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#JapaneseLiterature

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𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜'𝗺 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴: "𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝗴𝗴𝘀" 𝗯𝘆 𝗠𝗶𝗲𝗸𝗼 𝗞𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗸𝗮𝗺𝗶 -

Kawakami's work has been praised (and loathed) and that's been a draw for me. Have had her on my list for some time, but Kindle threatened to take away one of my downloads (*nice, guys*), so I put it up to the top of the list! Not my usual choice--all the more reason . . . .

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My first reaction on reading Snow Country was that I had to read it again. It is a strange book, a lot is left unsaid, but many of the descriptions are very beautiful. My second reaction was that I should probably try to read it in Japanese after all. Just the first three lines are already better in Japanese than in English:

国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国であった。夜の底が白くなった。信号所に汽車が止まった。

The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country. The earth lay white under the night sky. The train pulled up at a signal stop.

This translation is very good but the first line in Japanese does not mention the train, and the very first word 国境, "border", is not translated. Also, I feel the Japanese expresses better the suddenness, more like "and there was the snow country", using the formal である for "to be". In the second line, there is no mention of the earth. 夜の底 is the darkness of the night (literally it means the depth or bottom of the night), and the line is more like "the darkness became white". So quite a bit of nuance doesn't come through in translation.

#JapaneseLiterature
#books

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The reason I hesitated is that I thought I should maybe read it in Japanese. But then again, it was written between 1935 and 1948, so the Japanese might be difficult to understand. And as Edward Seidensticker was a very fine translator, I decide to read his translation.

I have read other works by Kawabata, "Thousand Cranes" and the "Master of Go", and also his Nobel lecture, about which I wrote an article:

quickandtastycooking.org.uk/ar

quickandtastycooking.org.ukThe Beautiful Japan of the Mind • Quick & TastySome observations on the Nobel lecture of Yasunari Kawabata

I was sad to read that the great Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa has died.

I remember discovering his poetry in the 90s. Deceptively simple but so beautiful and profound.

‘A Pebble’ made me think of the lyrics to the Brazilian song ‘Águas de Março’ by Antônio Carlos Jobim (and always in my mind sung by Elis Regina).

I had no idea Tanikawa also wrote the lyrics for the Astro Boy theme song and translated ‘Peanuts’ into Japanese.

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I am most excited about "The Island where the Equinox Flowers Bloom". The flowers are higanbana, and their proper name is cluster amaryllis, but higan (彼岸) is the equinoctial week, so I prefer to call them equinox flowers. Their other name, spider lily, I don't like at all.

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For "Kentoshi" I gave the title of the translation, but it the Japanese title, Kentoushi (献灯使) is a combination of kentou (献灯), a votive lantern as used in shrines and temples, and shi (使), which means envoy or messenger. The title in the US, "The Emissary", is closer to that meaning.

My new Japanese books have arrived! A year's reading sorted ^_^

Kentoshi (The Last Children of Tokyo) by Tawada Yoko (献灯使、多和田葉子)
Mizuumi (The Lake) by Yoshimoto Banana (みずうみ、吉本ばなな )
Higanbana ga saku shima (The Island where the Equinox Flowers Bloom) by Li Kotomi (彼岸花が咲く島、李琴峰)
Umi (The Sea) by Yoko Ogawa (海、小川洋子)

#JapaneseLiterature
#Japanese

Pause on walk home for coffee and cake in the Clock Cafe, started reading Set My Heart on Fire by Izumi Suzuki, translated by Helen O'Horan, coming from Verso in November.

Some descriptions sounded very old fashioned, but then I realised this was her first novel, from early 1990s, and set in late 70s music & clubland. Bit different from all the magical cafe & talking cat Japanese novels of late!