I found Ken’s talk extremely inspiring and well-informed, with a great balance of translation theory and relevant case studies. I loved how Ken broke down translation theory into spectra based on linguistics, culture, politics, and ethics, and he even used one of my favorite translation metaphors: acting and performance. I found some contradictions in his translation strategy, though, such as when he discussed heavily favoring “foreign-soundingness” yet chose to write “Uncle Wang” in "Tongtong’s Summer" instead of the sound of the original characters, which he said he normally does. On the other hand, he also justified his use of “topolect” before the talk, and I have to admit, he convinced me! When I asked him about “faithfulness” in his translations versus when he adds new content to a canonical plot and popular franchise like Star Wars, he mentioned that he does not conform, but he also does not “change the words.” I do see his own work as a reflection of this sentiment, and he made me feel at ease with my own worries about the evanescence of translating by acknowledging that a translation is “for the moment.”
While doing the readings for this week, I was honestly quite disturbed, which I’m not sure has more to do with the content or translations or my unfamiliarity with Murakami’s work in general. For example, I was alarmed by sentences in “Creta Kano” like, “I installed every available alarm system, surrounded myself with electronic locks, and hired a gay guard built like a gorilla” (111). I wonder how the guard being “gay” contrasts with the image of a “gorilla” or why that is relevant, and why victim blaming is included in sentences like, “I must be partly to blame” (110). Otherwise, I like how this story’s translation reflects collaboration, especially with the explanatory sentence about “Creta,” where Hansen looked at Rubin’s translation of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I think that it was a creative solution to a challenge that echoed the novel's English translation.
When reading Goossen’s translations of Kawakami’s short stories, I was curious about the continuity between them. I noticed this specifically with the repetition of names like “Kanae,” “Michio,” and “Akai,” and phrases like “dog school principal” (although I’m not really sure what that is). I think that Goossen’s comment in Asymptote about the “dream-like quality” of the stories helps elucidate the connection, but I remain curious about the deeper meanings of the stories, which I hope we can discuss in class. I giggled when I saw Beyoncé mentioned in “The Formula” (139), although I find certain translation decisions to be questionable in their redundancy. For example, in “Electricians,” I question why Goossen chose to write “green three-sided triangular prism” (140) if a triangular prism already implies that the shape is three-sided. There is a matter-of-factness to the translations that make them seem like they are adhering to formal equivalence, but I like how renderings like “kunugi and konara oaks” (141) were foreignizing while maintaining ease of understanding for readers.
I also enjoyed the translators’ commentaries on voice, particularly those that mentioned reading aloud, using music to accompany the story, and finding people in real life who remind the translators of those characters. I was fascinated by Shibata’s comments on the difference between watashi, ore, and boku, so I wonder how common switching between variations of the first person singular is in translations of literary works into Japanese versus literary works originally written in Japanese.
-Rose
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