4 days ago
19 October 2011
Chip Kidd on designing a book jacket for Haruki Murakami's 1Q84
I just preordered my copy of this book! Chip Kidd is a delightful speaker and if you ever get a chance to hear from him, please do so. Check out a collection of his covers here (favorites: SCHULTZ AND PEANUTS, POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN).
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3 comments:
I really wanted to get this book despite my hefty reservations about translated works. I usually can't get past the idea that the translator is getting in the way of experiencing the book in the way it was intended. But I was going to throw caution to the wind since 1Q84 was getting such good buzz and I really wanted something good and meaty after reading the mediocrities that were The Art of Fielding and The Marriage Plot. However, I d/l a sample of Murakami's Norwegian Wood and this is on the first page: "Before long one of the German stewardesses approached and asked in English if I were sick." This is the the most egregious error in the "if for whether" dept of errors, namely using "if" erroneously AND having it trigger the subjunctive verb. Is it Murakami's mistake or (more likely) the translator Jay Rubin's? If the latter, it doesn't inspire a whole lot of trust that he can handle (most of) a 1,000 page novel. I don't know, maybe this is caviling at its worst, but I like my the text to be as final as possible and unfortunately you can't get that level of exactness with translations.
I think your objection is valid -- I've often wondered how much of Murakami is left on the page in the original Japanese. (If it is Rubin's error, and he's doing most of the Murakami translations for the American market, then who knows how much we're missing!) I was also thinking about this in the context of 2666 whose original is in a language I actually do read (albeit not as well as my first one).
Since I don't read Japanese, I guess I'm resigned to reading the imperfect translation now instead of either learning Japanese or waiting, what, 30 years? for a new translation. (It's possible in the error you're quoting that Murakami wasn't wrong in Japanese, but that the exact tense he used can't be reproduced in English -- if so the question is, was that the best possible translation for that phrase?)
I went looking for some more information on Rubin and discovered that the publisher used two translators for 1Q84 in order to rush it to publication. I wonder if it will be noticeable.
I read the Cheese Monkeys in college and it was strange.
I saw Chipp Kidd at Columbia Publishing course and enjoyed his presentation.
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