On 2010-10-29 12:20, Bill Palmer wrote:
The Hanussen book was one of the strangest I have ever translated. When I translate, I don't just plug words into sentences. Instead, I try to get inside the mind of the author and capture his style. Previously, most of the magic books I had translated had been written by people I knew, so I had an idea of how they spoke and how they wrote. The Hanussen book was different, because the author had been dead for decades. So I needed to find parallel examples in English.

This was further complicated by other problems. One is that Hanussen was not a formally educated man, and was largely self-taught when it came to grammar, writing, etc. Some of his "education" in this field was gained by reading psychology texts that had been written in the 19th century, when ponderous sentences made of intertwined dependent clauses, many of which were almost impossible to extricate from one another without losing track of the thoughts contained therein, were not only in vogue, but were the sign of great intellectual capacity. The previous sentence will give you an idea of what I was up against.

Some of his education as a writer was gained by reading and writing scandal sheets.

He was Viennese, which meant that he had a particular range of localized slang. He was a carney, which means that he had another vocabulary to work with, and he was Jewish, so the occasional Yiddish expression and/or reference slipped in, as well.

Mindreading and Telepathy was actually the second attempt Hanussen made to explain how his art worked. The first was a smaller booklet that contained much of the same material. However, when he reached the peak of his popularity, he found himself in a dilemma. He was the unofficial psychic/fortune-teller of the nazis. He had placed his allegiance squarely behind Hitler. He had converted to Catholicism, become a member of the Sturmabteilung, and had written numerous articles supporting their cause. He was basically an opportunist of the first rank.

If Hitler or his minions had found a copy of this book, it would have been curtains for Hanussen. It explained exactly how to do his act. So, Hanussen bought back and destroyed as many of the copies of the book that he could find. Only a handful remained.

In January of 1933, Hanussen predicted that the Reichstag, the German equivalent of the Houses of Congress, would be destroyed by fire. On February 3, that's exactly what happened. There is little doubt why Hanussen was able to give such an accurate prediction. The result was that Hitler took over the government of Germany, declaring martial law.

As a token of his appreciation, Hitler had Hanussen thrown in jail, and a week later, had him taken to the woods outside of Berlin, where he was executed.

In my introduction to the book, I mention that Hanussen's first brush with fame was at the age of nine, when he set fire to an apartment building as a prank, and inadvertently caused the capture of the leader of a group of thieves. His last brush with fame was the prediction of the Reichstag fire. He started in a blaze of glory and went out the same way.

It was kind of fitting, I think.

=========================================================================

Re: the Milo and Roger book.

This is great reading. However, if you really want to understand Milo and Roger, you MUST purchase the additional material Dustin Stinnett has put together about this unlikely pair of entertainers.

Posted: Oct 29, 2010 8:11pm
Here is a little more about the translating procedure for Mindreading and Telepathy. Usually, when I translate a book, I try to get inside the author's head.

I could do that with Punx, Borodin and Ted Lesley. However, when I got inside Hanussen's head, it wasn't a pretty sight. It was really creepy in there.

On 2010-10-31 14:41, Bill Palmer wrote:
He was a very disturbed man. He had a deep-seated inferiority complex, and he thought nobody understood him. Unfortunately, he was partially right.

In order to learn how to do his muscle-reading act, he posed as a reporter and conned Joe Labero into teaching him how to do it. He said he would never reveal how it worked or use it in public. Then he went on stage and made a small fortune or two. He was a con man right down to the soles of his feet.

I think he had a glimpse into the immediate future of what was going to happen with Europe. In a letter to Juhn (which he wrote from the prison right before he was executed), who was one of his booking agents that he had a big falling out with, he said that he realized that "this madman" (Hitler) meant all of the crazy things he had said in Mein Kampf, and that he (Juhn) needed to get out of Europe as fast as he could.