9

I recently started reading "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami in English and I'm quite enjoying it.

However, I learned that the English version — although well-translated — omits several whole chapters from the original! I also happen to speak Russian, and I discovered that there's a Russian version by Sergei and Ivan Logachev which is apparently translated from the original Japanese. (The page count seems to confirm this: 600 for English vs. 770 for Russian.)

However, I could find no information about the quality of this translation. Would anyone happen to know whether the Russian version is a high quality translation, and if so, if it's worth reading over the English version on account of the additional content?

Rand al'Thor
  • 72,435
  • 26
  • 236
  • 488
Archagon
  • 215
  • 1
  • 1
  • 5
    I'm upvoting because, as noted in this related meta thread, questions like this aren't your run-of-the-mill "shopping questions" - the availability of translations of a particular work isn't likely to change rapidly, so this question should have lasting value. – Rand al'Thor Feb 25 '17 at 01:03
  • Fascinating. Why would one translation keep more chapters than the other? Is this a Les Misérables situation, where those chapters have material which isn't relevant to the plot? – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Feb 25 '17 at 11:45
  • From here: "…the translation’s US publisher 'insisted on a work that was significantly shorter than the original.' Rubin translated the entire novel, then made cuts… Murakami’s German publisher…noted that 'a chronological leap between Books 2 and 3 was done away with, as a result of which an entirely new work was created.' Rubin called such claims 'overstatement'… Indeed, the 61 pages comprise less than 5% of the novel, but the deletions and alterations are many and complicated." – Archagon Feb 25 '17 at 19:04
  • 1
    @Randal'Thor I wonder whether the lasting value could be improved by framing the question such that answers could cover translations in any languages. The next person wondering about this might not speak Russian but some other non-English, non-Japanese language, and I'm not sure it's worth ending up with the same question for every other language the book has been translated to. – Martin Ender Feb 27 '17 at 12:05
  • @MartinEnder It should be noted that many — maybe most — translations of this book derive from the English version and are accordingly truncated. Unfortunately, I don't know how to find out which of the other languages (aside from Russian) are translated from the original Japanese. – Archagon Feb 27 '17 at 18:58
  • There is a complete French translation based on the Japanese version of 1997. I havn't read the English one so I will not judge the relative merits of both but at least in term of frame integrity it appears preferable. – VicAche Feb 27 '17 at 23:34
  • This question seems to ask if a certain translation is of high quality or not, but does not define rigorous standards of what counts as high quality and what doesn't. – Buffer Over Read Feb 28 '17 at 00:43
  • 3
    I'm putting this question on hold as 'Unclear what you're asking' until 'high quality translation' is defined. As it stands, it's not clear what you mean by high quality. Please [edit] to make it clearer :) – Mithical Mar 04 '17 at 21:49
  • @Mithrandir I don't think this question is any less clear than e.g. this one (about which we had a meta discussion, but only concerning DVs, since nobody VTCed). Voting to reopen. – Rand al'Thor Nov 15 '17 at 23:52
  • 1
    @Randal'Thor - I disagree; that question is asking for a reliable translation, while this is asking for a high-quality translation (and also has a POB question stuck in it as well). – Mithical Nov 16 '17 at 10:05
  • @Mithrandir - looks like you're being overly pedantic here. The text of the question clearly explains what the issues are that can distinguish high quality from low quality (fidelity to original text) – DVK Nov 26 '17 at 14:08

0 Answers0