Teaser courtesy of A. A. Knopf.
1Q84 is coming October 25th. Click here to reserve your copy.
Click here to see all of Haruki Murakmai’s books.
Click here to see other blog posts on Haruki Murakami.
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If you’ve fallen in love with an translated piece of literature, you’ve probably wondered what it would be like to read the work in the original language. My fellow bookseller, Kelly, wrote a blog piece on the translation of literature in July 2009 after the second Stieg Larsson book (written in Swedish) had been released. She gave examples of how difficult it is translate poetry, and being a fan of Gabriel García Márquez, I appreciated her questions about the translation of his work:
“Gabriel García Márquez’s novels have been praised for, among other things, their beautiful language. But can we really say it’s his language that’s so lovely? Isn’t it more accurate to say that his novel’s translator painstakingly pored over each sentence until it most closely resembled Marquez’s aim and cadence in Spanish?”
Since I have been reading 1Q84, I began to wonder about Haruki Murakami’s translators. In an effort to release the English edition in a timely manner, two of Murakami’s translators took on the work: Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel. (Alfred Birnbaum has translated A Wild Sheep Chase, Dance Dance Dance, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Underground and others.) As 1Q84 was released in three volumes in Japan, Rubin set to work on the first two. Once the third volume was ready, Gabriel began working on it while Rubin continued working on volume two.
Jay Rubin & Haruki Murakami, photo from The University Bookstore Blog in Seattle
In September 2011 Blake Eskin, editor of New Yorker.com, interviewed Jay Rubin about translating Murakami’s 1Q84 for The New Yorker Out Loud series.
Jay Rubin explains that he first read Murakami not by choice. It all came about when an American publisher needed an opinion of Murakami just to see if they wanted to have a Murakami work translated. Rubin had no idea what to expect and “figured he was just another pop writer.”
But Rubin was greatly surprised and begged the American publisher to print Murakami and let him translate the work. They rejected the recommendation to publish Murakami. However, about a year later, a translation of Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland translated by Alfred Birnbaum came out. Eventually, Rubin is asked to translate and his name now accompanies Haruki Murakami’s on several of his novels.
Griffin, a lover of Japanese literature and blogger for The University Bookstore in Seattle, was invited to a May 2010 lecture given by Jay Rubin. Griffin shares Rubin’s translation challenge in his blog piece:
“Professor Rubin shared one anecdote that involved his current project translating the first two volumes of 1Q84 for Haruki Murakami. He assured us that this isn’t a spoiler, but some of the characters see two moons in the sky. These folks are in the minority, as everyone else sees a single moon. But in Japanese, there is no distinction between plural and singular nouns. So the struggle, for him, has become sorting out how many moons each character sees.”
In the Eskin interview, Rubin comments on how authors are truly at the mercy of the translator and that the process of translation is very subjective. All three translators of Murakami have their own recognizable styles, says Rubin, and adds that Murakami has felt that it is he, Rubin, who sticks the closest to the original.
In an interview with The Paris Review Murakami was asked how he chose his translators:
“I have three—Alfred Birnbaum, Philip Gabriel, Jay Rubin—and the rule is “first come, first get.” We’re friends, so they are very honest. They read my books and one of them thinks, That’s great! I’d like to do that. So he takes it. As a translator myself, I know that to be enthusiastic is the main part of a good translation. If someone is a good translator but doesn’t like a book so much, that’s the end of the story. Translation is very hard work, and it takes time.”
Back to Kelly’s blog piece in which she considers the translation of Gabriel García Márquez and Stieg Larsson: She was fortunate to get a comment from Larsson’s translator, Reg Keeland. Here’s what he had to say:
“Once, through the translator grapevine, I heard that Gabriel García Márquez had told his translator Gregory Rabassa that the English version sounded better than his own original Spanish. Now that’s a compliment! I hope Americans are finally getting over their fear of translations. Compared to the 80s and 90s, we’re experiencing a mini-boom in translated fiction. Publishers are not going to incur extra expense to publish a translation if it’s not excellent, and the quality of translations in general has gone up considerably since their fall in status in the 70s-80s. I still recall the golden age of translated fiction in the 60s, when I could go to the library and find a new author from any number of countries — the way I discovered Jorge Amado from Brazil through his novella “The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell.” Let’s face it, reading good fiction from other countries is a fantastic way to learn about other cultures without leaving your armchair.”
In my unquenchable thirst for all things Murakami, I found out about an entire symposium devoted to translating and reading his work. When us book/language nerds begin to think about the 40+ languages into which Murakami has been translated, we can imagine the discussion. The book to commemorate the symposium is aptly entitled A Wild Haruki Chase: Reading Murakami Around the World
As we appreciate the work of translators, what’s left to do but enjoy the fruits of their labor? It also leads me to peruse all of the beautiful covers around the world. Our former bookseller and Murakami fan Kaycie photographed these books in a Paris bookshop.
Blake Eskin’s interview is a pleasure. Listen to the entire interview here.
1Q84 is coming October 25th. Click here to reserve your copy.
Click here to see all of Haruki Murakmai’s books.
Click here to see other blog posts on Murakami.
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In getting ready for the long-awaited release of 1Q84 on October 25th, I was pleasantly surprised to find evidence of Lemuria-Staff-Past who have also been devoted fans. Walker (Lemuria Class of 2006) said he would be happy if we shared some of his thoughts on one his favorite Murakami books and a recommended first read. Here’s what he has to say:
Murakami’s Norwegian Wood was the novel that broke the author into mainstream success. Compared to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World or Kafka on the Shore, the narrative is straightforward: a college boy’s coming-of-age story, told through his romantic involvement with two very different girls. But this book is the most affecting, personal, and character-driven Murakami I’ve read, and I loved it.
It’s a coming of age story with all of what I count as some of the author’s big draws: simple, elegant sentences, sexual frankness, and quiet thoughts on everyday scenes. When Murakami writes that his character just drank coffee, read a chapter in a book, then went to get beer, you don’t doubt it, and you feel for some reason that you would like coffee, a good book, and then some beer. It’s a weird and calm effect he has. Also, in this book, you get to read about what everybody eats and drinks. You will know what every character ate and drank every time they do it. It’s great. There’s a diligent and gentle attention to surface detail that’s almost strange.
This book would serve as a great introduction to Murakami, his writing and voice are wonderful here, the story is clear and intimate, and if you’re leery or not in the mood for fantastic elements, they’re none to be found.
-Walker (Lemuria 2006)
For an introduction to Murakami and preview of 1Q84, click here.
1Q84 is coming October 25th. Click here to reserve your copy.
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I had never heard of Haruki Murakami before I started working at Lemuria about four years ago. Our wonderful foreign fiction section became mine to take care of and there were Murakami’s books. I couldn’t take my eyes off a hardback copy of After Dark. It had just come out that year in 2007. Finally, I gave in and took a chance on an author I had never heard of and one that nobody I knew had ever read.
You know the feeling you get when you realize that not only did you find a good book but that you found a new author, a whole body of work in which to indulge? At that time, I could not exactly say yet what it was that was so different about Murakami’s writing. And maybe I am still trying to figure that out. And that’s part of what makes reading and finding other Murakami readers so much fun.
Eventually, other staff members members picked up on Murakami. Kaycie started with After Dark and she quickly came down with Murakami fever. Then Joe–he’s had a serious case of the fever, blazing through all of Murakami’s 14 books in six months! And then I began to realize we had a few customers who were Murakami fans, but they were indeed few. But that was then. It is now Lemuria’s hope, and the hope of Random House publicity director Paul Bogaard’s, that 2011 is the year to expand Haruki Murakami’s American audience.
Fans all over the world have been waiting varying amounts of time since 1Q84 (published in three volumes) came out in Japan two years ago and sold over 4 million copies. The book has since been translated into 42 languages.
It took the teamwork of Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel to translate the English edition. Knopf, an imprint of Random House, decided to publish 1Q84 in a single volume, feeling that Americans readers would value holding the entire story and conclusion in their hands. 1Q84 will hit the shelves October 25th.
Once I heard the first whisper about it, I began to make my plea for an advanced reader copy. Liz, our wonderful Random House rep, provided the treasure! But I could not have imagined the length: nearly a thousand pages. I was determined in my own daily swirl of reading temptation to finish Murakami’s 1Q84. Here is the joy: I am thrilled that it’s 928 pages long. It’s amazing and I’m on page 650 now. Fifty pages at a time fly by.
I’ll just tell you a little bit about the long awaited novel. 1Q84 is a twist on George Orwell’s dystopic novel, 1984. It is not necessary that you have read 1984, though I am sure that it does not hurt. The novel takes place primarily in Tokyo, Japan in the year 1984. The Q represents the Questions in the novel about time and space, the parallel realities that the reader discovers along with the characters. The sound [kyu] is the Japanese sound for the number nine. Neat, eh?
The storyline follows two characters, Aomame [ah-oh-mah-meh] and Tengo, as they navigate a world where a person can have two souls, where a night sky has two moons, and where the Little People mysteriously exert their power. 1Q84 is a love story, a mystery, a dystopia, a story of self-discovery, and a fantasy.
1Q84 the book was designed by the legendary Chip Kidd. The outside will feature a translucent jacket over a printed case and unique page design on the inside.
This is the beginning of a series of blogs about Haruki Murakami and his books. I hope, with the help of other readers, to share the Murakami love this fall on the occasion of what is said to be his magnum opus: 1Q84.
If you have read Murakami, you’d better leave me a comment!
“Most American readers who like Haruki Murakami’s stories do not merely like them. They fall in love. They cling to the meanings they find, they caress the books. They see in Murakami narratives the tones and colors of their own dreams, expressions of something lyrical yet pure, and partly ineffable. Something they know and feel, but maybe cannot explain.”
-Roland Kelts, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Murakami,” A Wild Haruki Chase: Reading Murakami Around the World
Click here to reserve your copy of 1Q84.
Click here to see all of Haruki Murakami’s books.
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