Translating Boris Vian's Vercoquin et le plancton: Does it mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing?

This article is the result of research and reflection undertaken in the process of translating Vercoquin et le plancton. Focusing on music-related references in Boris Vian's first published novel, this article will discuss different layers of meaning and a variety of techniques that can be discerned in Vian's punning and wordplay. The complexity and compactness of his writing make for an exceptional case study. Whilst much of the wordplay may justifiably be classed as ‘juvenile’, its many facets also reflect life in Occupied France, document the Zazou movement, voice a manifesto for jazz, and stage playfulness that can be viewed as ranging from the very silly to a form of resistance. Such sophistication – largely overlooked, hitherto – justifies re-evaluation of Vian's early work. Analysis of a number of challenges to translation gives rise to discussion of possible solutions, based on different considerations – genre, function and audience – and using different ‘tools’. This article seeks not to justify my own choices in translation. Rather, it should illustrate the point that research is essential, and that interpretation and creativity are necessary if one's strategy in literary translation is to try to provide a new audience with similar opportunities for their own readings as a Francophone audience might have.

Bove dans le labyrinthe: une lecture du Piège

The rediscovery of Emmanuel Bove from the 1980s onwards drew attention above all to his early works, notably Mes amis. However, the novels published after the war, far from the subjects dear to the author, remain less famous. The reading of The Trap is used to show that, without abandoning his style and his way of looking at the world and describing it, Bove succeeds in immersing us into the dark universe of the Occupation. We thus witness the failure of the Bove anti-hero who for once is acting yet setting himself too ambitious a goal, and while trying to defeat the occupying monster he perishes in the occupied France labyrinth. Moreover, the labyrinth as a formal structure becomes a recurring element in the novel. La redécouverte d’Emmanuel Bove à partir des années 80 a surtout attiré l’attention sur ses premières œuvres, notamment Mes amis. Toutefois les romans publiés après la guerre, éloignés des sujets chers à l’auteur, restent moins connus. La lecture du Piège sert à montrer que, sans abandonner son style et sa manière de voir le monde et le décrire, Bove réussit á nous plonger dans l’univers gris de l’Occupation, On assiste donc à l’échec de l’anti-héros bovien qui pour une fois agit mais se fixe un objectif trop ambitieux car tentant de vaincre le monstre occupant périt dans le labyrinthe de la France occupée. De plus, le labyrinthe en tant que structure formelle devient un élément récurrent du roman.

Workers’ resilience in occupied France: workers in Le Havre, 1941–1942

Workers in Le Havre developed resilience through trade union activism, political commitment and community engagement in the pre-war period. This resilience allowed them to display their anger at new hardships that appeared at the start of the German occupation. In particular, workers rioted at a major building site and demanded and achieved wage rises; and, as the RAF bombed their town day and night, they continuously made demands for danger money. Indeed, they did not change their behaviour because the circumstances in which they now lived had changed; they continued to use the skills they had learnt during pre-war industrial battles to make demands that would improve the material situation of themselves and their fellow trade unionists. This analysis differs from most of the major historiography on workers during the Occupation which claims workers during the first two years of the Occupation were broadly passive and cite the miners’ strike in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais as the exception which proves the rule.

Un village français: Imagining lives in occupied France

In cooperation with Jean-Pierre Azéma, Frédéric Krivine conceived of the television series, Un village français, as a way to present the lives of a diversity of individuals in particular historical situations during and immediately following the German Occupation of France. This article examines the motivations and choices of collaborators, resisters and fence-sitters, terms used to make sense of and to judge individuals at the time and by viewers today. In line with the recent work of academic historians, the achievement of the series is to encourage the French public to understand and to interpret these concepts in fruitful new ways by rethinking the personal and the political, and their relationship in the lives of individuals during the Occupation and at Liberation.

The Parisian Police and the Holocaust: Control, Round-ups, Hunt, 1940–4

Slightly more than half of the 74,150 Jews deported from France between 1942 and 1944 were arrested in Paris and its close suburbs. For the large majority of these 38,500 men, women, and children, their arrest was carried out by ordinary policemen belonging to the Paris Police Prefecture. The objective of this article is to propose a complete and synthetic analysis of the role of this institution and its agents in the Holocaust. In Paris, unlike anywhere else in Europe, the implementation of the ‘final solution’ was entrusted to the traditional administration. These police officers were competent and knew perfectly the environment of the persecution. But, generally speaking, they were not anti-Semite activists, they did not like the Germans, and, more importantly, they acted according to their own institutional logic. So, the French's repressive system did not automatically feed the Nazi machine of destruction. It is this complexity of the machine of persecution in occupied France which explains, in many respects, the toll of the Holocaust in France, and, more specifically, in the Paris region.

International Cooperation, Transnational Circulation

The rescue of downed Anglo-American aircrews in France during the Second World War highlights the transnational nature of this kind of resistance. From their training to their evasion, flight crews themselves experienced the Second World War without traditional national borders. Moreover, their successful rescue in Occupied France depended on the ability of civilian helpers to think transnationally and to operate with little regard for the nation-state. This article focuses on evasion training, rescue, and postwar attempts to honor civilians for their assistance to highlight these themes of transnational resistance.