A Hundred Thousand HoursGro Dahle. Translator: Rebecca Wadlinger. Ugly Duckling Presse, $17 paperback (192p)
ISBN 978-1-937027-24-7
I speak
a fading, intermediate Spanish at best and can’t imagine translating it. I know little about creating the same tone in
two languages, maintaining meaning with form, or translating those
untranslatable phrases. I do not know a
single word of Norwegian. But after reading
Rebecca Wadlinger’s translation of Gro Dahle’s book-length poem A Hundred Thousand Hours, I don’t need
to speak to translation. I want to speak
to the poetry.
Dahle
tells a terrifying story through stunning lines. It is a book of the house and a book of the
body. The house becomes a body. Dahle tells the story of a mother and
daughter’s illicit relationship through shifting points of view. We see a daughter as speaker, then a mother, and
we see both in third person. When the
book shifts its yous, the reader fills the dreadful role of both mother and
daughter.
Each
line builds, leading to elation, longing, anger, and disquiet. The poem begins with something looming in the
air of the house – “Inside my mother sits in the rocking chair and watches/me.
All is so still. All is so still. The glass cabinet listens./ It is just before
she begins to rock.” – and escalates to the grotesque – “My baby. My baby. Hold
you/ so tight you can’t breathe./ This is my privilege.”
It is a
book of infatuation – “So quiet your hair is on/ your neck. The little
itty-bitty white hairs. They are silent about all/worth being silent about and
even a little more.” – on the brink of eruption – “Here your neck slips/
unnoticed into your back. And your back
slips into an/ anger I could never imagine.”
And when
the poem erupts, it is from regret – “I am a wood louse...I cry: please. I cry please as loud as I can.” – and from
rage – “If I see you on the street, I will bake/ gingerbread in your face.”
When the
rage can erupt no more, we end in a quiet loneliness, left astonished by the unexpected
image, the explicit action, and the tender
malevolence. Wadlinger has hidden
herself in these words, elevating Dahle, whose original Norwegian is mirrored
on each page.
A Hundred Thousand Hours is said to be “one of the most
celebrated and controversial” Norwegian books in recent decades, and thanks to
Wadlinger’s skillful translations, we are able to celebrate its arrival in
English. (December 2013)
Purchase
A Hundred Thousand Hours HERE.
Reviewer
bio: Christy Crutchfield’s novel How to
Catch a Coyote is forthcoming from Publishing Genius in 2014. Her
work has appeared in Mississippi Review online, Salt Hill Journal,
the Collagist, Newfound, and others. Visit her at christycrutchfield.com
