| 2 » sergiu | Antwerp | Date: 14.09.2007 Time: 01:37:10 |
Only one comment. I once read a Charles Bukowski story centered around an episode of cunnilingus. I enjoyed that much more although I think Mishima is a very talented writer. I would even admit he has charisma. But he didn't hypnotize me, and I think that was his aim. I would recommend running a search on him on you tube. There are some interesting clips. |
||
| 1 » Giles Murray | Tokyo | Date: 24.06.2007 Time: 04:25:22 |
PAGE 95: "Dressed in his military uniform, his left hand resting on his sword and his doffed cap clasped in his right, the lieutenant stood valiant and protective of his bride." In the above passage, why did I use the word "doffed"? Why do you think I had reservations about using it? PAGE 113: "Now she only loved the memory of having once loved them, for her heart was filled with a more fierce, more frenzied happiness......Reiko had never once considered the joys of the flesh - the very thought of which sent a thrill through her - as mere sensual pleasure." What literary device is used in the above sentence? Do you think it is appropriate? PAGE 113: "...she felt a hot moistness in the soft, pink flesh beneath the repetitive pattern on the front of her neat Meisen kimono. It was a moistness that could melt snow." The Japanese word 果肉 literally means "fruit pulp." I didn't translate it like that, but it is used in that sense in English literature, for example in Chapter 6 of Thomas Legendre's novel "The Burning." She reached for the orange juice - slowly, like she was picking a flower from a bouquet - and was about to close the refrigerator door when she felt Logan's hands come up around her, his breath suddenly hot in her ear. She reached back and grabbed him. He was kissing her neck and running his hands down the front of her body, between her thighs, and she tried to put the orange juice back on the shelf but she simply couldn't focus on anything and finally let it fall to the floor. She turned. He lit her up. He wanted her. He wanted her through everything and she wanted him too. She was pressed against the open door with her legs spread. She unknotted his tie, she unbuttoned his shirt. He lifted her tank top. The refrigerator hummed. Her foot slipped in something cold and slick on the floor and she realized it was juice leaking from the container. They heaved against the door. Jars rattled. Her teeth found his neck, the salty taste and musk of him. They slid down and now her shorts were off and they were completely naked, the tile smooth against her back, Logan's lips kissing her inner-thighs, his tongue finding its way into the pulp of her and her entire body responding now, polarized and keen, humming like a tuning fork. He was inside her and she was wrapping her legs around his waist and squeezing and swearing at him and forcing him to roll over so she could be on top. She had an orgasm. Then he came, his body clenching and tightening before it finally released and went limp. How would you have translated the word in Mishima? Is my translation too lurid? PAGE 115: "...it would all carry her away, just as his body had, to an easeful death." In the above passage, why do I translate the word 快適 as "easeful"? PAGE 121: "I had no idea. The chaps didn't ask me to join them. Maybe they just meant to be nice to me, seeing as I'd just got married." What sort of voice have I given to the lieutenant in the above passage, and on page 123 ("my chums") and 129 ("Right-ho then, Let's do the deed together.") Why do I make him speak like this? PAGE 143: "Everything was enveloped in darkness; he was no longer a being who saw the material world." Why do I use the expression "material world" here? (There are two correct answers, one serious, and one frivolous.) PAGE 149: "...he was prepared to annihilate himself to express his disapproval of this vast country." Why does the Japanese say "vast "("巨大な")? Surely Japan is rather small? PAGE 163: "...she embraced the lieutenant's close-shorn head." The Japanese 五分刈 could be translated as "buzz cut" or "skin head." Why did I choose the expression "close-shorn"? PAGE 169: "The lieutenant was gasping for breath like the regimental standard bearer on a long march..." Christopher Ross, in his "Mishima's Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend," describes this as a "truly absurd line." What do you think? PAGE 189: "In that he was somehow blessed." My editor is American and I am English. Why do you think we disagreed about the above sentence, myself being in favor, he against? PAGE 203: "His whole existence distilled into pain, a prisoner in a cage of pain, unreachable even to her outstretched hand." The above passage contains a deliberate (if faint) 'echo' of a well-known song from 1967 by a rather literate West Coast band. Who are they and what is the name of the song? PAGE 207: "Gaining confidence, the blood started squirting from the wound with the beating of his pulse." What device is used in the above passage (in both Japanese and English)? PAGE 221: "She sat down beside the body of the lieutenant and gazed at one side of the face that was pressing down on the mat." Apologies for being self-referential, but which shot in "Acid Kanji" does this description resemble? PAGE 225: In the final paragraph of the story why do I translate "浅かった" "Too shallow"? |
||
