(no subject)

[flemmings]

Was zipping along nicely with 1Q84 until I hit the Heike Monogatari passage near the end (and no, I don't remember every other verb in Heike ending with a form of tamau. Tatematsuru, *maybe*. It's been twenty-four years, after all.) Had recourse to the translation. Dear god but the translation is awful. I don't doubt Rubin's Japanese is better than mine, but I think I prefer the slant my language scrim gives the action to the one his does. F'rinstance, to me 'dowager' has all sorts of Lady Catherine de Burgh connotations that are very different from 老婦人's, and certainly *that* 老婦人.

But vol 2 arrived in today's mail, zipping along as well, to provide me reading matter this long weekend. Remains to see if I read it.

Comments

[yumiyoshi.livejournal.com]

I'll definitely have to stick to the English version then, if it gets that complicated XD (Also, I am not nearly as competent as you at Japanese, so!)

Although, on the topic of awful translations by proficient speakers, I frigging hate Seidensticker's work; I'm not insulting his Japanese abilities, but sometimes I feel like that man cannot write ENGLISH.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Mostly it's not that complicated; there's just this one passage where a character is reading aloud from the archaic Japanese of Heike. Like inserting a passage from Chaucer, basically-- 'I wol renne out, my borel for to shewe!'

It's been years since I read Seidensticker's translations, but I remember the cheery breezy mid-westernness of his Genji characters, and took note that a translator's cultural ambience will always out-- because Waley's Genji invoked Edwardian ladies in over-furnished parlours and Ivan Morris' court ladies sounded like English schoolgirls.

In Seidensticker's defence, though, to my mind a lot of Japanese prose says things we wouldn't say in English, and if you try saying them you wind up sounding demented.

[yumiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Fair points and well made :))))))

Pointless anecdote: I once worked for a translator/editor who was super into making "equivalent" pop culture references; my low (high?) point was turning a comedically foolish song about a forest into the Lumberjack song. Hilarious at the time but definitely turned me off Xtreme Localization.