Author: Konstantin Paustovsky, Translated by Mark Scott

Publishers: Edwin Mellen Press

ISBN: 0773460446

(To be released in late fall 2005)

The following interview was conducted by: NORM GOLDMAN:  Editor of Bookpleasures &CLICK TO VIEW  Norm Goldman's Reviews  

To read Norm's Review Of the Book CLICK HERE

Today, Norm Goldman, Editor of Bookpleasures.com is honored to have as our guest, Mark Scott, who has recently translated into English from Russian seventeen short stories authored by Konstantin Paustovsky, and these will be released under the title of White Rainbow and Other Romantic Tales

Good day Mark and thank you for agreeing to participate in our interview.

Norm:

Mark, please tell our readers a little bit about your personal and professional background, as well as he books that you have authored.

Mark:

In 1970 I received a B.A. degree in History, Russian, and Slavic and Soviet Area Studies from the University of Kansas. 

While an undergraduate there, I spent one summer studying Russian language and culture at Leningrad State University.  In the early 1970s, I worked in Washington, D.C., as an analyst for the CIA, returned to Kansas to work in state government, was a private consultant on US-Soviet Relations, and eventually returned to Kansas University, where in 1980 I received a Ph.D. in Modern Russian History (dissertation title:  “Her Brother’s Keeper:  The Evolution of Women Bolsheviks”). 

I subsequently had articles published in various periodicals, including Kansas History, The Journal of Negro History, and World War II magazine.  My book publications include translations of works by the Russian author Ivan Bunin and Frenchman Guy de Maupassant.  A film producer in Hollywood tried unsuccessfully to have my book on Ann Stringer—the most glamorous female reporter of World War II—made into a motion picture.  My book Yanks Meet Reds was published in the late 1980s in English, German, and Russian editions.  I moved to California in 1984, where I have since taught at various colleges and universities.

Norm:

You mentioned to me that Russian literary specialists in the West generally consider Paustovsky a second-rate Russian writer. Could you tell us why?

Mark: 

Paustovsky was a member of the Soviet literary establishment—the Soviet Writers’ Union.  As such, he was not a dissident, and dissident writers were of major interest to the West, especially during the Cold War. 

He did not openly challenge the system.  In his story “The Old Man in the Tattered Overcoat,” for example, he portrayed Lenin sympathetically, as a kindly gentleman, which was standard for Soviet writers.  Thematically, Paustovsky often dealt with what some would consider “bland” subjects—descriptions of the Russian countryside, people “mildly” suffering or not suffering at all, elderly peasant women describing the beauties of life, etc.  In the United States, he has been known largely for his autobiography, The Story of a Life, and his short story “Rainy Dawn.”

Norm:

How did White Rainbow and Other Romantic Tales come about? Why did you decide to translate Paustovsky’s short stories?

Mark: 

I had already translated a collection of short stories by the Russian writer Ivan Bunin (title:  Wolves and Other Love Stories).  Bunin was the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

I recalled that Paustovsky had mentioned how much he himself had been influenced by Bunin, who had, in turn, been influenced by Maupassant.  I reread several stories by Paustovsky, and could see that he had apparently borrowed motifs from various Bunin stories which I had already translated. 

I became more interested in Paustovsky as I read his stories “in search of Bunin.”  While doing so, I thought those stories had a charm of their own.  I then checked to see what translations of Paustovsky had been done, and was almost shocked to find that there were very few.  In fact, some of those translations had been done by native Russians, which is not the same as a translator who is a native English speaker asking himself, “How would this sound best in English?”

Norm:

Can you tell us how you found representation for your book? Did you pitch it to an agent, or query publishers who would most likely publish this type of book? Any rejections?

Mark: 

I completed the translation in the early 1980s.  I pitched it to a variety of publishing houses, but not a single publisher was interested.  So, as Soviet writers used to say, I left it “in the drawer.” 

Last year I received a notice from The Edwin Mellen Press inviting writers to submit manuscripts that would be a “contribution to scholarship.”  I had spent part of the summer of 2003 with Pepperdine University in St. Petersburg, Russia, and while visiting the House of Books on Nevsky Prospekt had come across a recent edition of short stories by Paustovsky. 

I had already translated many of them for my collection.  I thought to myself, “If the Russians are still reading Paustovsky—years after the fall of Soviet communism—maybe someone in the West would be interested.”  I submitted a proposal to Mellen, and the manuscript was accepted for publication.

To make this story “better,” Mellen sent me another letter asking me if I had anything else “in the drawer” that might be “an original contribution to scholarship”.

Several years after completing the Paustovsky translation, I had interviewed various seamen living in southern California who had participated in what the British and Canadians called the “Kola Run”—the convoys to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel during World War II. 

Mellen has agreed to publish this second book as well, even though I had been unable to locate a single publisher when I completed the manuscript in 1988.  In the last several weeks, I have received some very favorable reviews of this manuscript, even though it was repeatedly rejected when first pitched.  In fact, one reviewer of the manuscript recently wrote, “Mark Scott has revived a ‘lost front’ of World War II.  It is recounted as dramatically and as personally by its participants as by those more celebrated American heroes who served the same cause at D-Day.”  So to other writers with their own manuscripts “in the drawer,” I would say, “Your time may yet come.”

Norm:

What challenges or obstacles did you encounter while translating Paustovsky? How did you overcome these challenges?

Mark: 

Paustovsky’s Russian is “easy,” as is Chekhov’s Russian, Maupassant’s French, and Booker T. Washington’s English.  If I had questions on specifics of the Russian milieu, I usually consulted my mentor, Professor Sam Anderson of the University of Kansas, who is no longer alive.  White Rainbow is, in fact, dedicated to him.  This man was a wealth of information on, what Catherine the Great would call, vsyakya vsyachina—“all sorts and sundries.”  Professor Anderson was definitely a colorful personality, one who had once had tea with Alexander Kerensky, hosted writer Vladimir Nabokov, and studied German in Hitler’s Third Reich.

Norm:

Your introduction to White Rainbow and Other Romantic Tales is extremely interesting. Can you explain some of your research techniques, and how you found sources for your book?

Mark: 

The University of Kansas had an excellent collection of books in Russian, so it was easy for me to get access to them.  Various Soviet collections of Paustovsky’s works included detailed publication information—when and where the stories were first published.  Because I had already translated stories by both Bunin and Maupassant, I could recall the smallest details that many readers might overlook.  For example, a boy herding a cow appears very briefly in a Bunin story; he seems to reemerge as the protagonist of Paustovsky’s “The Cow Boy.”  Maupassant beautifully describes a view of the French countryside in “Monsieur Parent.”  The description sounds like something Paustovsky himself could have written.  Russian readers especially love Paustovsky for his nature descriptions.  As an American who grew up on the prairie, I can “feel” the change of seasons described in “A Farewell to Summer.”

Norm:

How did you go about deciding which short stories to include in White Rainbow and Other Romantic Tales? Was there a definite plan?

Mark: 

I looked for stories I personally thought were interesting, but also sought “minor” stories that had not been previously published.  I thought it curious that many of the stories Paustovsky had written during World War II had not been translated.  Apparently, after the war was over, these stories were of even less interest to translators in the West.  I thought “White Rabbits” interesting not simply because it described the fate of German soldiers who had invaded USSR, but also because it portrayed them—Nazis that they were—somewhat sympathetically.  I also thought it remarkable that Paustovsky, who was officially an atheist, depicted religious sentiment sympathetically in “Madame Beauvais’s Prayer” and “Grandma’s Garden.”

Norm

When you decided to publish White Rainbow and Other Romantic Tale, did you have a particular audience in mind?

Mark: 

A Kansas publisher known as the “Father of the Paperback Book Industry” once said that the way he chose books for publication was by picking those he personally liked.  I hoped that if I myself liked them, others would as well.  Even though this collection will probably be considered “exotic” because of the Russian connection, I hoped that it would be of interest not just to academics, but to the larger reading public.  How interesting that ordinary Russians, even in our time, continue to buy a collection of stories by the Soviet author Konstantin Paustovsky!

Norm:

How would you compare Paustovsky with other Russian as well as Western short story writers?

Mark: 

He is no Chekhov, no Turgenev, no Nabokov, no Tolstoy, no Dostoyevsky, no Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn.  His stories are generally devoid of Sturm und Drang.  His stories lack Maupassant’s “sting in the tail,” or Kate Chopin’s surprise ending.   I suspect that many Western readers might find his stories dull, since they lack action.  But there is a dreamy, poetic quality to his work, which almost produces the same effect as that of viewing an Impressionist painting.

Norm:

How did you get started as a translator of Russian and French authors? What makes you want to write a new book or translate a Russian or French author?

Mark:

I had studied French from junior high school into college.  I had a degree in Russian Language, and subsequently worked with Russians in various capacities—academic, political, business, sports.  In conversation, Russians commonly believed I was a Russian, until I started making mistakes in grammar.  I suppose I started translating almost as a hobby.  And because I teach at various universities, I was also able to use these translations in classroom lectures.  So there was a practical aspect to “useful” translations, even if I could not get them published.

Norm:

What was your favorite Paustovsky short story and why? 

Mark:

I personally like several.  There is a bittersweet quality, a tristesse to “A Farewell to Summer.”  “Labels for Grocery Goods” is an interesting tranche de vie of Jewish life in the Russian Pale of Settlement.  But my favorite is probably the same story that was most popular in the West prior to my own translation.  It is “Rainy Dawn.”  The story is not optimistic—perhaps too realistic.  It is “bittersweet,” a word which, incidentally, is difficult to translate into other languages.  It is romantic, with the natural setting—river, rain, steamboat paddles, ticking clocks—helping to set the mood.  It has a theme of irremediable loss that could almost make some readers feel like crying—and remind them of similar instances in their own lives.  Like the stories of Maupassant, “Rainy Dawn” has some memorable lines.

Norm:

Is there anything else you wish to tell our readers that we have not covered?

Mark: 

If they are interested in this book, they should read it “leisurely.”  Don’t look for action, look for mood.  Look for what the Russians call dusha—“soulfulness.”  They may gain some insight into Russians themselves, who continue to love these stories.

Norm:

Thanks once again for participating in our interview.

Mark: 

And thank you!