Hirano Reading

  I appreciated Hirano’s attentiveness in translating children’s and young adult fiction. I think some might be inclined to assume that because the language is simpler, the content so too must be, as well as the underlying meaning. Simplicity, however, does not equate to the impact it has on its young readers. In these cases I’m almost inclined to say that the translator has more responsibility to cultivate the tone and humor of the work than with regular (adult) literature because it’s more likely to influence the reader. 

In the start I found her self-description as an “accompanist” (62) to be interesting because it brought to mind musical accompaniment. Seeing the author as the soloist and the translator as the accompanist was an interesting comparison that could’ve been made in passing, but I love analogy and chose to linger instead. This puts the translator not as a communicator between two groups but as something occurring alongside the original author, suggesting that translation is not a pass-through operation or function but rather a tandem delivery with the author that both must contribute to for success. I suppose this would apply more to living authors who can work with translators and provide clarification on intention, and may be optimistic, but nonetheless I thought it a pleasant comparison that focuses on translation as a cooperative act rather than a purely transformative one (though it is both).

Another thing I took note of was the trap of overfamiliarity with the original text, which she phrases as the “dangerous assumption that I understand,” (64) which highlights the differences between understanding a language and understanding the work itself. Upon reflection, it’s a no brainer that even in one’s native language there is so much room for mis- or under- or over-interpretation of literature. That’s not to say that translators should rigorously analytically examine or write at length about something before translating, but I suppose as a reader I just assume they know enough about not only the content but whatever references and connections are throughout to translate everything meaningfully. On the translation side this seems like an impossible task. 

Reading on about her experience and trials translating The Friends, I came to appreciate her stated objective of “[bringing] the world of Japanese children and adolescents closer” to English-speaking children anywhere, and that it was not so much about ‘teaching’ culture as it was about trying to introduce Japanese childhood as a fundamentally human experience like anyone else’s. It is to this end that Hirano feels the strain of the balance between preserving the original texts’ meaning and making things more natural for readers in translating literature in particular, and as I mentioned in the beginning, is especially delicate when dealing with young readers. I’m glad for this heightened sensitivity to translating between different groups, that in this case author nor translator belongs to.

Sydnee