I do concur with you that translation doesn’t always convey truthfully the original work. There are many difficulties in translation, among which perhaps the most prominent being the differences among cultures. There are words and ideas that are cultural specific.

I do believe that literature is the most difficult to translate among all other forms of writing due to the complicated usage of sentence structures, words, metaphors, and symbols within a conceptual framework that can only be fully understood by people in the same framework. Therefore, I don’t expect a translated literary work to be written in the same tone as in the original text. In fact, I even doubt if they can ever be the “same” tone.

That brings up another question. As time progresses, will human beings ever be able to develop a completely set of cross cultural references? We know it’s happening in the scientific world, but what about in humanities?

Ha. Sorry for throwing these questions at you. Please don’t feel obligated to answer. It’s quite off the topic anyway. I am looking forward to reading your new rediscovery.

In fact, I haven’t read Chinese version of Norwegian Wood before. I’m not familiar with Haruki Murakami either. I’ve seen some of his books (all in Chinese)—non of them is his famous one, though. Somehow I’m not impressed by the way he writes, though I tend to believe it’s partly because of the translator. One of my friends has read Japanese version. She also thinks the tone Murakami uses is slightly different from the Chinese translation. Though I’m sure it’s the common problem in every translation.

…I want to write some more about my rediscovery, but I’ll become a spoiler if I do that. This was supposed to be the main theme of my next post (once after I finish reading the book, of course)! Please excuse me for not being able to give you a proper answer right now, I assure you that you will have it in the future, with more details and well structure. =)

feny:
哈，這可是大名鼎鼎的海明威 (Hemingway) 版型哩。快加入WordPress吧！

想換wordpress了

因為這個皮好好看阿

I’ve read both Chinese & English version of Norwegian Wood several times in fact. How do you like the English version, compared to the Chinese one?

Christine:
Thank you. Though I wonder if you were refering to my photo or my article—jotting, I mean.

zeak:
嘿嘿，因為我不低迷呀。何苦為了事實低迷？XD