Japanese Literature discussion
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10/2011 Out (アウト), Natsuo Kirino
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As I’ve been reading these translations from Japanese, I keep wondering why the translator doesn’t “fix” the clichéd similes, metaphors that don’t work, and passages that are over-written. But I grade so much student writing, maybe I’m just delusional, thinking that we would all agree about what to fix. For example, early in the third chapter, “Kuniko stepped out of her shoes and up onto the floor, her damp feet making a sucking sound on the wood.” I love this. I would probably read another 50 pages just hoping to find something similar. In the first chapter “she put down the top of the convertible, watching it as it slowly withdrew like a snake shedding its skin.” I like this too, the image of scaly skin sliding back—but it feels a little erotic (certainly sensual, anyway) and that might be a problem. Later in the chapter, “but it’s not just age, she thought, her spirits falling like an elevator.” I hate this one—but they’re all relate to the Kuniko character. Do people feel differently about these? If we translated (wrote) by committee, rather than as individuals, would we eliminate everything and be left with the tasteless (inoffensive) bits?The book has a Stephen King-ish quality (particularly with the characterizations) but she writes much more carefully than King (at least in this novel).
Kirino and Miyamoto both talk about the Japanese using a "seal" (for loans and thing) like your "seal" is some kind of artifact that represents your power of attorney. Is it like a notary seal, or what? Does everyone in Japan get one (for example, when they become emancipated)?
部落民 (Burakumin) When they cut up the body, do Masako and Yoshie become defiled in a way that Yayoi and Kuniko don’t? Yayoi doesn’t even touch Kenji when she kills him—isn’t even looking at him (am I remembering that right?). In fact, Masako is a little shocked when Yayoi puts on the belt she had used, and remarks on how undefiled Yayoi seems. Have Masako and Yoshie accepted their defilement as a pre-existing condition, something prior to their disposal of Kenji? They weren’t born into the Eta (穢多) caste, but Masako was shunned at her credit union. Was she accepting a kind of perceived defilement from her desire to “rise above her station” (in America they used to call it “rising above your up-bringings”)? Have Yoshiki and Nobuki accepted familial defilement through Masako?
I can also see how Yoshie’s act of pious service (孝行, changing her mother-in-law’s soiled diapers) might be construed as defilement, when “defilement” is concerned with external contacts (filth) rather than internal choices (sin). This is hard to understand. It seems that in eastern cultures there is an exaggerated sense of defilement in the slaughtering and butchering of animals, but not in the eating of them—it’s almost as if the slaughtering would have occurred anyway, and so, by eating the animal’s dead body, you are simply taking the serendipitous advantage of an available protein source. Are those who benefit from the death absolved, while those who process the dead become tainted? This seems a little like the old British custom of sin eating.
I still have a hundred pages to go, but at one point I was thinking: “a few million yen for the disposal of a body—how much are funerals in Japan—maybe if they advertised a little, people would start bringing their deceased (nasty) relatives.”
David wrote: "Kirino and Miyamoto both talk about the Japanese using a "seal" (for loans and thing) like your "seal" is some kind of artifact that represents your power of attorney. Is it like a notary seal, or ..."It's a stamp of your name that you can use in lieu of a signature. It's not a power of attorney, but obviously if someone has your seal they can sign in your name.
Sean,The Wiki-article was fascinating. I had thought that if a few hundred million people were using them, they would be too easy to forge. They make us get stamps for the states where we are registered (I’m a PE) but I think they were only $10-$20. They would be easy to forge, but there aren’t that many of us (my Idaho stamp is 4 digits, so in the entire history of the state, they’ve licensed fewer than 10,000 of us).I do little consulting, so I just use them to mark my books.
Okay, I’ve finished the first chapter, and I love the way Kirino establishes a sense of menace with apparent misdirections that then become integral with the plot—the “parking lot pervert” and the doe-eyed Satake-san. I was genuinely shocked by the reveal on Satake’s past. I was also surprised by Yayoi, and that was good, but didn’t buy the quickness and extent of her reversal. She’s been emotionally abused for years, but seems to be handling it. The economic abandonment is recent, and the physical abuse even more recent and fairly minor (as those things go). But she was a basket case—slipping in the secret sauce at the bento factory—and Kenji was just too easy for her to kill. If he’d been drunk, I might have bought it, or if he’d been more beat up—but then I would have expected it to draw Yayoi’s sympathy. Kirino has to walk a fine line—Kenji has to be bad enough that we sympathize with Yayoi, but not so bad that we aren’t shocked when she kills him. Also, Yayoi has to be submissive enough to accumulate abuse, but she also needs to be strong enough not to be cowed by the abuse, and I think this is a little fuzzy.
And what’s with Masako? “There are plenty of younger women around…find someone younger for your fun.” Okay, the parking lot pervert turns out to be a little inept, but he’s not trying to catch a co-worker under the mistletoe.