Hibbet Reading (Racky)

 Reading Hibbet provides me some unique perspectives regarding the Japanese writing style. One part of the reading grabbed attention. It was the difference between katakana and hiragana. Katakana has a square shape and shows more muscularity, while hiragana has a more circular shape and shows a more feminine writing style. Besides the letter shape, the grammar and the words they use are also different between men and women. In some European languages, there are some female or male words; however, the usage of different letter shapes is very specific to Japanese, and the author had a difficult time translating. 

Another part of the reading that attracted my attention is his principle when translating. He said, "I try to avoid reading any earlier translations until I feel I have formed my understanding of the work well enough." He even said reading the earlier version is sometimes convenient. I was curious why he usually tries to read the earlier version of the translated work after he completely understands his work. It might be because he did not want to change what he was going to do in the translation because of other people's works. The last part that attracted my attention is the fact that more Italian translators translated Tanizaki's work than English translators because earlier works were done by English translators. Without earlier work, not many translators were able to translate Tanizaki's work; however, continuous work on translation polished earlier works and created better-quality translations.