But I was looking for reviews of the book I'm reading now — "Men Without Women" by Haruki Murakami — which I'm immensely enjoying, and I stumbled into the "1 star" filter. Someone who goes by "Jack" wrote:
This review didn't begin so negatively because I hate the author and the kind of person who's attracted to his style; on the contrary, I've read his entire oeuvre, more or less, and enjoyed a decent majority of his works. The criticisms of Murakami's style are well-known at this point: he has a bag of narrative or aesthetic tricks, and there isn't a single thing in one of his stories he hasn't repeated somewhere else....Ha ha. That was well written, and I don't think it will hurt my enjoyment of Murakami's writing... until (I guess) the moment I realize I hate him.
He's a casual read, uncomplicated but mostly superficially pleasing, like the bland emotionless sexual encounters in 95% of everything he writes. There's only so many times one can read about a relatively handsome Japanese man, in his late-thirties or maybe middle-age, who likes jazz and cooking and being a milquetoast zombie at once content and uneasy with his vapid life, without thinking that maybe Murakami isn't writing about some aspect of the human condition, or the plight of men, or something like that: maybe he's just putting himself into every novel, adding a weird dream or two, a cat, some sort of mundane fantastical event that goes unexplained, and repeating until the publishers phone up and say it's time for him to make them more money.
I became interested in Murakami's writing as a teenager because I was a big manga and JRPG nerd, and wanted to continue obsessing over Japan while gaining some sort of literary foothold that put me above the unwashed nerdy masses. He was an easy read while channeling an ineffable sensibility, and he was big into Anglo-American culture so I could understand most of his references. I might reread The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle sometime down the line and discover that there's still a lot in Murakami's style I enjoy.
For the most part, I can only conclude I've outgrown him. He didn't change; I did. By that line of thinking, maybe I shouldn't be making a value judgment of his work, if I've just come to a change of taste, right? Well, no. His prose is clunky at best, profoundly meaningless at its most infuriating. This is still a pretty bad short story collection, but if you like it, you're in luck! You'll like everything Murakami's ever written right up until the moment you realise you hate him.
Why am I reading that book? Is it because of the incels in the news or the men-without-women amongst the commenters of this blog? No. There were 2 things:
First, I read a Murakami book last September. As described in a post titled "A song about singing off key," I was clicking around aimlessly and happened onto "15 sights that make Tokyo so fascinating" (HuffPo), and #7 was the Murakami novel "Norwegian Wood" ("For millions of readers around the world who've never been to Japan, it's been a way for them to experience in some small way, Japan's capital of the past").
Second, a reader familiar with my "Gatsby project" emailed to say, "I’m reading Murakami’s 'What I talk about when I talk about running.' I came to one paragraph (see attached) which made me think of you and which you might enjoy."
Here's the paragraph:
One other project I’m involved in now is translating Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and things are going well. I’ve finished the first draft and am revising the second. I’m taking my time, going over each line carefully, and as I do so the translation gets smoother and I’m better able to render Fitzgerald’s prose into more natural Japanese. It’s a little strange, perhaps, to make this claim at such a late date, but Gatsby really is an outstanding novel. I never get tired of it, no matter how many times I read it. It’s the kind of literature that nourishes you as you read, and every time I do I’m struck by something new, and experience a fresh reaction to it. I find it amazing how such a young writer, only twenty-nine at the time, could grasp— so insightfully, so equitably, and so warmly— the realities of life. How was this possible? The more I think about it, and the more I read the novel, the more mysterious it all is.I can't imagine translating Gatsby, because the sentences are so weird. Do you translate literally to preserve the weirdness, or do you make it sound natural and idiomatic so people won't say you don't know how to translate, or can you find similar ways to be weird that fit the translated-to language?
And if you're thinking of fighting my opinion that the Gatsby sentences are weird, please click on the "Gatsby project" link above. Each post is about exactly one sentence — such as "A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble."
When I heard about the Murakami translation of "Gatsby," my heart leapt but only for a half-second. I can't read Japanese! I almost studied Japanese long ago, and nothing prevents me from studying it or anything else even now. But it made me want to read Murakami again, and "Men Without Women" seemed to be the most recent fiction. I started in on that. After reading 5 of the 8 stories, I put the nonfiction "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" in my Kindle too. Don't want to overload on fiction. And the 5th story was really great.
By the way — "Men Without Women" is also the title of a story collection by Ernest Hemingway. "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" is a story collection by Raymond Carver. And, obviously, "Norwegian Wood" is a Beatles song.
From the 5th story:
“Mr. Kino, you’re not the type who would willingly do something wrong. I know that very well. But there are times in this world when it’s not enough just not to do the wrong thing. Some people use that blank space as a kind of loophole. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
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54 comments:
I had similar experience as reviewer but my author was John Irving who uses same themes in every book. New England, wrestling, prostitutes, deadly accident ... and a few more that I can't remember. He was my fav author for a while and now I can't read his most recent books but I will always cherish Owen Meany.
I usually go straight to the bad reviews. If they are coherent and talk about the book I find they are very helpful. Some have convinced me to read the book, because the criticism is something that I don’t care about, or that makes the book more attractive. Some put me off the book. If they are just “didn’t arrive” or something stupid I think that speaks well of the book.
the men-without-women amongst the commenters of this blog?
Was there some sort of screening?
Having read all of Murakami published in English I pretty much agree with the reviewer. I would still award all of his works at least four stars. His style is mesmerizing to me, the cadences perfect. Having spent time in tokyo jazz clubs I am transported by many of the descriptions of these places snd the people who frequent them. Japan is a very very weird place. Wonderful.
Please take off-topic material to the café (open thread).
(I'm referring to the post I deleted, which was especially bad because it was long and the first comment. Please respect the post topics and use the open threads.)
I enjoy bad reviews of things I like -- if they're well done.
I'm just not bothered by criticism (unless it's of me when I'm in a position to be inflicting myself on people).
Looked up (after signing up at Goodreads) Professor Ryszard Legutko's The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies. The only two 'one star' ratings were in Polish; the shorter one (via Google Translate): "The author himself was convicted of luncheon high school students", which sounds vaguely comic or perhaps cannibalistic. So far as I can tell, it in fact refers to the tempest in a teapot that involved him (in addition to being professor of philosophy he is a MEP and has been a minister in the Polish government) calling some poor high school kids "unruly brats spoiled by their parents" (Wikipedia) while they were agitating to have the crucifixes taken down in the Polish schools.
I like three star reviews for their balanced evaluation of books. But that one star review was a gem, I give it 5 stars.
I loved Hard Boiled Wonderland and a Wild Sheep Chase. I cried too much to finish Norwegian Wood.
He's the book version of David Lynch. It's the same ideas, just hasn't yet finished exploring them. Maybe he doesn't know where it's going.
I remember reading that Murakami specifically wrote in Japanese in a stilted style so it would translate appropriately in to English.
But his best book was actually none of these. It was his nonfiction book about the sarin gas attack in the subway, and it told me more about the lost young adults, especially lost men of Japan more than his fiction ever did.
The book is titled Underground. It's phenomenal.
Don't forget Nathan Englander, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank".
Thank God for the so-called bad reviews of books and movies. I usually focus in on the 2 or 3 star reviews and read them first.
The "Good Reviews" are usually worthless, just a lot of puffery and "Boy that's the greatest Novel ever" - its astounding what crap people love.
Of course, who knows how many of these Great reviews are by the publisher, the author, or their friends and relatives.
I've been wanting to read some Murakami, but haven't got around to it. I'm not too sure why you would criticize his "style" since your reading and English translation.
Who knows his style is in Japanese.
I've often wondered how you could truly appreciate "Huckleberry Finn" or the "Great Gatsby" in translation.
IMDB is even worse than Good reads. Go to "The Swimmer" and you will see one positive review after another. One review after another saying "Its the greatest ever" - this about a 50 year old movie that bombed at the box office and almost no one remembers.
"His style is mesmerizing to me, the cadences perfect."
I've never read the author, so I'm not sure I understand. The negative review also refers to his clunky prose. If he's a translator, does that mean he's written his own English versions? Or are these actually evaluations of the style of a translation? If so, that seems both kind of unfair and ... I don't know, futile.
Translation is quite a skill.
Its easier when translating something meant for a purpose other than art.
Official documents, reports, even personal letters and diaries, we used to do Spanish-English translations as something of a family chore. Thats the lot of the rare native speaker in a land where all the old texts are in a forgotten language.
My ongoing project is rather poorly written, in a rather overwrought journalistic Spanish, in a 19th century style, and its challenging. As its a history, and useful only for the narrative and the facts, I have to re-write and re-organize the thing entirely, dumping the flavor in the process of getting it to make sense. I don't have the skill to turn it into some 19th century English equivalent.
In contrast I am reading Perez-Reverte's novels, and his style is a sort of Spanish Hemingway. Even I could do a fair job of that I think.
I'm suspicious of the rave reviews. Some were probably placed by friends of the author and, on occasion, by the author himself. The bad reviews have the merit of being sincere. As blurbs go, your recommendation didn't much move me, but check to see if he gets a bump in Amazon because of it. Perhaps some shrewd writer or publisher will take notice and contact you because of it. You could start an Althouse Book Club based on which publisher or writer has the greatest appreciation, so to speak, of your sensibility .....I no longer watch movies just because they're criticized for too much gratuitous nudity and violence. I don't much go out of my way to avoid them either..
The translator of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past was said to have improved on the original. That's still not enough to get me to read it. .
I hated La vida de Pi by Yann Martel so much that I can't even talk about why because I didn't read it.
I enjoyed "1Q84"; not as good as "The Big Sky", but neither is anything else.
“...the men-without-women amongst the commenters of this blog?“
I can only think of one example. Who are the others? It can’t simply be that men here comment without spousal input. How many couples actually comment here? For that matter, as Meade scarcely comments here any more, Althouse looks more and more like a singleton.
De ol' gustibus ain't what it used to be.
Not a book, but on the topic of liking something but outgrowing it, people sometimes ask me if I'm in to Star Wars movies and I say, "I was. When I was in middle school."
Willa Cather's My Antonia is one of my favorite books, for her landscape descriptions and her ear for dialogue, which made me feel as if I were there. (As great-grandparents homesteaded in Lincoln, some ancestors were there, at least until my great-grandmother died.)
"well written account of a terribly boring life"
"I suppose one reason for my distaste for the book is because I was forced to read it in school."
The Proust comment really rattled my cage. I'm currently reading "In Search of Lost Time" in French and English. The translators seem to feel they are smarter than Proust and it is truly irritating -- like the opera directors who feel they are smarter than Mozart and DaPonte. Case in point: Proust uses the word "tressaillir" three times in succession to describe the trembling or flinching of an object that has captured the soul of your dead beloved when you walk by it, according to Celtic myth, and then his own reaction to the first and second sips of tea with madeleine crumbs. The translation uses three different words or phrases. Grrrr.
Gramophon Magazine used to publish ratings of classical recordings in a yearly book. I learned to look for their bad reviews and low ratings of Bach and early music, because they hated the historical performances and I loved them. My favourite contemporary composer is Michael Nyman, whom they called “not a composer at all”. They hated all the minimalists.
Alas over time their staff changed and they were no longer so reliably wrong!
Speaking of Hemingway; McSweenys has a great bit involving a fiction Ernest Hemingway reality show.
Fishing With Ernest, an Oral History
Now that I’m middle aged, I’m a bit less fierce in my passion. I’ve settled into the view that most authors, films, books I really enjoy are flawed and the stuff I detest has some redeeming qualities. That’s why I loved The Gatsby Project. A lot of brilliance and humor side-by-side with some serious tripe.
My epiphany was about 5 years ago. I was watching The Godfather 2. Hadn’t seen it in awhile. Always thought it was great. But then I realized that the “flashback” scenes had no ties to the themes of the damn movie. They were well done but they didn’t work with the rest of the film. Even detracted from it. The film was about Michael Corleone but the only flashback scene relevant to him was the last one. It was just after Pearl Harbor. Sonny, Michael, and Fredo were in the dining room waiting for their dad to come home. It wa his birthday. Michael just told his brothers he had quit college and joined the army to fight in the war. Sonny was pissed. But Fredo was proud. It was the most poignant scene in either of The Godfather movies.
William
What would really improve Proust is abridgment. Serious, serious abridgment.
This kind of makes me want to pick up Murakami's translation and try a blind back-translation to see how far I end up from the original Fitzgerald. The two languages are very far apart both in terms of grammatical and semantic structure so it would probably come out largely unrecognisable.
Re: fivewheels
His works are translated by someone else, though I forget who (haha, as though I regularly know the names of translators -- Constance Garnet . . there, my knowledge is exhausted). That said I would be surprised if he doesn't have input into the translation.
There was an article somewhere by his English translator that said various things about the experience of reading Japanese with Kanji (Chinese characters) that seemed kind of bizarre, e.g. seeing sword-shapes or whatever in the characters, which seems like something you would mostly notice when you're learning, like thinking lower case "g" looks like sodeways spectacles. You just don't notice that when you're reading normally. Maybe that was someone else? I am sure it was about translating Murakami.
I never trust five star reviews. I always read the one-stars. If the one-stars aren't so bad then it's good. If there's a highly detailed one-star and many one-sentence five stars, it's a scam.
I find most of my new reads through references from other writers I like. But I use the bad review method at Amazon all the time. I want to see what people hate about the product. One bad review means nothing, but if Several (or many) people are complaining about some aspect that is important to me, I won't buy even if it otherwise seems great.
You'll like everything Murakami's ever written right up until the moment you realise you hate him.
This is a great line for so many things.
"I'm just not bothered by criticism (unless it's of me when I'm in a position to be inflicting myself on people)."
In conversation I can (sorta) understand the gratuitous use of "just," but I don't get it re the way Althouse used it here.
Written or said, I think it's some sorta inner hesitation re a writer/speaker re their certitude re believing what they're stating. Which is why it seems like a writer would have had time to notice this. Therefore, they should have either removed the word (to hide their equivocation), or they'd erase the sentence completely because they realized they had uncertainty.
I look at Amazon reviews of music CDs but not of books. If I've gone to Amazon for a book it's because I already have been tipped to it by a reviewer or essayist etc.
"unless it's of me when I'm in a position to be inflicting myself on people"
For someone who likes straight-talk-writing, e.g. Scalia highlights, this sentence seems like a shitty way to make a statement.
How about: "unless it's of me when I can push back"?
IMHO.
A three star review of Brothers Karamozov:
There's a chapter early on where Fyodor is sitting at his kitchen table. He's on his eight or fourteenth glass of brandy and launches into an epic drunken soliloquy about whether or not God exists. He pointedly badgers whoever was around to help him figure it out. If you found yourself at such a table, and think it might be fun to hash it out with him, this is a book for you. Bear in mind, you don't get to have any brandy, and he's not about to stop.
Althouse needs to recruit polygamous Mormon Men commenters. That should bring up the women per man ratio. And maybe we could count Concubines and ex-wives.
Little Steven and the Disciples Of Soul album ‘Men Without Women’ is first adult rock and roll album I’ve heard. May still be.
Does the eponymous blog count as inflicting? 'Cause you are easily provoked here and resort to name calling immediately.
That's not weird. That's how you get the best information.
They were well done but they didn’t work with the rest of the film. Even detracted from it. The film was about Michael Corleone but the only flashback scene relevant to him was the last one.
I disagree. The two intertwined stories are meant to comment on each other.
The Godfather 2 is a contrast between the rise of Vito Corleone and the fall of Michael. Vito starts out as a penniless orphan and discovers his destiny. Michael starts out as a Mafia kingpin who orders Senators around, and ends up abandoned by his wife, with an aborted son and a murdered brother. The last scene is Michael wondering how it ever went so wrong.
Ironically, the turn in Michael's life comes when he goes back to Corleone, marries Apollonia, and sees her murdered in front of his eyes. Interestingly, it's *not* when he murders two men in cold blood. That was done in the service of his family, and was essentially impersonal. Apollonia's death is the point where it becomes personal and he wants revenge.
The need for revenge is Michael's fatal flaw. Everybody in that last flashback came to a bad end. Carlo betrayed Sonny, and Michael had Carlo killed. Connie was married to Carlo and hates Michael for the murder. Fredo betrayed Michael in Cuba, and Michael had him killed for it. Thomas Hagen was loyal to Michael, but Michael forced him out as consiglieri because he wasn't ruthless enough -- didn't want revenge badly enough.
I have seen all 3 Godfathers over the years and thought it was a pretty good, though not great movie. Or trilogy, I guess.
I watched all three parts in order, back to back, earlier this year. Now I am wondering why I thought that. It felt to me like just another 70s crime drama on a par with Shaft, Superfly, French Connection and the like.
I was left thinking of Peggy Lee: Is that all there is to The Godfather?
Perhaps I am just getting older.
OTOH, I've seen G3 several times and I swear I do not remember the final scene of Michael dying alone and unloved in his Italian villa. Maybe I just never paid enough attention.
John Henry
"The translator of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past was said to have improved on the original."
It was said wrong, except that Moncrief saves you from having to look up unusual words.
Anyone can abridge Proust just by dipping into him wherever. One of the few books, if you want to call it a book, that works at any scale.
No. The contrast from the “rise of Vito” didn’t work. That final scene in The Godfather 2 is the contrast between Michael and Vito. It’s the final scene. It’s the only flashback that works. It’s the only one that matters. Vito Corleone’s backstory is totally irrelevant. There is no contrast with Michael other than how the two men think. Vito Corleone is much more selfish but Michael ends up much more ruthless.
Michael Corleone isn’t about revenge. He’s about loyalty. That’s why he joined the marines. That’s why he helped his father and killed Sollozzo. That’s why he had Carlo killed. That’s why he killed Fredo. Carlo and Fredo betrayed the family. No loyalty. Same with Tessio.
That’s why he threw Kay out of the house. Same with Hagen. Hagen cheated on his wife. Not loyal.
Vito Corleone was about family and money. Michael Corleone is about family and loyalty. And family is the ultimate loyalty. And when his loyalty is betrayed, he doesn’t forgive. He is selfless unlike his dad or brothers. But he is ruthless. He doesn’t forgive
Having read all of Murakami published in English I pretty much agree with the reviewer. I would still award all of his works at least four stars
My experience and view as well. I used to anticipate every new Murakami book, but they are no longer as novel as they once were. His non fiction book, "Underground", is excellent. His other non fiction book, "What I talk about when I talk about running" is by far his weakest book. It reads like an magazine essay piece that was extended to a book.
His greatest book in my view is the "Wind-up Bird Chronicle". I recently re-read it and it held up very well.
""unless it's of me when I'm in a position to be inflicting myself on people" For someone who likes straight-talk-writing, e.g. Scalia highlights, this sentence seems like a shitty way to make a statement. How about: "unless it's of me when I can push back"?"
Maybe spend some time understanding a sentence that trips you up before attempting to translate it into language that would be easier for you to read!
The answer to your question is: because it's not what I was trying to say or even anything that I think.
Maybe try to understand what is causing you to read so badly. It might explain your continual peevishness around here. You may be irritated by something that isn't even happening.
If I believed all the readers read my sentences as poorly as you just did, I would not publish. I would keep my notebooks private.
"unless it's of me when I'm in a position to be inflicting myself on people"
"in a position to be inflicting myself on people" would be, notably, when I've had students who did not elect to take my class but were forced. I would do the class the way I believed was right and that offered them a lot, but not all students appreciated it. Their criticisms bothered me, because I was in a position where I was inflicted on them. It bothered me in part because there was no opportunity for "push back." The semester was over, and the students had written unsigned reviews of the class, which meant that they had sat there, putting up with me, unhappy, disaffected, and uncommunicative. There were always some students like that, and I do not like inflicting myself of people who are not free to walk away.
Ok, then:
"unless it's of me when I inflict myself on people"
Not sure of the force of "bothered me," but the point is not for you to foolishly assert your whatever by "push back," but to improve, in accordance with the criticism. It's not a sign of character to resist feedback. Or is it in your case "OMG those fuckers got the last word! Don't they know that only I get the last word?"
If you actually intended or desired to react to feedback, why not solicit such at intervals through the term?
If I believed all the readers read my sentences as poorly as you just did, I would not publish. I would keep my notebooks private.
Good idea. Or, you could write better.
Regarding translation between Japanese and English, all I know is that the English translations of anime openings are delightfully weird. I can't figure out if the original Japanese lyrics are also strange or if it is just bad translation.
I'd be interested in an English translation of Murakami's translation of "Gatsby".
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