Read on Twitter
1/ Finally had the chance to sit down and read Madeleine Thien's excellent review of @mieko_kawakami's Breast and Eggs, which also makes a brief comparision of Bett & Boyd's recent translation to Kawai's earlier version. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/11/breasts-and-eggs-by-mieko-kawakami-review-an-interrogation-of-the-female-condition
2/ @mieko_kawakami answered some of the criticism targeted at Bett & Boyd in this thread, very rightly pointing out that translating Osaka dialect is not as important as getting the essence of the characters right https://twitter.com/mieko_kawakami/status/1305058172525182977?s=20
3/ Brief thoughts: Every translation is a new work, and when an author agrees to be translated, she must let go completely.
A 100% word-for-word translation would completely miss the forest for the trees, especially with literature when so much lies in WHAT IS NOT ON THE PAGE
A 100% word-for-word translation would completely miss the forest for the trees, especially with literature when so much lies in WHAT IS NOT ON THE PAGE
4/ Is dialect even translatable? If not the dialect, how about its nuances? I lived in Osaka and there is an intimacy to Osaka-ben's characteristic lilts and sentence-endings that warm my heart. But how would one render its warmth and musicality in English?
5/ On a side note, I remember reading Min Jin Lee's Pachinko, which had a large chunk set in Osaka, and feeling something was off. I realised I was missing the familiar ring of Osaka-ben--all her characters spoke standard Japanese.
6/ Not having read Betts & Boyd's translation in full, it wouldn't be fair to comment. But I will say, of the excerpts I read, there were moments of beautiful lyricism in the original that caught my heart--which were lost in the translation. But is this a "flaw" of translation"?
7/ While it might be possible to replicate @mieko_kawakami's lyrical style in the general, it is extremely difficult to reproduce those specific phrases in their entirety, in another language. Maybe in Chinese or Korean, you might get close.
8/ At @bcltuea, one of our classmates came up with the phrase "trans-creation" ( @AntonHur was it you?).
With translating, we aren't just reproducing something. Translation is a starting point, where working with the original, we create something new.
With translating, we aren't just reproducing something. Translation is a starting point, where working with the original, we create something new.
Thinking about translation as "trans-creation" freed my mind: it is where story takes off, not its final resting point.
(If you'd like you can read more of my thoughts on literary translation in this essay I wrote last year)
/end https://electricliterature.com/how-literary-translation-can-shift-the-tides-of-power/
(If you'd like you can read more of my thoughts on literary translation in this essay I wrote last year)
/end https://electricliterature.com/how-literary-translation-can-shift-the-tides-of-power/
One last footnote. I’ve tweeted enough about Murakami but this lovely essay by @RowanHLB echoes earlier points above on “trans-creation”: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/09/haruki-murakami-translators-david-karashima-review/616210/
Come, check out one of my earlier Murakami threads below:
https://twitter.com/intewig/status/1265868945354973184?s=21 https://twitter.com/intewig/status/1265868945354973184
https://twitter.com/intewig/status/1265868945354973184?s=21 https://twitter.com/intewig/status/1265868945354973184
This old thread basically encapsulates what many Japanese/billingual writers have known for a long time which @RowanHLB also writes about in her essay
https://twitter.com/intewig/status/1155298255300939777?s=21 https://twitter.com/intewig/status/1155298255300939777
https://twitter.com/intewig/status/1155298255300939777?s=21 https://twitter.com/intewig/status/1155298255300939777
