Greetings again. I've come back from the void that was the summer with some (hopefully) more regular posting.
So the big news in the Japanese literature world, of course, is Haruki Murakami's forthcoming English translation of 1Q84, coming out October 25th. And if you're impatient, there's all sorts of stuff out there to get a little amuse bouche before the 900-page smorgasbord arrives.
A few months ago The Millions had the first paragraph, but that was usurped just a few days ago by Murakami's Facebook page, which now has the entire first chapter for you to read (the only caveat being you have to first "Like" Haruki Murakami's page to gain access). There's also a nice standalone excerpt in the latest New Yorker called "Town of Cats."
If you're interested in reviews, you can see The Literary Saloon's extremely favorable review of the first two books (scroll down), Publisher's Weekly's starred review, The Japan Time's reviews for parts 1 and 2 and then 3, and even fellow bloggers How to Japonese's less than favorable reaction and subsequent review at Neojaponisme and Nihon Distraction's (the lucky sun of a gun who got an advanced review copy) take on book 1.
I haven't actually read any of these, because for some reason I've started feeling very spoiler-averse to the point where I don't really want to know any more about the plot than the little I already do. The only thing I know is pretty much everyone (with the lone, possibly lonely, exception of Daniel from How To Japonese) loves it.
There's also a book trailer, but it's pretty lame.
The English translation has been long-coming. The Germans for example have had a translation out for like a year now, and the French are beating us by a month or so. If you didn't know, the English translation is being done by two people: Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel. Jay Rubin started on books 1 and 2 before it was clear that there was going to be a book 3 coming out, where they hired Gabriel to speed up the process and to facilitate a one gigantic volume release. (I speculated about the implications about this a long time ago at Three Percent. Almost two years ago actually: notice how they initially planned on publishing the translations in two separate volumes).
This is all a relatively long and pointless segue leading to something I found regarding Murakami and his thoughts on his English translations. In「そうだ、村上さんに聞いてみよう」("Hey Yeah, Let's Ask Murakami!"), the collection of Q&As Murakami hosted on his website where you could ask such pressing questions as "Do you like Nicolas Cage?", one reader asks about Murakami's feelings towards his English translations. Keep in mind that this is from 1997. Translation follows:
---
Pressing Question #46
Thoughts on Your English Translated Works?
At 12:46 AM 1997.08.09
I live in New York. Since I've been in Japan I've read almost all of your works. After I came here I tried reading them in English. Have you ever read your novels in English translation and thought anything like, "Hmm, that's not quite right"? There's a lot of problems with my English comprehension skills, so I feel pretty lucky I can read your novels in Japanese. (TV Director, 33 years old).
Hello. For me, translation is all-around approximation. And filling that ditch of approximation is a matter of love of devotion. If you have love and devotion, you can overcome just about everything. What I mean by this is that I trust my translators, and I think that's the most important thing. At least to a certain degree, of course.
As a rule, I don't reread what I've written, so even when I flip through the pages of the English translation, I completely forget what even the original was, so I skim through it going, "Hahaha, isn't that interesting?" I think that's better for my health.
From 「そうだ、村上さんに聞いてみよう」と世間の人々が村上春樹にとりあえずぶっつける282の大疑問に果たして村上さんはちゃんと答えられるのか?, Asahi, 2000, p. 43.
Showing posts with label translation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label translation. Show all posts
Friday, September 9, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Yoshio Toyoshima's "The Great Moon's Song" Part 4
[The final installment of a Japanese children's story from 1919 by noted translator/not-noted novelist Yoshio Toyoshima. Intro and Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.]
The remains of the tree-less forest were like a graveyard. The stumps looked like gravestones and pagodas. The prince ran to the forest's center. He went to the clearing that still had a few trees left and stood there, relieved. He saw that there was no one there. "Princess Chigusa!" the prince called. There was no reply.
After a while, he heard a gentle voice near him.
"Prince!"
The prince was surprised, and when he lifted his head that until now had been hanging down, he saw Princess Chigusa standing there. The prince ran to hug her.
"You came here often for me. But now is the time to say our farewells," the princess said.
The prince, neither happy or sad, could not even move his mouth, but after a time, he had many things to say to her.
"Why must we say goodbye? Why didn't you come to get me? Why didn't you meet me, even when I came here on a night when the moon was out? Aren't you my mother? Tell me. Let me hear it. I won't leave your side. I won't go back to the castle!"
Princess Chigusa didn't say anything in response. Then she took the prince's hand, and sat him down on the lawn. "I am not your mother. But it's not a bad thing for me to seem like a mother either. For we are the elves of the earth who give birth to all. The only sad thing is that someday the land we call our home will someday disappear. We are not particularly bitter about this, but the way it's going now, unfortunately, you humans are going to be all alone soon."
Hearing these words, the prince became unbearably sad and lonely. For a long time the two were silent, lost in their unhappy thoughts. The moon was rising, little by little, until it was finally right above them.
At that moment, Princess Chigusa suddenly raised her head and looked at the moon. "The time has come for us to say goodbye. Please take this, to remember me by."
As she said this, Princess Chigusa took off the bracelets on her hands and gave them to the prince.
Just then, out of nowhere, a many colored bird came and flew around Princess Chigusa. The prince gazed surprisedly at this little bird.
"With this, we say farewell."
When the Prince heard this, he turned to look at the princess, but he could no longer see her. Instead standing there was a huge, black bird. In its beak were Princess Chigusa's bracelets, and its feathers were shaped like lilly petals.
Though the prince thought that this bird was bowing its head to him, it was already spreading its wings to fly away. The prince, with all his might, grabbed onto its tail, but the tail fell off, and the prince was left with just the tail in his hands. The other little bird stood there chirping sadly, because the wood elves were already becoming birds themselves, but the prince did not understand the meaning of its cries.
The prince stood there in a daze, when the Roger's leaf wearing wood elf suddenly appeared, who lead the Prince, holding the bracelets and the black bird's tail in his hands, back to the castle.
After, when the Bamboo Oak forest was completely cut down and turned to fields, the land around the castle became a fine town. However, for some reason, the moon was always cloudy, every single night. Then, amongst the children of the town came the following song:
In the Great Moon
Lives a Tailless Bird
With Gold Bracelets in its Mouth
Oh, Oh, It's Falling!
Oh, Oh, Look Out!
And because the light of the moon never came out, the crops in the fields of the kingdom would not grow. For dew and moonlight are important for plants to grow tall. The kingdom became poor, and the people were in despair. Because of it, the king grew extremely troubled, and handed his crown over to the prince.
The prince planted trees in the remains of the Bamboo Oak Forest and made a small new forest, and inside it built a shrine, where he enshrined the Princess Chigusa's bracelets and the bird's tail. Then, suddenly, the moon cleared up, the crops ripened, and the people of the kingdom were overjoyed. Then, on nights with a full moon, the castle gates were opened and the townspeople were invited to attend a moon-gazing party.
Even now the shrine and forest remain, and in that forest live many different colored birds. This is a story told by the old woman who sells food for the birds in front of the shrine. When the old woman tells this story, she always finishes by singing, in a quiet voice, "The Great Moon's Song."
The remains of the tree-less forest were like a graveyard. The stumps looked like gravestones and pagodas. The prince ran to the forest's center. He went to the clearing that still had a few trees left and stood there, relieved. He saw that there was no one there. "Princess Chigusa!" the prince called. There was no reply.
After a while, he heard a gentle voice near him.
"Prince!"
The prince was surprised, and when he lifted his head that until now had been hanging down, he saw Princess Chigusa standing there. The prince ran to hug her.
"You came here often for me. But now is the time to say our farewells," the princess said.
The prince, neither happy or sad, could not even move his mouth, but after a time, he had many things to say to her.
"Why must we say goodbye? Why didn't you come to get me? Why didn't you meet me, even when I came here on a night when the moon was out? Aren't you my mother? Tell me. Let me hear it. I won't leave your side. I won't go back to the castle!"
Princess Chigusa didn't say anything in response. Then she took the prince's hand, and sat him down on the lawn. "I am not your mother. But it's not a bad thing for me to seem like a mother either. For we are the elves of the earth who give birth to all. The only sad thing is that someday the land we call our home will someday disappear. We are not particularly bitter about this, but the way it's going now, unfortunately, you humans are going to be all alone soon."
Hearing these words, the prince became unbearably sad and lonely. For a long time the two were silent, lost in their unhappy thoughts. The moon was rising, little by little, until it was finally right above them.
At that moment, Princess Chigusa suddenly raised her head and looked at the moon. "The time has come for us to say goodbye. Please take this, to remember me by."
As she said this, Princess Chigusa took off the bracelets on her hands and gave them to the prince.
Just then, out of nowhere, a many colored bird came and flew around Princess Chigusa. The prince gazed surprisedly at this little bird.
"With this, we say farewell."
When the Prince heard this, he turned to look at the princess, but he could no longer see her. Instead standing there was a huge, black bird. In its beak were Princess Chigusa's bracelets, and its feathers were shaped like lilly petals.
Though the prince thought that this bird was bowing its head to him, it was already spreading its wings to fly away. The prince, with all his might, grabbed onto its tail, but the tail fell off, and the prince was left with just the tail in his hands. The other little bird stood there chirping sadly, because the wood elves were already becoming birds themselves, but the prince did not understand the meaning of its cries.
The prince stood there in a daze, when the Roger's leaf wearing wood elf suddenly appeared, who lead the Prince, holding the bracelets and the black bird's tail in his hands, back to the castle.
After, when the Bamboo Oak forest was completely cut down and turned to fields, the land around the castle became a fine town. However, for some reason, the moon was always cloudy, every single night. Then, amongst the children of the town came the following song:
In the Great Moon
Lives a Tailless Bird
With Gold Bracelets in its Mouth
Oh, Oh, It's Falling!
Oh, Oh, Look Out!
And because the light of the moon never came out, the crops in the fields of the kingdom would not grow. For dew and moonlight are important for plants to grow tall. The kingdom became poor, and the people were in despair. Because of it, the king grew extremely troubled, and handed his crown over to the prince.
The prince planted trees in the remains of the Bamboo Oak Forest and made a small new forest, and inside it built a shrine, where he enshrined the Princess Chigusa's bracelets and the bird's tail. Then, suddenly, the moon cleared up, the crops ripened, and the people of the kingdom were overjoyed. Then, on nights with a full moon, the castle gates were opened and the townspeople were invited to attend a moon-gazing party.
Even now the shrine and forest remain, and in that forest live many different colored birds. This is a story told by the old woman who sells food for the birds in front of the shrine. When the old woman tells this story, she always finishes by singing, in a quiet voice, "The Great Moon's Song."
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Yoshio Toyoshima's "The Great Moon's Song" Part 3
[Part 3 of 4 in an ongoing translation of a Japanese children's story first published in 1919 by Yoshio Toyoshima. You can read an intro and part one here, and part two here.]
So the prince continued to go to the garden on moon-lit nights to wait for the wood elf. But the wood elf never came for him. The prince gazed sadly at the castle back gates. Those iron gates were shut so tight, there was no way the prince could open them in the evenings.
After turning it over in his mind many times, the prince discussed with his nanny, an old woman, on how she could help him go to the Bamboo Oak forest. The old woman pitied the prince, and then they came up with a good idea.
One day, while the king was strolling in the gardens, the prince and the old woman went out to meet him, and the old woman said to the king:
"This garden is beautiful on moonlit nights, but it is much too lonesome by oneself. Just once we should open the castle gates and let the townspeople come in, to dance and have fun while we do some moon gazing."
And the prince piped in and added:
"That would be so much fun. Father, can't we do it please?"
And because the two encouraged it so much, the king finally acquiesced. Immediately, he told his retainers to begin the preparations.
It was a big commotion that night. The king took to his stage, and held a banquet with a huge number of his servants. From front to back the castle gates were opened, and almost all the townspeople came. Everyone dressed up, and danced in the castle gardens, and played many songs. The moon shone in the clear night sky. Not even torches were allowed to to be lit. It was like the people of the castle surged with moonlight and music and dance and delicious smells.
The prince, with his nanny, quietly escaped from the back gates. Then, the old woman waited at the entrance to the Bamboo Oak forest, and the prince entered the forest alone.
However, when he reached the same clearing as always, there was no one there.
Along the sides of the clearing, moonlight silently trickled through the top of the tall trees. The bustling commotion from the castle resounded weakly from far away.
The prince waited a long time. Tears accumulating in his eyes, he called out "Princess Chigusa, it's me!" But he did not catch a glimpse of either the princess or the wood elves.
Finally, wiping away his tears, the prince gave up and returned to the castle. Even though the old woman who waited for him at the entrance asked him many questions, the prince, looking sad, completely ignored her.
The prince thought to himself: Why didn't Princess Chigusa come out for him? What did she mean when she said that something sad was going to happen? He felt like the princess was his dead mother, but was that really so? Why didn't she tell him anything?
Eventually, something sad did happen. The rich people of the castle wanted to chop down the Bamboo Oak Forest trees to turn them into lumber, and in the remains of the forest start new fields for crops. The people around the castle were multiplying, and they needed lots of wood for new houses, and more land to grow wheat, rice, and other grains. There was no one to oppose them, and the king granted the rich peoples' requests to cut down the forest.
When the prince heard this he was shocked, and begged the king to stop, but he had already permitted it, and he would not grant the prince's wishes.
The prince was devastated, and locked himself in his room everyday. But while he did that, little by little, day by day, the bamboo oak forest was disappearing.
The only strange thing was, every time one of the large trees of the forest was cut down, many voices could be heard from all around. ———bird, bird, red ———bird, bird, blue ——— bird, bird, violet ——— bird, bird, green ———bird, bird, white———And each time, one by one, white and blue and violet and white and black and yellow and many other colored birds flew from the trees. The prince stood at the edge of the forest, gazing sadly at the birds flying away.
However, the lumberjacks could not hear those voices at all, and didn't suspect much of anything when they saw the many birds fly away. The trees of the forest were rapidly disappearing.
When the trees started disappearing closer and closer to the clearing inside the forest, the prince could no longer just stare at what was going on. That night, the light from the full moon shined beautifully.
The prince, all alone, creeped away to the back gates of the castle, but the gates were shut tight. The prince, with tears of frustration flowing down his cheeks, resolved to spend the whole night there, until someone opened the gate for him.
But then, strangely, the gate opened all by itself. The prince, feeling like he was in a dream, escaped from the castle and ran off.
So the prince continued to go to the garden on moon-lit nights to wait for the wood elf. But the wood elf never came for him. The prince gazed sadly at the castle back gates. Those iron gates were shut so tight, there was no way the prince could open them in the evenings.
After turning it over in his mind many times, the prince discussed with his nanny, an old woman, on how she could help him go to the Bamboo Oak forest. The old woman pitied the prince, and then they came up with a good idea.
One day, while the king was strolling in the gardens, the prince and the old woman went out to meet him, and the old woman said to the king:
"This garden is beautiful on moonlit nights, but it is much too lonesome by oneself. Just once we should open the castle gates and let the townspeople come in, to dance and have fun while we do some moon gazing."
And the prince piped in and added:
"That would be so much fun. Father, can't we do it please?"
And because the two encouraged it so much, the king finally acquiesced. Immediately, he told his retainers to begin the preparations.
It was a big commotion that night. The king took to his stage, and held a banquet with a huge number of his servants. From front to back the castle gates were opened, and almost all the townspeople came. Everyone dressed up, and danced in the castle gardens, and played many songs. The moon shone in the clear night sky. Not even torches were allowed to to be lit. It was like the people of the castle surged with moonlight and music and dance and delicious smells.
The prince, with his nanny, quietly escaped from the back gates. Then, the old woman waited at the entrance to the Bamboo Oak forest, and the prince entered the forest alone.
However, when he reached the same clearing as always, there was no one there.
Along the sides of the clearing, moonlight silently trickled through the top of the tall trees. The bustling commotion from the castle resounded weakly from far away.
The prince waited a long time. Tears accumulating in his eyes, he called out "Princess Chigusa, it's me!" But he did not catch a glimpse of either the princess or the wood elves.
Finally, wiping away his tears, the prince gave up and returned to the castle. Even though the old woman who waited for him at the entrance asked him many questions, the prince, looking sad, completely ignored her.
The prince thought to himself: Why didn't Princess Chigusa come out for him? What did she mean when she said that something sad was going to happen? He felt like the princess was his dead mother, but was that really so? Why didn't she tell him anything?
Eventually, something sad did happen. The rich people of the castle wanted to chop down the Bamboo Oak Forest trees to turn them into lumber, and in the remains of the forest start new fields for crops. The people around the castle were multiplying, and they needed lots of wood for new houses, and more land to grow wheat, rice, and other grains. There was no one to oppose them, and the king granted the rich peoples' requests to cut down the forest.
When the prince heard this he was shocked, and begged the king to stop, but he had already permitted it, and he would not grant the prince's wishes.
The prince was devastated, and locked himself in his room everyday. But while he did that, little by little, day by day, the bamboo oak forest was disappearing.
The only strange thing was, every time one of the large trees of the forest was cut down, many voices could be heard from all around. ———bird, bird, red ———bird, bird, blue ——— bird, bird, violet ——— bird, bird, green ———bird, bird, white———And each time, one by one, white and blue and violet and white and black and yellow and many other colored birds flew from the trees. The prince stood at the edge of the forest, gazing sadly at the birds flying away.
However, the lumberjacks could not hear those voices at all, and didn't suspect much of anything when they saw the many birds fly away. The trees of the forest were rapidly disappearing.
When the trees started disappearing closer and closer to the clearing inside the forest, the prince could no longer just stare at what was going on. That night, the light from the full moon shined beautifully.
The prince, all alone, creeped away to the back gates of the castle, but the gates were shut tight. The prince, with tears of frustration flowing down his cheeks, resolved to spend the whole night there, until someone opened the gate for him.
But then, strangely, the gate opened all by itself. The prince, feeling like he was in a dream, escaped from the castle and ran off.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Yoshio Toyoshima's "The Great Moon's Song" Part 2
[Part 2 of 4 in an ongoing translation of a Japanese fairy tale from 1919. You can read Part 1, and a brief intro to the author, here.]
After that night, on evenings when the moon shone bright, the Prince would go to the Bamboo Oak Forest and play with the wood elves. In addition, he learned many things from Princess Chigusa. Like how the wood elves originally lived in the fields, but the fields were opened up and turned into rice paddies, and so the elves hid themselves in the forests, and became wood elves. And that Princess Chigusa is the queen of both the new wood elves and the original wood elves. And how the Princess knew all about how the old fields were going to become rice paddies beforehand, and how there was going to be a draft this coming summer, and floods in the fall. When the prince heard these things, he told each one to his father the king. The king would laugh, but because the prince pressed him so many times, in the end, he set up some precautions as a test.
And even though there was indeed a drought that summer, they took water down from the springs in the mountains, and the farmers were not affected at all. And even though there were floods at the beginning of autumn, they built high embankments along the river, and the rice paddies were left unharmed. Because each of the prince's pronouncements were correct, the king, and then all the people of the palace, were completely astonished. Before long, word spread throughout the kingdom how "the prince had been transformed into a god." They asked how the prince how he knew these things before they happened, but because the prince was sworn to a strict secrecy by Princess Chigusa, he said nothing. Eventually even the king began to wonder if his son had become a god.
But to the prince, there was only one thing to start thinking about. And that was the fact that the moon didn't come out every night. If the moon didn't shine at night, the princess would not send for the prince.
When the moon did shine in the early hours of the night, the wood elf who wore a Roger's leaf would come to the palace gardens. The prince would go to Princess Chigusa, and a little before 10 o'clock when the palace gates closed, the prince would return home.
However, one night, when the prince had gone to the clearing in the Bamboo Oak Forest like usual, Princess Chigusa stood there looking terribly sad. Not one of the wood elves appeared that night. With a wildly beating heart, the prince asked the princess:
"Did something happen tonight?"
"Something sad is going to occur very soon," Princess Chigusa replied. The prince asked many things, but the princess would not say anything more. She only replied, "Soon you will understand."
The prince and princess sat silently in the clearing. The moonlight spread over the ground, making the grass and flower petals and leaves sparkle. Finally, Princess Chigusa sighed deeply and said:
"I don't know if we shall meet again."
Hearing this, the Prince became terribly sad.
"It's time, it's time, the palace is now closing!" a voice called from behind them.
He saw that the Roger's leaf wearing wood elf was standing behind him. Even so, the prince did not start going home. But the princess comforted him, and made him go home.
The prince couldn't understand why he couldn't see Princess Chigusa anymore. He suddenly wondered if Princess Chigusa was perhaps his long-long mother after all. But when he turned around to ask her, Princess Chigusa was no longer there.
Standing in the palace gardens, the prince was resolved: he had to meet with Princess Chigusa again.
After that night, on evenings when the moon shone bright, the Prince would go to the Bamboo Oak Forest and play with the wood elves. In addition, he learned many things from Princess Chigusa. Like how the wood elves originally lived in the fields, but the fields were opened up and turned into rice paddies, and so the elves hid themselves in the forests, and became wood elves. And that Princess Chigusa is the queen of both the new wood elves and the original wood elves. And how the Princess knew all about how the old fields were going to become rice paddies beforehand, and how there was going to be a draft this coming summer, and floods in the fall. When the prince heard these things, he told each one to his father the king. The king would laugh, but because the prince pressed him so many times, in the end, he set up some precautions as a test.
And even though there was indeed a drought that summer, they took water down from the springs in the mountains, and the farmers were not affected at all. And even though there were floods at the beginning of autumn, they built high embankments along the river, and the rice paddies were left unharmed. Because each of the prince's pronouncements were correct, the king, and then all the people of the palace, were completely astonished. Before long, word spread throughout the kingdom how "the prince had been transformed into a god." They asked how the prince how he knew these things before they happened, but because the prince was sworn to a strict secrecy by Princess Chigusa, he said nothing. Eventually even the king began to wonder if his son had become a god.
But to the prince, there was only one thing to start thinking about. And that was the fact that the moon didn't come out every night. If the moon didn't shine at night, the princess would not send for the prince.
When the moon did shine in the early hours of the night, the wood elf who wore a Roger's leaf would come to the palace gardens. The prince would go to Princess Chigusa, and a little before 10 o'clock when the palace gates closed, the prince would return home.
However, one night, when the prince had gone to the clearing in the Bamboo Oak Forest like usual, Princess Chigusa stood there looking terribly sad. Not one of the wood elves appeared that night. With a wildly beating heart, the prince asked the princess:
"Did something happen tonight?"
"Something sad is going to occur very soon," Princess Chigusa replied. The prince asked many things, but the princess would not say anything more. She only replied, "Soon you will understand."
The prince and princess sat silently in the clearing. The moonlight spread over the ground, making the grass and flower petals and leaves sparkle. Finally, Princess Chigusa sighed deeply and said:
"I don't know if we shall meet again."
Hearing this, the Prince became terribly sad.
"It's time, it's time, the palace is now closing!" a voice called from behind them.
He saw that the Roger's leaf wearing wood elf was standing behind him. Even so, the prince did not start going home. But the princess comforted him, and made him go home.
The prince couldn't understand why he couldn't see Princess Chigusa anymore. He suddenly wondered if Princess Chigusa was perhaps his long-long mother after all. But when he turned around to ask her, Princess Chigusa was no longer there.
Standing in the palace gardens, the prince was resolved: he had to meet with Princess Chigusa again.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Yoshio Toyoshima's "The Great Moon's Song," Part 1
I'm always looking for ways to practice reading Japanese. The thing is, all writers write in a certain way, and I don't want to be stuck reading Japanese in a certain way, and consequently understanding Japanese in a certain way (at least, this is my fear). The vast majority of the raw Japanese that I read is Murakami and Genichiro Takahashi, and so lately I've been looking at new sources to practice Japanese and expand my Japanese reading skills. I especially feel that I need to practice reading non-contemporary Japanese. Even in English, I want to get better acquainted with the modern Japanese literary masters, who I am not as familiar with as I would like.
Which is why Aozora Bunko is awesome. It's the Project Gutenberg of Japan, i.e., free e-versions of public domain literature.
I found the following story by accident. Literally—I was using the more iPhone friendly version of the Aozora Bunko site, searched おつ randomly, and started reading お月様の唄, which I am going to share with you in a quickie translation over the next few days, cause it's a very cute little fairy tale.
The author of this tale is Yoshio Toyoshima, who, Wikipedia (kind of sadly) notes, was not famous at all for his novels, but did have great acclaim as a translator. He was born in 1890, and died in 1955. He was a novelist, translator, French literary scholar, and children's book author. He was professor emeritus at Hosei University and also taught at Meiji University. He had his literary debut as a college student, published in the third issue of Shinchishou alongside the great Akutagawa and Kikuchi Kan. He is most famous for his translations of Les Miserables and Jean-Christophe, which were bestsellers.
Anyway, without further ado, here is part one of お月様の唄, which I am (tentatively) calling "The Great Moon's Song." You can read the original, if you like, here.
---------------
"The Great Moon's Song"
In the Great Moon
Lives a Tailless Bird
With Gold Rings in its Mouth
Oh, Oh, It's Falling!
Oh, Oh, Look Out!
Once upon a time, when the forests were still teeming with small, cute wood elves, there was a prince of a certain kingdom, who was raised with much love, as he was the only child of the king. The prince was extremely kind, and had a great and compassionate heart.
Ever since the prince was small, for some reason, he loved above all to look at the moon. He often climbed the towers of the castle, or entered the expansive gardens to watch the moon until late at night. When he looked at the moon, he felt like he was looking at his mother who had passed away. The prince's mother died when he was three years old, and so he could not remember her face. But no matter how much he thought about it, it always seemed to him that his mother had ascended to the moon. Because of this, when he looked at the moon, he would think about his mother.
One night, when the prince was eight years old, like always, he went out to the garden to look at the moon by himself, when, a man, only twelve inches tall and wearing a Roger's flower on his head, suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Then, just as suddenly, he bowed his head to the prince.
The prince was surprised, for he had never seen nor heard of such a tiny man before. However, the prince, the lovely boy with a gentle heart, also had great courage, for he would someday be the king. And so, in a calm voice, he asked the one foot-monk:
"Who are you?"
The one foot monk replied, in a sing-song voice:
"A wood elf I am! A wood elf from the forest behind the castle!"
The prince smiled and asked:
"Why have you come?"
"To bring greetings to the prince," the one-foot monk replied. "I am a messenger of Princess Chigusa, and I need you to come with me, if ya' please!"
Having said this, the wood elf turned around and started walking away. The prince was delighted, and followed after him. When they reached the back gate, it opened immediately, and when the prince and wood elf passed through to the other side, it was closed again, just like before, without a sound.
Directly behind the castle was a large forest called "The Bamboo Oak Forest." The wood elf went directly into the forest, and the prince too followed after him silently. However, when they arrived at the center of the forest, he suddenly could no longer see the wood elf. Surprised, the prince looked all around, and saw before him a wide clearing, with a lush green lawn, with many different flowers blooming in the middle. In the center of the clearing stood a woman, wearing a silk robe of red and yellow and white, and a crown made of lily flowers. She looked at the prince and smiled, and beckoned him closer. Seeing this, the prince felt somehow like he was looking at his long lost mother, and fearlessly approached her.
"My, you found us easily!" the woman said. "I am Chigusa, queen of this forest. Now let us watch some entertainment."
Then Princess Chigusa raised her voice and said:
"Come out everyone, and dance for the prince's entertainment!"
Whereupon, from out of nowhere, the wood elf from earlier appeared above the clearing, wearing a single rose on his head. Then, spinning round and round, he sang this song:
Oneee one
Spin round and come out!
And a wood elf wearing a chrysanthemum appeared. The two danced and sang once more:
Twooo two
Spinny-spin round and come out!
And a wood elf wearing a peony appeared.
Threee three
Round and spin and come out!
And a wood elf wearing a plum blossom appeared.
Fourrr four
Round and round and round and come out!
And a wood elf wearing a cherry blossom appeared.
Fiveee five
Everyone together burst forth!
To entertain the prince
Here and there and everywhere
Go round and round and round and round and round!
Then the clearing before him became full of wood elves, each one wearing a grass or tree flower on their heads. Then, linking hands, they formed a circle and sang a riveting song and danced a riveting dance.
The prince watched all this and felt like he was in a dream. The wood elves' dance continued on for an eternity. It was an amazing dance that he never grew tired of, no matter how long it continued.
"It's time, it's time! The palace is now closing!" a voice from far away suddenly called out. The wood elves who had had been dancing up this point looked like they all jumped high in the air, but when they fell back to the earth they had disappeared.
The prince was surprised, and looked all around, while Princess Chigusa stood smiling. Then she said to the prince:
"It is late now, so that shall be all for tonight. We will come with greetings again, so please come back at that time."
The prince wanted to stay longer, but because of what the Princess said, there was nothing to do but go home. Before he knew it, the wood elf wearing a Roger's flower appeared, and he lead the prince back to the castle gardens.
Which is why Aozora Bunko is awesome. It's the Project Gutenberg of Japan, i.e., free e-versions of public domain literature.
I found the following story by accident. Literally—I was using the more iPhone friendly version of the Aozora Bunko site, searched おつ randomly, and started reading お月様の唄, which I am going to share with you in a quickie translation over the next few days, cause it's a very cute little fairy tale.
The author of this tale is Yoshio Toyoshima, who, Wikipedia (kind of sadly) notes, was not famous at all for his novels, but did have great acclaim as a translator. He was born in 1890, and died in 1955. He was a novelist, translator, French literary scholar, and children's book author. He was professor emeritus at Hosei University and also taught at Meiji University. He had his literary debut as a college student, published in the third issue of Shinchishou alongside the great Akutagawa and Kikuchi Kan. He is most famous for his translations of Les Miserables and Jean-Christophe, which were bestsellers.
Anyway, without further ado, here is part one of お月様の唄, which I am (tentatively) calling "The Great Moon's Song." You can read the original, if you like, here.
---------------
"The Great Moon's Song"
In the Great Moon
Lives a Tailless Bird
With Gold Rings in its Mouth
Oh, Oh, It's Falling!
Oh, Oh, Look Out!
Once upon a time, when the forests were still teeming with small, cute wood elves, there was a prince of a certain kingdom, who was raised with much love, as he was the only child of the king. The prince was extremely kind, and had a great and compassionate heart.
Ever since the prince was small, for some reason, he loved above all to look at the moon. He often climbed the towers of the castle, or entered the expansive gardens to watch the moon until late at night. When he looked at the moon, he felt like he was looking at his mother who had passed away. The prince's mother died when he was three years old, and so he could not remember her face. But no matter how much he thought about it, it always seemed to him that his mother had ascended to the moon. Because of this, when he looked at the moon, he would think about his mother.
One night, when the prince was eight years old, like always, he went out to the garden to look at the moon by himself, when, a man, only twelve inches tall and wearing a Roger's flower on his head, suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Then, just as suddenly, he bowed his head to the prince.
The prince was surprised, for he had never seen nor heard of such a tiny man before. However, the prince, the lovely boy with a gentle heart, also had great courage, for he would someday be the king. And so, in a calm voice, he asked the one foot-monk:
"Who are you?"
The one foot monk replied, in a sing-song voice:
"A wood elf I am! A wood elf from the forest behind the castle!"
The prince smiled and asked:
"Why have you come?"
"To bring greetings to the prince," the one-foot monk replied. "I am a messenger of Princess Chigusa, and I need you to come with me, if ya' please!"
Having said this, the wood elf turned around and started walking away. The prince was delighted, and followed after him. When they reached the back gate, it opened immediately, and when the prince and wood elf passed through to the other side, it was closed again, just like before, without a sound.
Directly behind the castle was a large forest called "The Bamboo Oak Forest." The wood elf went directly into the forest, and the prince too followed after him silently. However, when they arrived at the center of the forest, he suddenly could no longer see the wood elf. Surprised, the prince looked all around, and saw before him a wide clearing, with a lush green lawn, with many different flowers blooming in the middle. In the center of the clearing stood a woman, wearing a silk robe of red and yellow and white, and a crown made of lily flowers. She looked at the prince and smiled, and beckoned him closer. Seeing this, the prince felt somehow like he was looking at his long lost mother, and fearlessly approached her.
"My, you found us easily!" the woman said. "I am Chigusa, queen of this forest. Now let us watch some entertainment."
Then Princess Chigusa raised her voice and said:
"Come out everyone, and dance for the prince's entertainment!"
Whereupon, from out of nowhere, the wood elf from earlier appeared above the clearing, wearing a single rose on his head. Then, spinning round and round, he sang this song:
Oneee one
Spin round and come out!
And a wood elf wearing a chrysanthemum appeared. The two danced and sang once more:
Twooo two
Spinny-spin round and come out!
And a wood elf wearing a peony appeared.
Threee three
Round and spin and come out!
And a wood elf wearing a plum blossom appeared.
Fourrr four
Round and round and round and come out!
And a wood elf wearing a cherry blossom appeared.
Fiveee five
Everyone together burst forth!
To entertain the prince
Here and there and everywhere
Go round and round and round and round and round!
Then the clearing before him became full of wood elves, each one wearing a grass or tree flower on their heads. Then, linking hands, they formed a circle and sang a riveting song and danced a riveting dance.
The prince watched all this and felt like he was in a dream. The wood elves' dance continued on for an eternity. It was an amazing dance that he never grew tired of, no matter how long it continued.
"It's time, it's time! The palace is now closing!" a voice from far away suddenly called out. The wood elves who had had been dancing up this point looked like they all jumped high in the air, but when they fell back to the earth they had disappeared.
The prince was surprised, and looked all around, while Princess Chigusa stood smiling. Then she said to the prince:
"It is late now, so that shall be all for tonight. We will come with greetings again, so please come back at that time."
The prince wanted to stay longer, but because of what the Princess said, there was nothing to do but go home. Before he knew it, the wood elf wearing a Roger's flower appeared, and he lead the prince back to the castle gardens.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Murakami Takes on Kafka
One more small Murakami translation, and then I'll look at some other things to translate, OK guys? (Actually, I imagine the majority of you only want Murakami translations, am I right?)
This is from the collection 夢で会いましょう (yume de aimashou), Let's Meet in a Dream that Murakami did with Shigesato Itoi, essayist and creator of the SNES game Earthbound (or the Mother series if you're a real fanboy). It's a collection of short fictions and pseudo-essays and other miscellany, collected in "alphabetical" (what do you call it when we're talking about the hiragana syllabary? Hiragan-ical?) order. We've looked briefly at this collection in the post "Murakami the Poet", where Murakami flexed his poetic chops with the Yakult Swallows Poetry Anthology - which you can see some more examples of in this blog post from Yomuka.
For this post I wanted to do a small translation from Shigesato and not Murakami, but I ran into this little story and I just couldn't resist. I assume the K stands for Kafka here, who even gets a quick mention, as the premise is basically just a sillier version of the Metamorphosis. But there's no denying K is a letter of some fascination with Murakami, since it appears often in his work - most notably in Sputnik Sweetheart with K the narrator.
----
"K"
K… the 11th letter of the alphabet.
(Example: One morning, K woke up to find he had transformed into a doormat.)
One morning, K woke up to find he had transformed into a doormat.
"Well that's just great," K thought to himself. "Of all things, a doormat!"
The first person to find K the doormat was a friend who worked for the local government. "Hey, quit fooling around," he said. "You practicing for some sort of New Year's party entertainment or something?"
"Nope, this seriously happened," K said.
"Huh, well I guess you're okay like that… incidentally, did you do your transformation registration?
"Transformation registration?"
"The rates for your income tax are going to change now. For doormat transformations, it‘s just short of a 10 percent deduction."
"No way," K said.
"Really. It's too bad—if you were an iron it would've only been about 3 percent."
The next person to find K was a friend who was a literary critic.
”It would seem, at first glance, that you are a doormat," he said.
"100% a doormat," K said.
"Can you prove it?"
"Wipe your feet on me."
The friend wiped his feet. And then he knew that K was truly a doormat. "And again—why a doormat?"
"It's not my fault."
"It's not my fault?" he repeated. "That sort of remark is less Kafka and rather more Camus, don't you think?"
The next person to come see K was his girlfriend who worked in publishing. She tripped on K the doormat and hit her head on the mailbox.
"Oops, sorry. I was up all night chasing Harahashi around, and then out of nowhere he tells me to replace the table of contents, which was just… Hey, by the way, why did you turn into a doormat?"
"Escapism," K said.
"Poor thing," she said. "Is there anything I can do for you? Like I kiss you and you turn back into a human?"
"That kind of thinking ended in the 19th century," K said. "But I'd be very grateful if you could place me at the entrance of a girl's dormitory or something."
"No problem. That's all well and good, but the way you are now, you don't need your cassette player anymore right? Sooo—could I have it?"
"Sure thing."
"And you don't need your Boz Scaggs and Paul Davis records either right?
"Nope."
"I also really like that groovy Hawaiian shirt of yours."
"It's all yours."
"And can I borrow your car?"
"Just be sure to change the oil every now and then. And check the clutch for me. It's making a weird noise."
"You got it."
So K lived happily ever after at the entrance to a girl's dormitory, without any local government officials, literary critics, or publishers to bother him. So if you really think about it, being a doormat wouldn't be so bad, would it?
This is from the collection 夢で会いましょう (yume de aimashou), Let's Meet in a Dream that Murakami did with Shigesato Itoi, essayist and creator of the SNES game Earthbound (or the Mother series if you're a real fanboy). It's a collection of short fictions and pseudo-essays and other miscellany, collected in "alphabetical" (what do you call it when we're talking about the hiragana syllabary? Hiragan-ical?) order. We've looked briefly at this collection in the post "Murakami the Poet", where Murakami flexed his poetic chops with the Yakult Swallows Poetry Anthology - which you can see some more examples of in this blog post from Yomuka.
For this post I wanted to do a small translation from Shigesato and not Murakami, but I ran into this little story and I just couldn't resist. I assume the K stands for Kafka here, who even gets a quick mention, as the premise is basically just a sillier version of the Metamorphosis. But there's no denying K is a letter of some fascination with Murakami, since it appears often in his work - most notably in Sputnik Sweetheart with K the narrator.
----
"K"
K… the 11th letter of the alphabet.
(Example: One morning, K woke up to find he had transformed into a doormat.)
One morning, K woke up to find he had transformed into a doormat.
"Well that's just great," K thought to himself. "Of all things, a doormat!"
The first person to find K the doormat was a friend who worked for the local government. "Hey, quit fooling around," he said. "You practicing for some sort of New Year's party entertainment or something?"
"Nope, this seriously happened," K said.
"Huh, well I guess you're okay like that… incidentally, did you do your transformation registration?
"Transformation registration?"
"The rates for your income tax are going to change now. For doormat transformations, it‘s just short of a 10 percent deduction."
"No way," K said.
"Really. It's too bad—if you were an iron it would've only been about 3 percent."
The next person to find K was a friend who was a literary critic.
”It would seem, at first glance, that you are a doormat," he said.
"100% a doormat," K said.
"Can you prove it?"
"Wipe your feet on me."
The friend wiped his feet. And then he knew that K was truly a doormat. "And again—why a doormat?"
"It's not my fault."
"It's not my fault?" he repeated. "That sort of remark is less Kafka and rather more Camus, don't you think?"
The next person to come see K was his girlfriend who worked in publishing. She tripped on K the doormat and hit her head on the mailbox.
"Oops, sorry. I was up all night chasing Harahashi around, and then out of nowhere he tells me to replace the table of contents, which was just… Hey, by the way, why did you turn into a doormat?"
"Escapism," K said.
"Poor thing," she said. "Is there anything I can do for you? Like I kiss you and you turn back into a human?"
"That kind of thinking ended in the 19th century," K said. "But I'd be very grateful if you could place me at the entrance of a girl's dormitory or something."
"No problem. That's all well and good, but the way you are now, you don't need your cassette player anymore right? Sooo—could I have it?"
"Sure thing."
"And you don't need your Boz Scaggs and Paul Davis records either right?
"Nope."
"I also really like that groovy Hawaiian shirt of yours."
"It's all yours."
"And can I borrow your car?"
"Just be sure to change the oil every now and then. And check the clutch for me. It's making a weird noise."
"You got it."
So K lived happily ever after at the entrance to a girl's dormitory, without any local government officials, literary critics, or publishers to bother him. So if you really think about it, being a doormat wouldn't be so bad, would it?
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Murakami the Cat Lover
First of all, my apologies for taking such a long absence from this blog. As you may have seen from my Twitter feed on the right of this page, I recently graduated from college. (Woohoo!) So in the last few weeks, I have been somewhat overwhelmed with life-related things, first with finals, then with graduation stuff, then with moving back home stuff, then with job hunting, etc. Just busy busy busy.
But now I'm back, and hopefully I'll be updating as regularly as I can, though I am still trying to get my life in order.
Anyway, I've been wanting to do another small translation for this blog for a long time, but I've had my hands full with a big translation project for school, and it was hard to justify working on a different translation when I was pretty much behind schedule the whole time. (D'oh.) But, I got it done, and now there is no more school work at all for the near future. As for today's post:
A few weeks ago I saw this blog post linked on Twitter, about authors and their various feline companions. There's a lot of good stuff here (I especially love that Jean-Paul Sartre named his cat Nothing), but if you scroll down, you'll find Haruki Murakami and his cat Kafka somewhere in the middle.
This reminded me of an essay/editorial Murakami wrote for the Asahi Newspaper that was later collected in Murakami Asahidou no Gyakushuu about the death of one of his cats. Interestingly, these articles were written in the mid '80s, and as you'll see in the essay, he talks about a fifteen-year period of living with cats, and none of them were named Kafka (at least according to this very short essay). Murakami looks pretty young in the photo, so I wonder where that photo (and the source of the cat name) comes from.
No matter, really. Enjoy.
----
On the Death of My Cat
My cat died the other day. It was an Abyssinian I got from Ryu Murakami and her name was Kirin. Because she was Ryu Murakami's cat, the name "Kirin" comes from the mythical Chinese unicorn- no relation to the beer.
She was four years old, which in human years would have put her in her late twenties, maybe 30, so it was an early death. She was prone to getting kidney stones in her urinary tract, had had surgery already, her meal regimen comprised solely of diet cat food (which is something that exists in this wide world), but in the end, it was complications in her urinary tract that took her life. We had her cremated, put her tiny bones in an urn, and placed her in our household shrine. The house I live in now is an old Japanese style house, so it's very convenient to have a household shrine at times like these. It seems to me that it would be hard to find a place to put your cat's bones in a brand new two bedroom apartment. It just doesn't seem right to put it on top of the refrigerator, you know?
Besides Kirin I also have an eleven year old female Siamese cat named Muse. The name comes from a character from the famous shoujou manga Glass Castle. Before that I had two male cats named Butch and Sundance, the classic duo from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. When you have a lot of cats it gets annoying coming up with name after name after name, so I do some extremely easy naming. I've had a mackerel cat named Mackerel, and a calico cat named Calico. When I had a Scottish fold I named him "Scotty". I'm sure you can derive from this pattern that I've also had a black cat named "Black" before too.
If we organize the fates of the various cats that have come and gone in the fifteen years I've lived in this house, we get:
A) Dead cats: 1) Kirin 2) Butch 3) Sundance 4) Mackerel 5) Scotty
B) Cats I've given away: 1) Calico 2) Peter
C) Cats who suddenly disappeared: 1) Black 2) Tobimaru
D) Cats I still have left: 1) Muse
Thinking about it, there's only been a two month period in these last fifteen years when there wasn't a single cat in my house.
This is kind of an obvious statement, but cats have lots of different personalities, and their behavioral patterns, as well as the way they think, differ from cat to cat. The Siamese I have now is that kind of unusual cat that can't give birth unless I hold her hand. When the labor pains start up, this cat immediately jumps up from my lap onto the floor and sets herself down heavily, grunting like an old lady, onto a floor cushion. I take both of her hands tightly, and out comes one kitten after another. It's pretty fun, watching this cat give birth.
For whatever reason, Kirin loved the rustling noise that plastic wrap makes when she rolled around in it, and if someone crumpled up an empty cigarette box, she'd burst out of nowhere to pull it out of the garbage and play with it by herself for fifteen minutes or so. As to what circumstances led to this one cat's habits, vices, and tastes to be formed is a total mystery to me. This cat - this strange, energetic, solidly built, vigorous appetite-having cat - is the complete opposite of Ryu Murakami. She was a real free spirit, and was popular with anyone who came over my house. When her urinary tract got worse she became less energetic, but even until the day before her death, it didn't seem like she was going to die like she did. I brought her to the nearby vet, who let out all the blocked-up urine and gave her medicine to dissolve the kidney stones, but as the night came to an end, she crouched down onto the kitchen floor, her eyes opened wide, and grew cold. Cats are creatures that always die rather easily. Her face was too pretty in death–you might've thought that if you placed her out in the sun, she would thaw out and come back to life.
In the afternoon pet specialists from a burial service company came in a minivan to pick her up. They were dressed just like the people in the movie The Funeral, and they even said their condolences like they were supposed to, but, you can just think of their remarks as a suitably simplified version of the condolences you would say for humans. Then it became a matter of money. The course from cremation to urn, along with the urn itself, came to 23000 yen. In the trunk of the van we could also see the figure of a German shepherd in a plastic storage bin. Maybe Kirin's going to be cremated along with that German shepherd.
After Kirin was carried off in that minivan, my house quickly started to feel empty, and neither me, nor my wife, nor Muse could settle down. Family – even if that includes cats too – is a living thing that has a certain balance, and when one corner of it falls apart, it doesn't take long before everything subtly breaks down. Unable to go about my work at home, I thought I'd go hang out in Yokohama, so I walked to the train station in a soft, drizzling rain. But even that somehow didn't seem worth the trouble, and halfway there I turned back and went home.
**Right now I'm taking care of Muse and a cat named Croquette. There's probably already a lot of cats named Michael and Kotetsu.
But now I'm back, and hopefully I'll be updating as regularly as I can, though I am still trying to get my life in order.
Anyway, I've been wanting to do another small translation for this blog for a long time, but I've had my hands full with a big translation project for school, and it was hard to justify working on a different translation when I was pretty much behind schedule the whole time. (D'oh.) But, I got it done, and now there is no more school work at all for the near future. As for today's post:
A few weeks ago I saw this blog post linked on Twitter, about authors and their various feline companions. There's a lot of good stuff here (I especially love that Jean-Paul Sartre named his cat Nothing), but if you scroll down, you'll find Haruki Murakami and his cat Kafka somewhere in the middle.
This reminded me of an essay/editorial Murakami wrote for the Asahi Newspaper that was later collected in Murakami Asahidou no Gyakushuu about the death of one of his cats. Interestingly, these articles were written in the mid '80s, and as you'll see in the essay, he talks about a fifteen-year period of living with cats, and none of them were named Kafka (at least according to this very short essay). Murakami looks pretty young in the photo, so I wonder where that photo (and the source of the cat name) comes from.
No matter, really. Enjoy.
----
On the Death of My Cat
My cat died the other day. It was an Abyssinian I got from Ryu Murakami and her name was Kirin. Because she was Ryu Murakami's cat, the name "Kirin" comes from the mythical Chinese unicorn- no relation to the beer.
She was four years old, which in human years would have put her in her late twenties, maybe 30, so it was an early death. She was prone to getting kidney stones in her urinary tract, had had surgery already, her meal regimen comprised solely of diet cat food (which is something that exists in this wide world), but in the end, it was complications in her urinary tract that took her life. We had her cremated, put her tiny bones in an urn, and placed her in our household shrine. The house I live in now is an old Japanese style house, so it's very convenient to have a household shrine at times like these. It seems to me that it would be hard to find a place to put your cat's bones in a brand new two bedroom apartment. It just doesn't seem right to put it on top of the refrigerator, you know?
Besides Kirin I also have an eleven year old female Siamese cat named Muse. The name comes from a character from the famous shoujou manga Glass Castle. Before that I had two male cats named Butch and Sundance, the classic duo from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. When you have a lot of cats it gets annoying coming up with name after name after name, so I do some extremely easy naming. I've had a mackerel cat named Mackerel, and a calico cat named Calico. When I had a Scottish fold I named him "Scotty". I'm sure you can derive from this pattern that I've also had a black cat named "Black" before too.
If we organize the fates of the various cats that have come and gone in the fifteen years I've lived in this house, we get:
A) Dead cats: 1) Kirin 2) Butch 3) Sundance 4) Mackerel 5) Scotty
B) Cats I've given away: 1) Calico 2) Peter
C) Cats who suddenly disappeared: 1) Black 2) Tobimaru
D) Cats I still have left: 1) Muse
Thinking about it, there's only been a two month period in these last fifteen years when there wasn't a single cat in my house.
This is kind of an obvious statement, but cats have lots of different personalities, and their behavioral patterns, as well as the way they think, differ from cat to cat. The Siamese I have now is that kind of unusual cat that can't give birth unless I hold her hand. When the labor pains start up, this cat immediately jumps up from my lap onto the floor and sets herself down heavily, grunting like an old lady, onto a floor cushion. I take both of her hands tightly, and out comes one kitten after another. It's pretty fun, watching this cat give birth.
For whatever reason, Kirin loved the rustling noise that plastic wrap makes when she rolled around in it, and if someone crumpled up an empty cigarette box, she'd burst out of nowhere to pull it out of the garbage and play with it by herself for fifteen minutes or so. As to what circumstances led to this one cat's habits, vices, and tastes to be formed is a total mystery to me. This cat - this strange, energetic, solidly built, vigorous appetite-having cat - is the complete opposite of Ryu Murakami. She was a real free spirit, and was popular with anyone who came over my house. When her urinary tract got worse she became less energetic, but even until the day before her death, it didn't seem like she was going to die like she did. I brought her to the nearby vet, who let out all the blocked-up urine and gave her medicine to dissolve the kidney stones, but as the night came to an end, she crouched down onto the kitchen floor, her eyes opened wide, and grew cold. Cats are creatures that always die rather easily. Her face was too pretty in death–you might've thought that if you placed her out in the sun, she would thaw out and come back to life.
In the afternoon pet specialists from a burial service company came in a minivan to pick her up. They were dressed just like the people in the movie The Funeral, and they even said their condolences like they were supposed to, but, you can just think of their remarks as a suitably simplified version of the condolences you would say for humans. Then it became a matter of money. The course from cremation to urn, along with the urn itself, came to 23000 yen. In the trunk of the van we could also see the figure of a German shepherd in a plastic storage bin. Maybe Kirin's going to be cremated along with that German shepherd.
After Kirin was carried off in that minivan, my house quickly started to feel empty, and neither me, nor my wife, nor Muse could settle down. Family – even if that includes cats too – is a living thing that has a certain balance, and when one corner of it falls apart, it doesn't take long before everything subtly breaks down. Unable to go about my work at home, I thought I'd go hang out in Yokohama, so I walked to the train station in a soft, drizzling rain. But even that somehow didn't seem worth the trouble, and halfway there I turned back and went home.
**Right now I'm taking care of Muse and a cat named Croquette. There's probably already a lot of cats named Michael and Kotetsu.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
How to be a Poetry Bestseller in Japan
The Short Answer:
1) Don't start writing poetry until you're in your 90s
2) Get on TV as a human interest story
The Long (and less cynical) Answer:
In the world of publishing, poetry I think will always be a hard sell. Because really, "good" poetry requires work on the part of the reader - it's very hard (and not rewarding) to be a passive reader of poetry. By it's very construction poetry requires looking deeply at the very construction of the poem and analyzing it beyond the sum of its parts. Sure, it might take less than a minute to read the lines of a short poem, but how much do you get out of a quick scan of the words on the page? And bad poetry, for instance any and all of the poetry we all wrote as lovesick teenagers, is easy to spot, and easy to dismiss. So in my not at all scientific or even particularly literary theory, bad poetry is obviously bad but figuring out why good poetry is good takes a little extra work.
I'm not saying that prose fiction is totally different either. Good fiction is more rewarding when you can take a closer look at its unique construction, and bad fiction is also just as easy to spot as poetry. For some reason though, bad fiction (and I guess I should point out that "bad,"which is an admittedly vague and poor descriptor to use in a pseudo-literary criticism based theory, in this context is more like "unoriginal" maybe, bringing nothing new to the table) is encouraged in the publishing world. It's comfort food. Sometimes that's exactly what we want - familiar things only dressed up as something slightly new.
I would never say that all bestsellers are bad pieces of fiction, because that would simply be untrue. But bestsellers are bestsellers because they satisfy some literary or emotional need because it targets very base and universal instincts and desires. Again, I don't mean this to be derogatory in any way, but it simply has to play those universal notes, since to reach that many people it has to be able to affect (in some way, intellectually, emotionally, what have you) the widest group of people possible. And recreating that sort of widespread appeal with poetry is difficult, since bad (or "unoriginal") poetry is not tolerated in the same way that bad fiction is. Poetry has to reach a very difficult level of creativity to be popular, I think - not too high as to be off-putting or "difficult," but not too low as to be seen as boring or unoriginal or amateurish.
And all of what I just laid out isn't necessarily true. Sometimes you just need some sort of sensational angle to get people talking.
Phew. Now we turn to Toyo Shibata.
Yes, the latest poetry bestseller in Japan right now is 99-year old Toyo Shibata, who published a collection of 42 poems called くじけないで ( Kujikenaide, "Don't be discouraged") that has now sold 1.5 MILLION copies.
1.5 MILLION COPIES.
According to Reuters, a collection of poetry in Japan is considered successful in Japan when it sells ten thousand copies. So yes, this is certainly a runaway bestseller. It's got numbers comparable to Murakami's 1Q84. The only other collection of poetry that I know of with sales numbers like this was Machi Tawara's Salad Anniversary almost twenty years ago in the early 1990s.
So is her poetry worth all the fuss? Well, I don't know.
I've mentioned on this blog a few times that poetry is not my strong suit or where my literary interests lie. I think I've got a pretty good critical eye though, even if I'm not as versed (PUN MOST DEFINITELY INTENDED) in the history of great poetry, classical and contemporary, as others. So in my opinion, yes, some of her poems are quite nice. At their best, they're emotionally resonant and the language is pretty, I would say, in lieu of beautiful. At their worst, though, they're cloying, overly sentimental, and somewhat cliche, even of herself: she tends to use a lot of the same motifs and imagery in her poems, especially things dealing with nature: you'll see a lot of "sunshine" and "wind" and "I can hear "X" (as in "the wind" or "the cry of cicadas," etc.). Memory is also a go-to theme.
But oy it breaks my heart to say these things! Obviously memory would play an important role in her poetry - she's almost a hundred years old! She seems like a nice old lady who can't do much in her old age except write poetry. What joy does she have besides a nice sunny day and a hot cup of tea and visits from her son? Who am I to criticize?
Anyway, I thought I'd share with you a handful of the poems that I did enjoy, first in the original, and then in a quick English translation that will won't be very poetic in and of itself.
「溶けてゆく」 Melting
ポットから Hot water
注がれる Pouring
お湯は From the cup
やさしい Are like
言葉のようだ Kind words
私の My
心の角砂糖は Sugar cube heart
カップのなかで Melts
気持ちよく Gently
溶けてゆく In my mug
(Things lost in that translation: the nice rhyme and rhythm of the last two lines: kimochi yoku / tokete yuku. Approximated with the slant rhyme of "melt" and "gentle." Also didn't want to end the poem with in my mug, which is the third line in the Japanese, but sounded really bad when I kept it there anyway.)
「返事」 My Reply
風が 耳元で In my ears the wind
「もうそろそろ Invites me
あの世に In intoxicating tones
行きましょう」 "Shall we go now
なんて 猫撫で声で To the other side?"
誘うのよ
だから 私 So, I
すぐに返事をしたの Quickly replied
「あと少し "I'll stay here
こっちに居るわ Just a bit longer
やり残した There are still some things
事があるから」 Left undone"
風は The wind
困った顔をして With a pout on her face
すーっと帰って行った Swiftly returned from whence it came
(Things last in that translation: Possesessive-ized the title - sounded bad as just "Reply" or "The Reply". Lost a line because it was too stilted not putting "Shall we go now" together. Said "Invites me / In intoxicating tones" to get the nice alliteration/assonance of "nante nekonadegoede," since "nekonadegoe" is more like a "coaxing tone"; it's literally "the voice you use to talk to a cat." "Returned from whence it came" is decidedly more flowery than the simple "went back" - WENT BACK WHERE I ASK YOU. Also made the wind feminine, who in the Japanese is more or less neutral.)
「肩叩き券」 A Coupon for a Shoulder Massage
埃にまみれた Something I pulled out
がまぐちの中から Covered in dust
出てきた物 From an old coin purse
父ちゃん 母ちゃんへ To Mommy and Daddy
十五分肩叩き券 15 Minute Shoulder Massage
（三十一年十月まで使えるよ）(Expires 10/1931)
健一 Kenichi
当時 小学生だった倅が Back then my boy was in grade school
わら半紙を小さく切って He cut out cheap straw paper
作ってくれた券の束 And made us a these bundle of coupons
今でも I wonder if I could use it
使えるかしら Even now
(Hate that I had to invert the last two lines.)
「秘密」 A Secret
私ね 死にたいって You know, I've thought
思ったことが So many times
何度もあったの That I wanted to die
でも 詩を作り始めて But I started writing poetry
多くの人に励まされ And have been encouraged by so many people
今はもう So now
泣きごとは言わない I won't complain anymore
九十八歳でも Even at 98
恋はするのよ I love
夢だってみるの And I dream
雲にだって乗りたいわ I want to ride on a cloud
(If you're not touched at least a little bit by that last poem then you are more heartless than I. Those four poems are a very small portion of what's found in Kujikenaide, and what I think are overall some of the better ones. But if you decide to check the book out for yourself, be warned: you'll probably find a number of duds. Or maybe you won't. It has sold 1.5 million copies.)
1) Don't start writing poetry until you're in your 90s
2) Get on TV as a human interest story
The Long (and less cynical) Answer:
In the world of publishing, poetry I think will always be a hard sell. Because really, "good" poetry requires work on the part of the reader - it's very hard (and not rewarding) to be a passive reader of poetry. By it's very construction poetry requires looking deeply at the very construction of the poem and analyzing it beyond the sum of its parts. Sure, it might take less than a minute to read the lines of a short poem, but how much do you get out of a quick scan of the words on the page? And bad poetry, for instance any and all of the poetry we all wrote as lovesick teenagers, is easy to spot, and easy to dismiss. So in my not at all scientific or even particularly literary theory, bad poetry is obviously bad but figuring out why good poetry is good takes a little extra work.
I'm not saying that prose fiction is totally different either. Good fiction is more rewarding when you can take a closer look at its unique construction, and bad fiction is also just as easy to spot as poetry. For some reason though, bad fiction (and I guess I should point out that "bad,"which is an admittedly vague and poor descriptor to use in a pseudo-literary criticism based theory, in this context is more like "unoriginal" maybe, bringing nothing new to the table) is encouraged in the publishing world. It's comfort food. Sometimes that's exactly what we want - familiar things only dressed up as something slightly new.
I would never say that all bestsellers are bad pieces of fiction, because that would simply be untrue. But bestsellers are bestsellers because they satisfy some literary or emotional need because it targets very base and universal instincts and desires. Again, I don't mean this to be derogatory in any way, but it simply has to play those universal notes, since to reach that many people it has to be able to affect (in some way, intellectually, emotionally, what have you) the widest group of people possible. And recreating that sort of widespread appeal with poetry is difficult, since bad (or "unoriginal") poetry is not tolerated in the same way that bad fiction is. Poetry has to reach a very difficult level of creativity to be popular, I think - not too high as to be off-putting or "difficult," but not too low as to be seen as boring or unoriginal or amateurish.
And all of what I just laid out isn't necessarily true. Sometimes you just need some sort of sensational angle to get people talking.
Phew. Now we turn to Toyo Shibata.
Yes, the latest poetry bestseller in Japan right now is 99-year old Toyo Shibata, who published a collection of 42 poems called くじけないで ( Kujikenaide, "Don't be discouraged") that has now sold 1.5 MILLION copies.
1.5 MILLION COPIES.
According to Reuters, a collection of poetry in Japan is considered successful in Japan when it sells ten thousand copies. So yes, this is certainly a runaway bestseller. It's got numbers comparable to Murakami's 1Q84. The only other collection of poetry that I know of with sales numbers like this was Machi Tawara's Salad Anniversary almost twenty years ago in the early 1990s.
So is her poetry worth all the fuss? Well, I don't know.
I've mentioned on this blog a few times that poetry is not my strong suit or where my literary interests lie. I think I've got a pretty good critical eye though, even if I'm not as versed (PUN MOST DEFINITELY INTENDED) in the history of great poetry, classical and contemporary, as others. So in my opinion, yes, some of her poems are quite nice. At their best, they're emotionally resonant and the language is pretty, I would say, in lieu of beautiful. At their worst, though, they're cloying, overly sentimental, and somewhat cliche, even of herself: she tends to use a lot of the same motifs and imagery in her poems, especially things dealing with nature: you'll see a lot of "sunshine" and "wind" and "I can hear "X" (as in "the wind" or "the cry of cicadas," etc.). Memory is also a go-to theme.
But oy it breaks my heart to say these things! Obviously memory would play an important role in her poetry - she's almost a hundred years old! She seems like a nice old lady who can't do much in her old age except write poetry. What joy does she have besides a nice sunny day and a hot cup of tea and visits from her son? Who am I to criticize?
Anyway, I thought I'd share with you a handful of the poems that I did enjoy, first in the original, and then in a quick English translation that will won't be very poetic in and of itself.
「溶けてゆく」 Melting
ポットから Hot water
注がれる Pouring
お湯は From the cup
やさしい Are like
言葉のようだ Kind words
私の My
心の角砂糖は Sugar cube heart
カップのなかで Melts
気持ちよく Gently
溶けてゆく In my mug
(Things lost in that translation: the nice rhyme and rhythm of the last two lines: kimochi yoku / tokete yuku. Approximated with the slant rhyme of "melt" and "gentle." Also didn't want to end the poem with in my mug, which is the third line in the Japanese, but sounded really bad when I kept it there anyway.)
「返事」 My Reply
風が 耳元で In my ears the wind
「もうそろそろ Invites me
あの世に In intoxicating tones
行きましょう」 "Shall we go now
なんて 猫撫で声で To the other side?"
誘うのよ
だから 私 So, I
すぐに返事をしたの Quickly replied
「あと少し "I'll stay here
こっちに居るわ Just a bit longer
やり残した There are still some things
事があるから」 Left undone"
風は The wind
困った顔をして With a pout on her face
すーっと帰って行った Swiftly returned from whence it came
(Things last in that translation: Possesessive-ized the title - sounded bad as just "Reply" or "The Reply". Lost a line because it was too stilted not putting "Shall we go now" together. Said "Invites me / In intoxicating tones" to get the nice alliteration/assonance of "nante nekonadegoede," since "nekonadegoe" is more like a "coaxing tone"; it's literally "the voice you use to talk to a cat." "Returned from whence it came" is decidedly more flowery than the simple "went back" - WENT BACK WHERE I ASK YOU. Also made the wind feminine, who in the Japanese is more or less neutral.)
「肩叩き券」 A Coupon for a Shoulder Massage
埃にまみれた Something I pulled out
がまぐちの中から Covered in dust
出てきた物 From an old coin purse
父ちゃん 母ちゃんへ To Mommy and Daddy
十五分肩叩き券 15 Minute Shoulder Massage
（三十一年十月まで使えるよ）(Expires 10/1931)
健一 Kenichi
当時 小学生だった倅が Back then my boy was in grade school
わら半紙を小さく切って He cut out cheap straw paper
作ってくれた券の束 And made us a these bundle of coupons
今でも I wonder if I could use it
使えるかしら Even now
(Hate that I had to invert the last two lines.)
「秘密」 A Secret
私ね 死にたいって You know, I've thought
思ったことが So many times
何度もあったの That I wanted to die
でも 詩を作り始めて But I started writing poetry
多くの人に励まされ And have been encouraged by so many people
今はもう So now
泣きごとは言わない I won't complain anymore
九十八歳でも Even at 98
恋はするのよ I love
夢だってみるの And I dream
雲にだって乗りたいわ I want to ride on a cloud
(If you're not touched at least a little bit by that last poem then you are more heartless than I. Those four poems are a very small portion of what's found in Kujikenaide, and what I think are overall some of the better ones. But if you decide to check the book out for yourself, be warned: you'll probably find a number of duds. Or maybe you won't. It has sold 1.5 million copies.)
Friday, January 21, 2011
1st JLPP International Translation Contest
This just in!
It looks like the Japanese Literature Publishing Project is holding their first annual translation contest! Apparently they announced this back in late December, but I hadn't caught a whiff of it anywhere until I randomly decided to check out the JLPP website today.
The JLPP needs to advertise more!
One of the requirements is that this is for first-time translators only. Previously published translators (even those with just one story in an anthology) are inelligible. Also, curiously enough, there are no details about the prize for the winner, although there is a first and second prize winner, so hopefully there is one (especially publication!).
There are six total choices for the translation pieces - three short stories and three literary essays. Although the wording might be a little misleading, it sounds like the translator must submit one translation from each category, so a total of two submissions. They even provide PDF files of the pieces - no expensive shipping from Amazon Japan necessary (if you are indeed not living in Japan, like I am)! Also, for any German speakers out there, it's for both English and German translators!
You have almost all year to work on these you guys - the submission period is September 1st, 2011 to November 30, 2011. So get crackin'! Oh, and one of the judges is Stephen Snyder - who translated Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor and Ryu Murakami's Coin Locker Babies among many other great contemporary works. So that's neat.
Clearly this is very exciting to me. You know I'm giving it a shot.
Anyway, check it out here!
It looks like the Japanese Literature Publishing Project is holding their first annual translation contest! Apparently they announced this back in late December, but I hadn't caught a whiff of it anywhere until I randomly decided to check out the JLPP website today.
The JLPP needs to advertise more!
One of the requirements is that this is for first-time translators only. Previously published translators (even those with just one story in an anthology) are inelligible. Also, curiously enough, there are no details about the prize for the winner, although there is a first and second prize winner, so hopefully there is one (especially publication!).
There are six total choices for the translation pieces - three short stories and three literary essays. Although the wording might be a little misleading, it sounds like the translator must submit one translation from each category, so a total of two submissions. They even provide PDF files of the pieces - no expensive shipping from Amazon Japan necessary (if you are indeed not living in Japan, like I am)! Also, for any German speakers out there, it's for both English and German translators!
You have almost all year to work on these you guys - the submission period is September 1st, 2011 to November 30, 2011. So get crackin'! Oh, and one of the judges is Stephen Snyder - who translated Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor and Ryu Murakami's Coin Locker Babies among many other great contemporary works. So that's neat.
Clearly this is very exciting to me. You know I'm giving it a shot.
Anyway, check it out here!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
A Translation Comparison of Haruki Murakami's "100% Perfect Girl"
In preparing for the soon arriving untitled project I mentioned in the last post, I went to the library today looking for some books and I found a somewhat old anthology of Japanese short stories called New Japanese Voices: The Best Contemporary Fiction of Japan. I was drawn to the collection of writers assembled for this book, including (Wednesday Afternoon Picnic favorite) Genichiro Takahashi, Masahiko Shimada, Amy Yamada (here under the spelling Eimi Yamada), Banana Yoshimoto, and everyone's favorite Haruki Murakami.
What struck me about the Murakami was that the story in the collection was called "On Meeting My 100 Percent Woman One Fine April Morning," subtly different from the title I'm used to, "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning."My interest piqued, I took it out along with an assortment of other books you may hear about in the near future.
The reason why the title is slightly different is that it was translated for this collection by a different set of translators than any of the "official" translators, i.e. Jay Rubin, who translated the version of this story for The Elephant Vanishes, Philip Gabriel or Alfred Birnbaum. And boy does it show.
Overall, I guess the problem is that the non-Rubin version is extremely literal. Checking against the original as collected in カンガルー日和 (A Perfect Day for Kangaroos), nothing seems wrong in any obvious way. But it's extremely wordy and structured in a way that when reading it just doesn't sound quite natural. And that's probably the deal-breaker. This early in his career, Murakami was a "cool" writer, a voice for the young, and consequently his style was decidedly not "literary" or flowery in the traditional sense, (my professor has called his style "flat" in many of his published work, to my dismay) but one that was extremely modern and accessible. And that has to come across in English too.
Today in a class on translation, we talked about how editors have the final say in the publishing world, and how ultimately editors will edit in a way that will get the book read by as many people as possible because in the end what is important to the company is if the book sells. And obviously different publishers and different editors have very different agendas and see the text in very different ways - a university press might go for something more scholarly than accessible and sell-able like a big publisher like Random House.
Therefore, I wish I could see Jay Rubin's original draft of "100%." Maybe at the end of the day it was his editor that gussied up the text. In terms of faithfulness, there are some slightly liberties: the most obvious are the additions of a handful of sentences that aren't even in the original text - although it is possible, however, that they may have existed at some point. Murakami is infamous for re-writes of his own work in later editions. But in this case, I think Jay Rubin/his editor at Knopf had it right. In my opinion, it is the better translation. I hope that this evaluation is as unbiased as possible - I did read the Jay Rubin first and many times over since, so obviously I'm "used to" that version. But let's take a look now at both.
For now, the first sentence:
Jay Rubin:
One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harajuku neighborhood, I walk past the 100% perfect girl.
New Japanese Voices version:
One fine April morning, I passed my 100 percent woman on a Harajuku back street.
Obviously, the "Tokyo's fashionable neighborhood" part isn't in the original - every person in Japan knows Harajuku, although the same assumption can't be made for Americans, especially in the early 1990s (I'm talking about those innocent days before Gwen Stefani's appropriation of Harajuku fashion in the early 2000s' cultural zeitgeist). But one inclusion that IS necessary is the simple word "perfect" in Rubin's translation. No, it's not in the original. But it is clearly implied in the context of the story and sounds 100% weird without it. Continuing:
Rubin: Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.
NJV: She wasn't an especially pretty woman. It wasn't that she was wearing fine clothes, either. In the back, her hair still showed how she'd slept on it; and her age must already have been close to thirty. Nonetheless, even from fifty meters away, I knew it: she is the 100 percent woman for me. From the moment her figure caught my eyes, my chest shook wildly; my mouth was parched dry as a desert.
Rubin's "She doesn't stand out in any way" is an obvious addition - in my copy of the Japanese, anything resembling that sentence is not there, but it fits in perfectly (non-descript-ness has always been a favorite image for Murakami). The same goes for "She isn't young, either" and "not even close to a "girl," properly speaking" - 100% not in the original. It's an interesting choice to be sure. Like I said, the NJV version is much closer to the original text, except for one change, for reasons I absolutely can't fathom: the NJV is in the past tense, when the original (and the Rubin) are in the present. Let's continue:
Rubin: Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or that you're drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I'll catch myself staring at the girl at the table next to mine because I like the shape of her nose.
But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can't call the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It's weird.
NJV: Maybe you have a type of woman you like. For example, you think, women with slender ankles are good; or, all in all, it's a women with big eyes; or it's definitely women with pretty fingers, or I don't understand it, but I'm attracted to women who take a lot of time to eat a meal - something like that. Of course, I have that kind of preference. I've even been distracted, eating at a restaurant, by the shape of a woman's nose at the next table.
But no one can "typify" the 100 percent woman at all.
I absolutely cannot even remember what her nose looked like - not even whether she had a nose or not, only that she wasn't especially beautiful. How bizarre!
Again, the NJV matches the original pretty accurately, but this is where that translation really breaks down for me. The most egregious aspect of the NJV is that "typify" nonsense - in the Japanese it's a katakana word: タイプファイする. From personal experience, it is certainly extremely tempting to use the exact same word as in the original when it's presented in the text as a foreign loan word like this instead of a Japanese word. But this just doesn't make any sense. And that weird paragraph break after that sentence is NOT in the original, making it kind of an odd choice. Part of me likes the way the NJV keeps the sense that people are thinking to themselves "Oh, I like THIS about women" in the original, but it does come out a bit wordy, and the Rubin ultimately flows better. Maybe it was painful for even Rubin to have to cut that out. And "It's weird" matches the tone of the narrator in my opinion much better than the extremely emphatic (and overly dramatic) "How bizarre!" - the original, "なんだか不思議なものだ", would be something like "Rather mysterious" if we were to be super translation-ese about it.
I could continue, but this post is getting rather long as it is. Other weird things include the NJV version taking out that the narrator wants to see a Woody Allen movie in particular, for reasons I don't understand (maybe he has a patent on his own name and we have to pay him money every time he's even mentioned).
But look, before anyone starts judging, translation is hard, and it's not a science. If the translators for the NJV version and the book itself had any influence in getting more Murakami translated into English, then good for them. Something is better than nothing. And even though I'm worried about the qualities of the translation, I'm very much looking forward to reading the Shimada and Takahashi stories, simply because there is so little of them in English.
Anyway, The NJV version of the translation can actually be found online in a few places, including here, so check it out for yourself. If you feel I'm totally misguided in praising the changes Rubin/Knopf made in the name of commerciality and selling out, that the translator's integrity has been somehow compromised and that the New Japanese Voices version is the REAL Murakami voice, feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to hear what other people have to say on this matter.
One last comparison to prove that I'm right though:
Rubin: Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, for too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.
Oh, well. It would have started "Once upon a time" and ended "A sad story, don't you think?"
NJV: Of course, now I know exactly how I should have spoken up to her then. but, no matter what, it's such a long confession I know I wouldn't have been able to say it well. I'm always thinking of things like this that aren't realistic.
Anyway, that confession starts, "once upon a time," and ends, "isn't that a sad story?"
What struck me about the Murakami was that the story in the collection was called "On Meeting My 100 Percent Woman One Fine April Morning," subtly different from the title I'm used to, "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning."My interest piqued, I took it out along with an assortment of other books you may hear about in the near future.
The reason why the title is slightly different is that it was translated for this collection by a different set of translators than any of the "official" translators, i.e. Jay Rubin, who translated the version of this story for The Elephant Vanishes, Philip Gabriel or Alfred Birnbaum. And boy does it show.
Overall, I guess the problem is that the non-Rubin version is extremely literal. Checking against the original as collected in カンガルー日和 (A Perfect Day for Kangaroos), nothing seems wrong in any obvious way. But it's extremely wordy and structured in a way that when reading it just doesn't sound quite natural. And that's probably the deal-breaker. This early in his career, Murakami was a "cool" writer, a voice for the young, and consequently his style was decidedly not "literary" or flowery in the traditional sense, (my professor has called his style "flat" in many of his published work, to my dismay) but one that was extremely modern and accessible. And that has to come across in English too.
Today in a class on translation, we talked about how editors have the final say in the publishing world, and how ultimately editors will edit in a way that will get the book read by as many people as possible because in the end what is important to the company is if the book sells. And obviously different publishers and different editors have very different agendas and see the text in very different ways - a university press might go for something more scholarly than accessible and sell-able like a big publisher like Random House.
Therefore, I wish I could see Jay Rubin's original draft of "100%." Maybe at the end of the day it was his editor that gussied up the text. In terms of faithfulness, there are some slightly liberties: the most obvious are the additions of a handful of sentences that aren't even in the original text - although it is possible, however, that they may have existed at some point. Murakami is infamous for re-writes of his own work in later editions. But in this case, I think Jay Rubin/his editor at Knopf had it right. In my opinion, it is the better translation. I hope that this evaluation is as unbiased as possible - I did read the Jay Rubin first and many times over since, so obviously I'm "used to" that version. But let's take a look now at both.
For now, the first sentence:
Jay Rubin:
One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harajuku neighborhood, I walk past the 100% perfect girl.
New Japanese Voices version:
One fine April morning, I passed my 100 percent woman on a Harajuku back street.
Obviously, the "Tokyo's fashionable neighborhood" part isn't in the original - every person in Japan knows Harajuku, although the same assumption can't be made for Americans, especially in the early 1990s (I'm talking about those innocent days before Gwen Stefani's appropriation of Harajuku fashion in the early 2000s' cultural zeitgeist). But one inclusion that IS necessary is the simple word "perfect" in Rubin's translation. No, it's not in the original. But it is clearly implied in the context of the story and sounds 100% weird without it. Continuing:
Rubin: Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.
NJV: She wasn't an especially pretty woman. It wasn't that she was wearing fine clothes, either. In the back, her hair still showed how she'd slept on it; and her age must already have been close to thirty. Nonetheless, even from fifty meters away, I knew it: she is the 100 percent woman for me. From the moment her figure caught my eyes, my chest shook wildly; my mouth was parched dry as a desert.
Rubin's "She doesn't stand out in any way" is an obvious addition - in my copy of the Japanese, anything resembling that sentence is not there, but it fits in perfectly (non-descript-ness has always been a favorite image for Murakami). The same goes for "She isn't young, either" and "not even close to a "girl," properly speaking" - 100% not in the original. It's an interesting choice to be sure. Like I said, the NJV version is much closer to the original text, except for one change, for reasons I absolutely can't fathom: the NJV is in the past tense, when the original (and the Rubin) are in the present. Let's continue:
Rubin: Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or that you're drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I'll catch myself staring at the girl at the table next to mine because I like the shape of her nose.
But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can't call the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It's weird.
NJV: Maybe you have a type of woman you like. For example, you think, women with slender ankles are good; or, all in all, it's a women with big eyes; or it's definitely women with pretty fingers, or I don't understand it, but I'm attracted to women who take a lot of time to eat a meal - something like that. Of course, I have that kind of preference. I've even been distracted, eating at a restaurant, by the shape of a woman's nose at the next table.
But no one can "typify" the 100 percent woman at all.
I absolutely cannot even remember what her nose looked like - not even whether she had a nose or not, only that she wasn't especially beautiful. How bizarre!
Again, the NJV matches the original pretty accurately, but this is where that translation really breaks down for me. The most egregious aspect of the NJV is that "typify" nonsense - in the Japanese it's a katakana word: タイプファイする. From personal experience, it is certainly extremely tempting to use the exact same word as in the original when it's presented in the text as a foreign loan word like this instead of a Japanese word. But this just doesn't make any sense. And that weird paragraph break after that sentence is NOT in the original, making it kind of an odd choice. Part of me likes the way the NJV keeps the sense that people are thinking to themselves "Oh, I like THIS about women" in the original, but it does come out a bit wordy, and the Rubin ultimately flows better. Maybe it was painful for even Rubin to have to cut that out. And "It's weird" matches the tone of the narrator in my opinion much better than the extremely emphatic (and overly dramatic) "How bizarre!" - the original, "なんだか不思議なものだ", would be something like "Rather mysterious" if we were to be super translation-ese about it.
I could continue, but this post is getting rather long as it is. Other weird things include the NJV version taking out that the narrator wants to see a Woody Allen movie in particular, for reasons I don't understand (maybe he has a patent on his own name and we have to pay him money every time he's even mentioned).
But look, before anyone starts judging, translation is hard, and it's not a science. If the translators for the NJV version and the book itself had any influence in getting more Murakami translated into English, then good for them. Something is better than nothing. And even though I'm worried about the qualities of the translation, I'm very much looking forward to reading the Shimada and Takahashi stories, simply because there is so little of them in English.
Anyway, The NJV version of the translation can actually be found online in a few places, including here, so check it out for yourself. If you feel I'm totally misguided in praising the changes Rubin/Knopf made in the name of commerciality and selling out, that the translator's integrity has been somehow compromised and that the New Japanese Voices version is the REAL Murakami voice, feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to hear what other people have to say on this matter.
One last comparison to prove that I'm right though:
Rubin: Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, for too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.
Oh, well. It would have started "Once upon a time" and ended "A sad story, don't you think?"
NJV: Of course, now I know exactly how I should have spoken up to her then. but, no matter what, it's such a long confession I know I wouldn't have been able to say it well. I'm always thinking of things like this that aren't realistic.
Anyway, that confession starts, "once upon a time," and ends, "isn't that a sad story?"
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Genichiro Takahashi's "Life"
Today I'm going to share some excerpts from a short story that I translated recently by Genichiro Takahashi. It comes from his short story collection 君が代は千代に八千代に (Kimi ga yo ha chiyoni yachiyoni, "May Your Reign Last Forever and Ever") which I've already shared a little bit of here.
This particular excerpt comes from a short story called 人生, or "Life." The story follows Kento, a novelist with a wife and newborn. The beginning is extremely low-key, so much so that the lack of action is actually stifling. He drinks water while his wife drinks beer after beer watching the home shopping network. Eventually he goes to do his work, which of course is his writing. The reader learns that Kento has been suffering from writer's block, and is only able to begin stories. The majority of the "action," as it were, lies in the section where Kento sorts through the collection of his unfinished stories sitting on his computer. The first one he looks at (the one he's currently trying to work on) is called "Handicapped":
Writers writing about writing is certainly a theme of countless stories and novels, but I think the reason this story works is the way Takahashi focuses on the fragments that have been written instead of the inner life of Kento and his frustrations. Instead of something that could be seen as static (in lieu of another less helpful word like "boring" perhaps) Takahashi brings together pieces that are more dynamic. And as a reader, I found that it brings up the question of why the pieces that are shared with the reader in the story (the others are about a son finding out his father has cancer, which at the risk of sounding unsympathetic or meanspirited could be seen as a generic topic, and a man buying a sex robot that hilariously proves to be not what he expected) simply can't be pushed or tweaked into something usable. It's a fascinating idea to me - that something, that on paper sounds like perfect material for a story, cannot be manipulated or evolve into a worthwhile story - and one that sounds very realistic and true to life to me.
But I think that including the unfinished stories alone wouldn't make this story as meaningful or emotionally resonant as it is without picking at Kento's brain somewhat, and showing the reader that behind the frustration of not being able to write is really just fear - fear that he has nothing meaningful to say because his life is ultimately empty:
When Kento gives up on his writing for the night and leaves his study, he finds his wife the same way he left her:
I wonder if the effect is not as chilling as it is coming from reading the whole story, but in my opinion "Life" is a powerful story, and a fascinating and important one from Takahashi, who as a writer, is characterized by post-modern tricks and outlandish premises. The outlandish premises color the story, certainly, in that the first and third of the unfinished stories shared are ever so slightly bizarre, but the real meat of the story, and Kento the character, are defined by the silence and the fear and insecurity that silence represents. "Life" is Takahashi proving that there is something very real and very vital behind all the post-modern noise of his fiction.
This particular excerpt comes from a short story called 人生, or "Life." The story follows Kento, a novelist with a wife and newborn. The beginning is extremely low-key, so much so that the lack of action is actually stifling. He drinks water while his wife drinks beer after beer watching the home shopping network. Eventually he goes to do his work, which of course is his writing. The reader learns that Kento has been suffering from writer's block, and is only able to begin stories. The majority of the "action," as it were, lies in the section where Kento sorts through the collection of his unfinished stories sitting on his computer. The first one he looks at (the one he's currently trying to work on) is called "Handicapped":
The
man was handicapped, ever since birth. He had a large badge attached to his
chest, one of crisscrossing lines of green and yellow. It was the mark of the
disabled. This badge was attached to him when he was in first grade. He took a
test at school, and then they knew he was handicapped. And what's more, in a
ranking of the disabled from level 1 to level 8, he was ranked level 1.
His teacher put the badge on him. Then she said
give this to your mother, and handed him a letter.
The boy went home triumphantly. For he was the
only one in his class to get a badge.
His mother fainted as soon as she saw his
badge. After a while, he sat down quietly next to his unconscious mother. After
that his mother came to. When she saw the badge on his chest, she fainted
again. Then his mother came to again. There was nothing she could do but come
to. Truly, she wanted to stay unconscious like this forever. The boy handed the
letter he was given to his mother. His mother read the letter. She fainted
before she finished reading it.
At some point, his father came home. He was
tall; his face, hands and nose were big as well, and he had a stoop as if he
was embarrassed by these things, and there was always creases in his shirt over
his chest. As soon as he came home, his mother and father started to quarrel
violently. It was regarding the matter of the badge pinned to his chest.
“I don't get it. I work for this family from
morning to night, and this is what I get in return. There's still twenty years
remaining on our loan, and three years ago, when I thought we were gonna get a
bonus, half of it was payment in kind. And on top of that, get this! The brat
has a huge fucking badge on his chest.”
“Are you saying it's my fault?”
“If it's not my fault then whose is it?”
Next to this fight the boy shined his badge. It
somehow felt magnificent.
Writers writing about writing is certainly a theme of countless stories and novels, but I think the reason this story works is the way Takahashi focuses on the fragments that have been written instead of the inner life of Kento and his frustrations. Instead of something that could be seen as static (in lieu of another less helpful word like "boring" perhaps) Takahashi brings together pieces that are more dynamic. And as a reader, I found that it brings up the question of why the pieces that are shared with the reader in the story (the others are about a son finding out his father has cancer, which at the risk of sounding unsympathetic or meanspirited could be seen as a generic topic, and a man buying a sex robot that hilariously proves to be not what he expected) simply can't be pushed or tweaked into something usable. It's a fascinating idea to me - that something, that on paper sounds like perfect material for a story, cannot be manipulated or evolve into a worthwhile story - and one that sounds very realistic and true to life to me.
But I think that including the unfinished stories alone wouldn't make this story as meaningful or emotionally resonant as it is without picking at Kento's brain somewhat, and showing the reader that behind the frustration of not being able to write is really just fear - fear that he has nothing meaningful to say because his life is ultimately empty:
Kento pulled out a number of novels from the
bookshelf written by his peers.
It seemed that everyone was writing about life.
About how there was some sort of meaning in life, or something like that. They
were writing about what was moving, what was full of hardships, and about the
joy that existed afterward. They were writing about this and that, and the
experiences behind them. And when he finished reading them, it seemed like this
thing “life” wasn't so bad. If life is just like this, Kento thought, then I
want to give this “life” a shot too.
Kento stopped reading the books written by his peers.
They won't be his references. No matter what, novels are written about life.
There is no such thing as writing about anything else. What Kento wanted to
know was what about life he should write about.
When Kento gives up on his writing for the night and leaves his study, he finds his wife the same way he left her:
What
the hell was I thinking, writing these novels? Kento leaned his head to one
side, and gazed at the novels, one after the other; novels that were like streams that
disappeared halfway through the desert. Just wasted time. Kento switched his
computer off and went to the kitchen. His wife was still drinking beer. The
home shopping network was still on. The products seemed endless.
“Your mother called,” Kento's wife said without
looking at him. “She's being treated badly by her daughter-in-law. Even though
she knows her teeth are bad, she gives her only old and stale things to eat.”
“That's awful,” Kento said.
“If
the time comes, I wonder if it would be OK if we take her in.”
“Of course,” Kento replied.
Kento spoke without moving his eyes from the
TV. This is life, he thought.
Therefore, I am living life. It's so quiet.
But, Kento thought. But...yet...
I wonder if the effect is not as chilling as it is coming from reading the whole story, but in my opinion "Life" is a powerful story, and a fascinating and important one from Takahashi, who as a writer, is characterized by post-modern tricks and outlandish premises. The outlandish premises color the story, certainly, in that the first and third of the unfinished stories shared are ever so slightly bizarre, but the real meat of the story, and Kento the character, are defined by the silence and the fear and insecurity that silence represents. "Life" is Takahashi proving that there is something very real and very vital behind all the post-modern noise of his fiction.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Do YOU like Nicolas Cage?
First of all, my apologies for the long lack of posts. It started with the end of a very intense and busy semester, and then my computer went kaput! I hate it when I go so long without a post, but there wasn't much I could do until now.
Anyway, I've been looking for a fun thing to start off my return, and I was flipping through some of my books and I found the following little selection. It comes from a neat book called "Ah Yes, Let's Ask Mr. Murakami!" which is a collection of questions and answers posed on Haruki Murakami's website in the late nineties. It even has illustrations by longtime collaborator Anzai Mizumaru. Some of the questions that Murakami was asked are pretty random (and consequently hilarious) and Murakami answers them in a most Murakami way (my favorite question, and how I discovered this book, can be found here at How to Japonese). And then I found this:
-----
Question 94
Do you like Nicolas Cage?
At 10:35 AM 1998.08.31
My husband is starting to go bald a bit, so I suggested that he follow the example of the bald but cool Nicolas Cage. However, my husband really hates that he's balding, so he won't listen to me. According to him, "The dude IS bald!!" So all of our arguments end on an unpleasant note.
But I digress. What I mean to ask is, is there anybody out there that thinks Nicolas Cage is cool? I decided to try asking around.
If you're not busy, please tell me what you think. Also, does your wife like Nicolas Cage? I'd be so happy if you took the time to answer. (29 years old, Gemini, Blood Type A)
Hello. It seems my wife does not like Nicolas Cage. When I asked what about him, it seems that she doesn't like:
1) the way he talks
2) the shape of his nose
3) the look in his eyes (when he's looking down).
She's a rather prejudiced person. But when I asked her what she thinks about baldness, she said, "That sort of thing doesn't really matter." Please tell that to your husband.
I personally neither like nor dislike Mr. Cage. He was good as the one-handed baker in Moonstruck, but I guess it must be sweltering, since he only wears tank-tops and is always sweaty.
--------
YES.
Bonus bonus bonus! The question gets a comic to go along with it! Start with the guy on the right in each panel (click on the image to make it big enough to be legible. Also, pardon the poor image editing skills. I sort of rushed through it to get it up):
[For those curious, Lou Oshiba is an actor/comedian. He looks like this:
Well, it's true. He's no Cage.]
Anyway, I've been looking for a fun thing to start off my return, and I was flipping through some of my books and I found the following little selection. It comes from a neat book called "Ah Yes, Let's Ask Mr. Murakami!" which is a collection of questions and answers posed on Haruki Murakami's website in the late nineties. It even has illustrations by longtime collaborator Anzai Mizumaru. Some of the questions that Murakami was asked are pretty random (and consequently hilarious) and Murakami answers them in a most Murakami way (my favorite question, and how I discovered this book, can be found here at How to Japonese). And then I found this:
-----
Question 94
Do you like Nicolas Cage?
At 10:35 AM 1998.08.31
My husband is starting to go bald a bit, so I suggested that he follow the example of the bald but cool Nicolas Cage. However, my husband really hates that he's balding, so he won't listen to me. According to him, "The dude IS bald!!" So all of our arguments end on an unpleasant note.
But I digress. What I mean to ask is, is there anybody out there that thinks Nicolas Cage is cool? I decided to try asking around.
If you're not busy, please tell me what you think. Also, does your wife like Nicolas Cage? I'd be so happy if you took the time to answer. (29 years old, Gemini, Blood Type A)
Hello. It seems my wife does not like Nicolas Cage. When I asked what about him, it seems that she doesn't like:
1) the way he talks
2) the shape of his nose
3) the look in his eyes (when he's looking down).
She's a rather prejudiced person. But when I asked her what she thinks about baldness, she said, "That sort of thing doesn't really matter." Please tell that to your husband.
I personally neither like nor dislike Mr. Cage. He was good as the one-handed baker in Moonstruck, but I guess it must be sweltering, since he only wears tank-tops and is always sweaty.
--------
YES.
Bonus bonus bonus! The question gets a comic to go along with it! Start with the guy on the right in each panel (click on the image to make it big enough to be legible. Also, pardon the poor image editing skills. I sort of rushed through it to get it up):
[For those curious, Lou Oshiba is an actor/comedian. He looks like this:
Well, it's true. He's no Cage.]
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Interesting Link Round-up
Many months ago I wrote a post on the JLPP, and how they're an NPO that promotes Japanese literature in translation through myriad means (you can see what I wrote for yourself here).
The other day, I saw at the Literary Saloon that a new like-minded project called "Read Japan" has been established. The article at the Literary Saloon is quite interesting, and I suggest you read it.
But it turns out it was just a good day for Japanese literature news the other day at the Literary Saloon, so I link you to a book review that also talks a bit about the JLPP (and their problems...) and a Q&A with Haruki Murakami translator Jay Rubin.
Basically, this is a post that is telling you to start following the Literary Saloon if you haven't already, especially if you have an interest in international literature even beyond that of Japan.
The other day, I saw at the Literary Saloon that a new like-minded project called "Read Japan" has been established. The article at the Literary Saloon is quite interesting, and I suggest you read it.
But it turns out it was just a good day for Japanese literature news the other day at the Literary Saloon, so I link you to a book review that also talks a bit about the JLPP (and their problems...) and a Q&A with Haruki Murakami translator Jay Rubin.
Basically, this is a post that is telling you to start following the Literary Saloon if you haven't already, especially if you have an interest in international literature even beyond that of Japan.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
An Excerpt from "The Illusions of Love and Marriage"
Although this isn't exactly what I had in mind originally, I'd like to share with you a piece of work by Genichiro Takahashi, author of of one of my favorite novels, Sayonara, Gangsters.
I bring him up a lot and it's kind of funny when I think about it. I've only read a small fraction of his work, in English - only a novel, and in the original Japanese, maybe a combined total of seventy-five to a hundred pages from about a dozen short stories, beginnings of novels, and literary essays. And yet I'm obsessed. I believe in him as a writer almost entirely on faith. Yes, I loved his one novel, but does that prove his entire body of work to be of literary worth? I mean, yes, I do think so, but if you were to ask me why I believed so much in what I only know so little of, I couldn't give you a good answer. I can point out what I like about his work only so much. Maybe I should have a little more confidence in my taste/sense of "good" literature, but I can't let go of this idea that Takahashi is or should be the next big thing, but nobody knows it outside of Japan yet (and even there I don't think he has the largest following).
The following bit is from a short story of what I'm translating as "The Illusions of Love and Marriage", from his short story collection 君が代は千代に八千代に. I'm satisfied with just presenting this beginning bit because although the story itself is interesting, it's too long to translate here (at least for now). And what I want to focus on translating is the poem.
---
He met her at a party. She was a poet. She was reading poetry in the middle of the party. A real beauty. Narrow hips, a big butt. And big eyes. In other words, she was just his type. She wore a white t-shirt over jeans, and with a spellbound expression she read her poetry.
"Einstein rode the Galaxy Express
Einsten, with the Fuji Evening News and Shonen Jump in his lap
And by the window a plastic bottle filled with oolong tea
His travel arrangements are complete
The conductor came
And Einstein took out his ticket and said
'Standard class, Shinagawa to Kamakura'
The conductor took off his cap
'Does light appear to stop to people running at the speed of light?
Is the medium that transmits his light ether?
Is the object's matter inherent in that object?
What is the ultimate matter?
What will happen when matter and anti-matter collide?
The price of the standard class ticket is 750 yen, thank you for riding with us'
After a while the conductor came back
'Sir, we've already passed Kamakura'
Einstein was surprised
'Huh? Where are we now?'
'Well we've passed Kamakura, and Muromachi as well, and in 15 minutes is Heian'
'Oh darn, I've mistaken this for the Yokosuka line'
The Galaxy Express will go
Anywhere, you know
E=MC²"
----
Poetry is super hard to translate. In the original Japanese, it's pretty loosey-goosey in terms of form, but since many of the phrases end with the simple desu ka or verb past tense -ta, there is definitely some sense of rhyme in many phrases, but it's just so easy to construct in the Japanese, and totally weird in the English. Maybe with some time I could come up with a substitution or solution, but I just wanted to share this crazy little poem. The Galaxy Express is quite a fixture in the Japanese pop culture consciousness (think of all the anime alone). And I would also like to point out that Kamakura, while also a famous city outside of Tokyo, is also the name of a time period in Japanese history, as are the Muromachi and the Heian eras.
I bring him up a lot and it's kind of funny when I think about it. I've only read a small fraction of his work, in English - only a novel, and in the original Japanese, maybe a combined total of seventy-five to a hundred pages from about a dozen short stories, beginnings of novels, and literary essays. And yet I'm obsessed. I believe in him as a writer almost entirely on faith. Yes, I loved his one novel, but does that prove his entire body of work to be of literary worth? I mean, yes, I do think so, but if you were to ask me why I believed so much in what I only know so little of, I couldn't give you a good answer. I can point out what I like about his work only so much. Maybe I should have a little more confidence in my taste/sense of "good" literature, but I can't let go of this idea that Takahashi is or should be the next big thing, but nobody knows it outside of Japan yet (and even there I don't think he has the largest following).
The following bit is from a short story of what I'm translating as "The Illusions of Love and Marriage", from his short story collection 君が代は千代に八千代に. I'm satisfied with just presenting this beginning bit because although the story itself is interesting, it's too long to translate here (at least for now). And what I want to focus on translating is the poem.
---
He met her at a party. She was a poet. She was reading poetry in the middle of the party. A real beauty. Narrow hips, a big butt. And big eyes. In other words, she was just his type. She wore a white t-shirt over jeans, and with a spellbound expression she read her poetry.
"Einstein rode the Galaxy Express
Einsten, with the Fuji Evening News and Shonen Jump in his lap
And by the window a plastic bottle filled with oolong tea
His travel arrangements are complete
The conductor came
And Einstein took out his ticket and said
'Standard class, Shinagawa to Kamakura'
The conductor took off his cap
'Does light appear to stop to people running at the speed of light?
Is the medium that transmits his light ether?
Is the object's matter inherent in that object?
What is the ultimate matter?
What will happen when matter and anti-matter collide?
The price of the standard class ticket is 750 yen, thank you for riding with us'
After a while the conductor came back
'Sir, we've already passed Kamakura'
Einstein was surprised
'Huh? Where are we now?'
'Well we've passed Kamakura, and Muromachi as well, and in 15 minutes is Heian'
'Oh darn, I've mistaken this for the Yokosuka line'
The Galaxy Express will go
Anywhere, you know
E=MC²"
----
Poetry is super hard to translate. In the original Japanese, it's pretty loosey-goosey in terms of form, but since many of the phrases end with the simple desu ka or verb past tense -ta, there is definitely some sense of rhyme in many phrases, but it's just so easy to construct in the Japanese, and totally weird in the English. Maybe with some time I could come up with a substitution or solution, but I just wanted to share this crazy little poem. The Galaxy Express is quite a fixture in the Japanese pop culture consciousness (think of all the anime alone). And I would also like to point out that Kamakura, while also a famous city outside of Tokyo, is also the name of a time period in Japanese history, as are the Muromachi and the Heian eras.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Kaori Ekuni - "The Night, My Wife, and the Detergent"
“The Night, My Wife, and the Detergent"
by Kaori Ekuni, from the collection Somber Slumbers (Nurui Nemuri)
--
I want to get separated, my wife said. We gotta talk.
It was already 10 PM. I was tired. My wife and I are in the fifth year of our marriage, no kids.
You can pretend you don't see it, she said. But even if you pretend, this isn't going to go away.
Without responding, I continued to watch TV, but she turned the damn thing off. What I was pretending not to see, what wasn't going to disappear, I hadn't the faintest. Same as always.
I saw, as my wife stood blocking my way and glaring down at me, that her pedicure was chipping off.
“Oh, nail polish remover!”
I said. You don't have nail polish remover, so you can't take your pedicure off. That's why you're all upset, right?
My voice was half full of hope and half full of relief. My wife shook her head.
“So then it's those cotton balls. Even if I told you to use tissues instead, you're saying you definitely could not use them, so it's 'cause you don't have any of those cotton balls.”
She sighed - no, she said. That's not what I'm saying at all. I have nail polish remover and cotton balls. I haven't taken my pedicure off because I'm too busy. I just don't have the time to take care of my nails.
Time. I give up.
I love my wife, and I wish I had her strength. But I don't know what to do when she asks for things you can't get at convenience stores.
“Hey, listen to me. I really think we should live separately. I'm sure we could become really good friends.”
I was getting real sick of this. Can't she just leave it alone for tonight?
“About how many trash bags do we have left?”
As a husband, I decided to give my best to her. But the thing you need to know about my wife is that she answers questions. Even when she's angry, even when she's crying, if you ask her a question, she always answers.
“How about detergent? Milk? Diet Pepsi?”
I listed off the things my wife needed in her daily life.
“Well, we have a lot of trash bags. As far as detergent goes, we only have the bottle we're using now, but we have milk and diet Pepsi too. But that has nothing to do with what I'm trying to say to you right now. Please, listen seriously.”
I wasn't listening. I already had my shoes on and was at the door. Stop, or, listen, or whatever my wife was saying at my back, I went outside and headed to the convenience store. The windows in all the houses along the way were lit.
The detergent my wife likes is in a pink bottle. There are several brands with pink bottles, but it's the one with the pink cap as well that's the lucky guy. I bought five of them. I bought diet Pepsi and milk too. And trash bags and nail polish remover. And cotton balls. And while I was at it, an onigiri.
The bag was real heavy. The white plastic bag rustled and crinkled in such a way that I thought it was going to tear apart on the way home.
My wife looked miserable standing at the front door.
“Why would you buy so much?
The amount is crucial.
She sighs again as I pull out the contents of the bag one at a time. You really don't listen when people talk to you, huh. Didn't I tell you we already had diet Pepsi? And milk. And trash bags.
Then, she bursts out laughing.
“Why are you like this, honey? You don't listen to anything do you?"
She's holding the nail polish remover in her hands.
I win.
------------------
Kaori Ekuni is another famous contemporary author. She's won, among others, the Murasaki Shikibu Prize 1992 and the Naoki Prize in 2004. Not only a literary fiction writer, she is famous for her young adult fiction, poetry, and translations (including poetry by e. e. cummings. and my favorite children's book, The Runaway Bunny. Aw...) Her works have been made into films and she's celebrated for her depictions of modern relationships.
I've been looking through nice short pieces to add to this site, and this Ekuni collection was one of the many that I came across at Book-Off, and now one of the fraction of books that survived the transatlantic voyage to my house (I don't know what happened, but somehow when the package got to my door, it was badly damaged and missing over 30 books. Including some of the Genichiro Takahashi novels I spent weeks trying to find... very upsetting). Anyhow, I was just rifling through the book and this one stood out for it's length. Now that school is upon me I can't devote the time I'd like to long form translations except the ones I'm doing to graduate, so my apologies that the works I put up here are selected for their overall shortness, and not for their literary value. Still, despite its brevity, the story condenses nicely the problems of many Japanese (and others) failed relationships.
If you liked this short story, then you should check out Ekuni's only published work in English, Twinkle Twinkle, which was put out a few years ago by Vertical.
by Kaori Ekuni, from the collection Somber Slumbers (Nurui Nemuri)
--
I want to get separated, my wife said. We gotta talk.
It was already 10 PM. I was tired. My wife and I are in the fifth year of our marriage, no kids.
You can pretend you don't see it, she said. But even if you pretend, this isn't going to go away.
Without responding, I continued to watch TV, but she turned the damn thing off. What I was pretending not to see, what wasn't going to disappear, I hadn't the faintest. Same as always.
I saw, as my wife stood blocking my way and glaring down at me, that her pedicure was chipping off.
“Oh, nail polish remover!”
I said. You don't have nail polish remover, so you can't take your pedicure off. That's why you're all upset, right?
My voice was half full of hope and half full of relief. My wife shook her head.
“So then it's those cotton balls. Even if I told you to use tissues instead, you're saying you definitely could not use them, so it's 'cause you don't have any of those cotton balls.”
She sighed - no, she said. That's not what I'm saying at all. I have nail polish remover and cotton balls. I haven't taken my pedicure off because I'm too busy. I just don't have the time to take care of my nails.
Time. I give up.
I love my wife, and I wish I had her strength. But I don't know what to do when she asks for things you can't get at convenience stores.
“Hey, listen to me. I really think we should live separately. I'm sure we could become really good friends.”
I was getting real sick of this. Can't she just leave it alone for tonight?
“About how many trash bags do we have left?”
As a husband, I decided to give my best to her. But the thing you need to know about my wife is that she answers questions. Even when she's angry, even when she's crying, if you ask her a question, she always answers.
“How about detergent? Milk? Diet Pepsi?”
I listed off the things my wife needed in her daily life.
“Well, we have a lot of trash bags. As far as detergent goes, we only have the bottle we're using now, but we have milk and diet Pepsi too. But that has nothing to do with what I'm trying to say to you right now. Please, listen seriously.”
I wasn't listening. I already had my shoes on and was at the door. Stop, or, listen, or whatever my wife was saying at my back, I went outside and headed to the convenience store. The windows in all the houses along the way were lit.
The detergent my wife likes is in a pink bottle. There are several brands with pink bottles, but it's the one with the pink cap as well that's the lucky guy. I bought five of them. I bought diet Pepsi and milk too. And trash bags and nail polish remover. And cotton balls. And while I was at it, an onigiri.
The bag was real heavy. The white plastic bag rustled and crinkled in such a way that I thought it was going to tear apart on the way home.
My wife looked miserable standing at the front door.
“Why would you buy so much?
The amount is crucial.
She sighs again as I pull out the contents of the bag one at a time. You really don't listen when people talk to you, huh. Didn't I tell you we already had diet Pepsi? And milk. And trash bags.
Then, she bursts out laughing.
“Why are you like this, honey? You don't listen to anything do you?"
She's holding the nail polish remover in her hands.
I win.
------------------
Kaori Ekuni is another famous contemporary author. She's won, among others, the Murasaki Shikibu Prize 1992 and the Naoki Prize in 2004. Not only a literary fiction writer, she is famous for her young adult fiction, poetry, and translations (including poetry by e. e. cummings. and my favorite children's book, The Runaway Bunny. Aw...) Her works have been made into films and she's celebrated for her depictions of modern relationships.
I've been looking through nice short pieces to add to this site, and this Ekuni collection was one of the many that I came across at Book-Off, and now one of the fraction of books that survived the transatlantic voyage to my house (I don't know what happened, but somehow when the package got to my door, it was badly damaged and missing over 30 books. Including some of the Genichiro Takahashi novels I spent weeks trying to find... very upsetting). Anyhow, I was just rifling through the book and this one stood out for it's length. Now that school is upon me I can't devote the time I'd like to long form translations except the ones I'm doing to graduate, so my apologies that the works I put up here are selected for their overall shortness, and not for their literary value. Still, despite its brevity, the story condenses nicely the problems of many Japanese (and others) failed relationships.
If you liked this short story, then you should check out Ekuni's only published work in English, Twinkle Twinkle, which was put out a few years ago by Vertical.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
The Accuracy of Death by Isaka Kotaro
He died five days later, stabbed in the stomach during a killing spree, but at that time he wasn't expecting to die, of course, so his voice was full and lively.
So when asked, "Then why do you work at a barbershop?", he replied, mingled with a strained laugh, "'Cause it's my job."
This coincides neatly with my thoughts and, if I were to speak somewhat grandiosely, my philosophy.
I have no particular interest in the deaths of humans. If a young president is going to be shot from above, in a parade of private cars going ten miles an hour, if somewhere a boy is going to freeze to death with his beloved dog in front of a Rubens painting, it is of no concern to me.
Speaking of which, the barber in question even revealed to me: "Dying is scary."
To counter this, I asked him, "Do you remember the time before you were born? Before you were born, was it scary? Did it hurt?"
"Nope."
"Death is pretty much like that. It's just a return to the state before you were born. Not scary, not painful."
The deaths of humans have neither interest nor value to me. Or, conversely, everyone's death ends up having the same value. So for me, it has nothing to do with who will die when. Even so, I will go out this very day in order to confirm these deaths.
Why? Because it's my job. Just like the barber said.
ーーーーーー
This is the opening to Koutaro Isaka's episodic novel The Accuracy of Death, 死神の制度 (shinigami no seido). Koutaro Isaka (伊坂幸太郎）is one of the big contemporary authors right now. Go to any bookstore in Japan and he's got tons of paperbacks on display.
I heard about this book from the Japanese Book News magazine, put out by the Japan Foundation. It's a great way to read about notable books and book news, but it only comes out quarterly. Still, a useful way to wade through contemporary fiction and non-fiction releases.
I'll be honest, I haven't gotten much further than this bit that I've translated (a bit further, but not enough to really say if the book as a whole is any good), but its so sad to see my blog so empty. So I was looking through my computer bits and bobbles and saw a rough translation of this little bit and decided to clean it up and post it. Intriguing, yes? I think this is the kind of book that would do well in the States. This gothic-lite stuff is where the money's at. (Better if it were zombies or vampires, but...)
Like I said, Isaka is pretty hot right now, and famous enough (or maybe this is a chicken and egg situation) that he's had a lot of movies and TV dramas based around his stuff, including "The Accuracy of Death". In fact, here's the trailer (looks like it's actually called "Sweet Rain: The Accuracy of Death":
Monday, August 16, 2010
Donuts Make Me Go Nuts
Because A) I have a feeling no one cares about my thoughts on The Great Gatsby and therefore I don't have the energy to write anything about it, and B) I've been dying to put a translation up here for a long time but the one I'm working on is kind of a beast, I present to you some new (and old) Haruki Murakami translations.
In Yoru No Kumozaru, Murakami's nifty little flash fiction collection, Murakami has two stories based (sort of) around donuts. The first story about donuts (sort of) is one that I translated and put up many moons ago, back in the good ol' days of thenow thoroughly defunct Kumozaru Project. I went on vacation with my family this past weekend, and what better way to relax than a nice, quick little translation work for fun. Besides the relationship between the word "donut," I like the little call back to Sophia University. And without further introduction...:
"Suburbanization (The Doughnut Effect)"
I'd been dating my fiance for three years, but it was when she suburbanized that our relationship went sour ---- how the hell can anyone get along with a lover who leaves the city for the suburbs? ---- and I was getting wasted in bars almost every night, washed out and losing weight like Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
"Brother, I'm begging you, you've got to get over her. As it stands now, your body is broken," my little sister urged me. "I know how you're feeling, but those who suburbanize can't be un-suburbanized. You've got to end it! Don't you think so?"
Of course she was right. It was like my sister said, once you've gone suburban, you're suburban for eternity.
I called my fiance to tell her goodbye. "It's heartbreaking to be separated from you, but in the end, it's only fate that this is happening, right? I'll never forget you, not for one second in my whole life..........and so on."
"You still don't get it, do you?" my suburbanized lover said. "At the center of human existence is naught. Nothing, zero. Why aren't you trying to focus on this vacuum? Why do your eyes only go to the parts around it?"
Why? That's what I wanted to ask her. Why suburbanites can only have such a narrow-minded worldview.
But at any rate, that's how I broke up with my fiance. That was two years ago now. Then, last spring, without any warning, my sister suburbanized. Immediately after she left Sophia University and started working at Japan Airlines, in a hotel lobby in Sapporo after a business trip, she suddenly just up and suburbanized. My mom locked herself in her home and spent day after day in tears and sorrow.
Every now and then I try to call my sister and ask, "How are ya'?"
"You still don't get it, do you?" my suburbanized sister says. "At the center of human existence...."
_______
Donuts, Once Again
It was because of an event called the Sophia University Seminar for the Study of Doughnuts - boy, college students these days sure come up with all sorts of things - that I got a call asking whether I'd like to participate in a symposium to discuss the current state of doughnuts. Sounds good, I replied. I too have a personal opinion regarding doughnuts. Knowledge, opinion, a sense of appreciation - no matter how you slice it, it will be a long time before I lose to these strange college kids.
The Sophia University Seminar for the Study of Doughnuts, Fall Event was held in a rented hall at the Hotel New Otani. There was a band and a doughnut matching game, and after a dinner mixed with snacks, the symposium was held in a neighboring room. Besides myself, famous cultural anthropologists and food critics, among others, were in attendance.
"Doughnuts are a part of contemporary literature, and if we decide we can have the power, that is, the indispensable factor to commit directly a certain kind of coming together individually to identify the areas of our subconsciousness... " I recited. My compensation was 50,000 yen.
I thrust the 50,000 yen into my pocket, headed to the bar, and drank vodka tonics with a girl from the French Literature department who I met at the doughnut matching game.
"In the end, for better or worse, your novels are kinda doughnut-y. I bet Flaubert didn't even think of something like a doughnut even once."
That's right, Flaubert probably did not think about doughnuts. But it's the 20th century now, and pretty soon it's going to be the 21st. You don't just bring up Flaubert in this day and age.
"The doughnut, c'est moi," I said, mimicking Flaubert.
"You're an interesting person, aren't you," she said, giggling. I'm not trying to brag here but, making girls from the French Lit department laugh is kind of my specialty.
In Yoru No Kumozaru, Murakami's nifty little flash fiction collection, Murakami has two stories based (sort of) around donuts. The first story about donuts (sort of) is one that I translated and put up many moons ago, back in the good ol' days of the
"Suburbanization (The Doughnut Effect)"
I'd been dating my fiance for three years, but it was when she suburbanized that our relationship went sour ---- how the hell can anyone get along with a lover who leaves the city for the suburbs? ---- and I was getting wasted in bars almost every night, washed out and losing weight like Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
"Brother, I'm begging you, you've got to get over her. As it stands now, your body is broken," my little sister urged me. "I know how you're feeling, but those who suburbanize can't be un-suburbanized. You've got to end it! Don't you think so?"
Of course she was right. It was like my sister said, once you've gone suburban, you're suburban for eternity.
I called my fiance to tell her goodbye. "It's heartbreaking to be separated from you, but in the end, it's only fate that this is happening, right? I'll never forget you, not for one second in my whole life..........and so on."
"You still don't get it, do you?" my suburbanized lover said. "At the center of human existence is naught. Nothing, zero. Why aren't you trying to focus on this vacuum? Why do your eyes only go to the parts around it?"
Why? That's what I wanted to ask her. Why suburbanites can only have such a narrow-minded worldview.
But at any rate, that's how I broke up with my fiance. That was two years ago now. Then, last spring, without any warning, my sister suburbanized. Immediately after she left Sophia University and started working at Japan Airlines, in a hotel lobby in Sapporo after a business trip, she suddenly just up and suburbanized. My mom locked herself in her home and spent day after day in tears and sorrow.
Every now and then I try to call my sister and ask, "How are ya'?"
"You still don't get it, do you?" my suburbanized sister says. "At the center of human existence...."
_______
Donuts, Once Again
It was because of an event called the Sophia University Seminar for the Study of Doughnuts - boy, college students these days sure come up with all sorts of things - that I got a call asking whether I'd like to participate in a symposium to discuss the current state of doughnuts. Sounds good, I replied. I too have a personal opinion regarding doughnuts. Knowledge, opinion, a sense of appreciation - no matter how you slice it, it will be a long time before I lose to these strange college kids.
The Sophia University Seminar for the Study of Doughnuts, Fall Event was held in a rented hall at the Hotel New Otani. There was a band and a doughnut matching game, and after a dinner mixed with snacks, the symposium was held in a neighboring room. Besides myself, famous cultural anthropologists and food critics, among others, were in attendance.
"Doughnuts are a part of contemporary literature, and if we decide we can have the power, that is, the indispensable factor to commit directly a certain kind of coming together individually to identify the areas of our subconsciousness... " I recited. My compensation was 50,000 yen.
I thrust the 50,000 yen into my pocket, headed to the bar, and drank vodka tonics with a girl from the French Literature department who I met at the doughnut matching game.
"In the end, for better or worse, your novels are kinda doughnut-y. I bet Flaubert didn't even think of something like a doughnut even once."
That's right, Flaubert probably did not think about doughnuts. But it's the 20th century now, and pretty soon it's going to be the 21st. You don't just bring up Flaubert in this day and age.
"The doughnut, c'est moi," I said, mimicking Flaubert.
"You're an interesting person, aren't you," she said, giggling. I'm not trying to brag here but, making girls from the French Lit department laugh is kind of my specialty.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Kurodahan Press Translation Prize
Fellow translators,
I direct you here, information on the Kurodahan Press Translation Prize.
I was interested in doing it last year, but I was too lazy. This year I'm definitely giving it a go. It's only 1700 characters (which, in an average paperback, assuming the page was a solid block of text, would be less than 3 pages, so probably like 6 or 7 more realistic pages, tops?), which is quite short, honestly.
The winner gets 30000 yen, publication, and something like an additional 15000 upon publication.
Kurodahan Press seems to specialize in science fiction, as this piece (and the last two year's pieces) comes from a SF anthology, best of 2007 collection. The piece is called 忠告 by 恩田陸 (Onda Riku), who according to Wikipedia, is the pen name of women's lit writer Kumagai Nanae, which is most definitely a name I've seen/read about before.
Deadline is September 30, which seems to me to be plenty of time, then again I haven't looked at the piece yet so maybe it's super hard.
Another (and to me, mindblowingly) interesting thing is who's judging: Meredith McKinney, who did the most recent translation of Natsume Soseki's Kokoro (and who also seems to be Penguin Classic's go-to translator of Japanese literature), Juliet Winters Carpenter, who has translated a couple books by Kobo Abe, the tanka poetry collection Salad Anniversary, and is a member of the JLPP, and ALFRED BIRNBAUM, translator of Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase and other works.
So I'm pretty much geekin' out right now, you guys.
On a side note, when I told my girlfriend I was going to write this post, she said, "Are you dumb? Stop making more competition!" To which I said, "...Oh well. I'm not going to win anyway."
But I swear to god if any of you guys win because I told you about it...
I direct you here, information on the Kurodahan Press Translation Prize.
I was interested in doing it last year, but I was too lazy. This year I'm definitely giving it a go. It's only 1700 characters (which, in an average paperback, assuming the page was a solid block of text, would be less than 3 pages, so probably like 6 or 7 more realistic pages, tops?), which is quite short, honestly.
The winner gets 30000 yen, publication, and something like an additional 15000 upon publication.
Kurodahan Press seems to specialize in science fiction, as this piece (and the last two year's pieces) comes from a SF anthology, best of 2007 collection. The piece is called 忠告 by 恩田陸 (Onda Riku), who according to Wikipedia, is the pen name of women's lit writer Kumagai Nanae, which is most definitely a name I've seen/read about before.
Deadline is September 30, which seems to me to be plenty of time, then again I haven't looked at the piece yet so maybe it's super hard.
Another (and to me, mindblowingly) interesting thing is who's judging: Meredith McKinney, who did the most recent translation of Natsume Soseki's Kokoro (and who also seems to be Penguin Classic's go-to translator of Japanese literature), Juliet Winters Carpenter, who has translated a couple books by Kobo Abe, the tanka poetry collection Salad Anniversary, and is a member of the JLPP, and ALFRED BIRNBAUM, translator of Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase and other works.
So I'm pretty much geekin' out right now, you guys.
On a side note, when I told my girlfriend I was going to write this post, she said, "Are you dumb? Stop making more competition!" To which I said, "...Oh well. I'm not going to win anyway."
But I swear to god if any of you guys win because I told you about it...
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Summer of the Re-Read #1: Sayonara, Gangsters
by Genichiro Takahashi
Translated by Michael Emmerich
I wish I could remember how I discovered that this book existed. I know I first read it in the spring of my first year of college. I was so into it that I read it during my physics class in the very, very back of the lecture hall (although to be fair, I either slept or did other work during most of those physics lectures). I know I took it out of the school library. But did I discover it through aimless browsing? Or was it a title I was interested in after looking through Vertical Inc (the publisher)'s back catalog, who describes it as a "postmodern novel...from Haruki Murakami's way-more-out-there cousin"?
If the Murakami comparison really was the reason I picked up the novel, at least the description was somewhat apt. In many ways, Sayonara, Gangsters does seem like Murakami with the post-modern bizarreness cranked up to 11. But after re-reading Sayonara Gangsters and exploring more of Takahashi's work in the Japanese, the comparison (like all authorial comparisons, honestly) is somewhat diminishing.
First of all, there's no good way to even summarize Sayonara, Gangsters, which at least can be done for Murakami's work. To grossly simplify matters, Sayonara, Gangsters follows a poet who teaches at a poetry school in some sort of bizarro-world where people choose their own names, which in turn can take a life of their own, and where on the sixth floor of the building that the narrator works is a river of some unknowable length. Even "dream logic" doesn't quite convey the sense of un-reality that pervades the novel:
I think about many different kinds of death.
I'd seen something horribly sad at the amusement park. "The Giant Ferris Wheel" had on a big black ribbon, and it was folding itself up.
The owner of the amusement park must have decided it would cost too much to call in the workers whose job it was to dismantle the rides, and hit on the idea of ordering "the Giant Ferris Wheel" to dispose of itself.
I sat on a swing and watched "The Giant Ferris Wheel" commit suicide.
"The Giant Ferris Wheel" kept rotating its circular frame, yanking off the little carriages where its riders used to sit. It removed one, then another, then another. Every time it pulled off a carriage it bled and cried out in pain. "Oh, it hurts!" it yelled, "It hurts!" Once the circular frame had removed the last carriage, it set about cutting away the circular frames at the center; after that the concrete supports struggled to sever the axle.
Splattered with blood, "The Giant Ferris Wheel' continued to dismantle itself, and at every step along the way it screamed so awfully that the entire amusement park trembled.
"The Merry-Go-Round," which was just next door, sat there shaking with its eyes squeezed shut, covering its ears with its hands.
Finally only the concrete base remained. Its breath came in gasps. Nothing but this block of concrete indicated that "The Giant Ferris Wheel" had ever existed: the block was "The Giant Ferris Wheel"'s ego, its self.
I wondered how the base would finish the job.
There wasn't anything left to do.
"Eat shit and die!"
Leaving these bitter last words, the concrete base put an end to it all.
It did this in a way no human would ever think up.
The novel is divided up into three parts, and each part has its own major plot and focus. Part 1 establishes the setting and the narrator's life. Part 2 describes the Poetry School and his work with the students. Part 3 is about the narrator's experience with the dangerous gangsters of the novel's world.
Reviews of Sayonara, Gangsters tend to praise Part 1 as the most compelling and well-written part of the novel (speaking of, our friend Nihon Distractions has a review here), but I find myself more drawn to Part 2. After reading more of Takahashi's other work, it is clear that Takahashi is a writer concerned about writing, and despite this bizarre, post-modernist world that Takahashi created, the novel itself, at its core, is really all about writing:
My teaching here isn't focused on knowledge.
If you want to know about poetry, read books. You'll find all that in books.
My knowledge of poetry is both fragmented and fuzzy. It can't be trusted.
I don't teach people how to interpret poetry or any of that stuff either.
I'm not so good at interpreting poetry.
When I read a poem, I respond to it in one of two ways: "Wow, this is great!" or "God, this is awful!" I have no other responses.
Having eliminated those possibilities, we are left with "How to create poetry." Surely that must be what the man teaches! That's what you're all thinking, right? Hell, that's what I'm thinking myself.
But the truth is that if there really were some technique that permitted everybody who knew it to write wonderful poems, I'd want to be the first to know.
If I had a a technique like that, I'd keep it all to myself and produce one masterpiece after another, setting my sights on the Nobel Prize for Poets.
I'm a poet, but even now I have no idea how to write my poems.
I really doubt there is a technique to writing poetry.
We poets spend the eyeblink of time granted us until we slip away forever into the eternal dark composing poems, never having the faintest idea how we out to go about writing them, or what we ought to be writing.
I do almost nothing at all here.
Pressed to explain, I might say that my job is CONDUCTING TRAFFIC.
The students who come here all want to write poems. But none of them have any idea what kind of poems they should be writing.
You mustn't tell them to "Write what you like."
I may be incompetent as a poet, but I don't shirk my responsibilities.
I talk with my students. Or, to make it sound hard, I counsel them.
Actually, for the most part all I do is listen.
Writing poetry is a fairly morbid thing to do. Of course, that doesn't mean all morbid people are poets. It is here, you see, that the difficulty lies.
All irony aside, and despite the fact that this really is more or less exactly how I feel about poetry (being absolutely terrible at it), in a true post-modernist fashion, Takahashi explores almost all aspects of the experience of the written word, including but not limited to the relationship between literature and the author, the relationship between literature and the reader, the act of reading/writing itself, literary criticism, and the power of words.
The first time I read Sayonara, Gangsters, I loved the bizarre world and imagery that Takahashi created. But the second time around, I found myself more drawn to the ideas about literature and the power of the written word that Takahashi has built the world around, a theme that Takahashi will continue to explore throughout his career.
As Takahashi's debut work, it really is amazing that he was able to produce something so original and compelling. Sayonara, Gangsters is still one of my favorite books, but the second time around, I can see some of its flaws. The prose is jarringly fragmented and vignette-y, similar to Murakami's Hear the Wind Sing. (I guess this is a problem that plagues many an author's debut/early works.) Translator Michael Emmerich had his work cut out for him, and though I'm so grateful that he was able to get a publisher to take a chance on this work, I occasionally find the translation a little awkward.
To which I mean no disrespect; I went to a translator's round-table about a year ago that Emmerich was a part of (as in, when I saw that he was a part of it, I immediately knew I was going), and he's pretty young, early 30s, if not late 20s, I'd say. This book was published in 2004, which means he was probably working on it around seven or eight years ago, when he was in his mid-twenties. So nothing but respect for him. I sincerely hope that I can achieve the same thing at that age. Also, he's got great taste in J-lit and was just a really interesting and funny guy to listen and talk to. So whenever I see he has a new translation out, I always pay attention.
At this translator's round-table I went to, I asked Emmerich if he would ever translate something by Takahashi again. He said he definitely would like to, but it's all about finding a publisher, and apparently this novel didn't make a real splash, which makes it a hard sell. But now that I've been able to explore more of his works, I really feel that Takahashi is a great author that deserves to be translated. And I hope to be the man to do it.
Expect many Takahashi-related posts in the future, including a forthcoming short story translation and a look at his (well, to me) fascinating Twitter account.
[Next on "Summer of the Re-Read": The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Let's see how a novel about a teenager that one reads as a teenager holds up when one is no longer (quite) a teenager.]
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