Edward Seidensticker - Translator As A Counterfeiter

Translator As A Counterfeiter

Seidensticker has been sometimes described as "the best translator of Japanese that has ever lived"; and yet, he admitted that sometimes translation is a nearly impossible task. It becomes not only a matter of words, but also of rhythm. In a 2006 interview, he tried to explain by pointing to a well-known phrase in English -- the line at the end of Shakespeare's Hamlet: "Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

"It is an utterly simple line and I think it is a very, very beautiful line. It contains 14 syllables in English. I have looked at all the main translations into Japanese and they all contain at least three times that number of syllables. It takes longer to say something in Japanese than it does in English, and so the rhythm must be different. I always liken the translator to a counterfeiter … his task is to imitate the original down to the last detail."

The introduction to Seidensticker's translation of The Master of Go explains: "Go is simple in its fundamentals and infinitely complex in the execution of them;" and the same dynamic applies to good writing and to great translation. One of the characters in Kawabata's master-work observes: "When a law is made, the cunning that finds loopholes goes to work. One cannot deny that there is a certain slyness among younger players, a slyness which, when the rules are written to prevent slyness, makes use of the rules themselves" -- ditto, the sly translation strategy of Seidensticker at work and at play.

Seidensticker won the National Book Award in category Translation for his edition of Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain (a split award). He also translated The Decay of the Angel, the last volume of Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy, and several of Mishima's stories. Seidensticker translated Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters and Some Prefer Nettles and authored important criticism on Tanizaki's place in 20th century Japanese literature. The New York Times obituary allowed the translator to speak for himself:

During his years in Japan Mr. Seidensticker became friends with many of the writers he translated, though the friendships were sometimes tested during the delicate diplomatic dance that is central to the translator’s art. As Mr. Seidensticker recalled in Tokyo Central, some writers required more dancing than others:

“Tanizaki wrote clear, rational sentences,” Mr. Seidensticker wrote. “I do not, certainly, wish to suggest that I disapprove of such sentences; but translating them is not very interesting. There was little I felt inclined to ask Tanizaki about.”

Not so with Kawabata. “Do you not, my esteemed master, find this a rather impenetrable passage?” Mr. Seidensticker recalled asking him, ever so gently, during the translation of Snow Country.

“He would dutifully scrutinize the passage, and answer: ‘Yes,’ ” Mr. Seidensticker wrote. “Nothing more.”

The last work he supervised translating into English was You Were Born for a Reason on Japanese Buddhism.