Ted Goossen Response - Lianbi

From Ted’s commentary on the topic of voice, I can see that he’s a confident translator, comparing Naoya Shiga’s voice to a “well-worn garment hanging in [his] closet.” I am not sure how to read the part that says “it even smells like me!”. Has his personal voice/style had an impact on the translation, or has the translation changed him in some way? What do we feel about his approach of seeking the Japanese author’s voice in his own childhood and English literature seems to suggest that he welcomes a certain degree of domestication in his translation. 

This idea of finding the English equivalent of the original voice seems to be a common one among the translators of (modern) Japanese into a foreign language among the commentators (horizontal translation). However, the Japanese translators of classical texts into modern Japanese (vertical translation) seem to be more conscious of the distance and differences between the literary traditions of the source and target languages. I think an interesting question arises here: what’s the fundamental difference between a horizontal and a vertical distance (acknowledging that in many cases there can be both a horizontal and a vertical distance between the source text and the translation)? Is it one’s ability to speak in both languages? From my experience with classical Chinese, because no one can or do speak in it anymore, I find it much more difficult to hear the voice of an author and distinguish that voice from their contemporaries. This might be a motivation for a more foreignizing approach (broadly defined) that puts substantial energy into addressing the differences.

Regarding Ted’s translation of Kawakami’s stories, I have the following observations and questions.

• In “Mysterious Deaths,” there is the interjection “in what was Kanae’s politest of tones.” Is that just what the original says or is that an in-text explanatory note to explain the register of the dialogue?

• The phrase “the Yoko who survived” confused me. It wasn’t clear to me what Yoko means here, is it a person’s name? (No because of the preceeding “the.”) Is it the japanese word for child? (Then why not italicize? Why capitalize? Also what’s the rationale behind not translating?) Is it a job title?

• What is the idiom “fruits of our labor” translated from? What might be the motivation behind using or not using an idiom here?

• “Looked as if he wanted to sink into the ground as he sat shivering in his chair as if he were cold” is a long tail to a sentence with two metaphors intertwined together. It doesn’t sound very smooth to me. I am wondering if this is from a literal rendering of the original and if it’s a less plausible decision to keep everything so literal. In some languages it’s more common to use stalk phrase expressions including metaphor than others (Chinese is one of those languages.)

• “Won’t someone volunteer?” is awkward too. Is “Does no one want to volunteer?” more idiomatic? 

• I do like the choice to keeping the way teacher address her student as it is, “Miss Kawamata,” here, I don’t think we need to domesticate that. 

• What does “original name” mean? Did she change her name formally? Did she use a different name by personal choice?

• “A cloud of doom clung to her” this sounds a bit like manga effect written in text. 

• “Black-snake fireworks” I think I can understand it!

• “Occasionally accidents occurred–she slipped off a cliff and fell, he was bitten by a poisonous snake–but these only served to deepen their love, as per the formula.” This is funny! And these lines help me understand why “formula” more and more.

• What’s “the obligatory field of flowers”?

• Is “commandeer” commonly used?

• “Van with ‘Electrician’ written on it in big black kanji” I wonder if this would be a good moment to actually keep the kanji in the text?

• “Still another time it was an old man and a monkey” love how matter-of-factly this moment sounds.

• “All those who worked at Town Hall were eating out of Kanae’s hand, willing to do whatever she asked.” Is this part sexual?? I thought Kanae was a child. 

Apart from translation decisions, I would appreciate if we can talk about these stories and readings of them for part of today’s class:))