the other side
Yoko Tawada’s Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel (i.e., Paul Celan und der chinesische Engel) has a promising start – the patient narrator providing a disorienting sense of isolation/alienation at once physical, intellectual, and emotional – but I had to set it aside. As others have noted, the novella draws heavily on the work of Celan, of which I remain mostly ignorant, so in reading I was discomfited by the sensation of things missed, of meanings distorted or misunderstood, of references lost. But mostly I didn’t (don’t) understand how der chinesische Engel became the ‘trans-Tibetan Angel’ (see, perhaps, previous sentence), and it made me cranky, as well as making me feel stupid – a particularly infelicitous combination. I felt (feel), obscurely, that this was part of the intended effect or mood to be conveyed but, well, as much as one may admire minor literary meannesses, I am in no temper for them at the moment.