TRANSLATING
MURAKAMI: an email roundtable
From: Philip Gabriel
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 12:17 PM
To: Jay Rubin; Gary Fisketjon
Subject: Re: An email roundtable: Translating Murakami
Phil here.
Some questions for Jay: One of my graduate students
wrote a thesis on WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE, and though
I don't recall the specifics, I believe she mentioned
some Japanese chapters that, in the translation, were
either substantially altered or not translated at all.
Does she have this right, and if so, what were the decisions
behind this? Also, I remember reading somewhere that
when Alfred did his translation of HARDBOILED WONDERLAND,
Murakami approached him with some revisions/additions
he wanted incorporated into the English version; I wondered
whether similar things happened with WIND-UP BIRD.
This last point
may be related to one of the problems I've encountered
translating modern Japanese literature: a different
notion of editing in Japan. What I mean is, at times
I notice inconsistencies, repetitions, and illogical
parts in original Japanese texts that I am pretty sure
an American editor would have weeded out. When I translated
an early novel (not by Murakami)I felt at times that
I was both translating AND editing. (They wouldn't let
me get paid for both, unfortunately.) My editor said
something that had stayed with me, namely that works
by popular Japanese writers are rushed into print with
minimum editing (by our standards) and that editors
in Japan play a less active role in suggesting changes
to texts. Thus when it comes time for people like us
to translate them, we--and our editors--have to massage
the original to make it fit OUR notions of a tight,
logical text. (And possibly writers such as Murakami
realize this and have second thoughts about certain
sections of their books once they are going to be translated?)
I haven't felt this was a problem too much with Murakami's
works, except for some occasional repetitious sentences--the
same idea rephrased in two contiguous sentences; I found
this to be the case in SOUTH OF THE BORDER, for instance,
where I tightened up the text slightly by omitting a
few sentences I felt needlessly repeated ideas.
This raises,
of course, the whole idea of "naturalizing" foreign
texts--neutralizing differences, etc. How far should
we go in eliminating or toning down differences in order
to make a book palatable to a western audience? Maybe
this doesn't really apply much to the two breakthrough
writers of the 90s--Murakami and Yoshimoto--and maybe
this is part of the reason for their appeal. In other
words, are these two writers are somehow less distinctively
"Japanese" than other writers and thus more easily digested
abroad? I remember the editor at The New Yorker
for my first story for them, "Barn Burning," adding
a phrase "here in Tokyo" to one of the first sentences
of the story (which reads, with the addition, as I recall,
"I met her at a party here in Tokyo.") The logic behind
this addition was, according to the editor, the fact
that readers of Murakami's seemed to not realize the
stories were Japanese, and we should give them a clue
up front.
Another question
to Jay: What did you think of SPUTNIK SWEETHEART as
a novel?
For Gary: My
students who are into Murakami ask me often about why
the publication of NORWEIGIAN WOOD was delayed for so
many years, and I have no idea how to respond. What
accounted for the unusual timing of the American edition?
Another question: how do you decide on the covers for
the American editions of Murakami's work? The cover
of SPUTNIK for instance--is the mirror imaging supposed
to depict the "split" nature of Miu and/or Sumire? As
the translator, I know people will ask me what it "means"...
Phil
From:
Philip Gabriel Sent: Monday, December 18,
2000 5:28 PM |
From:
Jay Rubin Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000
5:23 AM |
From:
Philip Gabriel Sent: Wednesday, December
20, 2000 12:17 PM |
From:
Jay Rubin Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000
8:43 PM |
From:
Jay Rubin Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000
10:21 PM |
From:
Jay Rubin Sent: Tuesday, January 9, 2001
8:22 PM |
From:
Philip Gabriel Sent: Tuesday, January 9,
2001 8:22 PM |
From:
Fisketjon, Gary Sent: Tuesday, January 16,
2001 2:14 PM |
From:
Philip Gabriel Sent: Jan. 18, 2001 |
From:
Gary Fisketjon Sent: Thursday, January 18,
2001 5:50 PM |
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