January 02, 2007
始めよう
How are you gentlemen !! All your blog are belong to us.
From now on, this blog and its corresponding RSS feed will be devoted to my new translation project. Each day (or so the hope is), I'll be translating a page from Japanese author Haruki Murakami's 「羊をめぐる冒険」("A Wild Sheep Chase") into English in order to practice my translation skills on a work I know and love.
All indications are that this project will fail miserably. Let's give it a go anyway.
Move 'Wordtank.' For great justice.
Posted by tim at 09:32 PM | Comments (4)
Front matter, Page 9
Closing In On The Sheep
Haruki Murakami
Chapter 1
November 25, 1970
A Wednesday Afternoon Picnic
A friend stumbled across her death in the newspaper and called to tell me. He read the one-paragraph article slowly into the phone. It was a lousy article. It read like some kid reporter, fresh out of college, had been made to write it as practice. On some month and day, at some street corner, someone driving a truck ran someone over. There was an investigation for negligent manslaughter. It sounded like the short poems printed on the covers of literary magazines.
"Where do you think they'll have the funeral?" I asked.
"Not sure," he said. "Anyway, she didn't have much you could call a home, did she?"
Of course she had a home.
[Notes: Alfred Birnbaum is some kind of genius or something. He plays with the order of sentences, provides cultural context for things (the lit magazines), and keeps the terse feeling of the original. Whoo.]
Posted by tim at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2007
Page 10
The nearby police station gave me her family's address and phone number and I called to ask about the date of the funeral. As someone said, if you take the time to ask, you'll usually find out.
Her family lived in an old neighborhood. I pulled out my map of Tokyo and marked the house number in red ball-point pen. It really was one of Tokyo's old neighborhoods. The subway, rail, and bus lines looked like the work of a confused spider. A maze of drainage canals and roads clung to the ground like the wrinkles on a melon.
The day of the funeral, I set out from Waseda on the Metropolitan Railroad and got off near the end of the line. I unfolded my map but it was about as helpful as a globe. By the time I somehow stumbled upon her home I had bought several packs of cigarettes, asking for directions each time. Her house was an old wooden building surrounded by a brown board fence. As I passed through the gate, a futilely small garden appeared on my left. A disused old ceramic hibachi sat in the corner with some fifteen centimeters of accumulated rainwater in the bowl. The soil of the garden was dark and moist.
[Notes: So when I come up for air, the questions start coming. What are my values as a translator? Do I strive to represent every action in the original in English? I don't really understand the context for them in the original. Is it a better translation to ignore the "jokes" I don't get or to try to preserve them in their original, albeit apparently unimportant, form? Should I be working harder to understand the symbolism and context of each word in the original? (Hint: Yes.) This is haaaaaaaard.]
Posted by tim at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2007
Page 11
She had run away from home for good at 16, which could be why the funeral was a quiet, family-only affair. It was run by her older brother, or maybe her brother-in-law, who was barely 30. The other attendees were all aging relatives. Her father, a short man in his mid-fifties, wore a black suit with a black band around his arm. He stood to the side of the gate, never once moving. He looked like asphalt swept clean by a flood. As I turned to leave, I silently nodded to him. He silently nodded in return.
I first met her in the fall of 1969. I was 20 and she was 17. There was a small coffeeshop near campus where I used to meet friends. It wasn't much of a place but they played hard rock to listen to as you drank their surprisingly bad coffee.
Posted by tim at 05:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2007
１９７３年のピンボール
No translation tonight. I read Pinball, 1973 today (in English!) instead, so I'm going to talk about that.
A bit of background: Pinball, 1973 is the second of Haruki Murakami's novels, falling between Hear The Wind Sing and A Wild Sheep Chase. All three books together are known as The Rat Trilogy as they center around the same unnamed narrator and his friend The Rat. The books are written in the first person and Murakami's narrators use the first-person pronoun "boku" (僕), which is a less formal, masculine version of the more traditional "watashi" (私). As a consequence, his narrator is frequently nicknamed Boku in discussions of his works, which is a convention I will adopt if I ever get there.
Hear The Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 were never published in English translation outside Japan. Murakami feels that the books are "weak" and do not represent his best work. They were, however, published in English translation by our beloved Alfred Birnbaum in Japan for the Kodansha English Library series, which featured modern Japanese works published in English translations with translation notes in the back to help Japanese learners of English. This makes them more or less tantalizingly out of reach in the US. But! Kathleen, a friend of mine and fellow Murakami aficionado, happens to have borrowing privileges at the UMass Amherst library, which is, by all reports, "huge." They have a copy, which she checked out and brought home and which I promptly stole from her.
My impressions: Murakami's kind of right! It's less mature (and shorter) than his other works. It's also kind of the same story it ever was if you've read A Wild Sheep Chase or Norwegian Wood. There's a character named Naoko -- oops, there was a character named Naoko. Guess what! She's dead, though we don't learn how in this book. She also has a lot to do with wells. There's even a brief discussion of dormitory life, though this one's tangily co-ed. Cats, as expected, appear at crucial junctions throughout the book, and there's a critical metaphor involving the geometry of Boku's ears.
Let's talk about themes. Boku and The Rat are each trapped in different sorts of empty, meaningless, routine life. Boku translates brochures and articles into Japanese from English with his partner in a translation agency while The Rat is an unemployed slacker living with his rich parents in a small seaside town (and frequenting J's Bar). Over the course of the book, the characters separately begin to understand the depth of their existential pain and begin to desire to resolve it. Boku even compares himself to a kamikaze pilot or a worker at Auschwitz as he begins to feel his inner emptiness. That resolution ultimately occurs, or at least begins, in A Wild Sheep Chase. Oh, and pinball. A few pages in, the book announces itself as a book about pinball and proceeds to give an exciting description of pinball as anti-ego. In the middle of the book, Boku develops an obsession with a particular variety of pinball machine before the arcade it belongs to suddenly disappears and, near the end, begins to develop his resolve to rescue himself after a mystic experience communing with the pinball machine in a former cold storage warehouse. It's kind of trippy.
And I haven't even mentioned the twins, Kant, or their involvement in the telephone switchbox funeral yet. The twins, which Boku cannot tell apart, appeared out of nowhere one day, live with Boku, and sleep in his bed. They leave at the end of the book. And Boku reads Kant a lot. And the switchbox... you know what? Forget it. It's too much fun to be summarized.
So in conclusion! It's a fun book to read if you're a Murakami geek like I am but it's pretty much more of the same: it's not groundbreaking or earthshattering and you've pretty much already heard the important parts. Interestingly, sex is only hinted at, unlike in his later books where it becomes more explicit and acquires thematic importance. There's more visible angst here than usual and it's a bit clunky, but then there are parts where you can see both Murakami and Birnbaum starting to really hit their form.
So that's that. I don't know if this is even readable, but I'm tired of writing and editing so I'm going to post it. Have a good night!
Posted by tim at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)
January 06, 2007
Page 12
She would always be sitting at the same place, absorbed in a book with her elbows on the table. She wore glasses that looked like orthodontia and had bony grasshopper hands, and for whatever reason had shut out her parents. Her coffee was always cold and her ashtray was always overflowing with cigarette butts; only the title of the book changed. Once it was Mickey Spillane, once it was Kenzaburo Oe, once it was a Ginsberg anthology. In short, she'd read pretty much anything. Students coming in and out of the shop would lend her books she'd plow through like eating corn on the cob. In those days, the world was full of people who wanted to lend books, and I don't think she even once wanted for something to read.
Those were also the days of The Doors, The Stones, The Byrds, Deep Purple, and Moody Blues. The air somehow seemed to shimmer with power and giving the world a kick could make it all come tumbling down.
We spent our days drinking cheap whiskey, having so-so sex, telling stories without conclusions, and lending and borrowing books. As the curtain creaked down on the clumsy 1960's, it all came to an end.
I've forgotten her name.
Posted by tim at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2007
Page 13
I could pull out the obituary notice again and look, but it wouldn't make a difference. I've forgotten her name. That's just that.
When I meet old friends, our stories about her fall into a sort of rhythm. None of them remember her name, either. Wow, it's been a while, they say. Remember that the girl who'd sleep with anyone? Yeah, whatsername. I've completely forgotten it. Yeah, I slept with her I don't know how many times. I wonder how she's doing these days. It'd be great to run into her on the street sometime.
Back in the day, there was that girl who'd sleep with anyone.
That's her name.
Of course, strictly speaking, it wasn't true that she slept with everyone. She did have some standards.
Posted by tim at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)
Page 14
Though really, even glancing at the truth of the situation would reveal that she would sleep with just about anyone.
Just once, out of burning curiosity, I asked her about those standards.
"Yeah, standards. I guess so," was all she could come up with for about thirty seconds. "Of course not just anyone will do. There are times when someone clearly won't. Even so, I guess it's like I want to know more about different kinds of people. Or, to learn about how my world came to be."
"Through sleeping with people?"
"Yes."
It was my turn to think of something to say. "So... have you learned a little?"
"Yes, a little."
The winter of '69 turned into the spring of '70 and I rarely saw her face.
Posted by tim at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2007
Page 15
There were repeated closings and lockouts at the college and, besides, I had some personal troubles I had to deal with. When I visited the shop again in the fall of '70, the regulars were completely different and hers was the only face I recognized. In any case, they were still playing hard rock but the shimmering feeling had vanished. Only her and the bad coffee were the same. I slid into the seat across from her and we talked about old friends over coffee.
Most of them were quitting school. One of them had committed suicide and one of them had gone missing. It was that kind of story.
"What were you doing for a year?" she asked me.
"A lot," I answered.
"Did you learn a little?"
"Yeah, a little."
That night, I slept with her for the first time.
Posted by tim at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2007
Page 16
I don't really know much about her childhood. I suppose someone must have learned about it, probably having heard it from her own mouth in bed. She ran away from home (incidentally dropping out of school) the summer of her first year in high school after a big fight with her father, or something like that. Nobody knows where on earth she lived or how she made a living.
She sat in a chair in the rock cafe all day, drinking countless cups of coffee and smoking endless cigarettes. She'd wind through the pages of a book while waiting for someone to materialize and pay her bill, which was no mean sum for us back in the day. She usually slept with them. That was all I knew about her.
From the fall of that year through the spring of the next, every week on Tuesday evening she'd visit my apartment on the outskirts of Mitaka. She'd eat a simple dinner I'd make and we'd turn up the FEN rock show on TV and listen to it while having sex.
Posted by tim at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2007
Page 17
On waking Wednesday morning, we'd stroll through a grove of trees onto the ICU campus and stop by the cafeteria for lunch. In the afternoon, we'd drink weak coffee in the lounge and, if the weather was nice, lie down on the campus lawn and look up at the sky.
She called it our Wednesday picnic.
"Every time I come here I feel like we're having a real picnic."
"A real picnic?"
"Yeah, a wide-open space where lawn extends everywhere you look and people look healthy..." She lowered herself onto the lawn, smoking a cigarette while idly striking matches.
"The sun rises, and then it sets. People come, and then they go. Time flows away like air. What's not a picnic about it?"
I was 21 then and a few weeks away from being 22. At the time I didn't have any hope of graduating from college but I didn't have any good reason to quit. Through a series of strangely related hopeless circumstances, I hadn't made any progress in several months.
Posted by tim at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2007
Page 18
It felt like the entire world kept moving on, leaving me stuck behind. In the fall of 1970, just about everything my eyes saw was sad and seemed to quickly fade away. The light of the sun, old musty smells, and even the slight sound of falling rain did nothing more than annoy me.
I kept having a dream about an overnight train. It was always the same dream. The overnight train smelled of tobacco smoke and urinals and people were packed in like fish. The train was so crowded that there was no place to stand and the seats had old vomit clinging to them. Without any urgency, I got up from my seat and disembarked at a train station somewhere. It was so desolate that I couldn't see the light of a single house anywhere. There wasn't even a trace of a station employee. There were no clocks or timetables or anything else. It was that kind of dream.
Around that time, I began to feel that I was treating her poorly. In exactly what way, I don't remember anymore. Or it's possible I wasn't treating myself very well. Anyway, she didn't seem to care at all. Or maybe (to speak in extremes) she enjoyed it immensely. I don't understand why. After all, it's not like her desire for me was out of kindness. Even remembering that now feels strange. When it occurs to me out of the blue it brings a sad feeling, as though my hand were unexpectedly hitting an unseen wall.
Posted by tim at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2007
Page 19
I still clearly remember the unusual afternoon of November 25, 1970. Strong rains had knocked down ginko leaves on a small path through the copse, dyed yellow like a dried-up river. She and I were wandering down the path with our hands thrust in our pockets. Our footsteps on the leaves and the keening cry of a bird were the only soun
"What on earth is bothering you so much?" she suddenly asked me.
"It's really nothing," I said. A little further down the path, she sat down and lit a cigarette. I sat down next to her.
"Do you always have bad dreams?"
"Frequently, yes, though they're usually about vending machines that won't give me any change." She laughed, put her hand on my leg, and drew it back.
Posted by tim at 09:54 PM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2007
Page 20
She laughed and put her hand on my leg, but drew it back. "You don't really want to talk about it, do you?"
"It wouldn't be any good."
She smoked for half a minute, threw her cigarette on the earth, and carefully stomped it out with her feet. "So you want to talk about it, but it's something you can't do justice?"
"I don't know," I said. Two birds took off from the ground, flapping into the sky. We watched them until they were out of sight. She picked up a dead twig and idly sketched in the dirt.
"Sleeping with you sometimes it makes me real sad."
"I don't think that's all," I said.
"It's not your fault. Not even if you're thinking about another girl when we're having sex. I..." She suddenly stopped and slowly drew three straight lines in the dirt. "I don't know."
"I don't really mean," I said, haltingly, "to close off my heart. I don't have a good hold on what's happened myself. I want to deal with several things as fairly as I can. I don't want to make it bigger or more real than I have to. But that'll take time."
[heavily inspired by Birnbaum; I wasn't thinking very clearly about this.]
Posted by tim at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2007
Page 21
"How much time?"
I shook my head. "I have no idea. I could be done in a year, or it could take ten years."
She tossed the twig on the ground and stood up, brushing her lit cigarette on her coat. "Ten years. Don't you think that seems like an eternity?"
"I guess so," I said.
We left the grove and walked to the ICU campus, where as always we sat in the lounge and nibbled on hot dogs. At 2pm, the lounge television time and time again flashed an image of Yukio Mishima. The speakers were broken so we couldn't really understand the news, but whatever it was it was fine by us. We finished our hot dogs and had another cup of coffee each. A lone student climbed on a chair and fiddled with the volume knob for a bit, gave up, climbed down, and disappeared.
"I really want you," I said.
[Ed. note: This was the day that Yukio Mishima infamously committed suicide by seppuku after barricading himself in a Japan Self-Defense Force headquarters building and issuing a list of demands. IIRC Murakami has stated a dislike for Mishima, which would be well in line with student opinion of him back in the day.]
[Ed. note 2: Man, I really blew this translation. See Birnbaum for how this really ought to go. I'll fix it in the morning.]
Posted by tim at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2007
Page 22
"All right then," she smiled. We leisurely walked back to my apartment with our hands thrust in our coat pockets.
When I started awake, she was crying silently. Her thin shoulders shook in bouts under the blankets. I lit the burner on the stove and looked at the clock. It was 2 am, and a pure white moon floated in the center of the sky. I made black tea and we drank it together after she stopped crying. I didn't have any sugar, lemon, or milk, so we drank plain, hot, black tea. Once we finished, I lit two cigarettes and gave one to her. She inhaled the smoke and spat it out three times and then coughed violently for a while.
"So do you ever think of killing me?" she asked.
"You?"
"Uh-huh."
"What are you talking about?"
She rubbed an eyelid with her fingertip, holding her cigarette in her mouth. "That's not an answer."
Posted by tim at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2007
Page 23
"Of course not," I said.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Why would I want to kill you?"
She nodded wearily. "I just suddenly thought that it wouldn't be so bad to be killed by someone. In my sleep, that is."
"You're not the type to be murdered."
"You think so?"
"Well, probably not."
She laughed, crushed her cigarette in the ashtray, threw back the rest of the tea, and lit a new cigarette. "I'll live until I'm twenty-five," she said. "And then I'll die."
Posted by tim at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2007
Page 24
She died in July, 1978. She was twenty-six.
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January 26, 2007
Page 25
Chapter 2: July, 1978
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January 27, 2007
Page 26
[blank]
Posted by tim at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)
January 28, 2007
Page 27
1. On Walking Sixteen Steps
Upon ascertaining the elevator door had closed behind me with a soft thud, I let my eyes fall shut. Collecting my fragmented senses, I turned down the corridor towards my door and walked nineteen steps. I walked precisely nineteen steps with my eyes closed, not one more or one fewer. Thanks to whiskey, my head felt dimly like a stripped screw and my mouth tasted like stale cigarettes.
No matter how drunk I am, I can close my eyes and, measuring my pace, walk a straight line of nineteen steps. It's a long-held gift born of self-training. Whenever I'm drunk, I hold my back firmly erect and my head high and inhale the smells of morning air and concrete hallway with all my might. Then, I close my eyes and walk nineteen straight steps through the whiskey fog.
Posted by tim at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)