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Novels in translation
Jun. 23rd, 2009 09:48 amI started reading The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki Juni'chiro, (translated to English by Edwin Seidensticker in 1957) this weekend. The book is set in the late 1930s in Osaka.
It took about 50 pages to figure out what seemed wrong to me. The characters are too direct. It doesn't read like other Japanese works I've read which translate at least some of the indirect communication style. It reads like an English or American novel with character and place names switched to Japanese.
Changing conventions for Japanese to English translations perhaps? I can't seem to find any other translations of this book so I can't compare directly.
It took about 50 pages to figure out what seemed wrong to me. The characters are too direct. It doesn't read like other Japanese works I've read which translate at least some of the indirect communication style. It reads like an English or American novel with character and place names switched to Japanese.
Changing conventions for Japanese to English translations perhaps? I can't seem to find any other translations of this book so I can't compare directly.
