I really enjoyed reading Carpenter's take on translation. Something how she describes her work reveals her love for the craft itself, and it was great to see. That said, a lot what she said was interesting. I really like her description of translation as a coloring book. In fact, the way she describes her translations immediately makes me think about how I would approach it. For example, understand her struggle with 「なぜ生きる」but I think 'You were Born for a Reason' is wordy in a way something like 'Why We Live' isn't. I also found how translators look at and cite each other's work to be really interesting. It feels like a much more collaborative process when Carpenter describes it, as opposed to Seidensticker, though I'm unsure if that's a sign of changing times or a matter of personal preference.
Reading the interview made how collaborative Carpenter's style is even more noticeable. I really liked that she would find people in her life who were experts on subjects and consult them instead on say, relying on google and giving yourself a quick rundown of a topic. I remember I once translated a manga one-shot for a friend that involved a lot of terminology about game development and 3-D animation and modeling, and just pouring over translation forums and Wikipedia trying to understand what was going on. While I did manage to finish it, those explanations were always mechanical, like a mashup of someone trying to explain a topic they didn't know very well as well as someone trying translate something they didn't understand very well. I think Carpenter's approach would really help in giving a lot of life to her work in that respect.
Reshma
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