Some Words

At around 4 A.M. I finished Norwegian Wood. The last sentence did not sit right with me. I had loved it up to that point, and then the last sentence left this little sour note in my mouth. I have a friend who speaks Japanese and was pretty sure that he had read it, so I shot him off an email.

He had read it. He also knew the translator of the official release. Based on his trust of the translator, he told me that the last line was probably well translated, though he didn’t have his Japanese copy to check for himself. Small world.

Even with the last line reading the way it does, I think this has become a favorite novel. I was tempted to re-read it the moment I finished, not that Murakami needs my good words to make his fortune, as the book was a wild success.

When reading something in translation, I always feel a little sad that I won’t be able to experience the story in the language which the author created it. There is something about the way that Murakami writes that does not leave me with as much of this melancholy feeling. What I like about him is what he chooses to put into a scene, the objects and things he chooses to describe, and not the way that he describes them. It may be I would get even more out of the way he describes them. I’ll have to live without that, but either he, or the translators that handle his work, are very good at softening the blow.

I can’t wait to get to Kafka on the Shore and Wind Up Bird.