Edward Seidensticker, On Nagai Kafu and Kawabata Yasunari (Racky)

 In this reading, Seidensticker introduces numerous interesting points regarding the translation of two completely different languages. He claims that translators constantly have to make choices in the process of translation. In numerous contexts, there are always better choices than others. Finding better choices is the translator's main job. In this reading, he does not just describe how translator makes decisions but also explains how critics see translators' works. Because critics are extremely busy reading through numerous papers, they often count the names in the original and translated texts. By doing so, they can compare with each other and easily point out their mistakes. In addition, Seidensticker describes his translational methods. He tries to translate as simply as possible because that is the only way that he can convey what the author really means to say in the texts. He has seen some translated work, which is better than the original work. Some people think that the translators have done a great job; however, Seidensticker thinks that the translated work should not be better than the original because if it is better than the original, it means the translators add something that they do not have to. He explains more about this by using Shakespeare's work.  One professor from Harvard or Oxford points out that Shakespeare has made many mistakes, and his work is not even close to perfect. For Seidensticker, nothing needs to be fixed when translating Shakespeare's work because imperfection makes it perfect. The same thing can be said for translation. Seidensticker believes that mistakes made by Shakespeare should be kept in the translated version. I thought it was interesting how Seidensticker has such an established idea about translation.