KARAN JLCAWKZCA- Twice in a House on Fire

A foggy Sunday morning on the Strand, two years or more ago. I had found myself there, so to speak; caught myself unawares, after a night of what could only be called revelry. I lie: it could also be called carousing, or maybe even wilful wassailing, but for better or worse, revelry will suit me fine. I was a little worse for wear, needless to say, and more than a little worried over things that might or might not have occurred the preceding evening. Had I really kissed that young Spanish poet? Worse still, could I really have praised his poetry? I sincerely hoped not. Inebriate critics can be so horribly forgiving, so painfully sycophantic, so very awfully nice. But what could I do? I had been making a fool of myself for some weeks now: it had become a habit. I had forgotten what ‘sensible’ was. I saw other people doing it, but I couldn’t cotton on. The festival of Saturn was on – and I had a backstage pass. After all, I was determined to show my (or even the) public that I was at least half as depressed as my ex-husband, Mr Edmund Ek, even if the public weren’t watching (and they weren’t of course). On top of this (and well, no, let’s leave that aside shall we?) I was single again. That meant something – or I thought it meant something. Maybe it meant nothing. Who knows?

    So there I was on the Strand, stooping like a tramp in the thick London fog (a rare commodity these days, but hear me when I say that I’m not putting it in for effect) when who should I bump into but the Czech novelist Karan Jlcawkzca? Now I think of it, I rather suspect that she bumped into me, but what matter? In any case there was small collision, followed by a large greeting. ‘Jlcawkzca!’ I shrieked, throatily. She seemed perplexed. Was it because she didn’t recognise me or because I was wearing a chrome yellow bowler hat? It was the hat, of course. Indeed, this perplexed me also – where had it come from? Still, that is hardly something to go into here.

    ‘Heidi!’ replied the diminutive Czech, in a tone that is hardly worthy of an exclamation mark, but then we women like to be unnecessarily emotional (cliché courtesy of Edmund Ek). ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. I explained, as far as I could. Jlcawkzca seemed vaguely impressed. Immoral support and all that.

    ‘More to the point,’ said I – ‘What are you doing here?’ A silly question, perhaps, for I should have guessed. We were, after all, standing at the foot of Solomon Street; home of the only publishing house in the district that works on a Sunday (long story). And I was (or had been) dimly aware that this very establishment was about to release the English translation of Jlcawkzca’s new novel. Indeed, I think I had been talking about it the day before, shortly before the incident with Signor Pablo. Now I remembered!

    ‘Bit of stink, is there not?’ I said, regarding her situation vis-à-vis the Solomon Street publishers (who go by the grand name, in case you wondered, of 'The Solomon Street Publishing House'). ‘Not half’ she might have replied – but didn’t, as she is Czech. Nevertheless, her reply was certainly in that vein (I think it might have been ‘yes’).

    To cut things short, the bit-of-the-stink went something like this. Someone (mentioning no names, at least not in this paragraph) had decided not only to mis-translate the title of her new novel, but to give it a title worrying similar to that of another novel, on the inconceivably foolish basis that it would ‘sell a little better’. Thus the novel that should have been called something like, say, On Fire, Indoors (my effort that) was instead called Twice in a House on Fire. This gave it the appearance of being either a sequel or cheap parody of a book called Once in a House on Fire, a memoir which I admit I have not read, but which I am told (on good authority) is a rip-roaring tale of domestic violence, self-abuse and the redeeming power of literature. Jlcawkzca’s story, needless to say, is not this. Rather, it’s a light-hearted, unashamedly sexy romp, packed to the rafters with witty dialogue and stuffed to the seams with frighteningly well described acts of copulation. Good fun, basically – seriously good fun, which goes to explain why the decision to risk it being mentally linked with this other book was, in short, a CRASS one (that’s CRASS, in case you missed it). What in the world could have provoked such an asinine error?

    As if so often the case, at the heart of this matter lies a weak man. May I introduce to you Mr Alfred Kirchner, a pale, profusely be-freckled middle-aged fellow, on whom I am not particularly proud to say that I had had a crush (lasting approximately five days) only months (or was it weeks?) before my meeting on the Strand. I am perhaps being unfair on poor Alf. In the right light (preferably a dusky evening light) he can be rather fetching: a classical statue, only slightly ravaged by time and vandals. And he has other qualities too. He was and is capable of great cheekiness in prose. He can spin a sentence to kick-start any woman’s heart. Anything is possible for him – in prose. But in life? Oh dear me. A veritable lettuce, I’m afraid. An over-watered vegetable, make no mistake about it. He can not find his way beyond words; he is eternally lost behind the shrubbery of art, never to frolic in the fountain of real life. Hear me when I say: he is the type of man who responds to a woman saying that she feels ‘horny’ not by ripping off her clothes, but by pausing to explore the etymology of the phrase. Has it anything to do with the cuckolds horns, he wonders?

    Incidentally, did I mention that he was married? No? I’ve never knowingly met her, so I’ll say that she is ‘dowdy’ (to lessen the guilt, don’t you know). A sign of bravery, you might say, that he was willing (and he was willing, in that wishy-washy way of his) to embark on an affair with yours truly? Alas no. It is not brave for a weak-willed literary-minded middle-aged man to have an affair. How many books, after all, deal with this turgid subject? No, the whole thing is crushingly inevitable. There’s no bravery in suffering of any kind, when suffering is seen as no more than experience.

    I ought to note at this point that Kirchner was the joint founder of the Solomon Street Publishing House. Yes indeed. Single founder at first. It was his baby to begin with: his thing. He was the man in charge. Top dog, big cheese, etc. Indeed, he is still is, in theory. But that doesn’t account for his second-in-command, Mr Thomas Steed, businessman extraordinaire: a bald-headed cultural dimwit with an eye for making money, and little else besides. A quote plastered to his door reads as follows: ‘Beauty is truth what sells’. You may remember him from the Brown Box Gallery controversy of 1996: he was on the board of directors at the time, and supplied the press with enough tripe to last a year or two. I can see recall Ron Wild’s caricatures of him in Groping For Allusions. Oh how we giggled and tittered. He's bald and he doesn't know the meaning of the word  'quattrocentro'!  And he's rich, so fair game no?

    I’m being mean; guilty of a little over-egging. Juxtapose, juxtapose - see how I juxtapose! Whereas, in honesty, Steed could be worse. I’m sure he will be worse, given a little time, but for now, well, he’s curbing his idiocy well enough. At least he hasn’t completely destroyed the Solomon Street aesthetic. They still publish translations of obscure European fiction and even the odd quasi-political pamphlet, I’ll give him that. He hasn’t let go of the basics, no. But boy oh boy, has he ever gone about his business in a strange way. And you can trust my opinion on this. After all, my five-day crush on Kirchner gave me the perfect opportunity to see how this publishing house operated; to witness first-hand just how much of a lettuce my dear Alfred was – and to examine the many types of peculiar tactics Steed was inclined to employ.

    As things stand, I fear I cannot reveal all that much. As you may know,  I have had more than a little trouble recently when revealing the dark secrets of London publishing-houses (it so happens that I’ve had quite a lot of five-day crushes recently) and neither me nor my strangely handsome bank manager are in the mood to take any more risks. Suffice to say that Kirchner has long since given up trying to have any influence over his staff. He still has a certain amount of power when it comes to selecting the writers whom the publishing house represents, but this task was not given to him out of love. Steed simply finds fraternising with the great and good of European fiction a tiresome commission. Granting Kirchner the privilege to handpick his favourite writers, he saves his energy for mistreating them when in the fold; for bastardising their works for a sake of a few extra pennies – a necessary crime, it might be argued, since most publishing houses struggle to get by with that sort of backlist, but please, please, let us not him let him off the hook.

    Steed does not work alone. I should stress this (watch me stress this!). His son, a mop-haired troll-like creature who shot lustful looks in my direction every time I entered the office, is also employed, at a needlessly high salary. Unlike his father, this flatulent being claims to be cultured. He boasts of a talent for foreign languages and has been involved in at least one translation - and yet I have my doubts. In fact, I strongly suspect that he has never been given anything more than a title to translate. But I’ll come back to that. Meanwhile, I must report my fears that Steed is grooming this wretched son of his to become his partner; to oust my poor dear Kirchner out of the business once and for all. No, God no! Do not let it happen! Solomon Street may have been sliding downhill for months now, but we must not let in into the ocean altogether. Ah, but it will happen soon enough. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.  One can only suppose that Kirchner is so unthreatening that Steer has almost forgotten to get rid of him.

    (She wipes a tear or two from her dimpled cheeks)

    What was I saying? Oh yes. Well. On the subject of book titles, need I tell you that I think (nay know) that it was Steed Junior, that oily skunk, who was responsible for the appalling translation of the title of Jlcawkzca’s novel, Twice in a House on Fire? Well, who else could it have been? No one else could have devised such a pitiful joke. The whole sad business has his sweaty fingerprints all over it.

    And sad it is. For as I said somewhere at the beginning of this piece, there was indeed a ‘bit of a stink’ concerning this title; a stink which had nothing to do with the writer herself. No, lowly Jlcawkzca cannot be blamed for the unfortunate state of affairs that was to sweep over her. She barely even understood what was going on. Am I guilty of over-egging again? I think not. Let's be honest with one another: Is there anything sadder than something great being destroyed by something so small, almost so insignificant, as its title? It has happened before, of course, and it will happen again. But it leaves me tearful all the same. You might say that Jlcawkzca sold more books as a result of the mis-titling, but that is quite beside the point, for most of those who bought the book were mightily confused by its complete lack of connection with the other book. What is more, many made vocal their belief that Jlcawkzca was deliberately and callously toying with them. Few people, I believe, actually read the book. And even those who did clung onto their suspicious; reluctant to dispense with their doubts. So why is it called that? they pondered. They didn’t question the translation. People rarely do: a great fault, it is true, but not one that looks like being righted any time soon. Questioning is something for the scholars. Farmyard animals graze on facts.

   
    So, you ask, why not just change the title? Oh dear me, didn’t you hear? Do you recall that sentence from the last sentence in which I suggested that Jlcawkzca sold more books as a result of the CRASS mistake? Yes? Well, there’s your answer. Steed stood strong against the hysterical critical reception. Actually that’s not entirely true. Mostly he was unaware of it. He doesn’t read reviews or anything like that. Steed’s son, meanwhile, got whatever kick he was looking for out of throwing people into confusion. Jlcawkzca, as we have said, was confused. But then you must remember that she is Czech and that, realising that the English literary world was a most peculiar place, she was able to pop back home, and forget all about the English translation. After all, Twice in a House on Fire - as, alas, I must call it, for the sake of this review – has done very well in the Czech Republic, under its original title. And so it should have. For - in case one is inclined to imagine that this review has tended to ignore the book under discussion - I will here repeat that Jlcawkzca’s novel is good: darn good. So good that I can’t be bothered to interpret it any further. It is one of those books left alone by critics. Trust me. Just read it. And remember as you do that it has no connection whatsoever with that similarly titled book which I have not read. That’s NO CONNECTION (in case you missed it the first time).

    As for Alfred Kirchner… My own little Alfred. What a chump. Maybe he will follow in Jlcawkzca’s footsteps one day soon and write a steamy sexy novel of his own. He’s got it in him, after all. That is to say he’s got it in him to express it in words. As for actions… oh, no: that’s asking too much. Better to read and write about it. Yes, yes, yes.
    

    Now, back to the question of the yellow bowler hat....