Foreword to Robert Zend's Daymares
by writer, poet, translator, and "master gatherer" John Robert Colombo, 1991
I.
When Robert Zend informed me that he was flying to Argentina to record an interview with Jorge Luis Borges, he asked me what question I would ask the great Argentine fantasist if I were interviewing him. I replied, “Ask him what he thinks about when he thinks about Canada.” “What do you think about when you think about Canada?” he asked Borges a week later sitting in the latter’s cluttered study in his flat in Buenos Aires. Borges thought for a moment, then replied, “Canada is so far away it hardly exists.” II. I remember Robert Zend with a feeling of fondness. The feeling has grown fonder over the last five years. Sometime soon it will probably reach its fondest peak. The feeling is certainly more profound than it was while Robert was still alive... nervously alive, exasperatingly alive, frenetically alive, irritatingly alive. Robert had a way of energizing or galvanizing people. He seldom left them feeling indifferent. I do not now recall fondly cherishing him then, but I fondly cherish his memory now. |
We worked closely together for some months at a stretch during two different periods of time on his first two books. I elected to play the role of midwife to the man and the manuscripts. He chose to play the part of the artiste in giving birth to the versions of the poems and stories we shaped and worked into the forms they take in those books. There were discussions and disagreements aplenty, matched with laughter and light-hearted probings of the world’s intricacies.
He had a number of irritating habits. He seldom arrived on time, he sometimes arrived unbidden. But he had a matching number of ingratiating habits. He was an enthusiast for his own work, which is understandable, but also for the work of others. He was always making discoveries of ideas or authors new to him. He was given to making such announcements as the following: “I have finally learned the secret of the Lost Continent of Atlantis!”
His body occupied the place in space and time that all of us share, but his ruminative mind and especially his perfervid imagination seemed to me to make their hearth on some other planet. This planet, if I may expand on this for a moment, is quite unlike our planet Earth. Robert’s planet, Zendia, cuts an erratic course around a series of suns that could shine and not shine simultaneously. The seasons on this odd planet could last for a minute or for a millennium. Zendia is located in some far-distant solar system which might or might not have a name or number. It might or might not be coexistent with the planet Earth.
III.
The Hungarian-born atomic scientist Leo Szilard once discussed the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial life in the universe with his colleague Enrico Fermi.
Szilard expressed the opinion that extraterrestrial life was indeed possible. “If that is so,” replied Fermi, “how is it that the aliens have not arrived on Earth? Where are they?”
“They are already among us,” replied Szilard, “but they call themselves Hungarians.”
IV.
Robert had as many themes and styles as St. Sebastian had arrows. Robert’s intuition rivalled Marshall McLuhan’s mind as a generator of new ideas. Entirely on his own he invented concrete poetry, notably the variety called typescapes. He was a bit miffed when I showed him Emmett Williams’ anthology of concrete poetry, with all that fascinating work by Xisto and Gomringer and others. Eventually he took the style in stride and began to produce poems and effects in the concrete manner that were uniquely his own.
I introduced him to the work of Borges some time after his invention of the Borgesian manner. (Some of the stories he wrote in this style are being published in this book for the first time.) For Robert it was love at first sight. He read the Argentine master’s stories and poems, which are so concise and so dramatic, and in response to them, he went to work. He harnessed Pegasus to the plough, and created characteristic new works in this vein.
Robert was busy in a multitude of media. In many ways he saw himself as “a one-man renaissance.” One of his contributions was production in the “found” manner using mundane things like toilet paper rolls and automobile gaskets to create entertaining and sometimes humorous objects. (Using a felt pen, he drew pictures and wrote spiral poetry on dozens of these rolls. Automobile gaskets were used as templates to create attractive and unusual illustrations in one of his books.) He composed for the piano. He wrote screenplays and made films. He translated poetry and drama freely from the Hungarian. Working with a computer specialist, he even redesigned the English alphabet, idiosyncratically rendering its traditional letterforms his own, bringing the whole alphabet closer to the heart’s desire.
V.
The twenty-six selections which appear in this collection were taken directly from Robert’s English-language papers. The manuscript was prepared with great care by Janine Zend with the assistance of their daughter Natalie. Some poetry is included, but in the main the collection is devoted to his fiction.
Perhaps the best word to use to describe his fictions is the postmodern term “fictions”. Robert’s fictions were much like his personality: inventive and inquisitive, sometimes repetitious and just plain silly. His style in English is so clear and straight-forward that much of the time it sounds as if it has been translated from some other language. I am not sure what that other language is. His mother tongue was Hungarian and he acquired Italian and English later in life. His spoken English, though fluent, was decidedly accented. He once explained to me that when he left Hungary in 1956 and came to Canada, he travelled light. He said, “I lost everything except my accent.” Whether he was writing in Hungarian or in English, he was really only at home in some third language. So far it is an unidentified language. Perhaps it will never have a name or a description. Perhaps it is simply the language of one man’s personality, the sum-total of his stance. Whether it is written in English by the author, translated into English by the author, or co-translated into English by the author and some anglophone writer, his English work always sounds somewhat abstract, somewhat explanatory, and somewhat “translated.” What is the nature of this language of translator-ese? Is it an Esperanto of the spirit, the interlingual of George Steiner’s dreams? Is it the ultimate literary language of the planet Earth? Is it “the translator style,” which has yet to be examined by literary critics and sociologists? Perhaps, instead, it is one of the tongues in the civilization of Rubik; perhaps it is a script from the eon of Khu-Fu; perhaps it derives from continents and epochs unknown to mankind and to history and archaeology.
VI.
The last time I saw Robert was when he paid an unexpected visit to my home. He arrived, characteristically, as we were sitting down to dinner. He would not join us for dinner; he would not not join us for dinner. Either he had already eaten or he was not yet ready to eat. He rambled from room to room, playing Mozart’s “Turkish March” on the piano in the music room (rather heavier and slower than did Glenn Gould, much more romantically and Central Europeanly), pouring over some typescripts in the study, and perusing a pile of library books in the living room. Finally he joined us in the dining room. Then he proceeded to light a cigarette. We pointed to the notice that said No Smoking. I told him that although the house is a no-smoking zone, we do permit smoking, but only on the porch. “The weather is mild,” I said. “Light up on the porch. That’s why we call it ‘butt-end.’” Typically Robert protested the arrangement. “I want to talk with you and to smoke too. I want both you and nicotine.” Who could forget such a verbal formulation, such vintage Zend? I cannot now remember what arrangement we made, but we did have a conversation and Robert did have his cigarette. Then he left and drove away in his beat-up old car. He left, a man for whom the world stood to be reviewed and revised.
VII.
When Borges told Robert that Canada was so far away it hardly existed, he meant to suggest, I suppose, that Canadian literature and culture are “small potatoes” on a world scale. Or he might have been alluding to the notion that existence is relative rather than absolute, that some things exist “more” and other things exist “less.”
Canada seemed “far away” to Borges because, so far at least, it has offered little to world culture, but Canada does exist. The man Borges no longer exists, but the author Jorge Luis Borges lives on. The man Zend no longer exists, to our sorrow, but Robert Zend the writer lives on memorably—in the memories of the men and women who were enriched through knowing him, as well as in the literary works offered to the reader through the pages of this new collection. The values that Robert Zend continues to offer to the world are not at all far away but very close at hand.
He had a number of irritating habits. He seldom arrived on time, he sometimes arrived unbidden. But he had a matching number of ingratiating habits. He was an enthusiast for his own work, which is understandable, but also for the work of others. He was always making discoveries of ideas or authors new to him. He was given to making such announcements as the following: “I have finally learned the secret of the Lost Continent of Atlantis!”
His body occupied the place in space and time that all of us share, but his ruminative mind and especially his perfervid imagination seemed to me to make their hearth on some other planet. This planet, if I may expand on this for a moment, is quite unlike our planet Earth. Robert’s planet, Zendia, cuts an erratic course around a series of suns that could shine and not shine simultaneously. The seasons on this odd planet could last for a minute or for a millennium. Zendia is located in some far-distant solar system which might or might not have a name or number. It might or might not be coexistent with the planet Earth.
III.
The Hungarian-born atomic scientist Leo Szilard once discussed the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial life in the universe with his colleague Enrico Fermi.
Szilard expressed the opinion that extraterrestrial life was indeed possible. “If that is so,” replied Fermi, “how is it that the aliens have not arrived on Earth? Where are they?”
“They are already among us,” replied Szilard, “but they call themselves Hungarians.”
IV.
Robert had as many themes and styles as St. Sebastian had arrows. Robert’s intuition rivalled Marshall McLuhan’s mind as a generator of new ideas. Entirely on his own he invented concrete poetry, notably the variety called typescapes. He was a bit miffed when I showed him Emmett Williams’ anthology of concrete poetry, with all that fascinating work by Xisto and Gomringer and others. Eventually he took the style in stride and began to produce poems and effects in the concrete manner that were uniquely his own.
I introduced him to the work of Borges some time after his invention of the Borgesian manner. (Some of the stories he wrote in this style are being published in this book for the first time.) For Robert it was love at first sight. He read the Argentine master’s stories and poems, which are so concise and so dramatic, and in response to them, he went to work. He harnessed Pegasus to the plough, and created characteristic new works in this vein.
Robert was busy in a multitude of media. In many ways he saw himself as “a one-man renaissance.” One of his contributions was production in the “found” manner using mundane things like toilet paper rolls and automobile gaskets to create entertaining and sometimes humorous objects. (Using a felt pen, he drew pictures and wrote spiral poetry on dozens of these rolls. Automobile gaskets were used as templates to create attractive and unusual illustrations in one of his books.) He composed for the piano. He wrote screenplays and made films. He translated poetry and drama freely from the Hungarian. Working with a computer specialist, he even redesigned the English alphabet, idiosyncratically rendering its traditional letterforms his own, bringing the whole alphabet closer to the heart’s desire.
V.
The twenty-six selections which appear in this collection were taken directly from Robert’s English-language papers. The manuscript was prepared with great care by Janine Zend with the assistance of their daughter Natalie. Some poetry is included, but in the main the collection is devoted to his fiction.
Perhaps the best word to use to describe his fictions is the postmodern term “fictions”. Robert’s fictions were much like his personality: inventive and inquisitive, sometimes repetitious and just plain silly. His style in English is so clear and straight-forward that much of the time it sounds as if it has been translated from some other language. I am not sure what that other language is. His mother tongue was Hungarian and he acquired Italian and English later in life. His spoken English, though fluent, was decidedly accented. He once explained to me that when he left Hungary in 1956 and came to Canada, he travelled light. He said, “I lost everything except my accent.” Whether he was writing in Hungarian or in English, he was really only at home in some third language. So far it is an unidentified language. Perhaps it will never have a name or a description. Perhaps it is simply the language of one man’s personality, the sum-total of his stance. Whether it is written in English by the author, translated into English by the author, or co-translated into English by the author and some anglophone writer, his English work always sounds somewhat abstract, somewhat explanatory, and somewhat “translated.” What is the nature of this language of translator-ese? Is it an Esperanto of the spirit, the interlingual of George Steiner’s dreams? Is it the ultimate literary language of the planet Earth? Is it “the translator style,” which has yet to be examined by literary critics and sociologists? Perhaps, instead, it is one of the tongues in the civilization of Rubik; perhaps it is a script from the eon of Khu-Fu; perhaps it derives from continents and epochs unknown to mankind and to history and archaeology.
VI.
The last time I saw Robert was when he paid an unexpected visit to my home. He arrived, characteristically, as we were sitting down to dinner. He would not join us for dinner; he would not not join us for dinner. Either he had already eaten or he was not yet ready to eat. He rambled from room to room, playing Mozart’s “Turkish March” on the piano in the music room (rather heavier and slower than did Glenn Gould, much more romantically and Central Europeanly), pouring over some typescripts in the study, and perusing a pile of library books in the living room. Finally he joined us in the dining room. Then he proceeded to light a cigarette. We pointed to the notice that said No Smoking. I told him that although the house is a no-smoking zone, we do permit smoking, but only on the porch. “The weather is mild,” I said. “Light up on the porch. That’s why we call it ‘butt-end.’” Typically Robert protested the arrangement. “I want to talk with you and to smoke too. I want both you and nicotine.” Who could forget such a verbal formulation, such vintage Zend? I cannot now remember what arrangement we made, but we did have a conversation and Robert did have his cigarette. Then he left and drove away in his beat-up old car. He left, a man for whom the world stood to be reviewed and revised.
VII.
When Borges told Robert that Canada was so far away it hardly existed, he meant to suggest, I suppose, that Canadian literature and culture are “small potatoes” on a world scale. Or he might have been alluding to the notion that existence is relative rather than absolute, that some things exist “more” and other things exist “less.”
Canada seemed “far away” to Borges because, so far at least, it has offered little to world culture, but Canada does exist. The man Borges no longer exists, but the author Jorge Luis Borges lives on. The man Zend no longer exists, to our sorrow, but Robert Zend the writer lives on memorably—in the memories of the men and women who were enriched through knowing him, as well as in the literary works offered to the reader through the pages of this new collection. The values that Robert Zend continues to offer to the world are not at all far away but very close at hand.