Comments on: Jay Rubin: Translating More Than Words

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:22:12 +0000

Any idea as to the English release date for 1q84?…a “year or two” is so…well not definite and kind of frustrating.

By: jbrown510

jbrown510 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:36:57 +0000

I've only read Kafka on the shore, which I loved and found a fabulous translation and has me eager to read the rest of his translated work. Expanding beyond Murakami/Rubin however I recently read the Noble Prize winning Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian. I was sure I'd love it, as I was in southern China at the time, but it was awful. In terms of raw plot line and style it wasn't all that different from Kafka on the Shore, but the experience of reading it could not have been different. So much seemed to be lost in the translation and I was constantly wishing I was reading the original Chinese text (my chinese isn't that good… yet).

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By: ABF

ABF — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:16:34 +0000

I have read everyting by Haruki – I started with the wind up bird – loved kafka – hard boiled – sheep chase – really everything. The short stories areownderful. I just cannot put my finger on what about this writing is compelling, addictive. Anyone?

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By: Sarah_Menkedick

Sarah_Menkedick — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:34:41 +0000

I discovered Haruki Murakami in Beijing and became obsessed with the idea of eating ham sandwiches and drinking cans of beer at the kitchen table. I'm really impressed by the translation because it feels so fluid. I have read a lot of Spanish translated into English (I'm fluent in both languages) and the English translations are so often lacking, if not entirely different. Maybe I'm just blissfully clueless because I can't read Japanese, but it seems to me that these translations really capture the essence of Murakami's work.

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By: Tim Patterson

Tim Patterson — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:58:16 +0000

I love Murakami books and loved this interview.

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By: andrew

andrew — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:26:38 +0000

ive been reading one murakami after another for the past year and read the following respectively: wild sheep chase, hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world, wind up bird chronicle, south of the border west of the sun, norwegian wood, kafka on the shore, and am in the middle of after dark.

im a big fan of rubin's translation, and before reading this, i didn't even realise that he is the same person that wrote 'making sense of japanese'! ill have to reread it after knowing that.

id also recommend hard boiled wonderland as a first step into murakami, as i find it representitive of most of his writing.

thanks for this article

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By: [F]oxymoron

[F]oxymoron — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:32:24 +0000

Murakami is great! Thanks for putting together this post. Now I'm gonna go buy a beer.

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