The world is English. It's easy to say when you only know it casually, but you have to see it. Yes, the world is English!” So said a world traveler who was not named (i.e. someone who should know) according to Baron Buschmann (one who you don’t have to believe everything of) in Heimito von Doderer’s novel “Die Strudlhofstiege” (one who you just have to read). And now "Die Strudlhofstiege" is ready for this world, freshly translated into English for the Nyrb Classics publishing house by Vincent Kling, an American, an American who says he only learned German in order to read Doderer, and postscripted by none other than Daniel Kehlmann, a German-speaking worldwide success and, as a temporary resident of Vienna, a prominent Doderer understander (2006 Doderer Prize winner).
The title of the novel in English: "The Strudlhof Steps" - so far, so simple. The rest of his work, according to Kling, was a matter of irony and rhythm for nine hundred pages. That's what he said during a conversation with him and Kehlmann, moderated by the Handke, Enzensberger and Benjamin translator Tess Lewis, which the ambitious bookstore Community Bookstore in Brooklyn is now hosting and streaming. An hour of joie de vivre and literature and an hour of fun with a technical device that was specifically pointed out at the beginning of the conversation: the "Live Transcript", an automatic subtitling of what is currently being spoken. The anticipation of the tongue-twisting English pronunciation of "Strudlhofstiege" was already great in advance, but the attempts of this speech recognition algorithm exceededwriting the book title, all expectations: It started with "Solo Steger", and with "Strudel have Steger" and "Students of sugar" for the German title as well as "Strudel half steps", "Studio of steps", "Struggle host steps", "Turtle have steps" or "School of steps" for the English was far from over.
The highlight: "Total of stigma".
But Doderer's novel title "The Merovingians" also caused problems: "Mail Vienna", "the marrow vengeance" and "middle finger" were offered - the latter certainly not with bad intentions.
Doderer himself mutated in the subtitles to "dodo", "door", "dollar", "daughter" and, slightly incomprehensibly, to "builder".
"Don't know", on the other hand, might well have been the most appropriate paraphrase of his name.
But what is that compared to "a little bit wiser" for Robert Walser, optionally "muzzle", "mozilla", "muscle" "most year", "Moodle" or "Lucille" for Musil and "Tanja" for Daniel (Kehlmann )?
Let's feel sorry for the word processor given Lewis' vaunted "DNS language" (Viennese language) that this don't know wrote.