Photo: Nessa Land

Haruki Murakami, despite being one of the biggest cultural cross-over novelists of our generation, not to mention a freelance journalist, a translator, and a marathon runner, doesn’t have many pretensions.

He once reflected, “With nothing but my writing, I had made a number of human beings want to drink beer. You have no idea how happy this made me.”

His books are full of mysterious metaphors – wells, zoo animals, catalyst-forming toilet paper – that take immense chances by combining fantasy, mystery and existential … drinking.

Many fans wonder exactly what makes the Murakami machine work, and lucky for them, one of the chief operators– his translator, Jay Rubin– has written a chronicle of his career called Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words.

After consulting Murakami, hashing through the nuances of his writing, and being a fan of his work in general, Rubin has produced countless insights into the author’s life and style. Brave New Traveler was able to catch a moment of the translator and Harvard professor’s time to discuss the task of translating Murakami’s most recent works.

(BNT) What made you decide to write Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words and what was your approach to discussing translation with an audience of fiction readers?

I foolishly thought I could help introduce Murakami to an English-speaking audience by compiling a number of his short stories with commentary.

No one, including Haruki– and eventually me– liked this plan, and the more I worked on the book, the more the commentary – and the factual information – grew, and the use of quoted passages shrank.

Eventually it became quite obvious that Murakami didn’t need any help getting read by foreign audiences.

I’m not sure who bothers to read my book, but I’m pleased that UK Vintage values it enough to have printed two updated versions (the latest just a few months ago, including a discussion of After Dark).

What sort of creative writing do you do, and how does it contribute to your method of translation?

Years of translating have been a marvelous workshop for teaching myself English style, which has in turn improved my translating, but I don’t do my own creative writing.

Haruki Murakami uses many non-traditional (to a Western perspective at least) symbols in his works alongside of frequent cultural references. How much does translating these artifacts to a Western target language change the content?

In other words, what differences would someone who was fluent in both Japanese and English notice when examining both versions of a Murakami work?

Murakami’s most frequent cultural references are Western, so translation almost never involves such changes. He certainly invents a lot of unusual similes, and he has his own pet symbols (wells, corridors), but these strike a Japanese reader as unusual and fresh as they do a Western reader. There is very little difference.

What brought you to Haruki Murakami?

An American publisher asked me to evaluate Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World for possible translation. I told them it was an amazing book that they should by all means publish and volunteered to translate it, but they ignored my advice.

A couple of years later, Alfred Birnbaum’s translation came out from Kodansha International. Reading that one book hooked me.

Many translation theorists believe that translations are most beneficial if they leave elements of the original language in the translation, while others believe this results in a text obviously written in a type of “translatorese.”

Japanese is an especially interesting example, because sentences avoid mentioning subjects so that in a first-person narrative, the “I” is much less present than Americans are used to. How did you decide to deal with that difference?

Photo: pixie_bebe

I hope I’ve given some idea in my appendices on translation how hopeless it is to try to produce a literal translation of a Japanese text. The absence of subjects in Japanese sentences, however, is no more of a problem than the absence of a name in the sentence: “He ate a peanut butter sandwich.” Who is “he”?

How can speakers of English possibly know what “he” stands for? It’s so mysterious! Please read my Making Sense of Japanese (Kodansha International) if you want to learn more about the myth of the subject-less sentence in Japanese.

Describe your process of translation. Where do you do your work? How long do you work for? What particular methods do you use?

I work at my desk at home on a computer for about four hours at a time, beginning after breakfast and ending when my brain turns to mush. I’m not good for much of anything after lunch.

I try to do as finished a job as possible in the first draft, and I always keep the original text close by when working on later drafts. Some people translate first into a kind of literal mishmash and then polish it without much reference to the original, but I’ve never been able to work that way. I try to capture all the nuances right off the bat.

Does translating Japanese make you hyper-aware of other translations you encounter? What is the worst translation that you have ever found in mass-circulation?

I do find myself reading “through” other translations, guessing what the original might be. It can be annoying. I often refer my students to the translation of Natsume Sōseki’s Light and Darkness as an example of how wrong you can go when you translate grammar instead of ideas and images.

Do you think your experience as a translator could apply to translating from one medium to another (intersemiotically)? How would you translate Kafka on the Shore into a film?

Translating is the closest reading anyone could ever do, and near the end of a work it can give you a megalomaniac sense of the truth of your own reading. If you asked me this question at such a time, I would probably say that ONLY a translator could do what you are suggesting.

Fortunately, I’m in a calmer state of mind at the moment, and can only reply, “Huh?”

Does being a translator make Murakami aware of the potential for his works to be translated?

Yes, aware, but not obsessed. He is not writing primarily to be translated.

Community Connection

In Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words, Rubin quotes Murakami discussing translation: “Rather than worrying about the details, I’m just happy to have my work translated.” A rare opinion in the academia of translation, but Murakami is a rare individual.

If this interview has intrigued those new to Murakami, After the Quake: Stories
is a good starting place, while Rubin’s Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words is a an intriguing treat for long-time fans.

Anthony Bourdain in New York / Photo Time

Most TV travel hosts have their own unique gimmicks – some are chefs, some are anthropologists and some are ex-TV commercial actors.

They generally resemble a breed of explorers who are defined by virtually nothing other than their gigs.

Travel hosts range from men who don’t know any foreign languages but understand the international language of the palate, to middle-aged housewives who just really like shopping.

Naturally, networks are sending out adventurers that match certain audience demographics, but how much consideration goes into what worldviews these shows are exporting to the rest of the world?

If America had to get together and consider exactly what type of attitude a person should adopt to react to foreign customs tactfully and also emit an aura of “Americanness,” who would be the best choice?

Enter: Anthony Bourdain.

Anatomy Of A Host

Bourdain is the host of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and also a well-known chef who frequently terrifies competitors on “Top Chef” with his glib critiques of their dishes.

In addition, he excels as a writer, and has written cookbooks, both non-fiction and fiction books and maintains a blog on the Travel Channel’s website. He writes with detail, verve and wit, as can be seen in this passage from his blog:

I discovered today that she [his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Ariane] adores polenta–served with the hot, rendered fat of roasted game birds. And that she goes absolutely bat shit over risotto made with wild nettles. And when her Mom dips a finger in the local red wine, she greatly prefers it to juice. This makes me very proud.

Bourdain is tall to an awkward extent, towering over everyone in Vietnam as his long torso proves to never fatten despite the constant stream of food and alcohol he ingests.

He is racially ambiguous, with gray hair and dark, sun-burnt-looking red skin, but his last name is French. He often seems insecure, and his constant smoking and drinking would suggest that he’s done a lot to overcome an intelligent, nervous introversion.

Comparing Attitudes

Samantha Brown from Passport To Great Weekends

The advantage of Bourdain’s particular demeanor is best explained by his contrast to fellow network star Samantha Brown.

Brown is petite and blonde, bubbly and overeager to the point of being patronizing. She could easily be in your Bible study or leading your niece’s Girl Scout troop.

Bourdain and Brown both export particular American attitudes.

Bourdain traffics in the self-deprecating cynicism of Hemingway-reading Americans who know what “post-modern” means, and Brown works in what should be called “trinketism,” a lens that views foreign things as first and foremost “neat” in order to get over a sheltered xenophobia.

The difference between the two is easy to see when both shows demand of them a similar experience: doing drugs.

Bourdain was sent to a forest in Peru where he drank a tree bark tea said to be sacred for the hallucinations it causes. Brown was given the task of visiting a marijuana-vending café in Amsterdam.

Bourdain eagerly drank the tea and then passed out on the ground of a wooden hut after a few moments of poking fun at the network’s restrictions on showing much about his “trip.”

Brown talked chipperly to the barista about how “cozy” the café was, ordered a mango tea, and then later went out to dinner with friends, trying very hard to prove that she had overcome her old notion that Amsterdam was a city full of sex and drugs.

Friendly For The Masses

Anthony in the street / Photo Austin Chronicle

Bourdain’s show is an acquired taste because it displays somewhat of a battle between his New Jersey-grown less-than-sentimental ego and the demands of starring in a commercialized show.

“No Reservations” is edited in an inconsistent way that lets the bulk of the show be Anthony being Anthony, while packaging his persona in a more mass-audience friendly box.

The intro song features a strange rock lick that seems like it was made entirely on a computer and features a fruit-punch bowl of editing that tries to make Anthony look both 19 and far cooler than he probably feels comfortable looking.

The meat of the show is Anthony embarking on odd adventures that his producer seems to mandate, and the editing becomes much more intricate.

Anthony details on his blog the way in which his editors attempt to research the artistic history of every nation that he visits in order to mimic particular styles of aesthetics.

Then, the end is forced to tie things up cutely to get watchers back in a buying mood, and Anthony attempts to come up with an all-encompassing conclusion about the heart of the featured country. He always looks less-than-enthusiastic during that part, probably because he’s only been in the country for a few days, and spent a lot of it eating.

The Evolving Critique

An interesting note about Bourdain is that, over his years on “No Reservations,” his cynicism has morphed.

Now, when he talks to people in other countries, he tries to say things about “long histories of appreciating cultural heritage” and he seems like he genuinely means that, no scoffing about the vagueness/cuteness of such statements whatsoever.

The final realization of the host seems to be that not every other nation is breeding a ground of mass-cynicism and that a lot of people actually are proud of the countries they were born in.

What makes Bourdain’s cynicism superb is that it is wise and un-stubborn. He has finally gained the ability to know when to sit back, let a bit of sincerity out and just eat the hog’s anus that the nice tribal leader is offering.

Puzzled Americans who think he’s putting on a polite face can turn to his blog to see what he’s really thinking, because making other countries seem weird and anachronistic is the territory of far too many other travel programs.

What do you think of Anthony Bourdain? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Feature photo by bravenewtraveler. Photo above by Jeremy G.

Being fluent in English is like laying on an inflatable raft in the middle of an ocean.

It’s easy; it’s comfortable, and it gets you places. But I’m addicted to the process of looking at a symbol that means nothing and unlocking it until I lose access to that meaninglessness.

It’s a weird feeling, that transition.

Imagine that you are driving down the highway and have no idea that orange traffic cones mean construction. Can’t do it? You’ve crossed the semantic fence, where orange will never just be orange anymore.

I wish I knew what every symbol meant, every tattoo, every weaved garment whose stripes indicate tribe status, every letter of Hebrew and even every corporate logo.

Unlocking them is nothing like lying on a raft. It’s like treading water in a vast ocean, with lots of liquid in your ears.

Photo by el_monstrito.

Spanish

I first started learning Spanish for a relatively stupid reason. I got in a small but friendly fight with a girl from Guatemala in my seventh grade science class, and at the end of the day she slipped me a note on ripped paper.

It said, “Paz, hermana. Soy más linda que tú.” I looked at it for a long time, but the component parts didn’t mean much.

I got home and typed the phrase into Altavista’s Babelfish translator, and her message came up seamlessly (which rarely happens with internet translators, making this somewhat of a lightning bolt experience).

It read cruelly, bluntly, “Peace, sister. I am prettier than you.”

By looking up what this girl had written, I had dodged a formidable attempt by another person to both a) screw with a dumb American and b) become an ignorant player in a snotty girl’s game.

We still became friends after that, believe it or not.

I went through about four years of formal training in Spanish later on, and I realized there existed a realm of verb conjugations, object pronouns, and my favorite grammatical lair, the idea of mood.

In Spanish, talking about hypothetical or non-existent scenarios requires a whole new way of tweaking at words. For example, if you say, “I want you to make me dinner,” the verb “want” actually exists, but the “make dinner” only exists in the speaker’s mind, so it has to be conjugated differently.

All of these implicit complications of communication intrigued me. I began to go to bookstores to look at simple Lonely Planet phrase books, excited by how differently the process of ordering a beer was structured in another language.

Photo by juliadeb.

Portuguese

The next language I started learning was Portuguese. I read an article in “Rolling Stone” magazine about a Brazilian band called Bonde do Role.

Apparently their lyrics were unrivaled in their inappropriateness. I decided that I was going to attempt to translate them. I didn’t want to be a dumb American listening to dance music that was talking about gang rapes, bobbing my head along on the treadmill all the while.

Portuguese enchanted me in a way that Spanish never quite did. First of all, it was harder. The sounds in the words blended together; they were more lackadaisical and less easy to pick out.

Not every letter in Portuguese has a consistent sound, which made it more formidable and elusive, like English.

Photo by Soctech.

English

I think English speakers must have an implicit knowledge that ours is one of the most wacked-out languages on the planet, because for me, learning any language that has a lot of order and consistency renders me suspicious, as if the language weren’t real.

Our words are a mix of Germanic structures and Latin-derived structures, so some verbs we conjugate on the inside, like “sit/sat,” and some we just shove an “ed” at the end of, along with countless other oddities.

But what makes English so unique is that it accommodates foreign words and rarely assimilates them. We leave “tequila” as “tequila” instead of trying to phoneticize it into our own system as “tekeeluh.” (Notice that we don’t have such a system by how strange that looks.)

Taekwondo is left how it is, words like “laugh” are left with rules of pronunciation that could render almost any learner hopelessly exasperated.

Most other languages I’ve learned distort foreign words into their own system. For example, in Japanese, McDonald’s is called “Maku Donarudo.”

Photo by alexandralee.

Chinese

The language that I’m learning now is Chinese. It’s the language I’ve always wanted to learn, ever since I was about five and used to see Chinese symbols engraved on my mom’s bath soap.

I recently learned the symbol for the word “soap” and this odd sense of déjà vu took me over. Learning Chinese is like putting on a scuba mask and entering into an ocean on the other side of the world, where the water and all the coral reefs are different colors.

The meanings of Chinese words, because they are hinted at in their writing, are all the more vivid and immanent, and because they have fewer syllables in general, ideas like “dao” (As in, “The Dao of Pooh” anyone?) are constantly re-used in different scenarios, making its concepts more interrelated than any other language I’ve encountered.

The best moment in learning a foreign language is when you can feel yourself poke your head above the water, and suddenly you can look at say, a “French Vogue” and know what they’re talking about, or use a Chinese menu without peeking at the English.

It’s crossing a path of meaning that you once crossed when you stopped saying “goo goo gag a” and started saying “momma,” except this time you can remember it.

Are you addicted to languages? Or wish you could learn a few more? Share your thoughts in the comments!