On a related BTBA note, here’s the display that Jeff Waxman set up at 57th Street Bookstore in Chicago:

If you’ve never been to the (57th, Newberry Library, and Seminary Co-op are all part of the same co-op), you’re missing out on one of the absolute best indie stores in the country. Really is the prototypical university/literary bookshop. Absolutely packed with great books that you’ll probably never see in another store (there is no fluff here), and has that indescribable bookstore allure. (Helps that it’s in a cave-like space within the seminary. So very cool.)

If you’re ever in Chicago, it’s definitely worth swinging by.

In the , Michael Orthofer discusses the posthumous story “The Life of a Fool” and briefly compares the two available translations (De Wolf’s from Archipelago, Rubin’s from Penguin):

De Wolf: He read a book by Anatole France, his head propped up by a pillow of skepticism exuding a rosy fragrance; the presence in that same pillow of a centaur quite escaped his notice.

Rubin: Pillowing his head on his rose-scented skepticism, he read a book by Anatole France. That even such a pillow might hold a god half-horse, he remained unaware.

I like the De Wolf version considerably better—”pillowing” and “god half-horse” are just jarring, the second sentence-order feels off —but I’m glad to have the Rubin version too. Using it almost as a gloss I think I have a much better idea of what the Japanese original must be like.

The focuses on the story “Cogwheels” (or “Spinning Gears” in the Rubin translation).

As we slowly wind up the discussion, moving towards The Life of a Fool and Cogwheels (which I figure will be the appropriate notes to end on), I’m still struck by how much a proper (?) sense of the author eludes me. Try as I might, Akutagawa remains something of a mystery-man to me. And though I’m generally not big on worrying about the author behind the texts I find myself looking for more of a hold here—in part because even after reading this collection, which comes after I’ve read quite a few different Akutagawa translations over the years, I still don’t feel I know him or his writing that well.

Part of the problem with being able to identify a “Akutagawa story,” may be the various translations made of Akutagawa’s work, and the nature and quality of these early translations. Quoting from Donald Richie, Orthofer brings to the forefront the negative effect marketing can have on the publication of translations:

“Another problem with the foreign translations, besides their sheer number, is that Akutagawa was translated early. As a result, these first translations range from the unscholarly to the appalling. One of their unwelcome qualities is that they insist upon the exotic—this being one of the few ways to sell Japanese literature in the early days. An unfortunate result is that Akutagawa is made to seem quaint and curious, a mere purveyor of the exotic.”

I’m not so sure things have changed that much when it comes to selling Japanese books, or any country’s literature for that matter. Although nowadays there seems to be two marketing trends that reflect some of the things we’ve been discussing in terms of the goal of translation: emphasize the foreignness, the oddness or make the book so smooth it doesn’t appear to be a translation at all.

The is about the title story, and, well, it’s title:

When I hear (read) Mandarins, especially in an East Asian context, I think: Chinese wise men. Something along those lines, anyway. But the mandarins that give this collection—and the opening story—its title refer to the citrus fruit. Confusing matters further, the Japanese title of the story—Mikan—refers to a fruit that, while mandarin-like, is quite different. Others have apparently translated the title of the story as The Tangerines—not quite accurate either, but at least less ambiguous.

Is it just me, or does this title—and the impression it gives—cause some confusion?

The is about “An Evening Conversation,” one of the never-before translated stories included in this collection.

Translator De Wolf says in his notes that: “it follows in a long Japanese literary tradition of rambling conversations among males concerning life, love, and art,” and with that title one presumably shouldn’t expect anything different.

It is a curious approach to story-telling Akutagawa takes here, in An Evening Conversation: not quite story-in-a-story (i.e. someone simply recounting a tale, the telling of the tale little more than a framing device), but also not quite just table-talk.

This is one of the best WWB book clubs to date. Orthofer is very complete in his readings, and great at generating conversation. I can’t recommend this highly enough.

was a title.

Mark’s introductory post should be up at the WWB Blog soon, but for now, here’s about the club, and his introductory paragraph:

The long and interesting literary life of Sándor Márai (or Márai Sándor, as a true Hungarian would call him) suggests that, to paraphrase Fitzgerald, even Hungarians can enjoy second acts. A prolific and respected author of the Hungarian middle class, Márai only became known to American readers when Knopf published Embers in 2001, in a translation from the German – about which more anon – by Carol Brown Janeway. Márai was suddenly enjoying the sort of posthumous success that writers, if they’re honest, hope for, not unlike the attention that’s being given today to Irene Nemirovsky’s lost corpus. Some days it seems a European writer can’t catch a break in America until he’s dead. (In Márai’s case, it’s especially galling as he made San Diego his home in his later years, dying there in 1989.)

And the for September is underway. Along with Mark Binelli (Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!), I’m co-hosting this, and we’re going to be reading/discussing Georges Simenon’s The Engagement.

Human beings, as portrayed in this novel, range narrowly from the merely ordinary and banal to the mean-spirited, bitter, and grasping. What makes it bearable to read about them is the sense that no grand statement is being attempted: This is just one group of people behaving in a particular way under certain specific circumstances. They represent only themselves, not humanity.

Along with Mark Binelli, I’ll be co-hosting an online for this title starting next week. I’m really glad I finally started reading Simenon (hopefully we’ll be posting a review of Red Lights soon), and as a short (135 pages), gripping book, it’s worth picking up a copy of The Engagement and joining in on the message boards.

And bringing this all back full-circle, Binelli and I are going to be co-hosting the Words Without Borders/Reading the World book club for Georges Simenon’s The Engagement starting after Labor Day. It’s a very interesting book, and I the online discussion should be a lot of fun, so I hope any and everyone reading this will participate.