 years. I did a number of multivolume works after that and having worked for both Chicago and Harvard, my reputation was well established, so I got lots of other commissions and that pretty much kept me busy for 30 years. It was incredible.

Sammy Marrus: Did you find that once you had connections at Harvard and Chicago you were able to have more say over what you translated?

AG: Getting a book approved for a university press is a complicated process because there’s an acquiring editor who then sends the work out to a board of reviewers; it’s a long time consuming process. Occasionally I did suggest a work, but then you’d have to wait a long time for it to happen and I found it wasn’t worth my while. I found the books that I was getting were interesting enough so I stopped trying to influence the process.

SM: Would you approach a book in exactly the same way each time or would it depend on the topic?

AG: It depends very much on the topic. At the beginning, I did a lot of ancillary reading because I was really learning the subject as I was going along. In non-fiction translating, you’re usually translating for a community of scholars, so I wanted to know how similar books had been translated before, what the established jargon was, so I’d read related books. I still do that to some extent. As I got more experienced, there was less necessity.

SM: How do you see the role of the translator? Do you have liberty to change the text and make it make more sense in an English context?

AG: Yes, you have a great deal of liberty. I’ve often availed myself of that liberty. In the case of Piketty, it was less necessary because he writes in a straightforward style. That book sold more books than any other book I’ve translated. It was not the most challenging book to translate by any means because the language was straightforward and inflected by English economists. Piketty himself had taught at MIT and written in English, so the rhythms of his style were more congenial to English than some other books.

With works in French history, there’s often an elaborate rhetorical style that doesn’t go very easily into English, so you have to do more work shaping the sentences to fit into English. What I often found was that the first one or two chapters of a book would go more slowly than the remainder because you have to work into each author’s style; there’s a certain resistance at the beginning.

The collective works posed a particular challenge—you’d have 30 or 40 different authors writing about similar themes. Part of the challenge was to differentiate styles so that they didn’t all sound like Goldhammer. Preserving the voice and what I like to think of as the music of the prose is very. It’s not just about understanding the ideas; there are other elements to prose. I always thought of myself as a writer first. Being able to write well in your native language is just as important as being able to understand the foreign language.

My role is to serve as a bridge between the author and the community. With a work of history or economics or sociology, you know that you’re writing for a group of scholars, so they’re educated people who understand the kinds of ideas that are being expressed in the book. Your role is to transmit the writers’ thoughts as forcefully as you can, in a matter that reflects, in your judgment, the manner in which the author would have if he were a native English speaker.

SM; Does it change the ease or your approach if you’re able to meet the author and understand his or her positionality?

AG: I have to say, no. In the early days, it was rare for French historians who were kind of hexagonal in their orientation, to speak English well. Now, with the younger generation, most educated French people do speak English well. I have been able to communicate with them more freely about the work. So with Piketty, for example, I worked very closely.

For me, the process of writing is a very silent process. It’s communing with the text and seeing how it sounds in your inner ear. You fall back instinctively on how it sounds, you tinker with the sentence until it clicks into place. When I translate in the other direction, into French, I don’t have that same strong feeling that I’ve got it right. I’m much more timid as a writer because I know that certain things are correct. There are ways in which I would be more daring in English that I am not in French because I’m not sure that it’s correct.

There’s a book on the theory of translation that cited a study in which they correlated skills with success in translation in both directions. They found that success in translating into your own language corresponded to musical talent, but translating into the other language, particularly Latin, correlated with mathematical ability. I thought, this is interesting because mathematical ability has to do with logic, deduction and structure and the ability to have intuitions about structures—I have that ability, but I don’t have the same confidence translating into French.

 

 

 

Just Because it is a Right…

Letter to the editor

To the Editor:

Re “The Republican Gun Free Zone” (The New York Times, Opinion, March 31, 2016):

Gun control is assuredly a contentious issue in the United States. Gail Collins points out the hypocrisy of the GOP leadership—whose members advocate for the abolition of gun-free zones but haven’t fought the Secret Service’s decision to ban guns at the Republican National Convention. The Bill of Rights may give Americans the right to keep and bear arms, but that does not mean civilians need to exercise that right at all times. Alarmingly, many disagree with that sentiment. This is evidenced by the change.org petition to allow firearms at the RNC that received thousands of signatures from many who were unaware of its satirical nature.

Meanwhile the GOP forges ahead with flawed policies that expose the hypocrisy of its position: in Texas, people licensed to carry a firearm may bring loaded and concealed weapons onto the premises of all state colleges and universities. Essentially, GOP leaders push for lax gun regulations where they are not personally at risk, such as on college campuses, but when the Secret Service tells them they can’t bring firearms to their own convention they don’t fight back. Why isn’t this an intolerable infringement upon a fundamental right? What happened to the legendary GOP firepower on this issue they claim to care about so passionately? While the GOP leadership sorts out its hypocritical relationship with firearms, the public ought to realize that just as there is no need for firearms at a political convention, there is no room for guns on college campuses.

-Samantha Marrus, Independent

New York, NY | Wellesley, MA

A Superpower’s Language Inadequacies Exposed

Op-Ed

The United States, heralded as a melting pot of cultures, is a largely monolingual nation. The US Department of Education (DOE) says that only 18% of US citizens can speak a language other than English at a conversational level. When compared to over 50% of Europeans who are proficient in at least two languages, according to surveys done by the European Commission, the US figure is embarrassing. An investigation into what the US is doing wrong is long overdue. To understand this unfortunate difference we need to look at our school system. Logically, it is there that most Americans should get the opportunity to learn a foreign language.

Foreign language instruction in our schools suffered a considerable decline in the first decade of the 21st century. According to the DOE’s own statistics, the percentage of middle schools offering foreign language classes dropped from 75% in 1997 to 58% in 2008. The chief agent of this decline was the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, which set ambitious goals for educational success. NCLB defined success in terms of students’ achievement on newly-created standardized tests. These standardized tests had high stakes, making school funding and teacher evaluation contingent on the students’ performance. Because these tests focused heavily on math and science, schools shifted their curricula in response, cutting offerings in the arts, athletics and, of course, foreign language.

Worse, NCLB did not affect all schools equally. Rural schools were more likely to experience harsh cuts and declines in the quality of education offered. Even before NCLB, schools in rural areas were barely half as likely to offer foreign language as their urban counterparts. Little wonder, then, that the US lags far behind Europe where over 50% of the population can speak at least two languages conversationally and mandatory foreign language instruction begins in primary school. This, however, is a far cry from a demand for compulsory foreign language education in the United States; it is easier than that. The option to take a foreign language in school must first be offered nation-wide.

The benefits of learning a second language far outweigh the negatives. From a cognitive standpoint, learning a foreign language at a young age enhances development and correlates to academic success. According to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), students who begin studying a second language in middle school or earlier are much more likely to become proficient than those who start in high school or later. Years of research by the ACTFL have demonstrated that learning more than one language makes students smarter overall by teaching them to think critically and creatively and to imagine worlds beyond their personal cultures, values and traditions. Language education helps students think across cultural bounds by teaching them to communicate and build relationships.

On a practical note, being multilingual in our increasingly globalized world is an asset. ACTFL studies have shown that multilingual people in the workforce are promoted at higher rates and considered assets to their companies. While the public school system does not exist solely to prepare students for the workforce, it is a part of its function—and one that it fails at with regard to language instruction.

Individuals who feel strongly about learning a foreign language do have options outside of school. There are numerous online and audio tools that allow for self-instruction, but this type of program is not ideal for every student nor is it as successful as a classroom experience that involves speaking, listening and reading comprehension exercises. Further, putting the onus on students to learn outside of school assumes that all students have both the means and time to do so, which is not a safe assumption. The public educational system needs to offer foreign language so students do not have to seek it out themselves. As it stands right now, the United States cannot legitimately claim to be an integral part of the global community if it educates students who are unable to imagine cultures beyond their own. Rather than declining, foreign language instruction should be on the rise in schools across the United States. Instruction needs to start now and with students as young as possible.

Finding Family: Ida

Film review

It takes fewer than 82 minutes watching Pawel Pawlikowski’s 2013 film Ida to travel back in time to 1962 Soviet-era Poland. Although Pawlikowski’s film is set in a world different from that of today, one of its marvels is its accessibility. He opens up the film through the themes of family and identity, making Ida relatable and relevant to a 21st-century audience.

In the beginning of the film, Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), a young nun about to take her vows, is told by her Mother Superior that she must first visit her only living relative. Anna, having been orphaned and raised at the convent, does not appear eager to meet her aunt and experience life outside the convent, perhaps thinking nothing will affect her decision to take her vows. Nonetheless, Anna ventures into the city.

When Anna meets her aunt, Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza), her world, as she knows it, shatters. She learns intricacies of her family history that, one would think, would fundamentally alter the course of her life. Her name is not actually Anna, but Ida Lebenstein. Somewhat less surprising after the first piece of news, Wanda tells her rather frankly, “You’re a Jew.” Wanda draws attention to Ida’s red hair as a marker of her origins, recognizing her at the door before she even enters the apartment. (That detail of this black-and-white film is lost on the viewer, as everything appears in grayscale.) What follows is Ida’s journey to reconcile her own history with that of her family in ways that surprise and please the viewer.

Wanda tries to convince Ida that in order to take her vows and mean them, she must first know what it is that she is sacrificing. Wanda’s lifestyle of drinking, smoking and one-night stands is a stark contrast to Ida’s life of discipline, sacrifice and religion. Their interactions with Lis (Dawid Ogrodnik), the hitchhiker that Wanda picks up further exemplify the contrast between the two women’s life philosophies. Wanda’s attempts to get Ida interested in Lis are met with resistance.

Contrasts and parallels between Ida and Wanda drive the film. Wanda is a judge, who as Red Wanda represented the Soviet law, displaying her strong will by sending fellow Poles to their death. Ida, on the other hand, leads her life according to faith and is at times rather demure. There are revealing moments when Wanda offers Ida a donut or a cigarette, Ida declines and Wanda proceeds to enjoy the sinful treat, further highlighting the contrast between the two women. Ida and Wanda set out to understand what happened to their family during the German occupation of World War II and find the bodies of their family. Once they find the house that once belonged to the Lebensteins, they encounter a Polish family who live there: Feliks Skiba and his wife and children. Wanda knows that Feliks is the key to finding out what happened, as he and his father were there. During interactions with Feliks and his father, the viewer sees the strength of Wanda’s character contrasted with Ida’s timidity.

In a chilling scene, Feliks takes Ida and Wanda into the woods and digs up bones that he says belonged to their family. He gives them the bones, allowing Wanda and Ida to take them to their family burial plot in an overgrown Jewish cemetery in Lublin. After the burial, it seems that the goal of their road adventure has been met and Ida and Wanda part ways. In attempts to return to normalcy, Ida tries to re-devote herself to life at the convent, while Wanda numbs herself with alcohol. Wanda, perhaps unable to cope with the death and burial of her son, or perhaps unsatisfied with her life, jumps out of her apartment window to her death. It is not until Wanda’s funeral that Ida encounters Lis again. In a scene in which Ida sheds her habit and dons Wanda’s dress and shoes, she tries smoking and drinking and goes to see Lis. Continuing her trial of Wanda’s former life, Ida sleeps with Lis. In bed, the two have a conversation about the future—after a series of “and then what’s” from Ida, Lis finally replies, “it’s life.” Ida, unsatisfied with that answer, perhaps bored by the idea of a dog and family and the life she would lead outside the convent, leaves Lis and does not turn back. She shows the same determination and strength of character in her decision, as Wanda would have, albeit their conclusions differed dramatically.

Ida and Wanda are both tested throughout their adventure and exploration into their family history. Their relationships to their faiths are perhaps the greatest difference between Ida and Wanda. For Ida, Catholicism reigns supreme—experiences in the outside world do not shake her devotion to the convent and her life there. In an interview, Pawlikowski described Ida as “psychologically and sociologically totally unusual—she’s a woman of God.” Her faith is inherently part of her personhood, unshakable. Wanda, on the other hand, who once held faith in the Soviet government, does not share Ida’s strength of devotion. Wanda’s faith twists throughout the film and by the end, she loses what little hold of it she had left and kills herself in a moment of internal struggle.

Through his characters, Pawlikowski successfully makes the Polish language accessible, to the point where at times the viewer forgets about the subtitles. Ida gives an inside look at post-German occupation Poland, showing the scars and healing along the way. While perhaps not ideal for a light-hearted movie night, Ida’s fresh exposition of the often-told story of the Jews during World War II from a new and engrossing angle is certainly worth a watch.

The Protest for All, but Not Me

Feature article

“The French are a people who protest. All you need for a French protest is people. Maybe you take some cobblestones from the streets to throw. Maybe you flip over cars and light them on fire.” I remembered these words of one of my former French teachers. They conjure up a very stereotypical image of protest, like the student uprisings of 1968. I thought today it would look different, but I could not guess how. I’d been living in Paris for weeks before I saw any semblance of a protest. Burning cars would have been exciting.

It was a Sunday. I was returning from Charles de Gaulle with my roommate when we emerged from the metro station, near our apartment in Paris’ 7th arrondissement, to the sound of rhythmic, almost militaristic chanting. I could not yet make out the words or understand what the crowd was saying. I was nervous and were it not for Katie, I probably would have gotten back on the metro and gone to one of my friends’ houses to figure out what was going on. Katie, more adventurous, pulled me onward and upward to the street.

“The government is threatening the future of France,” some shouted. “The family is at risk,” yelled others. Thousands of protesters were chanting. Pink banners, balloons and signs depicting an iconic family—a mother, father, daughter and son—spread like a sea across Boulevard des Invalides, reaching around the corner and as far down as the Seine. Our apartment was just two blocks from the Saint François-Xavier metro stop, but there were so many people that I could barely see one block ahead. Protesters of all ages were dressed in baby pinks and blues. I noticed that the banners, pickets, stickers and t-shirts all said La Manif Pour Tous. At least I now knew what the protest was. Or did I? I had so many questions: what did “manif” mean? Why was the family at risk? Did this have to do with some form of birth control I’d never heard of? I wanted answers, but Katie was intent on weaving through the crowd and participating, despite having no idea what it was that we were protesting for or against. Instead of making a beeline for home, we decided to try to blend in with the crowd.

I checked my phone to see if I could glean any information online, but there were so many people that my cell phone was too slow to connect to the internet or let me ask Siri. I shoved it back into my pocket and kept moving forward, so as not to get trampled. We joined the mass walking towards Les Invalides and the Seine beyond. Somewhere along the way we found ourselves holding bright pink signs with the same family logo. I quickly got rid of mine, still unsure what it meant. Nearly an hour later we had barely made it the half-mile from the metro to the Seine when we saw that the protest was rounding the corner and heading southeast towards the National Assembly. Katie and I agreed that was our cue to turn around. Easier said than done. We did not stand a chance swimming upstream in a crowd of that size; it really did feel like tout le monde was there. Instead, we drifted to the side and walked along the river until we had passed the sea of protesters and could make a left towards our apartment.

Once I got inside, a quick search told me two things. First, that La Manif Pour Tous or The Protest for All is a group that began contesting same-sex marriage laws when they were first proposed before the Senate and the National Assembly in 2012. The group’s name is an ironic reappropriation of the movement associated with that law; Le Mariage Pour Tous became La Manif (short for the French word for protest, manifestation, I was happy to learn) Pour Tous. Unlike the law to legalize same-sex marriage, this protest group was really not pour tous at all. La Manif Pour Tous lost its initial battle soon thereafter, in 2013, when the French government passed a law legalizing same-sex marriage. That did not dissuade them, though; since then, La Manif Pour Tous has refocused on “protecting” the family in response to legislation that would help same-sex or queer couples adopt children and form families of their own.

I also learned that La Manif Pour Tous is often compared to the Tea Party movement in the United States in that it too is considered an extremely conservative perspective on certain issues. What did I get myself into, I wondered. I read on. Those who support La Manif Pour Tous are less concerned with defending marriage as an institution exclusively between a man and a woman than they are about ensuring that queer couples not have children. As an extension of this, La Manif Pour Tous supports creating and maintaining barriers to prevent queer couples from adopting or finding surrogates. French adoption agencies often require couples to have been married or live together for at least two years, making it virtually impossible for single individuals to adopt. Further, surrogacy is illegal in France, so people are already forced to seek out other options abroad. These barriers date back to the Napoleonic civil code of France that considers adoption to be the right of a married couple. Some argue that La Manif Pour Tous is trying to ensure that every child has a mother and a father. Others argue that it is homophobic. This it certainly is.

I called Katie into my room to tell her what I’d just learned. We stared at each other for a few seconds, in shock at our ignorance, unable to find words. Even though we had participated in a protest neither of us believed in and never would have joined if we had known what the protesters stood for, we had a better understanding of the importance that the French assign to protest as a form of active citizenship and as a forum to voice their opinions. Katie shuddered at the thought of telling her friends at home what had happened. Even though she goes to school in conservative Virginia, the protest we had just participated in was on a wholly different level. Neither of us had expected to see this protest in France, especially not in Paris, a place we both idealized as liberal. Then we laughed because as we had just learned in class, in the mid-19th century under Napoleon III, the Prefect of Paris Georges-Eugène Haussmann redesigned the city, leveling the labyrinthine medieval streets in favor of wide boulevards. This design was in part to make it difficult for protesters and rioters to take control of parts of the city as they had done in the past. Clearly, this had not stopped the French from protesting. Rather, as I looked out at the sea of protesters from the window, it seemed that the boulevards only gave them more space to fill. Not a problem for the tous of this particular manif on that Sunday in Paris.

Photo courtesy of: http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/04/25/manif-pour-tous-une-chanson-techno_n_3153093.html La Manif Pour Tous protest on the esplanade des Invalides
La Manif Pour Tous protest on the esplanade des Invalides  [http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/04/25/manif-pour-tous-une-chanson-techno_n_3153093.html]
For more: http://www.lamanifpourtous.fr
For more: http://www.lamanifpourtous.fr

 

 

Tube Meats

Blog Post

I never thought I would need to say the phrase “I don’t eat tube meats because I had a bad experience the last time I ate them,” in French. Random? Certainly. Important? Absolutely. I sat in a warm, breezy, sunny backyard garden face to face with Annick, my host mother, whom I had met less than an hour before, wishing more than anything that I knew how to say that one phrase.

A lot had happened in that hour – I arrived in Tours, gathered my bag from the bus and stood waiting to be paired with a roommate for the homestay. The director of my program, Lucy, took me aside after everyone had been paired off and told me that because of an issue with her visa, my roommate couldn’t make it to France. I must have looked panicked to be alone because she offered to host me herself instead of giving me a host family. No, I thought, I did not travel to France to stay with an American woman.

Annick picked me up about ten minutes later. She zipped up in her very European, very compact car, parking half on the sidewalk of the narrow street—a spot I had not thought existed. Our introductions, facilitated by Lucy, were not as awkward as I had expected. Despite my jetlag, not half-bad French flowed from my mouth as I briefly explained my background. Not off to a bad start, I thought, despite being alone.

In the car, Annick asked me to confirm that I was in fact allergic to eggplant as my information sheet said. She then asked if I had any other dietary restrictions – mainly if I was okay with fish. Yes, I said, I love fish and no, there was nothing else to note that came quickly to my jetlagged, confused and overwhelmed mind.

We arrived at her house; she showed me my bedroom and bathroom and left me to unpack while she fixed our dinner in the kitchen. I found my way downstairs and outside to Annick’s impressively tended garden and took the seat across from the one with a full wine glass. I was not sure of the time. Was it dinnertime? I was more tired than anything, but I figured I should eat.

I was watching one of Annick’s cats play in the flowerbeds as Annick appeared at the door, explaining how happy she was to have an American homestay student. She recalled the nationalities of her past students—I think the tally was five Brits and six other Europeans. I did not know what to say to this so I just smiled. I offered to help carry some plates but she said no, so I just sat at the table as she brought each plate out. The first, pieces of baguette. The second, sliced tomatoes that she explained were from her garden and some lettuce as well. On her third trip, Annick emerged holding a bottle of white wine and a half-drunk glass that I realized was hers as she handed the full one to me. Whoops, I thought, I guess I sat in the wrong place. Everything was feeling very French, very fresh and local, down to the Sancerre that was made less than 100 miles from where we sat.

Some baguette with tomatoes seemed like the perfect dinner for my travel-twisted stomach. She sat down, cut the baguette and handed me a piece that was sliced horizontally as if to make a sandwich. A ringing came from the kitchen and she got up again and returned with a plate holding three…were they hot dogs…oh no. I froze. Whatever it was, it was certainly tube meat. I did not know what to say or do. I took my time lining my baguette with slices of tomatoes so that I could watch what she did. She put one of the tube meats into her baguette, folded it and bit it as if it were a hotdog at Fenway Park. She then looked to me for confirmation that she had done it correctly. An American meal with a French twist, she explained, beaming. I couldn’t tell her. I wondered how inappropriate would it be to explain to this stranger that the last time I ate a hotdog I was in first grade and vomited all over the place and that I hadn’t gone near one since… Here goes nothing, I thought, as I loaded one onto my baguette. No no, she said, there were two for me.

 

A corner of Annick’s garden.