Arielle Burgdorf’s novel Prétend is inventive and immersive, a book as much about language as identity.
Jen Calleja wrote of the book:
“[Burgdorf] has written a clever, sexy, moving & playful novel about literary translation, control, language, & selfhood.”
In their own words, here is Arielle Burgdorf’s Book Notes music playlist for their novel Prétend:
Prétend is a novel about a translator trying to leave her abusive marriage. On another level, though, the book is about moving beyond binary thinking (faithful vs. unfaithful, spirit vs. letter, foreignizing vs. domesticating, etc.) within translation theory. The protagonist—known at different times in the story as Jean, Jeanne, and John—navigates different countries, languages, and cultural expectations, reinventing herself again and again. Throughout this, she remains haunted by the sense of always being an outsider. The book is filled with moments of the unease and disorientation that come with inhabiting liminal spaces. I tried to create this environment for myself as I was writing by listening to lots of discordant, experimental sounds. Prétend is primarily a novel about languages, so a wide variety are represented in my playlist (Italian, Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Japanese). French was a major influence and I listened to a lot of French synth, electro-pop, and avant-garde music from the 1980s as I wrote. I also gravitated towards songs with an air of mystery in them because every character in the novel is hiding something, in some cases even from themselves. I wanted songs that were a bit withholding, that seemed like the singer was on the verge of whispering a secret into your ear.
La Fille James Dean – Élisa Point
This track is a queer love song that captures something for me about the irresistible sex appeal of a woman in a man’s suit. Point has a beautiful gravelly yet high voice that takes you by surprise. Her interest in playing with gender was evident in her other albums as well, such as one entitled les filles sont des garçons bizarres ! (girls are bizarre boys!), where she graces the cover shaving her face with a men’s razor. Jeanne hints at her own gender fluidity and its possibilities throughout the text in moments of transgression and slippage. She possesses both masculine and feminine qualities, and this song seamlessly combines the two.
Herpes Simplex – Lizzy Mercier Descloux
Descloux was a huge influence on the book as a whole—her music, her poetry collection Desiderata, her androgynous appearance, and her alter ego Rosa Yemen. Her song, Herpes Simplex, is playing in the club where Jeanne dances with Violette. This song balances desperate, unsettled energy with melodic guitar parts that build toward a crescendo. Her words spawn and mutate like the virus in the title, and I am mesmerized by the way meaning breaks down through her careful deconstruction: Méta / Métabolisme!
Gaouta – Transport
Gaouta, a Moroccan, self-described “Arabwave” project from Sofia Fahli, was a more recent discovery but fits the story so well. The pulsing dance beat paired with a mix of Arabic and French captures the undercurrent of motion that drives Prétend. Running away, until you can’t run anymore. The singer just wants a ticket inspector who speaks their language, but this becomes impossible.
Laura Krieg – Fin du travail, vie magique
Most of the book takes place in Montreal, so I was listening to a lot of Montreal-based artists like Laura Krieg, Le Couleur, and La Sécurité. Krieg describes her sound as “brutalist pop,” a juxtaposition I find fascinating. Her songs combine French, English, and Spanish and her influences range from la movida madrileña to coldwave, all with a very dark slant. This song would be as much at home in Montreal as it would on the dance floors of Paris or Berlin, and like Jeanne, it inhabits many spaces at the same time.
Nice (Kleenex cover) – Habibi
A song written in German by a Swiss punk band reinterpreted in Farsi by an American rock band perfectly underscores the importance of translation. The Farsi lyrics meld with the rhythm so well that I could be convinced this version was the original. The song is about anti-conformity, which is something Jeanne struggles with throughout the book. She wants to live a life free from social conventions but has to fight growing pressure from government institutions, the publishing industry, and her husband. As she tries to liberate herself from these rigid structures, this song is an appropriate accompaniment.
I love mixing high and low brow. So in between references to literature and philosophy, I was listening to some dirty French punksploitation by this band whose name translates as strawberry soda. This track is perfect for all the moments where Jeanne acts out. I was also interested in the space between the representation or the parody and the real. Is this a pretend punk song? And if so, what does that even mean?
Группа крови (Gruppa Krovi) – Кино (Kino)
Jeanne and her husband Konstantin don’t agree on much, but one thing they would both definitely appreciate is the Russian band Kino. Frontman Viktor Tsoi’s lyrics are poetic and brooding enough for Konstantin, while Jeanne would appreciate the emphasis on freedom and their heavy metal/punk side.
Prisencolinensinainciusol – Adriano Celentano
In college, I had a really cool Italian professor who wore scarves and drove a white Vespa. He introduced me to this gem, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Prisencolinensinainciusol is the best depiction, in my opinion, of the experience of overhearing a language you do not speak or are learning to speak. The gibberish lyrics do an amazing job of capturing the form of American English in Hollywood films. The song gets a mention in Prétend as a way of talking about how we can expand our understanding of language.
Won’t Wear it for Long – Karen Marks
Australian minimal synth musician Karen Marks gave us a perfect 7” with the 1981 “Cold Café.” The title track is great, but the B side also deserves attention. To me, this song is about someone who (like Jeanne) has been through some real shit, who is straining under their own façade and tired of concealing their true self from the public. But I appreciate that there is also a hopeful tone in the music that suggests they are going to come out the other side.
醒めた火事場 (Sameta Kajiba De) – Aunt Sally
Without giving away too much, Prétend ends with a scene at a carnival. This track by experimental Japanese post-punk legends Aunt Sally instantly conjures the sights and scents of a fairground for me. Everything is whimsical but a little off-kilter, tinged with an eerie sense of melancholy, which is exactly the mood I was trying to evoke with the ending.