There’s so much here, what a great essay. I personally really dislike writer gatherings so I admire you for continuing to do the writer conferences. I’ve done a few and I’m done now. :) I get irritated with the various writing workshops and MFA-type courses. I think you wrote something awhile back about the American literary workshop creating a certain kind of sameness (I’m sure I imputed that from your essay, you probably didn’t say that exactly), how they are not very diverse, how they teach a certain kind of “voice,” etc. Your essay emboldened me, and now I think carefully about “audience” when I am writing and reading, and I’ve ditched the creative writing masters I was thinking of doing. I don’t want to write for the New Yorker, or the people who wish they wrote for the New Yorker. And I often dislike snobby literature, so that explains why I feel prickly about it, but I appreciated the sources you cited, because apparently I’m not the only one who dislikes the stranglehold of the MFA.
I didn’t care for Breasts and Eggs, and once again I think it was “audience.” I don’t think the author is talking to me. You raise a good question, which is that maybe part of my disconnect had to do with the translation. But I don’t know if it’s the Osaka-ben. Accents mean something quite different in the U.S. and Britain. They’re often related to social class, and it bothers me when they are used indiscriminately. I think I’d rather have the neutral Japanese with subtle comments to establish place. And again, it’s “audience.” Japanese people have a reaction to Osaka-ben that English-speakers would not.
I think in the essay I mentioned the history of the MFA program and the CIA involvement in it which is actually really interesting if you think about it and this strong focus on interiority and emotions instead of group relations
I could not agree more. I’ve only been to one until now and it was a very very negative experience for me. I mean it was bad. The essay that you read I wrote before that bad experience so I just cannot agree more with what you wrote. I am at the Denver lighthouse workshop right now because I wanted to work with Katie Kitamura and I was really worried it was going to be much of the same MFA taste but for whatever reason I got so incredibly lucky because half the class is doing genre which I am doing I love speculative and there’s a romance and two science-fiction writers and two literary thrillers so the class is so well balanced so it’s kind of like a half and half and that mitigates the three who are working in MFA style. I do think it’s a style and it’s not for me!
I've read neither "The Makioka Sisters" nor "Sasame-yuki". But I decided many years ago that Seidensticker is a past master at translating any Japanese literary work into "Seidensticker-ese" -- a flat, monotonous, emotionless drone, drained of any energy or panache. Genji, Yuki-guni, you name it, it all reads the same: quietly spoken, disconnected sentences. I once did a quick comparison of a Seidensticker translation of a short story with the original Japanese. The mechanics of the translation were immediately obvious. Any slightly complex sentences were reduced to the same formulaic style of simple sentences without too much attempt at linking or "nesting" (grammatical complexity). I don't know why Seidensticker has the reputation he does. He is quite literally the enemy of good translation.
Of course the pool was smaller but there were other translators around.
Interestingly, Seidensticker translated one volume of Mishima’s “Sea of Tranquillity” tetralogy. Other volumes were translated by other translators. The translations by the other translators were relatively uniform in style. Only Seidensticker’s stood out as quite different. Needless to say it was written in “Seidenstickerese”.
Did you know that he also wrote a Genji inspired novel called Very few people come this way? I may have mention this before but the NYTimes reviewed it and said “there’s a reason for that” but I kind of liked the novel!
I didn't realise that. I couldn't find anything much online about it. I don't feel that tempted to read it -- even if he comes across more sympathetically, it doesn't make up for his lousy translations.
Many years ago I skimmed parts of his book about Tokyo, "Low City High City". It seemed alright at the time, although the only thing that remains very vaguely in my memory is a comment about Japanese pornography.
"Over to South University to do some shopping, for Christmas and for a small girl name of Malm who is about to be Christened. Really, what repulsive specimens you do have to pass along the way. Anyone who would do it to one of them, I thought to myself, would do it to a pig or a six-week-old corpse."
Ok, not nice, but Seidensticker was apparently gay, which might have magnified his distaste for these women?? (I'm assuming they were women).
With regard to the Sea of Fertility:
1. Spring Snow translated by Michael Gallagher (not mentioned at the Amazon page)
2. Runaway Horses translated by Michael Gallagher (not mentioned at the Amazon page)
3. The Temple of Dawn translated by E. Dale Saunders and Cecilia Segawa Seigle (given as translators at the Amazon page)
4. Decay of the Angel translated by Edward Seidensticker (Seidensticker listed as co-author!!)
I must say that I find the inordinate attention paid to Seidensticker offputting.
Sorry for the disconnected and perhaps gratuitous comment above. Some of the detail is interesting but irrelevant, including the fact that Seidensticker was apparently a heavy drinker and a patroniser of sex shops in Tokyo, which emerged from Genji Days. These are all interesting but don't make me feel I would have wanted to get to know him better if I'd had the chance. (Since I was in Tokyo from 1983 it wouldn't have been beyond the realms of possibility that I might have met him, but I led a boring existence and don't remember meeting any famous or interesting people when I lived there.)
As for the other translators: Michael Gallagher was a "Jesuit scholastic" who left the Jesuit order and served briefly as a paratrooper in Korea. E. Dale Saunders sounds positively boring -- just a scholarly career in Romance languages. Cecilia Segawa Seigle was another academic (eventually becoming a Professor Emerita of Japanese Studies).
Translation takes all types, but Seidensticker does stand out for his rather unorthodox career.
I'll go for "off her trolley . . . thick as two short planks." Remarkable piece, Leanne! Getting right to the heart of the bother with writing. More power to you!
There’s so much here, what a great essay. I personally really dislike writer gatherings so I admire you for continuing to do the writer conferences. I’ve done a few and I’m done now. :) I get irritated with the various writing workshops and MFA-type courses. I think you wrote something awhile back about the American literary workshop creating a certain kind of sameness (I’m sure I imputed that from your essay, you probably didn’t say that exactly), how they are not very diverse, how they teach a certain kind of “voice,” etc. Your essay emboldened me, and now I think carefully about “audience” when I am writing and reading, and I’ve ditched the creative writing masters I was thinking of doing. I don’t want to write for the New Yorker, or the people who wish they wrote for the New Yorker. And I often dislike snobby literature, so that explains why I feel prickly about it, but I appreciated the sources you cited, because apparently I’m not the only one who dislikes the stranglehold of the MFA.
I didn’t care for Breasts and Eggs, and once again I think it was “audience.” I don’t think the author is talking to me. You raise a good question, which is that maybe part of my disconnect had to do with the translation. But I don’t know if it’s the Osaka-ben. Accents mean something quite different in the U.S. and Britain. They’re often related to social class, and it bothers me when they are used indiscriminately. I think I’d rather have the neutral Japanese with subtle comments to establish place. And again, it’s “audience.” Japanese people have a reaction to Osaka-ben that English-speakers would not.
Thanks again for this, lots of thoughts here!
I think in the essay I mentioned the history of the MFA program and the CIA involvement in it which is actually really interesting if you think about it and this strong focus on interiority and emotions instead of group relations
I could not agree more. I’ve only been to one until now and it was a very very negative experience for me. I mean it was bad. The essay that you read I wrote before that bad experience so I just cannot agree more with what you wrote. I am at the Denver lighthouse workshop right now because I wanted to work with Katie Kitamura and I was really worried it was going to be much of the same MFA taste but for whatever reason I got so incredibly lucky because half the class is doing genre which I am doing I love speculative and there’s a romance and two science-fiction writers and two literary thrillers so the class is so well balanced so it’s kind of like a half and half and that mitigates the three who are working in MFA style. I do think it’s a style and it’s not for me!
enjoy! I just pulled out INTIMACIES again to have another look. I liked that book! I can't wait to hear your thoughts after the workshop!
I've read neither "The Makioka Sisters" nor "Sasame-yuki". But I decided many years ago that Seidensticker is a past master at translating any Japanese literary work into "Seidensticker-ese" -- a flat, monotonous, emotionless drone, drained of any energy or panache. Genji, Yuki-guni, you name it, it all reads the same: quietly spoken, disconnected sentences. I once did a quick comparison of a Seidensticker translation of a short story with the original Japanese. The mechanics of the translation were immediately obvious. Any slightly complex sentences were reduced to the same formulaic style of simple sentences without too much attempt at linking or "nesting" (grammatical complexity). I don't know why Seidensticker has the reputation he does. He is quite literally the enemy of good translation.
That is how I felt about this translation of breasts and eggs! I am reading the Tyler translation of Genji for the first time. Much prefer it.
Suspicion: That Japanese-to-English translators were fewer back then, at least in the circle of people that publishers turned to. Small pond.
Though I don’t know when Seidensticker is/was translating 🤔🤔🤔
Of course the pool was smaller but there were other translators around.
Interestingly, Seidensticker translated one volume of Mishima’s “Sea of Tranquillity” tetralogy. Other volumes were translated by other translators. The translations by the other translators were relatively uniform in style. Only Seidensticker’s stood out as quite different. Needless to say it was written in “Seidenstickerese”.
Did you know that he also wrote a Genji inspired novel called Very few people come this way? I may have mention this before but the NYTimes reviewed it and said “there’s a reason for that” but I kind of liked the novel!
I didn't realise that. I couldn't find anything much online about it. I don't feel that tempted to read it -- even if he comes across more sympathetically, it doesn't make up for his lousy translations.
Many years ago I skimmed parts of his book about Tokyo, "Low City High City". It seemed alright at the time, although the only thing that remains very vaguely in my memory is a comment about Japanese pornography.
I found a review of "Genji Days" online at https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2022/01/21/genji-days-by-edward-seidensticker-review/. It quoted the following passage as a case where Seidensticker crosses the line into the crude and insulting, with "some comments so tone-deaf they stop the reader dead in their tracks".
"Over to South University to do some shopping, for Christmas and for a small girl name of Malm who is about to be Christened. Really, what repulsive specimens you do have to pass along the way. Anyone who would do it to one of them, I thought to myself, would do it to a pig or a six-week-old corpse."
Ok, not nice, but Seidensticker was apparently gay, which might have magnified his distaste for these women?? (I'm assuming they were women).
With regard to the Sea of Fertility:
1. Spring Snow translated by Michael Gallagher (not mentioned at the Amazon page)
2. Runaway Horses translated by Michael Gallagher (not mentioned at the Amazon page)
3. The Temple of Dawn translated by E. Dale Saunders and Cecilia Segawa Seigle (given as translators at the Amazon page)
4. Decay of the Angel translated by Edward Seidensticker (Seidensticker listed as co-author!!)
I must say that I find the inordinate attention paid to Seidensticker offputting.
Sorry for the disconnected and perhaps gratuitous comment above. Some of the detail is interesting but irrelevant, including the fact that Seidensticker was apparently a heavy drinker and a patroniser of sex shops in Tokyo, which emerged from Genji Days. These are all interesting but don't make me feel I would have wanted to get to know him better if I'd had the chance. (Since I was in Tokyo from 1983 it wouldn't have been beyond the realms of possibility that I might have met him, but I led a boring existence and don't remember meeting any famous or interesting people when I lived there.)
As for the other translators: Michael Gallagher was a "Jesuit scholastic" who left the Jesuit order and served briefly as a paratrooper in Korea. E. Dale Saunders sounds positively boring -- just a scholarly career in Romance languages. Cecilia Segawa Seigle was another academic (eventually becoming a Professor Emerita of Japanese Studies).
Translation takes all types, but Seidensticker does stand out for his rather unorthodox career.
I liked low city high city quite a lot but not Genji days …
I'll go for "off her trolley . . . thick as two short planks." Remarkable piece, Leanne! Getting right to the heart of the bother with writing. More power to you!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️