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Monday, January 24, 2005

Norwegian Wood follow up

As a young man, Haruki Murakami played records and mixed drinks at his Tokyo Jazz club, Peter Cat, then wrote at the kitchen table until the sun came up. He loves music of all kinds - jazz, classical, folk, rock - and has more than six thousand records at home. And when he writes, his words have a music all their own, much of it learned from jazz. Jay Rubin, a self-confessed fan, has written a book for other fans who want to know more about this reclusive writer. He reveals the autobiographical elements in Murakami's fiction, and explains how he developed a distinctive new style in Japanese writing. In tracing Murakami's career, he uses interviews he conducted with the author between 1993 and 2001, and draws on insights and observations gathered from over ten years of collaborating with Murakami on translations of his works.

In light of our discussion at the last meeting, regarding the pros and cons of translating Murakami into English, I thought this article from the weekend might shed some more light.

Close my eyes, Jay Rubin on the difficulties of translating particularly unpleasant passages. Saturday January 22, 2005, The Guardian

TRANSLATING MURAKAMI: an email roundtable - More background on Alfred Birnbaum & Jay Rubin as translators of Murakami's work.
Jay Rubin: "Then, in 1989, I read Haruki Murakami. I had only been vaguely aware of his existence--as some kind of pop writer, mounds of whose stuff were to be seen filling up the front counters in the bookstores, but I hadn't deigned to read what was sure to be silly fluff about teenagers getting drunk and hopping into bed. Some months before A WILD SHEEPCHASE came out in English, an American publisher asked me to read a Murakami novel to see if it was worth translating; they had been evaluating a translation but wanted an opinion on the original. The book turned out to be what was later translated as HARDBOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD, and it absolutely blew me away--so much so that I have hardly worked on anything besides Murakami for the past decade."

- Update: Bookslut has just pointed to Knopf's new Haruki Murakami website. As she says "there's commentary by Chip Kidd on Murakami's cover art, excerpts from his books, an interview with Philip Gabriel about his work translating the newest book Kafka on the Shore, and a hell of a lot more." Be warned though - the background music may start your head swirling.

Posted by Nick @ 09:00 GMT
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