Copeland Reading - Sydnee

 Having picked up Grotesque at my local library by chance (4 or 5? years ago), I was most interested in reading Copeland’s reflection on that process. I didn’t particularly like it at the time, and upon reading reviews (I didn’t yet really have any opinions on translation like I do now) was inclined to agree with those who said it sounded ‘too American’ or that it didn’t flow very well. It brings mixed emotions to find out that those comments have been more or less verified by Copeland herself in this reading.

We’ve discussed the editorial influence on translated works in class, and I also listened to Susan Harris’s talk on editing translation as someone who doesn’t understand the language of the original, but the situation Copeland was in with Grotesque came off as unfortunate to me. Perhaps things were different in the early 2000s when the translation was published, but it seemed unreasonable to me that the work required so much “reshaping” just to be broadly palatable for an American audience. I think I’ve encountered similar discussions before about Japanese authors being sequestered into genre fiction in English translation for marketing purposes, to the detriment of the actual content of their works, such as Fuminori Nakamura (I read Cult X a while ago but not his more acclaimed work, The Thief). If I remember correctly, in an article I read about him, there has been a strong push to translate all of his books as crime/thriller works when they actually could be better characterized as literary with crime/thriller elements, which I’m sure has had an effect on the translations themselves. 

Another recent novel this situation made me think of was Butter by Asako Yuzuki and translated by Polly Barton, whose translations I greatly appreciate overall aside from the occasional distinctly British word (niggling, telly, bloody, etc.) and how it was marketed to English readers. It seems that some English readers were bored with (and disappointed by) the endless food descriptions and the meandering plot that explored the characters more than it did the ‘thriller’ murder investigation plot that was emphasized in the synopsis. In this case, it seems that while certain marketing choices were made, Barton was not pressured into cutting and modifying the narrative into something it wasn’t to fit the bill. I wonder if this is a sign of a shift in the publishing landscape when it comes to translated works (and particularly from Japanese?) or if it is just situational since Polly Barton is now so veteran and well-regarded. 

I thought an interesting thread through the reading was the idea of ‘voices’ and that Copeland feels they rightfully impart a significant influence on translations. Before reaching the section specifically about Grotesque, I thought this might be the reason I didn’t connect with the book, but now I think that would get off the path of what she really wants to convey about voice and style. The ‘voices’ influencing Copeland’s translations do not necessarily manifest as words from someone else’s mouth, but various guiding hands that get the translation from the original to a different language, which is just one way in which translation is a social process and cannot exist in a vacuum just as language cannot.