#ithrowmyviolets

@ithrowmyviolets said: Yes can concurr very good book

i'm combining these two prompts bc i got the first and was like....jimmy fitz...so the second was clearly fate

Of Power and Time: I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame.

***

"I tell you, one glance from him I have to remind myself I'm not a fraud." As soon as the words leave his mouth, he feels a kick to his gut. A taunting voice in his head, not dissimilar to his father's, or how he imagines his father must sound, says well, aren't you? What does Crozier see that's incorrect? This voice in his head has been his companion since he first understood his inadequacy. Its tone is cold and gruff, void of affection but entirely English.

He wanted someone to see him, didn't he? Isn't that his dream? To not have to pretend in front of another person? To have someone see him for who he is and not the splendid fiction he’s made himself out to be. But he didn’t want it like this, the way Crozier’s eyes cut him down in an instant as if to say you thought you could fool me? Everything I’ve been killing myself to achieve you’ve had handed to you and you don’t even have the decency to be humble.

(Consider James, aged 5, talking to a nanny in the Conninghams’ house. Even then he knew that this family was not his own. The first fiction he learned to swallow was an easy one—you belong here. That isn’t to say that he grew up with an absence of love, for it was quite the opposite. Rather, from as early as he could conceptualize his illegitimacy, he was aware that love was conditional.)

***

Sometimes he wonders if he even counts as a person, if he can call this life his, or if it’s naught but a collection of stories. One day he’ll run out of those, and what will he have then? A couple of tatters of a history that would bring him scorn and an insatiable need to be liked. What a legacy to be had.

(Consider James, aged 12, a green midshipman on the HMS Pyramus. The Conninghams had no naval connections, and no reputable captain would take a sailor of illegitimate birth. Reputable, being the keyword. A good name can open any number of doors, even if it isn't his own.)

***

James Fitzjames, the man who survived the same wound that was Nelson’s undoing, who kept a pet cheetah and performed in fantastical plays, is an excellent man to know and a good friend to count upon. He is not, however, a worthy hiding place. James Fitzjames should have died when he got shot at Zhenjiang. He should have died walking a thousand miles through the desert to deliver mail, because wouldn’t that be an excellent title ‘best walker in the service’. He should have died twice of malaria; he should have been the one to get taken by the Creature. Not Graham, least of all Sir John, not any of the good, honest men on this expedition whose lives ended with fire, claws, or fear. It should have been him. He doesn’t know how he’s survived this long, what he’s living for. He’d like to imagine the universe has some grand purpose for him; that all his recklessness will come in handy someday. But now, it feels like a taunt.

What kind of life has he been living when he’s harboured himself away behind acts of valour—acts of valour that were wonderful stories for dinner parties and admiralty galas, but mean very little. What does the cup he got for saving a drowning man matter to him when he can't do anything to keep his men alive now?

(Consider James, aged 28, finding George Barrow at a house of especially ill-repute and getting them both out with nothing but his charisma and an enormous sum. He got a promotion and Barrow had nothing but shame to wear over his shoulders and James wonders if he would have done the same, were their positions reversed. It could have happened to either of them, but he would have had so much more to lose.)

***

It's not quite love, the thing he needs. He’s lived without it for long enough, he can go a little longer. Admiration, yes, passion, yes. But not love. What nearly kills him for want of it, is for someone to look at him and see him all the way down. He’ll do amazing things to be seen, but it’s never in the way he needs. Just once, he wants someone to look beyond the bravado and the posturing, and to ask him about something that matters. When he speaks, he wants people to hang onto his every word, not because he can spin a compelling yarn, but because they actually care for him.

Did you confuse attention and affection, my dear boy? The voice poses, and James wishes the ringing in his ears were strong enough to drown it out. I know it must be so easy to mix up those two.

What the fuck did his father know about affection?

But maybe that’s too much to ask for. When he’s spent his years crafting a life that’s better on paper than in practice, it’s a lot to ask for someone to see a truth that’s drowning in falsehood.

(Consider James, aged 32, signing up for this Expedition because he thinks it’ll finally be a chance to prove his mettle as more than a charmer with a knack for tall tales. It's an excuse for him to leave England. Maybe, if he goes far enough, he’ll find a man worth knowing lurking below his skin.)

***

I don’t want to pretend anymore, he thinks, feeling the rot inside of him bubbing up to the surface, I don’t want to die not having told the only story that matters. If by some goddamn miracle we make it back to England, I do not want to return as I came. I need to stop running.

“I’m a fake, brother.”

From a dozen feet ahead, Francis stops dead in his tracks.

At first, he wonders if the man heard him at all, and prays he did. If he’s going to admit this, he’ll do it but once and he won’t dare repeat himself. When Francis turns, there’s the awful openness to his face that replaced the flush of alcohol and James wants to tell him every horrible thought that’s kept him awake at night; every moment of uncertainty, the way he half-hoped the bullet in his spine would do him in because death was easier than fumbling under the weight of all these half-lives. He wants Francis to know him. He’s going to die here. There's a fraction of a chance that a lucky few of them will make it out of this hell alive, but he will not be one of them. The pain in his torso, the weakness of his muscles tells him otherwise. If he is going to die here, let James Fitzjames the story die too. One person should have the burden of truth, and he can think of no better man.

See me, he thinks, and Francis does.

Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, The Waves

enders game and speaker for the dead (really the whole series but I’ll just leave it at those two)

LORD OF THE RINGSSSS

A separate peace

ALL of Donna Tartt’s books INCLUDING The Little Friend (cmon ppl!!)

The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (trigger warning tho a lot of graphic and triggering content in the book)

Frankenstein

The plague and The Stranger by Camus

The trial and The Castle by Kafka

Sherlock Holmes (56 short stories and the 4 novels)

The Pigman by Paul Zindel

A Tale of Two Cities

Carl Sagan books, mainly Cosmos, The Demon Haunted world, and Contact (which is a novel!)

Jane Eyre

The Brothers Karamazov (been meaning to reread this, I read it so fast last time I’ve forgotten so much about it)

The Catcher in the Rye

Lord of the Flies

The Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop (poetry books count?)

Hmm. Well, I’m not gonna lie, it was a struggle. It still is, but it gets better. Your contacts are a bit pessimistic, but they’re mostly right: if you’re interested in literary translation, having translated books is a must for the big players of the industry—that, and/or knowing the right people, but nepotism sucks, so I’m not going there.

Anyway. Translation agencies usually don’t deal with literary translation (to my knowledge?), and you won’t need extent experience to work for them; it’s usually specialised translation such as marketing, legal, business, etc. You can send your CV through, pass the test, and as long as your rates are low and your skills are good, you should be able to get work from them without too much difficulty. I didn’t try much because I didn’t want to work for agencies, and I still got offers. 

For publishing and literary translation, it’s another story. I personally started with an endless “please-give-me-work” e-mail campaign to publishers, finding their e-mail addresses online or inferring them from Linkedin or straight-up inventing stuff and hoping the message landed somewhere. I went to book and publishing fairs with cards and texts, I left my paper file in publishing houses letterboxes, and I smiled and listened to a lot of elitist bullshit. I had a neat CV, I knew what I was good at, I had a smidge of experience as an editing and translating intern in a few publishing houses, I had compiled a teeny portfolio with my university texts and free creative projects. I reached out to publishing houses big and small, but obviously only the small ones replied. A handful were interested. Only one or two out of those were willing to pay me for my work. I passed their tests, I accepted their crazy deadlines, their outrageously low rates, and I got to work.

I translated for my main customers for almost two years at very, very low rates, but I built up my experience a lot through these, and that was crucial. I needed the practice, I needed the know-how, and I needed a list of books to my name. It wasn’t ideal, but damn, at least they trusted me with my translation choices and gave me space to learn. I went back to the e-mail campaigning regularly, I haunted book fairs again, I put my portfolio online with a lot of excerpts and the list of novels I’d translated, and gave my card (bearing the website address) to publishing professionals. Just… you know? Throwing stuff at silent walls and hoping something sticks.