so it's chujo not choujisub_dividedMarch 9 2006, 02:17:15 UTC
I...I got his title wrong! Ahh! It's even the same as Genji's a captain of the guards!
Genji is always discretely inappropriate, so that he can be BOTH a major player AND a completely proper young man. He essentially gets to have it both ways. Whereas To no Chujo, who to be fair does not have quite so many people watching his every move, is much more open about his womanizing. It's refreshing, not having to deal with the author's Genji double-standard.
I'd hate it more except that would be hypocritical of me, since I can think of several characters -- manga, television, usually not in books though -- whose childishness willfulness I do find endearing. It helps when they're young and pretty and I don't have to spend any time inside their heads.
It also helps when this aspect of their personalities is treated as what it is, an interesting character flaw, rather than as attractive quality. Even though it is attractive, occasionally. What I'm trying to say is that Genji shouldn't get off so easy all the time.
I'm actually reading the Waley translation at the moment, and so I'll say- he doesn't exactly say that Genji sleeps with the kid, but... well.... "...he laid the boy beside him on his bed... and Genji, we must record, found him no bad substitute for his ungracious sister." (?!) And then there's stuff about how the boy is so pretty and delicate and small....
So far the biggest ways that Waley's translation has been different from Seidensticker's (and, presumably, from the original) are 1) he doesn't translate sentence-by-sentence and 2) he names characters whose names aren't given in the original (for instance, Aoi).
What I think is really interesting about his translation -- aside from all the details being the same, even the implied gay sex in a 1925 translation -- is that he doesn't always translate the chapter titles. Chapter five in Waley is "Murasaki", in Seidensticker it's "lavender," which is what the word murasaki means -- but there's obviously a double-meaning in the original that neither translation can capture.
The other interesting thing is how involved the sentences get, but you already know my feelings on that XD. Points to you for slogging through them.
Comments 12
Reply
Genji is always discretely inappropriate, so that he can be BOTH a major player AND a completely proper young man. He essentially gets to have it both ways. Whereas To no Chujo, who to be fair does not have quite so many people watching his every move, is much more open about his womanizing. It's refreshing, not having to deal with the author's Genji double-standard.
Reply
Good catch--I'd forgotten that.
I'm pretty sure his childish willfulness is also meant to be endearing.
*rolls eyes*
Reply
It also helps when this aspect of their personalities is treated as what it is, an interesting character flaw, rather than as attractive quality. Even though it is attractive, occasionally. What I'm trying to say is that Genji shouldn't get off so easy all the time.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
What I think is really interesting about his translation -- aside from all the details being the same, even the implied gay sex in a 1925 translation -- is that he doesn't always translate the chapter titles. Chapter five in Waley is "Murasaki", in Seidensticker it's "lavender," which is what the word murasaki means -- but there's obviously a double-meaning in the original that neither translation can capture.
The other interesting thing is how involved the sentences get, but you already know my feelings on that XD. Points to you for slogging through them.
Reply
Leave a comment