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#5 Platform - Tokyo Central
Mar. 5th, 2007 09:30 pmMan. This is one hell of an academic crush.
Book #10: Tokyo Central
Author: Edward Seidensticker
Provenance: Amazon.com, used - $1 plus shipping!
I read Genji Days a couple of months back and thought so then, but I feel so even more now: Seidensticker and I have a lot in common. His views on the world seem to greatly coincide with mine: about Japan, about Tokyo, about translation, about academia, about so many things. He's got a nice, witty writing style, and he delivers his information in a manner that suggests knowledge of his odd place in society. Translators do have an strange position - sure, you get to know lots of impressive people, but it's not like anyone necessarily remembers you were there.
Seidensticker, though, was a diplomat and a writer on Japanese policy on top of being a translator and academic back when he lived there, and he also did the second (and probably still most highly regarded) translation of the Tale of Genji. So he'll probably stick around. Not surprisingly, the most interesting parts of this, his memoir, are the parts where he's in the thick of things and dealing with more well-known folk, like Tanizaki and Kawabata. (Well, well-known for relative values of well-known. Well-known to Japan people? I wonder how many others know about them, and particularly Tanizaki.)
I hope my life is anywhere near as interesting as his, and that if I write a memoir of it, I manage to do it with the poise that he does. I almost want to just read parts of it again now, but I'll save it. I should track down some of his scholarly work, I think.
Next up: Anansi Boys. Now that is a different tack.
Book #10: Tokyo Central
Author: Edward Seidensticker
Provenance: Amazon.com, used - $1 plus shipping!
I read Genji Days a couple of months back and thought so then, but I feel so even more now: Seidensticker and I have a lot in common. His views on the world seem to greatly coincide with mine: about Japan, about Tokyo, about translation, about academia, about so many things. He's got a nice, witty writing style, and he delivers his information in a manner that suggests knowledge of his odd place in society. Translators do have an strange position - sure, you get to know lots of impressive people, but it's not like anyone necessarily remembers you were there.
Seidensticker, though, was a diplomat and a writer on Japanese policy on top of being a translator and academic back when he lived there, and he also did the second (and probably still most highly regarded) translation of the Tale of Genji. So he'll probably stick around. Not surprisingly, the most interesting parts of this, his memoir, are the parts where he's in the thick of things and dealing with more well-known folk, like Tanizaki and Kawabata. (Well, well-known for relative values of well-known. Well-known to Japan people? I wonder how many others know about them, and particularly Tanizaki.)
I hope my life is anywhere near as interesting as his, and that if I write a memoir of it, I manage to do it with the poise that he does. I almost want to just read parts of it again now, but I'll save it. I should track down some of his scholarly work, I think.
Next up: Anansi Boys. Now that is a different tack.
