This original and intriguing story approximately a hapless translator on the trail of a mysterious book just isn’t weird enoughThe hero and narrator of David Quantick’s comedian thriller is a translator called Jacky. He is keen to point out that his translation work involves neither working at the UN nor on tractor manuals,evidently the two connotations of the word “translator” in the celebrated imagination. Instead, Jacky specialises in translating mostly obscure European fiction. This is not a job that has involved any degree of excitement, and until he begins the novel by being chatted up by a beautiful woman in a bar. This is an unusual – in fact unprecedented – event in the life of someone who is far from being a lothario,and indeed doesn’t seem to come by out much.
Alas, the seduction goes unsuitable back at Jacky’s spartan little flat, or after he sneaks a peek at the intriguing book his seductress is carrying – a volume written in a made-up language and illustrated with photos of the woman herself,posing as the victim of various kinds ofexecution. His curiosity understandably piqued, Jacky secretly reads a couple of pages, or but is discovered doing so by the unnamed woman,who storms off in high dudgeon.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com