As someone who tends to enjoy Tanizaki's works, I'm not surprised by how much I liked reading this. In fact, I went back to look at the translated versions of Tanizaki's works that I own, and Hibbett was the translator of my copy of Diary of A Mad Old Man. It was great to see that come full circle. (On further inspection, my copy of Some Prefer Nettles was translated by Seidensticker, and suffice it to say, I was pleasantly surprised.)
I really enjoyed reading Hibbett's musings on Tanizaki's style and the reaction of critics to it. I was particularly interested in the discussion about 'aestheticizing.' I think that there is definitely truth to the statement that Tanizaki and Mishima tend to romanticize a 'non-modern' Japan through their protagonists. The discussion around this reminded me of something in the Wakabayashi readings: is it ever suitable for a translator to make the message of an author more palatable to the foreign audience? Wakabayashi says that it isn't but I wonder if translators almost end up doing so unknowingly.
I also enjoyed Hibbett's reflections on past reviews he's received and the challenge of translating style and dialect. I read Kagi partially in Japanese and then in English for LJ350 last year, and I honestly didn't think too much of how one would go about translating it. In retrospect, the katakana and hiragana definitely add to the characterization of the husband and wife, so I found myself wondering if using certain fonts might somewhat help convey this. However, it could also come off looking childish. The same goes for dialect. I've frequently seen Kansai-ben translated as a vaguely southern country accent, but sometimes it can almost come as a caricature rather than characterization. I like Hibbett's approach of making it sound more waspish instead of losing the nuance in the Japanese.
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