Title: Botchan
Author: Natsume Soseki
Translator: Matt Treyvaud
About the Book: Fiction, Japanese, Comedy, Awesomeness.
My rating: 10/10.
I've just mentioned Soseki being one of the few Japanese authors in my bibliography that I could read. Well, this book is definitely one of my favorites - for two reasons.
1. It's awesome.
2. The translation by Matt Treyvaud is more than awesome. (the link is at the bottom of this post)
The story in itself is fast-paced, funny, full of intrigue. The main character is a teacher who stumbles into a small town school to teach maths and falls into the world of students who prank, teachers who intrigue and people who just plainly need nicknames which he offers freely.
The title, Botchan, means 'little master' and it's offered to the main character by his loving old maid, who is certain that he is something special and wonderful and a gift to the world. The reader might be less sure about that, since Botchan is quite flawed, but he happens to be delightfully flawed. There's a very human element to his story, while it still keeps a light-hearted tone.
"I have no idea why, but the old lady just adored me. It was a total mystery. My mother had gotten sick of me three days before she died, my father never knew what to do with me, and the whole town called me devil-boy, but Kiyo thought I was the greatest."
And thus the reckless boy who manages to get through college and then acquire a job continues to be seen through life: something that's not quite within the lines of what he's supposed to be, something a bit out of the usual. Reckless? Devil? Greatest? Non-compromising? Well, I was fond of him, I'll tell you that.
While my colleagues from the same literature class were wading their way through a rough Romanian translation, I found Treyvaud's version and loved it to pieces. It's fresh, it's readable, it sounds English, not English made to break in all the wrong places to imitate Japanese and it's wonderfully full of life. There's a free translation available online, but it doesn't hold a candle to Treyvaud's.
From the translator's introduction:
"I gave Botchan himself the voice of the Platonic Ideal of the Assistant English Teacher in Japan blowing off steam: profane and outraged, hilariously aggrieved. As part of that milieu myself, I decided that too much polish would probably work against what I wanted to do, so I decided to translate the whole book in a month. And finally, I did virtually all of the work while drunk."
And that, my friends, is what gives it its perfection in this English version.
You can get it here.
Showing posts with label satire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label satire. Show all posts
Saturday, 19 November 2011
"I Am a Cat" - Natsume Soseki
Title: I am a Cat
Author: Natsume Soseki
About the Book: Fiction, Japanese, Comedy, The Narrator is a Cat (and how cool is that?)
My rating: 9/10.
There were a number of writers that I was required to read for my Japanese literature class for my undergraduate studies. Natsume Soseki was one whom I actually enjoyed. He combines Japanese finesse with just enough plot, just enough twists and turns that you end up enjoying yourself quite a lot (especially when you have a good translation).
"I Am a Cat" is a pretty self-describing title. The narrator, of course, is a cat. But not just any sort of cat. The Japanese for that phrase is "Wagahai ha neko de aru", which translates pompously. This isn't a cat. This is a Cat speaking to you, you poor, deluded mortal. You have no idea who you're dealing with.
The Cat is witty, cinical, observing the world around him - which contains such people as the professor whose house he lives in - with quite a bit of grandiloquence and irony. However, make no mistake. This isn't Disney and it isn't about the Cat, or any cat's view on the world. This is a satire of Japanese society, of humans and their follies and of people generally take themselves too seriously.
There is no particular plot to be followed, but there are a few happenings in the humans' lives that interconnect and reoccurring characters that have a bit of fun poked at them.
I'd give it a 10/10, but it does seem to rant a bit too much at times.
It can be bought here.
Author: Natsume Soseki
About the Book: Fiction, Japanese, Comedy, The Narrator is a Cat (and how cool is that?)
My rating: 9/10.
There were a number of writers that I was required to read for my Japanese literature class for my undergraduate studies. Natsume Soseki was one whom I actually enjoyed. He combines Japanese finesse with just enough plot, just enough twists and turns that you end up enjoying yourself quite a lot (especially when you have a good translation).
"I Am a Cat" is a pretty self-describing title. The narrator, of course, is a cat. But not just any sort of cat. The Japanese for that phrase is "Wagahai ha neko de aru", which translates pompously. This isn't a cat. This is a Cat speaking to you, you poor, deluded mortal. You have no idea who you're dealing with.
The Cat is witty, cinical, observing the world around him - which contains such people as the professor whose house he lives in - with quite a bit of grandiloquence and irony. However, make no mistake. This isn't Disney and it isn't about the Cat, or any cat's view on the world. This is a satire of Japanese society, of humans and their follies and of people generally take themselves too seriously.
There is no particular plot to be followed, but there are a few happenings in the humans' lives that interconnect and reoccurring characters that have a bit of fun poked at them.
I'd give it a 10/10, but it does seem to rant a bit too much at times.
It can be bought here.
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