LOOK MOM NO HANDS LOOK LOOK
Dec. 15th, 2010 07:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
langwidereI updated my site!
1. I completely revamped Warn the Duke, edited and improved all the articles (including thinking up proper titles for them), and made a real layout. Which I actually like!
2. I posted my translation of Ryuunosuke Akutagawa’s Rashoumon — which took me six weeks to complete! And which utterly sucks! But at least it’s finished! Surprise!! I bet you didn’t really think I could read Japanese, did you? Hm? Hm?
3. I added a paragraph about Draco Malfoy to the Harry Potter article.
4. I also invented a new word, "hexenschmerz" (which might mean 'magic pain' in German, possibly), to describe the feeling of being disappointed by a fantasy epic. You’re welcome!
5. I revamped my fanlist page.
6. I edited all my Cynn Corvus articles.
7. I made a new layout and added two new entries to HE KINDLY STOPPED FOR ME.
8. New index page!
9. Put up a pageholder for The Heart Goes 9, which is the first act in the elaborate ritual I perform before actually hoisting up some new content.
I’m gonna take a break for Christmas, but my next update will be the launch of The Heart Goes 9, which will feature as few as three or as many as five completed BL manga translations. My plan is to devote myself entirely to comics for the next few months, and then start on whatever that new Susanna Clarke site will be called. Once it’s up, I’ll just cycle through updates there and at HE KINDLY, interspersed with bi-weekly translation additions, until both sites are finished and I’ve accumulated a huge pile of comic scripts. And then, you know, Satan will lose his first snowball fight, leading to discord among the ranks of the damned, which will ultimately result in a total revolt — at which point the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will ride out, signaling the end of the world. Because, honestly. I don’t really do "plans." Ugh! So pedestrian. So touristy.
Um. I have the Garner & Tolkien article about ¼ finished, and the Sense & Sensibility review about ⅓ finished, so I’ll probably be posting themin 2012, after the world ends early next year.
Also! Also, I sent off approximately half of my Christmas cards! Am I awesome, or what?
1. I completely revamped Warn the Duke, edited and improved all the articles (including thinking up proper titles for them), and made a real layout. Which I actually like!
2. I posted my translation of Ryuunosuke Akutagawa’s Rashoumon — which took me six weeks to complete! And which utterly sucks! But at least it’s finished! Surprise!! I bet you didn’t really think I could read Japanese, did you? Hm? Hm?
3. I added a paragraph about Draco Malfoy to the Harry Potter article.
4. I also invented a new word, "hexenschmerz" (which might mean 'magic pain' in German, possibly), to describe the feeling of being disappointed by a fantasy epic. You’re welcome!
5. I revamped my fanlist page.
6. I edited all my Cynn Corvus articles.
7. I made a new layout and added two new entries to HE KINDLY STOPPED FOR ME.
8. New index page!
9. Put up a pageholder for The Heart Goes 9, which is the first act in the elaborate ritual I perform before actually hoisting up some new content.
I’m gonna take a break for Christmas, but my next update will be the launch of The Heart Goes 9, which will feature as few as three or as many as five completed BL manga translations. My plan is to devote myself entirely to comics for the next few months, and then start on whatever that new Susanna Clarke site will be called. Once it’s up, I’ll just cycle through updates there and at HE KINDLY, interspersed with bi-weekly translation additions, until both sites are finished and I’ve accumulated a huge pile of comic scripts. And then, you know, Satan will lose his first snowball fight, leading to discord among the ranks of the damned, which will ultimately result in a total revolt — at which point the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will ride out, signaling the end of the world. Because, honestly. I don’t really do "plans." Ugh! So pedestrian. So touristy.
Um. I have the Garner & Tolkien article about ¼ finished, and the Sense & Sensibility review about ⅓ finished, so I’ll probably be posting them
Also! Also, I sent off approximately half of my Christmas cards! Am I awesome, or what?
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Date: 2010-12-15 06:54 pm (UTC)Updates!
I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say about The Magicians. I read that a while ago, had a few thoughts about it.
It was interesting in a strange sort of way.
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Date: 2010-12-16 09:01 am (UTC)I think that sums up my feelings exactly. (For some reason it took me like an entire year to read the book.)
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Date: 2010-12-15 10:25 pm (UTC)I love every one of these layouts, particularly that of He Kindly Stopped For Me.
I am really, really loving the Rashoumon translation. I don't know why more people don't do little reference links like you have, I find them super-interesting and useful. Minor suggestion/request: when you start uploading lots of translations, I think it'd be sweet to post downloadable/printable .PDF files as well as the standard HTML pages.
You are awesome!
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Date: 2010-12-16 09:26 am (UTC)That means a lot, coming from such a talented artist.
That translation was so frustrating! I wanted to do one solid, classical prose piece before I moved on to comics, and Rashoumon was in every single one of my readers. I think it’s more or less the Bartleby, the Scrivener of Japanese literature. It’s such a beautiful and powerful piece — the image of the gate standing silently in its funerary shroud of rain, polluted and polluting, leaking its unwholesome influence out into the surrounding countryside like a bleeding animal fleeing into dirty water — it gave me the shivers. I was also really frustrated with the "official" translations that I found when I was working on it. There’s nothing wrong with any of them technically, but I thought most of them ignored the story’s age, and Akutagawa’s personality as a writer. He relies heavily on poetic images and repetition, and wherever I could I tried to maintain that. Which is where the links came from, actually; when Akutagawa talks about the men and women who might’ve been standing beneath the Rashoumon with our Servant, he doesn’t say "men and women." He describes their hats. I tried just every which-way I could to leave that untranslated, but in the end I couldn’t justify it so I added the links to console myself. (I couldn’t find any pictures of momieboshi, for some reason.)
I am sure I will realize how awful it is six months from now and yank it down and redo it, though :]
I think it'd be sweet to post downloadable/printable .PDF files as well as the standard HTML pages
I could probably do that.
Thank you so much!!
Um. In related news, your Christmas present will be late. So, it’ll be, like, a surprise Christmas present!
…Yay?
(P.S. — I love that icon!)
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Date: 2010-12-16 07:13 pm (UTC)I want to rent the movie now.
Your Christmas present... miiiight be late, but also might not. I'm mailing it on Monday, so we'll see.
This icon loves you too! (It's from here.)
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Date: 2010-12-17 10:28 am (UTC)Actually! The Rashoumon movie is not based on the Rashoumon story — it’s based on another Akutagawa piece called In a Grove. I translated that one, too, but not as well, so I didn’t post it. Here’s a link to a decent translation, if you’re interested. (Naturally, the content is kind of disturbing, and involves rape. It’s Akutagawa!) Dude was really, really brilliant. He published In a Grove forty years before Beckett and Márquez — or any of the other pomo icons — even had seminal primary-school experiences.
but also might not
Yes, I suck at mailing things in the extreme. But, Dad is coming next week! He will see that everything gets to the post office. He is a real grownup and also a superhero, who knows about things like "postage." (Also, I think I might be snowed in at the moment.)
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Date: 2010-12-17 03:43 pm (UTC)Well that seems needlessly confusing. (Makes sense, though: I didn't think the movie synopsis sounded at all familiar.) Thanks for the link! I already put the movie on my Netflix queue, so I'll read this before it comes.
Conveniently enough for me, my father works at the post office. I just give my packages to him before he goes in, and then, magically, they reach their destination! (So when I say that "I" am mailing your package out on Monday, that's a lie, because I actually have very little to do with it.)
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Date: 2010-12-16 11:52 pm (UTC)Thx for the card. I have my card drawn up, but have been too pooped to carve it out. Hey, I was attempting to read S&S too. The new layout is very pretty. Which BL manga are on your list?
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Date: 2010-12-17 10:49 am (UTC)I will definitely read the translated story soon.
Oh, you don’t have to read it. Just, maybe the first four paragraphs or so. After that it goes downhill a bit.
too pooped to carve it out
Luckily, since I put the "snail" in"snail mail," I will be delighted to receive your card this April. Really, no sweat. I still have your birthday/Christmas presents from, like 2004 onwards. In a shipping box in my closet. One day! ♥
Thank you, and I’m thinking my first uploads will be:
1. Fake Fur, by Yamagata Satomi
2. In the God’s Arms v.1, by Nekota Yonezou
3. Devil x Devil, by Sawauchi Sachiyo
These are all comics that got 'licensed' (ugh) mid-scanlation like five years ago, causing me to become extremely embittered by life. Or, they were scanlated by illiterate people, which is worse. After I’m done with them, I think I’mma get some Suzuki Tsuta up in there.
I do one chapter at a time from several different comics to protect against the mind-killing boredom engendered by manga translation, but I plan to release whole volumes only — just in case I get C&D by somebody. (Which probably won’t happen, because I’m not planning on scanlating anything, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.)
Do you have any requests? As long as it’s in Japanese, I’m willing to take a shot at it! KAPOWW.
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Date: 2010-12-18 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-18 08:12 am (UTC)(I think the better parts of anything I put together come from Colourlovers, actually.)
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Date: 2010-12-18 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-19 03:45 pm (UTC)As your translations were pretty much the golden Platonic eidolon I envisioned as I began that project, I am both terrified and excited.
"Soft and crumpled" is surprisingly lovely for a dictionary.
I know, that’s why I stole it! (I think they were trying to distinguish the momieboshi from those big, hard, lacquered hats medieval Japanese men used to wear. Or straw traveling hats, maybe?)
There is exactly one paragraph in that whole translation that I am super-proud of:
From miles away the rain had come to wrap up the Rashoumon, and the gate was confined by the sounds of its sighing. The evening darkness brought the sky low and lower; if someone had looked up just then at the Rashoumon’s roof where it stuck out diagonally into the air, the tips of the roof tiles might have looked as if they were holding up the heavy, gloomy clouds.
1. A more-or-less accurate depiction of the original text? Check.
2. Representation of the imaginary cases of the Japanese verbs? Kind of.
3. Stuck in an object/observer where there was only empty space in the original? Hell yes.
4. Almost as depressing as Akutagawa’s actual statements? I think so!
Other than that? Maybe not so much. Like, at all. Ew. I was scanning it to get the excerpt just now, and it is already looking a little eesh-ey to me :[
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Date: 2010-12-22 01:38 am (UTC)Also, I'M REALLY RUSTY AT THIS. I did have a read through the original, and I will be nitpicky with you now, but you have such a facility with words - you'd probably do best to disregard or debate me wherever you think it helps.
There's one itty bitty typo:
As old woman tripped over...
So that's the worst part out of the way. Phew.
When that happened, nobody would set foot in (or near) the Rashoumon — everyone would get a bad feeling just walking past it.
With "日の目が見えなくなると" in there, I'd go for:
"And so, after sunset, the Rashoumon gave everyone a terrible feeling, and no one dared set foot in (or near) it."
sat...down upon the first of these seven stone steps
This made me read it as the bottom rather than the top step.
His desperate situation, the urgency of survival — the servant didn’t have the leisure to be selective in his choices.
"どうにもならない事を、どうにかするためには..." - that's awkward, but my best stab is:
"If the servant meant to see his way through this hopeless situation, he didn’t have the leisure to be selective in his choices. If he could not do what needed to be done, he would either starve to death beneath the roofed mud-wall of the Rashoumon, or starve to death at the side of the road."
The servant sneezed, and then, looking exhausted, he stood up
Yeah, talk about nitpicky:
"The servant sneezed, and then, wearily, he stood."
how many exactly he could not say for certain
"火の光の及ぶ範囲が、思ったより狭いので" - maybe:
"but as the torchlight was not as bright as he'd expected, he could not be certain of their exact number."
Also, you used both "cyprus bark" and "cedar bark" - I guess I'm a city girl, but I had no idea what color that was really meant to be. Rust-colored, maybe? Either is fine if qualified, although, is it cypress, right?
You might want to add warazouri to your links (or footnotes), which were really inspired! And maybe one of the pictures towards the bottom of this page for momieboshi?
For the record, your favorite paragraph is mine, too, although the description of the old woman was really creepy. You also had me hooked from the very beginning:
a great round pillar from which the red lacquer peeled, here and there, in little patches
LOVELY. I immediately got a little shiver out of that. Really really well done.
Sorry for the essay, then. I can't believe this is the first piece you chose, and that you so totally blew it out of the water!? It bodes very well for all of your naked man comics, cannot wait! ♥♥♥♥♥♥
(A-And. Is it out of line to say I sort of privately think of Martin Freeman's sad or grumpy faces as soft and crumpled now? In a REALLY good way, Martin, if you happen to be reading this. Honest!)
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Date: 2010-12-22 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 10:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 11:38 am (UTC)Actually, Rashoumon isn’t my first story — it’s only the first thing I thought was not-terrible enough to show people. I’ve translated dozens of magazine stories, eight of Natsume Souseki’s Dreams, and In a Grove, but I thought Rashoumon was just so darned cool that I wanted to slobber on it in public. Poor Rashoumon!
In other news, I cannot believe you went to the trouble of reading that whole story just to give me help with my translation! Thank you so much, omg. Wow!! YOU ARE AMAZING, BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER.
Um, now for the bits:
Typo: Ooops! Fixing.
"And so, after sunset, the Rashoumon gave everyone a terrible feeling, and no one dared set foot in (or near) it."
That looks cleaner to me, too. Sometimes I had some trouble letting the Japanese rest as itself. Which is why I kept calling the Rashoumon "the Rashoumon," even when Akutagawa didn’t. BUT THIS WAY WOULD BE MUCH MORE THEMATICALLY EFFECTIVE, O BRILLIANT FAMOUS DEAD PIONEERING JAPANESE MASTER OF THE SHORT STORY!! WHAT DO YOU KNOW, ANYWAY?
This made me read it as the bottom rather than the top step.
That was the first thing with which I struggled, because if I remember correctly there are like nine clauses working as modifiers for "stone steps," and I was so determined to jam them all in together that I guess I kind of lost focus on the basic sentential until. I will go fix it by making it backwards.
"If the servant meant to see his way through this hopeless situation, he didn’t have the leisure to be selective in his choices. If he could not do what needed to be done, he would either starve to death beneath the roofed mud-wall of the Rashoumon, or starve to death at the side of the road."
Oh, this is great. Do you mind if I actually steal it, whole? I had such a hard, hard time with that paragraph — even looking at it now, it seems a little confusing. The first time I read through it I was like WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT THE WHAT? WHAT?? and I didn’t know whether it was the narrator or the servant thinking that the situation was hopeless. So I think I just kind of tried to split the difference and hope no one noticed? Cute. If that’s all I fucked up there, though, I’m doing way better than I expected.
"The servant sneezed, and then, wearily, he stood."
I have this weird thing with 見える and 聞える. I’ll fix it, though.
"but as the torchlight was not as bright as he'd expected, he could not be certain of their exact number."
Yeah, you have a point, there’s definitely something about the narrowness of the scope of the torchlight preventing him from seeing the corpses — and probably "say" is in there for no reason. I’ll work it out.
Also, you used both "cyprus bark" and "cedar bark"
HAHA. NO. FIXING.
You might want to add warazouri to your links (or footnotes)
I will! I found a good picture. Maybe I’ll try and find some kazami and kimono and ao, too. (I don’t even know what an ao looks like.)
And maybe one of the pictures towards the bottom of this page for momieboshi?
Yes! Yay! Thank you! I love it that he’s so embarrassed by the hat that he pixellated his face.
Sorry for the essay, then.
No, I love it that you cared enough to go over the whole thing. I’m shocked as hell, of course, but I can’t thank you enough. Here’s my best try: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!! I will be fixing stuff immediately, as soon as I find my damn notes.
The naked-man comics present their own difficulties, though. Great artists like Akutagawa write in, you know, complete sentences, most of which are reasonably easy to parse (or, they are at least systematically-constructed, so you can backwards-engineer them starting from the verb). Mangaka? Not so much. (Not that mangaka aren’t artists, of course. You know what I mean.) Mostly manga is just random-looking fragments, sometimes it contains street slang I’ve never heard of, and this whole thing of "vulgar" male speech terminating in long, flat "eeeeeee" sounds really confuses me sometimes — because actual words will be distorted by it, sometimes, rather than just sentence-terminating emphatic particles. Weirdness. But, I suppose that the only way to get good at it is to practice, practice, practice! Ugh.
Thank you so much, again! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.
I sort of privately think of Martin Freeman's sad or grumpy faces as soft and crumpled now
You know he’s going to be Bilbo Baggins in that new movie? Where the soft and crumpled will come in handy, I think. (How cute! Yay!)
♥
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Date: 2010-12-23 06:35 am (UTC)BUT THIS WAY WOULD BE MUCH MORE THEMATICALLY EFFECTIVE, O BRILLIANT FAMOUS DEAD PIONEERING JAPANESE MASTER OF THE SHORT STORY!!
It's a slippery slope, isn't it!? If anything, though, I think you better maintained the integrity of the text, especially because nobody reading the English can read 門 as a call-back, you know? Unless you went with "gate" throughout, but were to change the title to The Rashou-gate, which, obviously, no.
Do you mind if I actually steal it, whole?
Of course not, it's 99.9% your phrasing, anyway. That section was so incompatible with English grammar, you did a great job making it palatable.
I have this weird thing with 見える and 聞える.
Oops, gotcha. "Looking exhausted" kind of jarred me, for whatever reason.
I love it that he’s so embarrassed by the hat that he pixellated his face.
East Asia has habits and rules regarding pixelation that have never, ever been satisfactorily explained to me! Ever! :(
I secretly love defined male and female registers, since they're so outside my own experience as a native English speaker (and they give you a lot to work with in translation), but along with slang, they're definitely things you need to just collect and store away on a case-by-case basis. Whatever, though. If this is any indication, you're more than fine.
Re: Bilbo, I KNOW! Is it legal to be so cute?? It's almost as if he doesn't want me to get over the ridiculous crush that I've been harboring since The Office.
(Oops! This is in the right place now, hopefully, although to tell the truth, I'm not convinced it wasn't in the right place to begin with... Hrm.)
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Date: 2010-12-23 01:01 pm (UTC)Oh, well then. I don’t feel so bad now :]
Good luck with that, though! Are you going to school in New Zealand, or after you come home?
(NOTE: Don’t worry about replying to that quickly or at all; it’s almost Christmas.)
Of course not
Good! Yay! Especially since I already kinda posted it, and stuff.
"Looking exhausted" kind of jarred me, for whatever reason.
Actually, that was a "そうに" construct, which I read as "seemingly." Which looked bad to me, too, so I swapped it out with "looked," olololol. When in fact it was simply a grammatical marker telling the reader how the dude looked, which should not have been translated in the first place O.o
But I do the same thing with 見える, so it hardly matters.
they're definitely things you need to just collect and store away on a case-by-case basis
I’m kind of okay with different modes of speech, but I was thrown for a loop by speech that changed phonetically, gender-wise and on the ass-blistering scale of Japanese politeness. I was like, Wait! That’s not allowed! You made like a whole different word!
So my first Kansai-ben will probably be pretty exciting.
You’re right, though; I just have to do it enough that it comes naturally, eventually.
the ridiculous crush that I've been harboring since The Office.
Or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, cough cough. He’s so cute it’s pretty hard to notice how bad and anti-canon the movie is. Which is pretty darned cute!
(Don’t worry about it. I get so confused with the moving posts and comments — and then sometimes DW doesn’t notify me by e-mail and I have to go looking for them. Eh, whatever.)
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
(And thanks again!)