Language Death Night Outside: Poem. Novel

by Peter Waterhouse, Rosmarie Waldrop (Translator)

Poetry. Fiction. Cross-Genre. An "I" between languages. A text between genres. The Austrian grandfather's death triggers an examination of the past, of history, identity, consciousness. Three poems (by Zanzotto, Celan, Rakosi) and three philosophers (Descartes, Leibniz, Mach) become touchstones for the narrator in his attempt to find a language that is impersonal even while saying "I." A life is created through precise particulars in short, anaphoric sentences—with an effect both staccato and hypnotic. But the effort toward the concrete and definite ("I forced myself to use main clauses, nouns, the definite article") stands in tension with the boundlessness encountered in the poems and in thinking where the city turns ship and a yellow flower in Vienna touches the sand dunes of North Africa.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Peter Waterhouse ist der Sohn eines britischen Offiziers und einer Österreicherin. Er wuchs zweisprachig auf und besuchte das Domgymnasium in Verden (Aller) (Niedersachsen), wo sein Vater einige Jahre als britischer Verbindungsoffizier tätig war. Nachdem er 1975 sein Abitur abgelegt hatte, studierte er Germanistik und Anglistik an der Universität Wien sowie 1981/82 an der University of Southern California in Los Angeles. 1982 absolvierte er die Magisterprüfung, 1984 promovierte er an der Universität Wien mit einer Arbeit über die Utopie in der Lyrik Paul Celans zum Doktor der Philosophie.
Peter Waterhouse verfasst Lyrik, Essays, Erzählungen, Theaterstücke, Sachbücher und Romane; daneben übersetzt er aus dem Englischen und Italienischen. Seine Texte wurden ins Englische, Italienische, Schwedische, Ungarische, Norwegische und Dänische übersetzt. Im Jahr 2000 gründete er die Wolfenbütteler Übersetzergespräche. Waterhouse ist Mitglied der Interessengemeinschaft Österreichischer Autorinnen und Autoren. Er lebt in Wien.

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw the black night of the cover. I saw the white strips across the cover. I saw the obsolete newsprint aesthetic of the cover. I read the title of the book “Language Death Night Outside” as an enjambment of foreign terms. I read the subtitle of the book “Poem Novel” as an enjambment of like objects. I read the name Peter Waterhouse as the enjambment of Peter Water House. I read the bio of the author who grew up in Vienna. I read the first pages of the book. I read the words of the book taking shape as identical beginnings. I read the prose of the book as dense blocks of text. In the density of the text, I read the silhouetted sorrow of the author. In the density of the text I felt the encroachment of the bodies of the city. In the city of words, I felt the streetlights tracking my eyes as they moved across the page. In the letters on the page, I saw the identity of the author crouched up in a tiny scrawl. In the density of self identity, I read the wishes of the words themselves. I read the words "I saw the poem loosen the homogeneity of water.” I read the words “I saw the poem loosen language from the compulsion to identity" I read the words "I thought of the temperature of the doorknob. I thought of the slenderness of the doorknob.” I read the words “I thought of the movability of the doorknob. The doorknob was substance.” I read the words “The doorknob was without breath. I praised the breathlessness of the doorknob." I thought of the doorknob. I thought of the cold breathlessness of the doorknob as a universal experience, as an object without a need for translation. I thought of the translations of poems embedded in the book as specimens in a lab. As quiet repositories of an alternate reality. I thought of the translator of the poems and the speaker of the book as the same person. I thought of the translator of the translator of the poems, Rosmarie Waldrop, as a twice removed agent of language death. For the first time, I thought of “language death” as an enjambment of its own, after reading the term “language death” in another book. For the first time, I thought of “language death” as an enjambment of its own rather than two terms in a list “Language / Death / Night Outside”. For the first time, I considered and rejected the idea of enjambing the middle words as "Language / Death Night / Outside". For the first time, I saw the narrator as separate from the writer Peter / Water / House. For the first time, I saw the narrator standing off to the side of the author’s biography. I saw the narrator standing off to the side of the city, an impartial observer, a cold doorknob. I saw the distant narrator narrating the cold events of discrete units. I saw the cold units become the discrete sentences I was reading. I saw the complete sentences as textbook examples. I saw the textbook examples become teaching moments, set off from reality. I saw the reality of words transformed into thinking exercises. I saw the set apart-ness of the narrator as a way of pulling inwards, denial, disease of thought. I saw the brakelights shining in the city, and the “differently red” poppies set apart in a field. I saw the repeated words as brakelights, lighting down the page. The repeated words enticed me to repeat the words. The repeated words lulled me in a contentment of language. The repeated words bored me at times to ignore the words completely. I read the repeated words repeatedly. I read the repeated words repeatedly but did not understand them. I read the repeated words, though not the same sentence, repeatedly. I read the words describing the words repeating as a slow unveiling of intuition. I read the words canceling each other as a plain of plain facts. I read the book in slow increments towards the last repetition. I read the reviews of the book describing the book as transformation, as ambivalence, as architecture. I read the blurb on the back of the book set apart from the book. I looked at the whiteness of the back cover of the book. I closed the book in an illusion of having experienced the book.

[Standard]

If you like Celan and Zanzotto this appears to be a tour de force, oddly enough in a narrative way. Main character has philosophical and existential crises that he experience almost in visceral form. A vibrant necroglossia of the Beckett strain.

visceral response to his