Hibbett on Tanizaki (Cat)

 This reading was really interesting as it gives us a deeper view of how certain words, titles, or phrases get translated. Especially when I came to the discussion of the Buddhist symbol and how it should be translated into English. Taking a look at how other cultures decided to translate it is a fantastic concept however, with English we still run into the issue of it being a somewhat sensitive subject, especially if the Manji is translated into Swastika the way it was in French. Additionally, I enjoy that Hibbett pointed out that he himself has made errors in translation and discusses how looking back, he should have made an effort to see and better understand the device in the garden. This definitely makes me feel like if I were to ever translate more complicated works, if I were to run into something that felt complicated I could maybe look into learning more about the item before just assuming or only using the context from the text to describe it. 

I also enjoyed that Hibbett discussed his dislike for footnotes especially when it came to more leisure-based reading. We've had this discussion in class and while there isn't necessarily a correct answer when it comes to using or not using footnotes, I feel that his opinion on not using them in leisure reading is a good one. It just feels too institutional to have footnotes in a text that is meant to be read for fun. However, thinking about The Tale of Genji, that book tends to still be a leisurely one but definitely requires a lot of context so I guess there is still a scale when it comes to which leisure books may still need footnotes.