1 realized these things as 1 worked on this book, as I've also realized that how you breathe when you write a story is different, more syncopated, than the breathing required to write a novel, because it seems as if you have to win the game going in, convincingly and right off the bat, rather than settling in for the long, speculative, laborious, tactical combat of the novel, which you can win on points. Again 1 refer to Quiquin when he cites the Baron of Coubertin, who was inspired by Saint Paul (his second letter to Timothy of Listra, his faithful disciple), when he stated that in art what matters is winning, and everything else is just a tale.
1 am deeply grateful to Miquel Desclot for the magnificent gift of the unpublished versions of Wilhelm Muller's Die Winterreise, which appear quoted and in less obvious ways in the story Winterreise.
The Catalan version of the two lines from the great Hungarian poet Attila J6szef which appear in that story are from Eduard J.Verger and Kalman Faluba. Sr. Adria, who provided me with the reference, confirms that the book is Poemes (Ed. Gregal, Valencia, 1987).
Winterreise is a posthumous cycle of lieder composed by Franz Schubert on a book of poems by Wilhelm Muller entitled Die winterreise. Attilio Bertolucci left us a collection of poems called Viaggio d'inverno. Some years ago, Antoni Mari wrote a book of poems, twelve songs, that bears the title Un viatge d'hivern. The questionable biography of Franz Schubert written by Gaston Laforgue, more to serve himself than to serve the music, is called Voyage d'hiver. From the moment that these stories began to assume an imprecise shape, 1 knew that the collection would have to be called Winter Journey. Some coincidences are intentional and others are not, and even if inevitable they can sometimes be unwelcome. 1 hope that in this case Muller, Schubert, Bertollucci, Laforgue and Mari will take this book as homage.
Also, 1 want to record a series of dedications that 1 hope will be received with, at least, resignation: Gottfried Heinrich's Dream" 1 dedicate to Marti Cabre Barba; a very old first version was already related to him. "With Hope in His Hands" was born dedicated to Clara Cabre Barba. "1 Remember" had its origin in a lively conversation with Sam Abrams and is dedicated to him. "Opus Postum" is dedicated to Cristofol A.Trepat, who knows what it is to go on stage, and to Montserrat Guixer, as well as to the tireless Jordi Mir. "Two Minutes," which bites its own tail, is for Jan Schejbal, of Prague, and Ramon Pla i Arxe, of Barcelona. "Eyes Like Jewels" is for Joaquim M.Puyal, eternally enraptured by the miracle of language, and for Til Stegmann, of Frankfurt, and Joan F.Mira, of Castello, conspirators in Munster. "Negotiation," which in the end is without music because of the pianist's unilateral retirement, to my musical comrades-in-arms Josep Lluis Badal, Oriol Costa and Jaume Sala. "Ballad" is an old story that remained almost faithful to the original idea and is intended for Josep M.Ferrer and Magda Calpe, and for Jaume Aulet. "Dust," not because of the dust but because of the books, is for Ton Albes and Lluisa Carbonell. To my siblings 1 dedicate "The Trace." "Finis Coronat Opus" is for Xavier Fabre and Marta Nadal. "The Will" is for Kalman Faluba, of Budapest, and for Adolf Pla, of Sabadell, "Poc!" despite its violence, is for Oriol lzquierdo and Dolors Borau and for Sergi Boadella. "Winterreise" is for Margarida Barba.
Jaume Cabre
Fall 2000
Translator's Note
Readers unfamiliar with Jaume Cabre need to know two fundamental facts about him. First, he is a native speaker of Catalan who writes in his own language. And second, he is the author of novels and short stories that have an enthusiastic readership not just in Catalonia but in much of Europe.
Most authors write in their native language; exceptions to this generalization, such as Beckett and Nabokov, are famously few. Why then is the fact that Jaume Cabre writes in his own language worthy of mention? The answer is bound up with the minority status of Catalan, a language spoken by some seven million Spaniards, about one-sixth of the population of Spain. Catalan is protected by the Spanish constitution of 1978, but Spanish has the geopolitical advantage of being both a national and a world language. Because Catalan and Spanish are related languages (both are descended from Latin) and because Spanish was vigorously promoted during the Franco dictatorship (1939–1975), virtually all speakers of Catalan are bilingual.
Bilingualism is a very complex phenomenon, and the unique characteristics of an individual's bilingualism are the result of where the languages are used (at home, in school, in public interactions, on radio and television, etc.) and what they are used for (to converse, to read and write, to do business, to relax, etc.). Some of the writers who have been formed by Catalan/Spanish bilingualism, notably Juan Marse and Eduardo Mendoza, write in Spanish. Jaume Cabre writes in Catalan.
The choice of a literary language entails both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, Catalan is the natural expression of Cabre's personal and intellectual history. And using Catalan is a conscious act of support for a language whose vitality is far from guaranteed. The disadvantage of writing in Catalan, however, is obvious: an author as creative and as prolific as Cabre (he also writes essays, television and movie scripts and children's literature) would be much better known, and much more marketable, if he wrote in Spanish. He would be writing in a language that has nearly 400 million speakers, and for which there is an established network of editors, translators and publishers. In spite of this disadvantage, Cabre has achieved both critical and popular success, and his work has attracted a wide readership. His 2004 novel about the aftereffects of the Spanish civil war, Les veus del Pamano (Voices of the Pamano), was the toast of the 2007 Frankfurt Book Fair, at which Catalan culture was the Guest of Honor. He is well known in Europe, and his works have been translated into fourteen languages.
Winter Journey is the first of Jaume Cabre's works to be translated into English. Imaginative and accomplished, it needs no special pleading. But any work written in Catalan is part of the ongoing project of saving the language, and the culture of which it is a central part, from being worn away by assimilation. 1 hope that my translation will serve this work both as literature and as Catalan literature.
Winter Journey is an atypical collection of short stories. Many collections bring together stories that were written over a given period of time, but these stories were written at different times and-as Cabre explains in the Epilogue-were brought together only when he figured out what they had in common. Nor do these stories share a single style; the collection includes international intrigue (Poc!), fantasy (Dust), historical narrative (With Hope in His Hands), interior monologue (Finis Coronat Opus) and even O. Henry-esque fable (The Will). Rather, the stories in Winter Journey share motifs, obsessions, objects, and even some characters. One side of a phone conversation appears in the first story, for example, and the other side in the last. An embossed leather bookmark belonging to Bach in Gottfried Heinrich's Dream shows up centuries later in the collection of an eccentric bibliophile in Dust. And so on… Readers will want to discover other connections themselves.
The stories do not share a time and place; they are set in various European countries and in various centuries, but painting (especially Rembrandt's The Philosopher) and music (especially Schubert's Winterreise) play a role in almost all of them. Some of the characters are artists or musicians, many of them are seekers of aesthetic pleasure, and a few do terrible things in the pursuit of beauty. Taken together, the stories are a discourse on beauty: its power, its danger, and its price. Given that music has been a theme in many of Cabre's works, the collection might be thought of as a set of variations on the theme of beauty.