Jaan Kross. Treading Air, Translated by Eric Dickens, Harvell Press, London, 2003, 346 pg.

When Jaan Kross returned from a 5+5 sentence in a GULAG prison camp in 1954, he had spent 5 years in a Russian brickfactory plus another 5 in Siberian exile. All this thanks to the simple fact that he had been hired during the war by the German Occupation Authorities as a translator. At that time he was a senior law student at the University of Tartu.

After his release from the camp Kross tried his hand at this and that but eventually settled for literature, as he already had seen some poems and stories published in the local press during Estonia’s independence. During the period 1956-1969 Kross saw the publication of 4 volumes of his poetry. A new era in Estonian poetry was ushered in, now called “The renaissance of the sixties”. The title poem of his 1969 collection began “Rain does wonderful things // it makes women lift their skirts over their hemline”. Maybe he got a warning from the censor, maybe not, but from there on he concentrated on prose. Perhaps he remembered the case of Eduard Vilde, who anno dazumal started to write about remote historical events and got away with it. So did Jaan Kross. During the next decade 1970-80 he produced a tetralogy “Between Three Plagues” which became a bestseller in 3 printings. That was a good compensation for his lost law career.

His 13th novel “Paigallend” (1998) is one of his most sophisticated works, recently translated into the English by Eric Dickens as “Treading Air”. In it he tells the story of the generation of Estonians with which he grew up. The unhealed wounds of recent Estonian history have been the focus of many of Kross's short stories and in a number of his novels. The story of Ullo Paerand opens with Ullo's reminiscences of a childhood trip to Germany in the 1920s, and ends with his vision of meeting his aged father who fled to the West together with his lover.

I wrote a book review of the original Estonian, published some 5 years ago in “Meie Elu”, and reading now the translation, it strikes me as impressive as the original. It certainly was a great challenge for the translator to handle two unlike languages like Estonian and English.

Metaphor of flight

Let’s start with the book's title - “Paigallend” - which literally translated means “a stationary flight”. Does something like this really exist? It truly might be the case, because some birds can do so, for example the hummingbird. My dictionary defines it as “a very small bird having a long slender bill for sipping nectar and rapidly vibrating wings.” In other words, it can sip the nectar while flying in place. This metaphor can easily stand in for the protagonist of the work, Ullo Paerand, although he is a human being and can't fly. But he is also a big dreamer and a ropedancer who is treading on air.

The book is not easily translatable, because in the original Kross uses very many idiomatic words. There are also cultural differences. The English and Estonian school systems are not exactly the same. “Junior high” means simply “algkool” and an Estonian “abiturient” is somebody who has to pass Senior Exams. There is a method to punish the culprits, who dare complain about the misdeeds of their classmates to the teacher. They will be “pulled through the bench” or simply “piped” which means “torutatud”.

As “Riigivolikogu” can't be translated as “Parliament”, then the Chamber of the Deputies is the word that makes it stick. It is clever to translate some placenames halfway in Estonian, halfway English - like “Raua Street” and “Pikk Street” - or to use the parallel names beside each others, like “Kuld Lõvi or Golden Lion” and “Rannavärav or Coastal Gates”. It reveals the local colours. It is also right to name Estonian vodka “Dr. Mäe's, or the Judas’ Tears”, because it was the popular name of the 64 proof alcohol available for the local people during the German Occupation.

The translator of the book must have had a good knowledge of “pidgin English”. An example is found when Ullo goes to cash in the IOU chits for certain artworks that his father had sold to a wheeler-dealer artmerchant. The dealer simply says “Eej, eej, he weell pay this von sawzand avay” which means “No, no, he will pay one thousand away”. The translator can also decode one character’s shorthand - “I thnk y'll be able to read my hndwrting” - “I think you will be able to read my handwriting.”

The translator has added a ten page introduction, providing an overview of Kross's writings. There is a glossary at the end of the book that gives some 80 names of Estonian political and cultural figures referred to in the book.

Kross as archaeologist

Jaan Kross is a creator, who has dug out a whole row of historically known figures from the dust of oblivion. In other words, he has raised the Estonian historical novel to the contemporary level. He has a keen insight into character psychology and motivitation. He examines their lives and times on the periphery of great events. The tetralogy “Between Three Plagues” depicts the Polish-Russian War and the ethnic Estonian Chronilcler Balthasar Russow. The other one of this kind is “The Third Range of Hills” about a long-ago Estonian artist Johann Köler at the Imperial Court of St. Petersburg. Köler was an Estonian peasant origin, who never denied his roots. The book “Czar's Madman” is about the Baltic-German Baron Timotheus von Bock, who never compromised and dared to challenge the Russian Czar and almost got away with it.

“Treading Air” is the fourth book by Jaan Kross that has been translated into English. The other three are: “Professor Marten's Departure”, “The Conspiracy and other Stories” and of course “The Czar's Madman” which has been translated 15 european languages. “The Czar’s Madman” has been considered as his best book by many western reviewers; “Treading Air” is a worthy challenger for that title.

There is hardly a Kross novel that has not been translated into some other language. For examples “In Clios’ Eyes” into 7, “Skystone” into 8, and “Professor Marten's Departure” into 8 languages.

As one can see Jaan Kross is an internationally well known and highly regarded author. Since Estonian independence has been regained Kross has been also been nominated for the Nobel Prize more than once. Originally, it was intended for a young writer, but so far no young man or woman has been awarded the Nobel. It usually is awarded when a writer has reached his or her creative summit. The only rule of thumb is that it has to be given when the person is still alive. There are so many good, deserving writers, who never got it. Excellent examples are Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov and our own Anton Hansen Tammsaare, because they died before their number came up. The Frenchman Jean Paul Sartre, however, downright refused it... The Nobel prize for Literature is most always a kind of supplement to some kinds of political events, very much in the same way how the International Olympic Committee grants the rights to stage the Games. It usually goes to the country that has the best sponsors.



(Treading Air and other English translations of Jaan Kross’ novels can be borrowed from the Estonian Studies Library at Tartu College.)

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