Michael Rips - Lost in Translation

 

There was a mysterious figure who wandered around downtown Omaha, when I was a kid, by the name of Richard Flamer. If you could find Flamer amongst the broken-up buildings and the bars of downtown Omaha, and if he happened to like you, he would dispense eccentric information. There were two things that I remember from when I was a child that he told me. And I apologize, if you've heard either of these two things, just interrupt me. [audience chuckles] 

 

The first one was that during the late 19th century, there were a group of Nebraskans who believed that when God or the devil entered earth, they did so through people's pubic hair. [audience laughter] The second bit of information, seemingly unrelated to the first, was that of all people on the planet, Nebraskans had the most difficult time learning a second language. [audience laughter] He went on to explain that this was particularly unfortunate given the fact that Willa Cather, the most famous of authors from Nebraska, happened to be much better in the French translation than she was in the English. 

 

Now, Flamer's observation about Nebraskans having problems learning foreign languages seemed to be borne out, when at the beginning of my freshman year in high school, the state of Nebraska announced that in conjunction with the University of Nebraska, there would be a foreign language competition. And the purpose was to encourage foreign languages. The way it worked was you could do an original composition, I don't know, a short story or an essay in a foreign language, or you could do a translation of an American author into French, or Spanish, or whatever. 

 

The payoff was that if you completed the translation, you would get a full course worth of credits at the end of the year. Well, I had forgotten about this competition until the middle of my senior year when my French instructor told me that unless there was a radical improvement in my performance in French class, I was going to fail it. That would be most unfortunate. Because if I failed the class, I would not graduate. And if I would not graduate, I would be unable to go east to the college that had accepted me. I would end up back in Nebraska. 

 

I was fifth generation Nebraskan, and I was desperate to leave. [audience laughter] Here was the real problem. I couldn't improve in French because I knew no French. I had a girlfriend who had gotten me through three years of French, and we had broken up my senior year. [audience laughter] She was not inclined to help me. I needed a plan. It's then that suddenly the foreign language competition, along with Flamer's observation about Cather being better in the French than the English, that came to mind. I knew exactly what I had to do. I put on a suit, a tie, and I went immediately down to the Omaha Public Library. 

 

I introduced myself to the head librarian, an august and obviously intelligent woman. I said to her, “By any chance, do you have an obscure American writer, who also happens to have been translated into French?” She said, “Wait a minute,” and went off into the stacks. When she came back, she had a very thin volume. A play. She said, “This is exactly what you're looking for. Very few Americans know this playwright, and we happen to have a translation.” Perfect. 

 

I thanked her. I took the French translation home, and spent the rest of the evening retyping the French translation onto my typing paper. [audience laughter] The next morning, I crumpled up the typing paper, just a little bit, to make it look as if I'd been working on this translation for months and handed it to my French instructor. That very afternoon, she stopped me in the hallway. Despite what she had thought of my performance in class, I had done a superb translation. I was going to graduate from high school. 

 

That evening, I returned home to find my eldest brother. He was, according to my mother, the brightest, most gracious, most accomplished of all of her sons. [audience laughter] For that reason, my brothers and I referred to him as “The Baby Jesus.” [audience laughter] Well, over dinner, The Baby Jesus was going on about his latest accomplishments. When I don't know what got into me, I felt compelled to announce that actually, I had just finished a rather fine translation [audience laughter] of an obscure American playwright into French. 

 

The Baby Jesus asked me what the name of the playwright might be. Proudly, I exclaimed, “Eugene Ionesco.” [audience laughter] The Baby Jesus had on his face a look that I associated with those late 19th century Nebraskans, who actually saw the devil in their pubic hair. [audience laughter] When he finally composed himself, my brother explained to me that Eugene Ionesco was neither obscure nor American. And in fact, he had written in French. Sweet mother of God. [audience laughter] 

 

I had just handed in a translation of Ionesco back into the original French. [audience laughter] There was no question of graduation. I was going to be expelled. My sweet, private Midwestern parents would be subjected to a very public and painful scandal. But there was nothing I could do. I waited for the principal's letter. And it arrived that very weekend. 

 

I tore it open and it began, “Michael Rips, congratulations. [audience laughter] Your translation of Ionesco into French has been selected.” [audience laughter] This is a tragic story. “Has been selected to represent Central High School at the statewide Competition at the University of Nebraska.” The letter went on to explain that the principal had decided that the presentation of the play at the competition should be done by a group of actors under the guidance of the high school drama coach. 

 

The competition was a month away. During that month, I drank a lot, [audience laughter] I consumed pills that I should not have consumed, and I had thoughts, very bad thoughts. [audience laughter] The day finally arrived. A bus pulled up to my house. In it were the principal, all the French and other foreign language teachers, and a group of amateur thespians. And of course, the high school drama coach. I got on the bus. Halfway to Lincoln, Nebraska, the drama coach, sensing my anxiety but misidentifying its source, sat down next to me. 

 

He was a small man with a pocket square. And he said to me, “Michael, don't worry. Nebraskans will never forget this performance.” [audience laughter] About that, I had no doubt. [audience laughter] As we entered the room where we were to put on our performance, I realized that it was all over. There sat three judges, each of whom was a professor at the University of Nebraska. Each of whom, with notepads and pencils, was obviously taking their job as judge quite seriously. 

 

But as we started the performance with the local thespians yelling out, “Rhinoceros, rhinoceros” in French accents, [audience laughter] not one of the judges stood to stop us. Not one of those judges stood to declare that I was a literary charlatan. I sought an explanation in their faces. Clearly, the judges on the two ends had no idea who Ionesco was. But that judge in the middle, he knew. He knew who Ionesco was, he knew that Ionesco wrote in French. What he didn't know was why we were pretending that this was a translation. [audience laughter] 

 

Then I saw it. I saw on his face, the momentary contemplation of the possibility, however remote, that he was watching something brilliant. [audience laughter] A lampooning of the earnest efforts of American educators to teach middle Americans a foreign language. And at the same time, my God, a send up of the whole tradition of absurdist theater [audience laughter] by a parody of its greatest work, the Rhinoceros. [audience laughter] In his mind, for just a moment, we were geniuses. 

 

Three hours later, we sat in an auditorium much bigger than this one. Thousands of students, teachers, administrators, and parents waiting for the announcement of the winner of the competition, the statewide foreign language competition. Standing before us was none other than the president of the University of Nebraska. He began his remarks by saying that the foreign language competition had been a tremendous, tremendous success. [audience laughter] He then said, that though the original compositions which had also been read or performed that day, were extremely sophisticated, it was really the translations that were the great surprise of the competition. 

 

My body began to freeze up. He went on to say that, in fact, it was a translation that had won the competition. I was now fully paralyzed. And he had one more surprise for us. He announced that the University of Nebraska Press had agreed to publish [audience laughter] the winning translation. There was no more thought about graduating from high school, no thought about the embarrassment to my family. This was a felony. [audience laughter] Being 18, I would most certainly have gone to prison. I needed to flee. [audience laughter] I whispered to the old woman who was sitting next to me, I whispered, “I'm paralyzed. [audience laughter] Pull me up.” [audience laughter] 

 

Dutifully, she stood and started yanking on my arm. As she did so, I formulated my plan. If she could just get me into the parking lot, I would steal the school bus and drive, [audience laughter] and drive to South Dakota. There, I would hide out, perhaps with the assistance of the old woman [audience laughter] for two or three weeks, and then I would escape the country. As I made my way out of the auditorium, straddling the top of the incredibly mobile old woman, [audience laughter] ahead in the crowd turned toward me. It was the third judge, that middle judge. He winked. And then, I knew it. I knew from the bottomless mercy of this man's soul, he had done everything he needed to do to make sure I did not win the competition. 

 

As a result of that man, I was able to leave Nebraska, and stand here in this library tonight. Actually, as I say library, I think to myself that-- I've never told this story and that I perhaps should be embarrassed about the fraud that I committed many years ago at another library, the Omaha Public Library, and I think that I actually, seriously should have some regrets about that. 

 

You know what? I don't have any regrets. [audience laughter] Well, you know what? That's not actually true either. I have one regret, and it's this. That Eugene Ionesco, a man who said, and I quote, and this is a translation, “Life is abnormal, never had the chance to hear this story. He, above all of us, would have enjoyed it.” Thank you very much.