Ronkainen, Jonika -- Comments 3/28

Some of the articles we read this week were difficult for me to piece together because there were quite a few names and references I simply was not familiar with – and I have not read any Murakami outside of what has been assigned in this class – so it was really hard to try and speculate about the significance of the examples that were being given because I didn’t have a lot of context to place them in. I really liked the concept of getting this kind of window by which to read the initial text through getting to really know the voices which have shaped the text, but I without also having the text it was really to try and find a thread or a lens to read the text through instead of falling into the trap of trying to dissect it or identify like this particular change came here, or this attribute belongs to this person -- essentially, I think for me the articles we read this week played into a bad inclination (not necessarily by any fault of the author) to dissect instead of reading the published work as a whole, but unstable nonetheless, piece -- however, this could be just something mistaken on my end being generally unfamiliar with the Murakami, and I could see an opposite project for Karashima of trying to isolate some kind of arbitrary alterations that may obstruct a meaning in the original piece -- still, I think there could be a missed potential for that exploitation to create something even more interesting in the work, and I'm usually of the opinion that whatever ends up being the most interesting is the best thing to look at (again following the logic that the original was itself unstable/available to be changed). For example, I am a big fan of movies that came out during the Hays production code -- that creative limitation informed some of the most compelling pieces of dialogue/character dynamics of all time in film -- but since the primary piece of original-text to republished-text comparison we got was about sexual content, and that was precisely at the heart of the prohibitions of the Hays production code I am perhaps here also a bit biased. Basically my takeaway was that I should read some Murakami before the talk on Friday.

Also, something I'd just like to include here for the sole reason that there is something in almost every article we read about Globalization and the like that I think it answers to perfectly is the famous Ralph Wiley exchange where Saul Bellows asked "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?" and Ralph Wiley comes up with the reply "Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus" -- it just feels like in this class we're consistently grappling with this problem of what action denies or excludes a group of people from a universal human achievement (like asking "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus" or hypothetically on the other hand completely disregarding the universal human achievement of Zulu authors, for example). It seems like this issue of trying to find something multiple and particular versus trying to find something universal maps onto a lot of what we've been talking about with translation choices and discussion of the "global novel" about when to change something to be more "familiar" to an audience or when to keep something "foreign."

Reflections 3/28

 

The five articles we had read for this week are all very enlightening and thought-provoking in both the translation front and the publishing front. 

It is fascinating that Karashima digs so deep into the process that Murakami’s work first got published in the New Yorker. His research into this process is indeed very informative, and I was stunned to learn that Wind Up Bird Chronicles underwent so many edits of sexual content. I wondered why sexual content was toned down in an American magazine? It says in the article that editor William Shawn would shy away from including any content that relates to bodily function other than crying. (A tangential question: Was menstruation also censored back then?) I just find this concept hard to understand, as America is known for openly discussing a variety of topics. 

It was neat to learn that one of the appeals A Wild Sheep Chase has to American readers was its shared middle class sensibility between the Japanese and American culture, and that the book isn’t too Japanese for global audience to understand. This sense of global appreciation of a work surely is beneficial to authors in terms of winning over a bigger, more international audience. However, it seems slightly toxic to me that authors are forced to abandon some unique idiosyncrasies of a certain language and culture to ease the burdon of translation for a smooth publishment in English to win the global audience, an issue Tim Parks discusses in his article.  

“More importantly the language is kept simple. Kazuo Ishiguro has spoken of the importance of avoiding word play and allusion to make things easy for the translator. Scandinavian writers I know tell me they avoid character names that would be difficult for an English reader.”

What seems doomed to disappear, or at least to risk neglect, is the kind of work that revels in the subtle nuances of its own language and literary culture, the sort of writing that can savage or celebrate the way this or that linguistic group really lives.

It makes sense that publicity in English matters a lot–it is the Lingua Franca, after all. But is such a global sensibility worthwhile to obtain if it sharpens the edges of every other unique culture? 

Jiayi 

time, voice, cyntetokerus, curaniokerus

This past week, I have spent a lot of time thinking about voice in terms of my own translation project, and so I was comforted by Michael Emmerich (Karen Emmerich’s brother!) saying in David Karashima’s article “Inside the Intricate Translation Process for a Murakami Novel” that “for him, getting the first ten percent of a book right seems to take just as long as translating the rest of the book.” Later in the article, Karashima repeats this same notion again: “Both Emmerich and Smith emphasize the time it takes to get the ‘voice’ or ‘tone’ right.” I have found that voice can be challenging in some of the very same ways that dialect can be challenging—voice too can be regionally specific, deeply connected to local, cultural norms that are difficult to replicate or find parallels with in the target language. I was also comforted by Karashima’s emphasis on time in this article; not only does voice creation or development take a lot of time, but thoughtful translation does more generally. (Although I did wonder where Birnbaum and Luke got the funding to spend so many hours per week on translating this one novel…)

 

Birnbaum and Luke’s mistaken rendering of “Synthetoceras” and “Cranioceras” as “cyntetokerus” and “curaniokerus” in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World reminded me of our discussion of Deborah Smith’s translation of The Vegetarian. I think the internet has drastically changed how we think about mistake-making in translation and perhaps this is not purely a good thing. For example, I found this cyntetokerus “mistake” by Birnbaum and Luke charming and actually quite beautiful, especially given their statement afterwards that this translation was done before the age of the internet. Now, in the age of the internet, however, mistakes often suggest that a translator has not done their due diligence and research. Birnbaum and Luke’s mistake highlights to me how mistakes truly can bring invention, play, and even a little bit of silliness into translation; has the internet taken that away? 

-sharon

Reflections 3/28

    David Karashima's piece about Murakami was very accessible for someone who has never read Murakami before. I thought the talk of who asked who to "tone down" the sex scenes was amusing, and goes to show how things literally get lost in translation (ha ha). I was shocked that they suggested changing the reference to Allen Ginsberg into a reference to Shakespeare. These two writers do not share anywhere near the same societal implication, and the fact that Murakami accepted the change in reference surprised me. Though I really appreciated Murakami's attitude, because he seems very down-to-Earth. He accepted the changes to get his writing out there (I mean, it is the New Yorker, after all) but rejects the idea on principle. I think there are ethical issues with changing writing for a publication to appease that publication's audience (expanding one's horizons/introducing them to new things is also important, you know?), but in the end, I know it just comes down to money. 

    In Karashima's Paris Review piece, what I found most interesting was that a scathing review of Murakami's book from Kometani was otherwise kind to the translator, and Kometani is a translator herself. The other reviews looked kindly upon Alfred (the translator), as well. Is it only a sign of a successful translation when everyone likes it? I wonder how Alfred Birnbaum's acclaim translating Murakami may translate into nervousness surrounding future translations, or translating anyone else. He would be interesting to hear speak!

    I think it's funny that Elmer Wood insisted Norwegian Wood wouldn't sell in America because Western readers are "more jaded, more ‘experienced’ at an earlier age", and then it ended up doing fantastic. It makes me wonder how A Wild Sheep Chase would have done in the New Yorker in its original form, rather than the toned down version that the editors assumed its readers would prefer. In the case of Norwegian Wood, there's proof that peoples' assumptions about the public's taste can definitely be wrong.

Sarah

Refections on articles about Haruki Murakami

 I haven't read any books by Haruki Murakami, and I believe that something that appeals so much to so many people and so consistently can only have an amorphous and nonintrusive essence, where the reader can make anything they like out of it and without any resistance from the material; like colorful clay that you enjoy playing with as a child, only now it's an adult mind that gets its play-doh in the form of books. When I read titles like "Kafka on the Shore", "A Wild Sheep Chase", "Norwegian Wood", "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World", "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage", I feel a growing tiredness in my mind because I feel like I am already asked to decide what these senseless titles must mean without any cues or clues and how they connect to the content of the books and how exactly the content merits such titles in the first place? My impression is that catchy titles compensate for generic plots, that something valuable doesn't need a flashy package, and that something ordinary is heralded as extraordinary simply because it can be. 

Murakami's works are praised to be so non-Japanese that they appeal even to Americans. How is this not an insult to both Murakami and American citizens? How come we never delve into the roots of why Americans did not appreciate more traditional Japanese literature in the first place, and what could be done about that - such as presenting Japanese literature in a new light rather than presenting a very different Japanese literature altogether and sighing with relief that "something Japanese" finally gets bought again? If Murakami's prose is so non-Japanese, what's the point of emphasizing his nationality and comparing his reception to that of Yukio Mishima? How come there apparently were no processes of trying to reframe the context of foreign literature and offering readers new angles to look at it, until the works get appreciated exactly for what they are? I think it would have been more interesting to read about how editors experimented with introductions rather than how they decided to translate a radio station name. I don't think such experiments were done, though - what's sought after is a book that will sell right away, and parts of it can get cut out or changed to get it sell, and there will be no attempt to try to make something sell just for how it is -> by revealing the reader the uniqueness of this book, and what they will personally get out of reading it, how their thinking will improve and their perception - expand. Oh, but it's only readers money that get cared about, not the readers themselves. There is a lot of "we worked together before, this one will get a big deal", "Elmer was wrong, this book sold the best of all!" and "They felt that the novel had even greater potential than A Wild Sheep Chase to capture the imagination of American readers", the latter making Murakami sound like some stage performer rather than a writer producing art. 

I never learn what makes Murakami works meaningful apart from their sales. My guess at the amorphousness and passive shapelessness of his art gets confirmed by characterizations like these: "It seemed clear to me from the first that he was bringing something new to Japanese literature. There’s a peculiar lightness in what he’s doing that should not be confused with any lack of seriousness … But I’m talking here of a different kind of lightness, an antic and lyrical and sunny quality". This quote says nothing concrete. And it doesn't need to. It's good that people like Murakami because liking something is good. The fact that there is not even a requirement to analyze the possible underlying reasons behind phenomena to talk about them infuriates me. There is no integration into the bigger picture, no educated guesses made for future implications, no showing of how this intersects and impacts other fields and spheres of life, either. The self-isolation of industries leads to their stagnation, just as their taking of themselves for granted and not taking the time and effort to look at the meaning behind what occurs within them, thereby purposelessly doing something simply because they can, neglecting the complex relationships underlying the shaping of the market. Before, publishing detailed sex scenes was something they couldn't do, so they didn't. Now it's something they can do, so they do. Next, it will be something different. Why, how, why - doesn't matter, let's just see whatever ends up "capturing mass imagination" the most at any given time, with no second thoughts given. 

Maybe I am incorrect about Murakami's works and for something to become popular these days, it does not need to be "colorless". In that case, it only makes sense that his meaningful works are to be discussed in a meaningful way - unless, of course, the only meaningful thing about them is that they sell well. 

-Ksenia

Thoughts on Murakami

I've read a few Murakami novels (including A Wild Sheep Chase), so I really enjoyed reading about how his books found an audience in English. One thing I find a little off-putting though—and this isn't Murakami's fault but rather that of his reviewers/promoters—is the way his writing is lauded as sounding "American," as if that designation is somehow a marker of superior quality. Why should all writers aspire to sound American? To me, criticism like that encourages a really insular taste in literature, where anything perceived as "different" is considered worse. 

The first time I heard about "indirect" translation was from a friend in Spain who's a translator. She told me that this happens a lot with literature translated into Spanish (specifically with English translations from other languages being used as the source text) and I was shocked to hear that this sort of "translation telephone," if you will, is standard practice. I think I assumed it had something to do with a shortage of translators or editors with knowledge of the source language, but knowing that Murakami encouraged this practice when his books were translated into German complicates that hypothesis. This is purely speculation on my part, but I wonder if indirect translation contributes in some way to the "dull global novel" phenomenon. By that I mean: if all the translated literature in the global market from a wealth of languages is always being filtered through English, won't all these authors start to sound the same? Won't their styles, by dint of being "Englished" not only on the linguistic level but on the level of culture and custom, become homogenized? It's also especially concerning when the source text has been heavily edited—I think Professor Elliott mentioned that the English translation of Kafka on the Shore cut about one hundred pages. Then, one English editor's decision about what to keep dictates what readers in many other languages get to read, too. 

Maggie

Murakami, Murakami everywhere...

 In the first place, I must confess I’ve read more about Murakami than I’ve actually read Murakami.  Since my knowledge of his work is secondhand, one step removed (akin, in effect, to indirect translation), my myopia of the moment behooves me to opine cautiously, if at all.  But such caveats in place, the title of DK’s book (a direct allusion to Raymond Caver and an indirect one to Nathan Englander) seems to encapsulate another kind of indirectness, the zone of ambiguity which persists at the center of Murakami’s literary existence for those who read him in translation.  While I can’t recall the exact figures or the title in question, last semester, Alissa cited the extent to which a Murakami novel was abridged prior to publication in English, the m.o. being that the publisher was willing to finance only so many pages and the task for the translator—over and above his usual chores—was to make it fit.  In a similar vein, our Alejandro, who read Murakami in English, tells the story of discussing—trying to discuss—Murakami with a friend in Argentina, only reach the impasse that the two translations had engendered two texts, each barely recognizable in light of the other.

 

DK’s book reads like a mixture of textual scholarship and detective work.  While he at times succeeds in pinpointing in English galleys the specific instances where modifications occurred, his best efforts defer rather than resolve the ambiguity.  Which vested party made the changes and why?  When the translator says one thing, the fiction editor at the New Yorker another, and the editor at Murakami’s publisher a third, it seems as though we’re talking less about Murakami’s work and more about the burgeoning lore which surrounds it.  The biographical information, the factual details, and any attempt at an historical reconstruction seem to take on (perhaps inevitably) the speculative hue of fiction.  Why would Murakami, an accomplished translator and thus able to foresee the pratfalls, insist a translation of his work into German proceed from one into English?  Was there or was there not a promotional event at the Helmsley Palace Hotel in 1989 to celebrate the English release of A Wild Sheep Chase?  As one interviewee remarks to DK, there is a person who would’ve known for sure, but that person is, unfortunately, deceased.

 

Rather than talking about reading Murakami, should we speak of reading Murakamis, a different and even distorted reflection of the original in every translation, as if the text passed through a hall of mirrors?  Or could we instead, to apply the theory of Tim Parks, suppose that there’s a schism in Murakami’s oeuvre the moment he begins writing with the idea of being translated in the background (if not the foreground) of his creative process?  To judge from the casual ease, the near indifference with which Murakami accepts textual changes made for the sake of translation—despite the literary stature that would have positioned him, a la Kundera, to insist—, we can at minimum say that the person of Murakami is amenable to translation and that the author is willing to permit departures from the letter of the source text in order to reach a wider audience.  On the one hand, Murakami’s trajectory illustrates the exponential growth of an author via translation, an international transcendence impossible without translators’ contributions and which we—the next generation of professionals—must applaud.  On the other, we must heed the prescience of a Tim Parks writing some 12 years ago: the earnestness to reach an international space may scuttle the techniques and dilute the content of literary fiction, leading writers to exercise a kind of homogenizing self-censorship and to enshrine voluntarily the 21st-century equivalent of having a cleric peering over your shoulder, insisting you write in Latin.

 

 -Josh