Dalkey Archive, December 2011
First published in Slovenia in the late seventies, The Galley Slave is part of an exciting new series of literature in translation published by Dalkey Archive in conjunction with the Slovenian Book Agency. While the Slovenian Literature Series intends to publish both classics and contemporary works, Drago Jancar's excellent The Galley Slave blurs the lines between those two camps. The Galley Slave feels both distant and familiar, and is wonderfully difficult to properly situate into a literary chronology. Traces of Cervantes and Kafka shine through, but just as readers find a relatable literary footing, more disparate styles emerge.
The novel tracks Johannes Ot's travels through late-medieval Europe as he flees from the plague and the paranoid pious of the Inquisition. Superstition and blind certainty rule in The Galley Slave; townsfolk recall moments like "the night when they saw a blood-red moon gripping a fiery sword and a whip in its mouth":
"That night a woman had given birth to twins-one child black, the other white. And there were blood-red rainbows, and black dogs, and flaming church towers, and all the other signs and visions that passed through the land by word of mouth."
First published in Slovenia in the late seventies, The Galley Slave is part of an exciting new series of literature in translation published by Dalkey Archive in conjunction with the Slovenian Book Agency. While the Slovenian Literature Series intends to publish both classics and contemporary works, Drago Jancar's excellent The Galley Slave blurs the lines between those two camps. The Galley Slave feels both distant and familiar, and is wonderfully difficult to properly situate into a literary chronology. Traces of Cervantes and Kafka shine through, but just as readers find a relatable literary footing, more disparate styles emerge.
The novel tracks Johannes Ot's travels through late-medieval Europe as he flees from the plague and the paranoid pious of the Inquisition. Superstition and blind certainty rule in The Galley Slave; townsfolk recall moments like "the night when they saw a blood-red moon gripping a fiery sword and a whip in its mouth":
"That night a woman had given birth to twins-one child black, the other white. And there were blood-red rainbows, and black dogs, and flaming church towers, and all the other signs and visions that passed through the land by word of mouth."
Ot's journey almost reads like a tale of the American West, of a time when frontier politics held a short-reaching reign over local populations. Jancar's mix of quixotic adventure and gloomy Kafkaesque existentialism creates a compelling read, but by situating these themes into the equally fearful setting of plague-addled Europe, Jancar elevates his novel, tier upon tier, into something gloriously timeless.
The novel blisters and crackles at a feverish pace, episodically delivering exploit after exploit with a relentlessness akin to a 19th century adventure novel. But The Galley Slave functions on a much more ferocious and sinister level than the yarns echoed by the novel; this tale is devoid of morals and slight on triumphs, and vividly, brutally renders the hysterical landscape of late-medieval Europe. Ot is always running, and rightfully so, but Jancar shows his readers that there's more than just illness or suspicion worth fleeing from. Ot struggles to reconcile his past actions with the current contagious climate, and desperately looks for a way to situate his own identity into this newly broken world.
As the Inquisition reaches Ot, his sense of self is blurred with their fearful accusations: perhaps he is patient zero, one inherently capable of powerful witchery and the cruelest of hexes: "Had he listened to the language of the darkness and the Earth? Had he leapt through a fire? ...Had he heard the swarming of a brood of flies buzzing beneath his skin?" Ot's existential weakness barrels The Galley Slave forward as he works towards self-discovery among traveling bands of scamps and scoundrels. But, these efforts are in vain; only when Ot is captured and forced to row in the galley of a ship does he begin to feel some semblance of an identity or a heart.
The novel blisters and crackles at a feverish pace, episodically delivering exploit after exploit with a relentlessness akin to a 19th century adventure novel. But The Galley Slave functions on a much more ferocious and sinister level than the yarns echoed by the novel; this tale is devoid of morals and slight on triumphs, and vividly, brutally renders the hysterical landscape of late-medieval Europe. Ot is always running, and rightfully so, but Jancar shows his readers that there's more than just illness or suspicion worth fleeing from. Ot struggles to reconcile his past actions with the current contagious climate, and desperately looks for a way to situate his own identity into this newly broken world.
As the Inquisition reaches Ot, his sense of self is blurred with their fearful accusations: perhaps he is patient zero, one inherently capable of powerful witchery and the cruelest of hexes: "Had he listened to the language of the darkness and the Earth? Had he leapt through a fire? ...Had he heard the swarming of a brood of flies buzzing beneath his skin?" Ot's existential weakness barrels The Galley Slave forward as he works towards self-discovery among traveling bands of scamps and scoundrels. But, these efforts are in vain; only when Ot is captured and forced to row in the galley of a ship does he begin to feel some semblance of an identity or a heart.
It's always difficult to assess the translator's prowess when not familiar with the text in its original language, but Michael Biggins manages to showcase his skills through the dizzying range of his vocabulary. He regales the story of The Galley Slave like the finest orator at the toughest of taverns, and proves to have an arsenal of medieval knowledge at his disposal, from garroting to gibbets. I'm certain Biggins has done impressive work with the original Slovene, but I'm in awe of what he's done with the King's English: his sentences are powerful, versatile, and steadily fresh.
Biggins's precision is especially important, as the pace of The Galley Slave is rooted in Jancar's careful sentence structure and execution. Rapid chains of short sentences call for a fevered, quick read, but just as readers fall into step with his rhythm, Jancar unleashes a delirious expulsion of wildly punctuated run-ons. Here's a scene where Ot is running from a character named Krobath:
"He felt warm blood. Trickling. He could feel it in the corner of his mouth. Blood. Run. He raced downhill. Through gardens. Toward a gap in the wall. A gate. ...Bluish moonlight settled on Ot's eyelids, mixing images, voices, and words. It burrowed in past his eyes. Here was Krobath in front of him. Suddenly here was his face in front of him, big, reasonable, pure, stretching from horizon to horizon, from those mountains awash in this bluish light all the way here to his eyes-"
Occasionally, this overflow doesn't always come, and Jancar stumbles over his own gait. But at its best, this precarious balance of sentence precision and formless flow creates an impressive effect of literary vertigo.
"Mental illness is being molded into human substance," Ot explains in an attempt to reconcile the paranoia and instability around him. And it seems The Galley Slave follows a similar movement in its construction: Ot's frenzied adventure does grow into something human and empathetic by the end of the novel. But that's not to say any "healing" takes place - the underlying madness of The Galley Slave is left to lurk beneath even the smallest turn of optimism.
Biggins's precision is especially important, as the pace of The Galley Slave is rooted in Jancar's careful sentence structure and execution. Rapid chains of short sentences call for a fevered, quick read, but just as readers fall into step with his rhythm, Jancar unleashes a delirious expulsion of wildly punctuated run-ons. Here's a scene where Ot is running from a character named Krobath:
"He felt warm blood. Trickling. He could feel it in the corner of his mouth. Blood. Run. He raced downhill. Through gardens. Toward a gap in the wall. A gate. ...Bluish moonlight settled on Ot's eyelids, mixing images, voices, and words. It burrowed in past his eyes. Here was Krobath in front of him. Suddenly here was his face in front of him, big, reasonable, pure, stretching from horizon to horizon, from those mountains awash in this bluish light all the way here to his eyes-"
Occasionally, this overflow doesn't always come, and Jancar stumbles over his own gait. But at its best, this precarious balance of sentence precision and formless flow creates an impressive effect of literary vertigo.
"Mental illness is being molded into human substance," Ot explains in an attempt to reconcile the paranoia and instability around him. And it seems The Galley Slave follows a similar movement in its construction: Ot's frenzied adventure does grow into something human and empathetic by the end of the novel. But that's not to say any "healing" takes place - the underlying madness of The Galley Slave is left to lurk beneath even the smallest turn of optimism.
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.
