Peter asked:

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only arseholes do that.” One character says this at least twice in the book. "Arseholes" doesn't really seem right there to me. Could this be a badly translated word?

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7 years ago
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Amy Teshima I read this book in Japanese and that seems like way too vague of a translation. It should have been translated more like: "Only inferior men do that." It would've matched Nagasawa's pretentious, binary worldview (of seeing people as either worthy or unworthy, superior or inferior, etc.) much better.

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Carlos M In my language, it was translated as "Only the mediocre do it." I think it fits better with Nagasawa's vision, who considers Watanabe one of his own, someone who stands out above the average.

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