(February 2013)
Oh, Jesus. It’s been a long time since I
had to put a book down in mid-sentence because my stomach wouldn’t stop
turning, and that should be taken as a glowing endorsement.
It’s not gory though, oh no no. We’re very firmly in mind-fuck territory here. The
language is clear and blank, neither excessively florid nor ostentatiously
simple; the stylistic equivalent of the serial killer whose neigbours can only
describe him after the fact as, ‘a quiet man,’ who, ‘kept himself to himself.’ Exactly
what it needs to be then.
People are psychos, and you can never tell
until it’s too late. Take it from me, don’t read this on a crowded commuter train
unless you want some properly paranoid nightmare fuel.
Looks interesting.
ReplyDeleteI had a look into this and found that the author is from where I am living.
If you look at the English title, it shows you the beauty of J/E translation, especially literary, as the title in Japanese 寡黙な死骸 みだらな弔い literally translates as "an obscene funeral for a taciturn corpse." I mean the title somewhat depicts what you have described in your review, so I'm pretty sure it's the right one. Of course there are a million ways to translate that phrase and, "taciturn corpse" and "obscene/lewd funeral/service" are also very hard to put into decent sounding English, so fuck it and let's go for Revenge is basically how it seems to work. I'm sure he translated the title last anyway.
I find this stuff bloody fascinating, as if a second translator were to have a crack without looking at the first, the title could end up being something like "Wanton service, taciturn death" and et cetera. Of course my literary skills and those of literary translation are up to shit, so my title sounds rubbish, but that exact reason I have a lot of respect for someone who can translate material full of superfluous language and broken logic from a western perspective and turn that into something that not only you could enjoy enough to read, but to a level where the crux of the book was so well conveyed to you that it made you paranoid.
It also demonstrates the massive gap between the two cultures. The times when I have translated things into Japanese, so much gets cut out when it is edited, but I can never understand why. On the other hand, when I translate or check J/E documents, I get rid of a heap of rubbish that has no use to the reader.
BTW Hope I haven't screwed up my investigation and ended up with the wrong author!
Just check and I've got the right one, phewwww.
ReplyDeleteThat looks about right. The original Japanese title's on the copyright page, but in romaji, and I didn't have the inclination to figure out the original too closely, so thanks for that.
DeleteFWIW, I think it's generally the marketing department that has the final say on book titles, even in the first language. The author/translator can suggest stuff, but ultimately it'll be overruled if others think something else will sell better, which is why movie titles especially will often bear no relation to the original. I've always loved 'Spirited Away' in that respect, very well done.
Obscene/Lewd is great, in the way it really doesn't translate directly in context. I used to teach at a technical school where 95% of the students were boys. Their English vocabulary acquisition method seemed to consist solely of translating porn titles with a J>E dictionary then shouting them at me (though I'm always telling my students to find examples of the language they enjoy, so at least they were taking me at my word). 'Lewd' featured quite prominently, as I recall.