New Literary Releases of Note We Might Enjoy

Changeling by Kenzaburo Oe, translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm.

A new translation of Kokoro by Natsume Soseki, translated by Meredith McKinney is out in Penguin Classics.

Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney by Marion Meade (also mentioned this in the Miss Lonelyhearts thread)

Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty: Poems by Tony Hoagland

I always wonder about translating v. not translating titles. "Les Miserables" I get, but why "Kokoro" and not simply "Heart" or "The Heart"?

#2: Isn't that a rather simplistic translation? I thought that "kokoro" had a whole range of other shades to it. One of those Japanese words that has to be explained in a whole English paragraph?

#1: Ngugi memoir! I will buy it. Don't think I'll buy Kokoro, yet, as it didn't do that much for me when I read it, and I don't think translation issues were the problem.

>3 Medellia: Yeah, but I'm sort of of the opinion that most words need to be explained in a whole paragraph. We seem to have this idea that "heart" can't possibly serve to capture "kokoro" but is perfectly adequate to represent the cascade of connotations in "coeur", or that "schadenfreude" is so much more than "pleasure at others' pain" but it will do to describe, I dunno, "samizdat" as "clandestine literature" without going into context. Those aren't necessarily the best examples in the world, but I think it's problematic to assume that some concepts are by their nature less translatable than others. My Japanese is far from perfect, but also not nonexistent, and it seems like the connotations of "emotion, commitment, pluck" are captured by the English word too, as in "she's got a lot of heart."

I should also say that "Kokoro" is a much nicer sounding word:)

I guess even if we accept that you need a paragraph to translate it, it doesn't do us much good if it remains untranslated--it's just a series of sounds. And like, it just seems like any cultural context shift puts most abstract nouns in a similar situation. Why does "kokoro" need a paragraph/to be represented by its own true self to be legitimate, but a million terrible movies and comic books and whatnot can go on about "honour" and "duty" as though taimen and giri were not eqally complex? As are honour and duty, for that matter.

It goes both ways, of course,although I am of course completely unable to think of a good example right now. But it strikes me that what's translatable and what isn't, and how, has a lot more to do with extralinguistic concerns including, but not limited to, ideology and Orientalism. (Not on your part!:)

3> Medellia! How are you! I thought the Thiong'o might lure you in! ;-)

I'm very excited about this next soon-to-be-released novel. It may not be very literary, but I've a weakness for this writer Imperial Bedrooms by the bad, dispassionate boy himself, Bret Easton Ellis.

In Imperial Bedrooms, which is also the title of an Elvis Costello ditty, we'll finally learn, a quarter-of-a-century after the fact, what happened to Clay, Blair, Rip, Julian, Trent, Alana, and the rest of the happy-go-lucky-cocaine-snorting-nihilistic gang from...Less Than Zero. Imperial Bedrooms, the long awaited sequel to Less Than Zero, coming soon to a bookstore near you.

3> Medellia! How are you! I thought the Thiong'o might lure you in! ;-)

You crafty creature! I'm well. Busy bee and all that. Hubby's bday is tonight and I'm busy trying to wheedle him into coming home from work at a reasonable hour (which, I think, was about an hour ago :), so I will PM you in a day or two.

Gilbert Sorrentino's last novel, The Abyss of Human Illusion is out. Sorrentino had finished it prior to his death from cancer, but he hadn't had the opportunity to polish and revise it up to the time it went to press he'd normally have had had he not been so sick.

So, his son, the NB-Award nominated, Christopher Sorrentino, made some minor tweaks here and there: "...the changes I made weren't terribly extensive, and the act was less like literary ventriloquism than finishing the sentences of someone you know and love. You don't always get it right, but you never get it entirely wrong..." (from "Stepping into his dad's prose," L.A. Times, 3/28/10)

New novel from Ian McEwan: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-ian-mcewan28-2010mar28,0,1295867...