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Long Live the Careful Reader
or
Beware Pouring a Cow's Milk into the Skin of a Dog*

In his response to my review (in Shearsman 58) of his collection of poems Reversion the author says that he is not 'an expert in ancient ... Sanskrit' – does this mean that he reads it, therefore, I wonder? Since Sanskrit possesses no formal designation such as Ancient — the most modern Sanskrit ever became was 'Classical', which is where its development ended at around the middle of the first millennium BC — I suspect he does not. The author says he does not call 'Thus Spake Arjuna' in his collection a 'translation'. However, any reader would be forgiven for assuming, in the absence of any indication that the poem is not the author's own, that a text in English – which they would infer is from a foreign language – is, whether based on cribs or not, translated. The author's subsequent idiosyncratic use, in his reply to my review, of the term 'transliteration' to describe his text, does nothing to clarify the issue.

If the author wishes to allow, as he claims others have encouraged him to, his version of such excerpts from the Bhagavad-Gita to be described as a translation, it is only fair to point out that, in his reference to Seamus Heaney and his 'literary' translations, the European languages, which have been such a fertile repository for Heaney and other writers in this regard, have long been well served by an abundance of inspired translations. This could not be further from the truth, however, with regard to Sanskrit poetry which, according to one translator, with its extremely complex and subtle sound patterns of assonance and alliteration (the Bhagavad-Gita is rich in these) cannot be directly transferred to another language (John Brough). And which, according to another translator, is 'essentially untranslatable'. (Arthur Keith). Given such a situation, then, what is the point, unless one knows Sanskrit which the author has given me no reason to believe he does, in simply tinkering (as I said in my review) with existing translations which are sense-accurate, but from which virtually all the poetry has been expunged? And surely, if a person does not read the language of a text which they are versioning, and there exist only literal translations of it, then they should be obliged, given that they've conceded at one point that their version does not go beyond the literal, to at least acknowledge its provenance in the title, or at the end, of their version. Failure to do this (unlike the author's translation from the Irish), is likely to evoke in the reader's mind the suspicion of the presence of Edward Said's post-imperial appropriator (hence my use of the term 'appropriations' in my review) who, in an act of surrogate political domination, takes possession of the aesthetic artefacts, the 'spoils', of another culture and treats them as his own.

The most cursory of readings of the many translations of the Bhagavad-Gita which the author professes to have consulted should also have made him aware that nothing could be more unlike Arjuna's state of mind before the eighteen-day battle than the view, which he proposes, that, in order to 'cope' with the impending event, Arjuna dismisses what is about to unfold as 'silly' and as a 'fracas'. Such an attitude, of making light of his predicament, would, rather than impelling the self-examination which drives the poem, instead, prevent it. Arjuna is overcome not only by a feeling of profound foreboding at the imminence of the battle, but on seeing the two men he admires above all others, Bhisma and Drona, on the opposite side, by a feeling which transcends his forthcoming participation in the battle and which, most importantly, gives rise to his realisation that all actions are, finally, because of their inability to alter the course of events, useless — the course of events in general not just in the particular place and time of the poem's setting. It is for this reason that one translator of the Bhagavad-Gita has described the battleground in the poem as possessing a metaphorical as much as a literal function. Arjuna's state of mind – conditioned as it is by the relentless probing which he is induced to conduct, by his dialogue with his charioteer the god incarnate Khrishna, into the springs of all human action – is, therefore, a very different state of mind to the one which the author proposes, a state of mind which would, if true, limit the poem to being merely a study of the struggle of an individual conscience. Moreover, it is certainly not, as the author claims, my view, 'he (Anderson) sees this as a pitched battle', that what occurs in the poem is a battle between two opposing and arrayed armies. Anyone familiar with a competent translation of the poem, of which there are many, will be left in no doubt at all that that is precisely how it is described, as the author does himself then go on to concede by mentioning a 'civil war' — though I should be wary of transposing such a recent Western concept to a so much older and non-Western context where the concept of a nation-state did not exist. It might be less inaccurate, perhaps, to see it as some form of dynastic struggle. A 'fracas', though, (the author's rendering with which I took issue) is what often takes place amongst a small group of people on a Friday night outside the pub on the road where I live. Could it be that, more than anything else, then, it is the author's presumption that the poem provides 'inevitable (sic) resonances' with contemporary troubles in his own part of the world which leads him into what I believe is a cavalier attitude towards it?

The reference in my review of the author's collection to Seamus Heaney was prompted solely by my desire to counteract what I regarded as the unjustified afflatus of the comparison with Heaney on the cover of the author's book. I carry no torch for Heaney. Indeed the comparison with his poetry was not one I initiated. Nor should I have mentioned him in my review had it not been for the reference to him on the book's cover. I assume, however, that the author, since the comparison with Heaney was to his advantage, approved it. It is, therefore, disingenuous of him to style Heaney as my 'hero'.

Finally, my use of the phrase 'not untypical' to describe the author's quoted, and re-lineated, poem 'Revelation', a view of the poem which he finds 'strange' and says 'few careful readers will share', meant just that. Not typical but, on the other hand, demonstrating certain qualities which I identified and which I said I felt occurred 'often' enough in the writing in the collection for the poem to usefully illustrate. I gave no indication that these qualities had anything to do with the matter of form, a point which the author, in his reference to 'Revelation' being in 'free verse' but the collection containing 'many more formal pieces', seems to have chosen to misconstrue. There were many more poems I could have referred to, but didn't, to support such an observation. 'Careful' reading is, then, I would suggest, rather than a skill that I am in need of, one which the author of Reversion might wish to consider availing himself of.

* An ancient Indian injunction against transposing the sounds of Sanskrit into any other script; against, that is, what is widely understood by the term 'transliteration'.

Martin Anderson's original review can be found here, and Niall McGrath's reply here.

Copyright © Martin Anderson, 2005.