Regrets!

Last week, I voiced my skepticism about Cathy Hirano’s claim that Japanese writing styles tend to favor ambiguity and English writing styles prefer clarity. After reading Edward Seidensticker’s presentation on Nagai Kafu and Yawabata Yasunari, I now find Hirano’s claim more relevant than I previously thought.

 

Seidensticker believes that intuition has often guided his decisions in translation, but also admits that his intuition differs from that of the author. Whereas Seidensticker translates thinking his editors would ask for clarity, Kawabata writes intending to incorporate ambiguity in his literature. A translator can try to “improve” the writing by editing it and making it accessible to its English audience, but this diminishes the value of the original work. A translator is a counterfeiter, Seidensticker concludes, because their job is not to prettify the original but to deliver it as is.

 

I realized my own mistakes when I read the counterfeiter metaphor. When I translate, I tend to rewrite lengthy paragraphs in an original text into short, punchy sentences. I always thought I was so smart writing things that the authors could not think of, but now I realize I was not doing the job of a translator; I was doing the job of a fan-fiction writer. Seidensticker sometimes disagree with the original author on clarity and ambiguity in their writing styles, and I too share similar experiences in which I felt the author’s writing style was clumsy. I now agree with Cathy Hirano that I need the humility to accept that the original writers have a purpose behind their writing styles.

 

- Marcus

Edward Seidensticker Reading

 Gaining insights into Seidensticker's thought process in translation was interesting, especially understanding the difficulties that exist in the process. One of the things mentioned that caught my attention was the struggle to maintain the rhythm while translating the text precisely. This often occurs because a clear explanation of the proper name is required for the readers to fully understand, but it takes too much time. He gives an explanation with the two sentences that received loads of criticism in Yuu Keshiki no Kagami. It was especially intriguing because I've never considered rhythm as a factor in translation before. Even in the example given, Seidensticker also touches on how often internal rhyme is generally considered a bad device in English prose. This made me realize the extent to which how translating is difficult due to the number of considerations that has to be made. Ultimately, translation isn't meant to be better than the original. I believe there's a fine line between trying to accurately translate it to engage the reader but to not over do, and I hope to understand this aspect of the two languages more in the future. 

Edward Seidensticker

 "if the translation is better than the original, the translator is doing something that is none of his business to do." This section of the reading struck out to me the most, especially after having done my first translation. When translating Korokke, I always thought to myself how I could improve on the story by adding more descriptive phrases as to further improve on the imagery that I could give the readers. That went to the extent of adding things that weren't remotely in the original text. Now, after having to analyze the translation, I know better to stick as close to the original text as possible and only adding/altering whenever necessary, without deviating from the original. Even then, when translating Amrita, it was hard for me not to add any extra phrases that weren't so necessary just for the sake of better visualization. I think it has to be a constant reminder that to translate is to simply give the original author the same voice in a different language. This also goes hand in hand with the part I read with wanting to correct the author's mistakes and flaws. Evidently, in hindsight, it's easy to point out mistakes or where improvements can be made. But to do that is to not acknowledge that the flaws are those of the original author, and to constantly improve on those without approval from the author is to essentially steal their story and make it your own.

I also was intrigued when he talked about that specific sentence in Shakespeare, where most of the Japanese translations used twice as many words and disrupted the rhythm. To me, the rhythm is simply being able to visualize the story in a way that is the same as the visualization when the original is read. To have to go down to the specifics of similar sentence length and word count is on a whole other level to me, which I might have been doing subconsciously when translating, but now I will consciously start to look at how exactly the author writes their sentences and try to follow suit in that as to create a similar rhythm to the author's text in terms of the physical writing.

- Afiq Amjad

Edward Seidensticker

 

Upon reading this text, I was not particularly surprised to see that translators also have to deal 

with criticisms. But it was particularly interesting to read what was said about translators having

to constantly battle between choices when working. The bit about choosing between rhythm and

 explanation of proper names and such resonated with me because that is something that we 

have encountered in class already with our translation assignments. For example, the choice to 

translate お歳暮 using its romaji, direct translation, or to add a note explaining what it is. 

The portion of the reading after that that touches on translators being akin to counterfeiters was 

also interesting to me because in the previous readings, we saw translators being treated as 

interpreters of a sort. Each translator had their own distinct style and their translated works were

 treated quite differently. Here, however, it is argued that translators ought to copy a work 

perfectly from one language to another. That it is not a translator’s business to ‘improve’ a work. 

I think that because languages are so different, due to various factors such as grammar, 

vocabulary, even culture, it is not possible to ‘counterfeit’ a work completely. And for that reason, I

 think it is natural for translators to have to change some aspects of a work even if only slightly 

when translating. Whether that means the work is improved or not is something I think is 

dependent on the perspective of the reader.

 

Kenneth 

Edward Seidensticker

 After reading Edward Seidensticker on Nagai Kafu and Kawabata Yasunari, I found it really interesting to see a professional translator's point of view of translating from English to Japanese and from Japanese to English. One of the things I found interesting was that he thinks of translators as counterfeiters. I do agree with him on translators being like counterfeiters in the sense that they "must imitate, he must reproduce every detail of his original to the best of his ability, not changing anything. " There are always struggles in translation that you can't come up with the exact expression of words or whatnot, and the best thing we can do is to imitate the author's voice the best we can and his or her intention with the wordings.  

I also found it interesting to hear from him that "Translation is not interesting unless it's difficult. It becomes boring when it's easy." I absolutely agree with him that translating is absolutely hard; however, it is fascinating because you get both intrigued and frustrated by a specific word and try to come up with a better way to say it like the original text. I found it enjoyable to have choices of words to translate to, and compare them to which fits the best in the context and the author's style.

- Airi Hatori 

Seidensticker Thoughts - Evan Laufman

A core aspect of Seidensticker's belief system that immediately stuck out to me was the idea of translators as "counterfeiters". You cannot recreate the words of another into a new language perfectly, it simply cannot be done; that loss of control is immensely frustrating to realize. There is no such thing as an impeccable translation job, for there will always be morsels of meaning lost to the sands of interpretation.

He says that in order to be a "successful" counterfeiter, it is necessary to recreate every single detail of the original as best as you can, without change. This leads to another core belief of his: translators should not improve upon the work they are translating. I find it particularly interesting, because when translating two languages as far apart as English and Japanese- where you must make hundreds of thousands of minute decisions that completely alter how the story is perceived- it is painstakingly difficult to maintain the mindfulness required to recreate the text-- to make a successful counterfeit. 

Edward Seidensticker thoughts - Kadin

I found Seidensticker's views on translation very interesting. When he mentioned that translation is a very boring job if it wasn't difficult, I was quite taken aback as I personally would not think the same. I had thought that translating an easy, straightforward piece would make for a smooth and easy job, but I can kind of see why someone would think that translation, the process itself is fun. The work itself requires creativity and imagination after all. I understand his perspective, but I do not agree with him. I think the joy of translation comes from seeing a complete finalized piece.

Seidensticker also points out that translators should be perfect 'counterfeiters'. I like the way he uses that word. I agree that translators should try their best to translate the text that they were given with instead of finding ways to improve on it. The latter of which betrays the very point of translation after all. I think I would find it hard as well to not paraphrase often or to stick to a faithful rendition of the same lines all the time when translating. That in conjunction with an attempt to make a sentence flow smoothly makes for a very hard job. It really makes me think that 'counterfeiting' is not easy.

When Mishima Yukio gave Seidensticker a disquisition on how a japanese page should look, specifically the disposition of the 'light' Japanese kana and the 'dark' Chinese characters I was also surprised to find that page aesthetic was also something a translator should also care about; Given that Seidensticker said that 'it had nothing to do with literature'. Even as a Chinese person who can read both Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters, I had never really thought of how it affects the beauty of a page at all until now.

Edward Seindensticker: Blog Post

  I think that Seidensticker and his idea of translators being counterfeiters makes a lot of sense. No matter how close you get to the original, you won’t be able to recreate it, and translators leave a unique mark on the work. In addition, I think that what he says about translators and attempts to ‘improve’ the original work and hence making it a bad translation are interesting ideas as well. It reminds a bit of when we read the multiple Murakami translations, and how certain additions made the story read more fluent and natural, but they arguably brought the work farther from the original. Tying that back to Hirano’s philosophy of translators needing a level of humility, I can’t help but think that the balance between sacrificing clarity for accuracy or vice versa is incredibly difficult to maintain. 

The fact that Seidensticker barely communicates with the authors is another interesting idea. Murakami and his translators seemed to have a pretty collaborative relationship, so the idea that authors like Tanizaki and Kawabata were reluctant to discuss their work is sort of unusual to me. After all, they run the risk of the translator’s interpretation of their work overshadowing their own. It somewhat reminds me of how in websites that translate song lyrics, there’s usually a huge difference in what Japanese and English audiences interpret the song as being about– whether due to translators choosing different subjects in sentences or naturalizing wordplay incompletely. The essay as a whole definitely gave me more to think about when doing our next translation and Seidensticker’s view is truly interesting (although I wholeheartedly disagree with his assessment of Yoshimoto Banana.)

--Reshma

Notes on Edward Seidensticker - Suis Burr

 I found Edward Seidensticker’s philosophy on translation conflicting, and perhaps an ideal more than something that reflects his own methods. He states that a translator must be like a counterfeiter, and “reproduce every detail of his original to the best of his ability, not changing anything” (22). However, he recognizes the difficulties of this, later stating that it is difficult to be “faithful” (23). He claims that a “conscientious translator seeks [...] to be faithful to the extent that he is capable of,” yet at times sacrifices that accuracy for “rhythm” (29). At other times, he sacrifices faithfulness in the name of “intuition”; something that “sound[s] better” instinctively (25). I find that this conflict encapsulates the challenges of translating from languages so different such as Japanese to English.

 As he mentions, sometimes Japanese sentences don’t have a subject and one has to read ahead to locate one, then add the subject to the previous sentence. It doesn’t work in English to leave the subject ambiguous like it does in the original Japanese. Seidensticker also encounters a dilemma with the internal rhyme in the second sentence of Snow Country, and it truly is a difficult choice to either remain faithful while sacrificing good prose or change it for the sake of flow. His discussion of “intuition” regarding his choice here is something that really resonated with me. As someone who grew up bilingual, I feel that when translating, or reading the original Japanese text, I sense a “feeling” that I can’t describe and have to recreate that feeling in the translated English. However, sometimes I wonder if the “feeling” that I take from a text is biased; something that I sense given my own upbringing and experiences of the world. Perhaps it is difficult to be objective with intuition.

 Lastly, I found the discussion on the visuals of text on paper fascinating. I think this touches on the untranslatable; one can’t recreate with English text the visual effects created with Japanese text. Perhaps this is reflective of translation as a whole, that one can never recreate the same experience that a text embodies when translating from one language to another and a translator can only strive (perpetually) for something that is as close as possible.

Seidensticker on Nagai and Kawabata Thoughts

 I found his analogy on translators being counterfeiters to be quite interesting as opposed to a betrayer or a traitor as Italians call them. He says to be a successful counterfeiter, you must reproduce every detail or the original to the best of your ability and not to change anything but there are some cases where some things should be changed to better cater the readers of the translation when the original references cultural aspects or something else that the readers of the original language definitely know. I wonder if because of this, the translator would be considered a nonsuccessful translator? Though I do agree that if people were to say the translation is better than the original, it isn't quite a praise as it can be an insult to the original writer and story.

Seidensticker mentions that he most enjoys translating complex pieces of work as it is interesting. Therefore, he likes translating Kawabata's works which are full of ambiguity that could be intentional or not. I could see his point in this as it can really rack your brain into how to put that into words of the language it's being translated into but even from the little translation experience I have, it is already so difficult finding fitting words for not-so-hard sentences and phrases so I can't even imagine trying to translate a piece full of ambiguity and meaning. I do notice in some fan translations of manga, they have translator notes on the edges of the page or at the end of the chapter/volume where they clear up misconceptions that English readers may have or questions concerning the translation regarding ambiguity and certain confusions about culture-related topics. I wonder if that is an acceptable approach for some works. Back to the point of counterfeiting, it is already so hard to find fitting phrases that work well in English and if I were to have to keep the translation as accurate as possible, it would be too overly difficult for me. 

It is also quite interesting that there is a peculiar way that a printed page should look in Japanese. The focus is on appearances alone, and not on the content of the piece as the Chinese characters are darker and the Japanese kana is lighter which creates a sort of the beauty of the disposition between the two on a single page.

Connie

Seidensticker on Kawabata and Nagai

Seidensticker talked about the printed page in Japanese and how the way Chinese characters vs Japanese kana are on the page are sometimes intentionally chosen to make a visual effect on the page. This is an interesting visual stylistic choice, and I don’t think there is a way to translate that into any other languages (let me know if there is a language that can reproduce this effect), since Chinese is just full of Chinese characters, and English words don’t give a “dark” and “light” effect when typed on a page. Maybe this is unique to the Japanese language.

 

Regarding the Japanese professor sending Seidensticker a tabulation of the 45 translations of the verb omou, I think I am already started to see this in the translations for class where I’m using various English words such as “say”, “reply", “respond” for iu. Like Seidensticker says, there’s a large number of choices translators have and it’s up to them to decide which is the best fit, and interestingly, Seidensticker points out how intuition is a factor when judging what choice to make. I agree with him that sometimes the choices made are made because it sounds or feels right and can’t really be explained.

 

I find Seidensticker’s analogy of translators as counterfeiter very interesting and fitting. The translated version should not surpass the original nor be too lacking. And while translators shouldn’t be adding new things into the translation, transposition of sentences is fine if it works. I do think some transposition in translating from Japanese to English would help make the text flow more naturally.

 

To me, sometimes Japanese works seem really longwinded and yes, ambiguous, but that is part of the Japanese style. Similarly, English to Japanese may not translate well directly as well. For example, Hamlet’s repeated cry of “Vengeance!” sounds natural and emotional in English, but in Japanese, he “sounds like a leaky tire.” Various factors, such as culture and language, affect the way an audience reads a piece, and it is up to the translator to make sure the translated piece is able to resonate with their intended audience.

 

Tiffany

Edward Seidensticker thoughts

 

It’s interesting seeing the perspective of an older and veteran translator such as Seidensticker. As a beginner translator, I feel that the translation is good as long as the translation is understandable and sounds good. However, Seidensticker considers things in addition to clarity/understandability such as rhythm, which undoubtedly influences his choices as a translator.

In “Eight Ways to Say You” Cathy Hirano mentions adding passages into translations to work the meaning of Japanese words into the text, while Seidensticker says that explanation takes time, which slows down the rhythm of the passage and damages the original work. Adding explanations do help make the story more accessible to the American audience while staying true to the original meaning of the work but it does take away from the style of the original work. I don’t think I prefer either as of now and I agree with Seidensticker that translation is constantly making choices and sacrifices.

 

The part about the translation of Kawabata’s Snow Country was quite intriguing to read. The original sentence and it’s literal translation, “Yoru no soko ga shiroku natta/The bottom of the night turned white” is very poetic and beautiful, but I agree that the internal rhyme did throw me off a little when I first read it in English. Due to the pronunciation of the words “night” and “white”, the reader pauses on the words for a much longer time than it does in the Japanese which breaks up the sentence. While I like the abstractness of that sentence, I preferred how smooth Seidensticker’s original translation, “The earth lay white under the night sky” sounds. However, it does lose the imagery and mysteriousness.

 

It’s interesting that Seidensticker thinks “The bottom of the night turned white” is the better translation yet doesn’t like it. Sometimes the better translation is not one that the translator likes. 

 

A little aside not related to translations but regarding the “light” and “dark” on the printed page—from a graphic design and art perspective, I agree that it’s very beautiful seeing visual shifts between kanji, hiragana and katakana next to each other.  

-Lesley