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Brandon |
South Carolina |
Date: 02.12.2008
Time: 18:40:49
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I just thought it was unusual to see これから会いに行く女を、なまなましく覚えている in the middle of a sentence. When I first read the sentence, I read it as your editor suggested. I didn't think the Japanese used dashes or similar marks, so I didn't find it terribly surprising that Kawabata would set it off with commas. However, when I reviewed the sentence, I started wondering whether perhaps Kawabata had intended oboete iru to be in its rentaikei, modifying some noun or pseudo-noun. I have yet to ask a native speaker about it, but I probably will soon just to be sure.
On a side note, I've spent the past two days reading about "head-internal relative clauses" (HIRCs) and "integrated adverbial clauses" in Japanese and I'm just about ready to jump out of my window. They almost defy logical analysis. Japanese, it seems, only gets more and more difficult the more I read.
Reply from Author: "Head-internal relative clause" sounds like some sort of sinister brain tumor!
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Giles Murray |
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Date: 02.12.2008
Time: 00:04:53
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Brandon
Sorry to be so slow in getting back to you.
I respect your scrupulosity in trying to turn a single sentence in the Japanese into a single sentence in English. As you point out, I broke it up into several separate sentences, in part reflecting breaks in the Japanese (though I concede they're not sentences breaks), in part just a stylistic preference. (I think the Japanese rhythm can be recreated better with a succession of short, clear, somewhat repetitive sentences than with a single sentence that might run the risk of becoming opaque and sluggish as it gets longer.) I believe the 'bewildering simplicity' or 'opaque limpidity' we see here is a deliberate ‘echo’ of classical Japanese on Kawabata's part.
I think the '...kanoyoudato' links to the following 'fushigini omoinagara,' with 'ka' indicating an indirect question or a degree of uncertainty, and the 'no you' (as if) making clear that Shimamura's speaking metaphorically (the finger isn't really summoning him).
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Michael Staley |
Tokyo |
Date: 17.11.2008
Time: 03:22:45
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Brandon,
This is a very, very hard sentence. But to answer your question, I don't think "oboete iru" modifies anything here; you can almost think of the sentence ending right there—oboete iru—with a period. In any case, I see no way that it could modify "ka no you."
I think what Shimamura found to be amazing was that his finger seemed to be summoning him to the woman, not that it remembered her. Nevertheless, your translation seems close enough.
Michael
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Giles Murray |
Tokyo |
Date: 15.11.2008
Time: 13:09:29
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Brandon
I am currently crisscrossing Japan with my mother. Give me a little while to get back to you.
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Brandon |
South Carolina |
Date: 14.11.2008
Time: 06:36:02
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The post below should read simply "you" where I have "ka no you"
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Brandon |
South Carolina |
Date: 14.11.2008
Time: 04:57:14
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Today I started reading Snow Country Miniature and wow! What a sentence on the second page!! I think you broke it up into five in your translation. For the most part, I feel comfortable with it, but I do have a question. Here's the part concerned in Japanese:
…結局この指だけが、これから会いに行く女を、なまなましく覚えている、はっきり思い出そうとあせればあせるほど、つかみどころなくぼやけてゆく記憶の頼りなさのうちに、この指だけは女の触感で今も濡れていて、自分を遠くの女へ引き寄せるかのようだと、不思議に思いながら…
I'm going to ignore the "nagara" attached to "omoi" at the end and translate this part as though it were a single sentence:
Amidst the unreliability of his own memory, which, without anything to grab hold of, became increasingly dimmer the more he struggled to recall her clearly, he thought it amazing that, in the end, this finger alone seemed to remember vividly the woman he was going to meet-- that it seemed to summon him to her over a great distance, and to be even now moist with her touch.
I realize that this isn't the best translation, but I'm trying to stick to the Japanese as closely as possible in order to frame my question, which is simply this: Does "oboete iru" modify "kano you"? Obviously, my translation hinges upon this.
I'll try to keep posting translations since I know you stated in your book, Giles, that you wanted to see what other people could come up with.
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Fred |
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Date: 17.06.2008
Time: 11:01:22
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Hi evryone, a tough question...
I'm really interested in the theme of metamorphosis in literature. I've read Ovid and Kafka, If I recall correctly is there a special literary Japnese word realted to metamorphosis or transition? Are there any japanese novels which deal with metamorphosis? I've already read Uzumaki (spiral) which is a very interesting graphic novel on the concept.
Also are there any Japanese authors which can be compared to the 'magic realism' of S America or even Kafka? you know, like when something is said with a tone of normality even though it is very very strange:
 i.e: "One day Gregor Samsa awoke to find that he's been transformed into a monstrous beetle"
Thnk you so so so much
Reply from Author: Hi Fred,
As you probably know, Kafka's Metamorphosis is called 変身 (henshin) in Japanese. One could also say 変貌 (henbou), which apparently means to "change shape or form," or 変態 (hentai), meaning "metamorphosis" or "transformation," though this is now most commonly used for sexual abnormality (an abbreviation of 変態性欲).
One famous surreal Japanese writer is Izumi Kyoka from the Taisho Period, and then there's Abe Kobo too.
Maybe you could get some good hints from a book called THE FANTASTIC IN MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE by Susan Napier. It seems to be possible to read the whole thing in Google Book Search, and the word metamorphosis occurs frequently (Google highlights it for you) suggesting it might be helpful for you.
Anyway, let me try and get the brains trust onto this.
Giles
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Bernhard |
Vienna |
Date: 22.04.2008
Time: 15:44:53
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小さい瞳のまわりをぽうっと明るくしながら、つまり娘の眼と火とが重なった瞬間、彼女の目は夕闇の波間に浮かぶ、妖しく美しい夜光虫であった。
What is the difference between 瞳, 眼, 目. When can one use those?
And why did Kawabata write 夜光虫?
Does it sound more poetic?
The more difficult the kanji the more poetic? And in such a case is it better for Japanese readers if there are no furigana. Because they feel pleasure in discovering meaning of difficult kanji? (Like Jay Rubin wrote in his book?)
Reply from Author: Bernhard
I'm not sure I'm competent to answer this question, but my guess is that in this case it might perhaps help to think about the word-usage in cinematic terms. (Since we have the idea of double-exposure in this passage, Kawabata himself may well have been thinking along these lines.)
We pull out from close-up (瞳, the pupils of the eyes) to mid-shot (眼, eyes) to long shot (目, the whole eye area), and as we do so the kanji grow simpler.
Is there an element of wanting to avoid repetition of the same kanji here? I don't know. Obviously in English (or German) we cannot pull off this trick of using words that sound the same but are written differently . It's a calligraphic element of language that's just not available to us.
With 夜光虫, I would imagine that using three kanji rather than one has the effect of making the image more vivid and explicit, and brings the introductory part of the story to an end with a flourish.
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Giles Murray |
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Date: 02.04.2008
Time: 09:47:50
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Anyone interested in winning a little prize, please visit "The Secret" page of GroupThink. 
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Giles Murray |
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Date: 02.04.2008
Time: 03:02:38
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One interesting resource for Kawabata enthusiasts is the website of the Nobel Foundation who award the Nobel Prizes.
You can get the text of Anders Osterling's presentation speech (complete with resounding commonplaces about "spiritual bridge-building between East and West"), Kawabata's acceptance speech (in English and Japanese) and various video and audio tidbits. All in all, a very good site.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1968/press.html
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