Posted on Thursday, 10/27/22.

前の文書を読み返すと間違いだらけだと言うが見えるけど、今直してくれられる人がいないんだからとりあえず何もせずに凸凹な文書を書こうとし続ける。

直子は同じ姿勢のままぴくりとも動かなかった。彼女はまるで月光でひき寄せられる夜の小動物のように見えた。月光の角度のせいで、彼女の唇の影が誇張されていた。そのいかにも傷つけやすそうな影は、彼女の心臓の鼓動かあるいは心の動きにあわせて、ぴくぴくと細かく揺れていた。それはあたかも夜の闇に向かって音のない言葉を囁きかけるかのように。

Naoko held the same posture without motion. She was like a small animal in the moonlit night. The moonlight’s angle exaggerated the shadow of her lips. This fragile shadow, perhaps along with her heart’s pulse, gently wavered. Like soundless words whispered toward the depth of the night.

Naoko stayed frozen in place, like a small nocturnal animal that has been lured out by the moonlight. The direction of the glow exaggerated the silhouette of her lips. Seemingly utterly fragile and vulnerable, the silhouette pulsed almost imperceptibly with the beating of her heart or the motions of her inner heart, as if she were whispering soundless words to the darkness.

The first one is mine, which I wrote without consulting the common English translation, which is second. I tried too hard, I think, to combine words, to aim for sparsity. I also just made errors.

Taking 「月光の角度のせいで、彼女の唇の影が誇張されていた。」 to “The direction of the glow exaggerated the silhouette of her lips.” makes me a little sad, though, losing the clean 月光 and its repetition. But I think I agree that 「月光でひき寄せられる夜の小動物」 should be expanded to explicitly capture ひき寄せられる (to be lured/drawn out). Taking 「傷つけやすそうな」(easily injured) to ‘seemingly utterly fragile and vulnerable’ is a lot, as is the lengthy ‘almost imperceptibly,’ not to mention the bizarre non-choice for taking 「心の動き」to ‘the beating of her heart or the motions of her inner heart.’ Maybe the history of the translation of 心 is marred and ugly, but the preceding almost medical 心臓 seems like it could be used to turn the whole thing into heartbeat, or heart’s pulse (心臓の鼓動). Sadly, there is nothing to be done about ぴくぴく, and the direct translation (twitchingly) seems against the calm sad but vaguely prurient murakami-ish mood of the whole thing. The kanji for 囁く is beautiful, though I am always taking triplet repetitions unseriously. Like 姦 (adultery), 蟲 (insect), 犇 (crowded), 驫 (many horses, lol) or the less dramatic 品, 晶 and 森.

This has been posted late, but was written on the date indicated; I have almost finished the first half of the 上下 pair of the novel; I will probably finish it today sometime. I don’t remember as many of the details from my first reading of it about five years ago, and it is interesting to remember it now only in Japanese. There are certain words that are used so often I imagine the translators must have gotten tired. ため息、眺める、微笑む、震える、静寂、興奮。