August 9, 2009

  • Tidbits

    "There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs as heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."

                                                                                                             The Unbearable Lightness of Being

    I had another dream about grandma last night. 

    "Grandma," I asked, "when you were young, how did you think you would spend your last years?"

    "I thought I'd spend it with family. But look, there's no one here," she said, with infinite sadness in her eyes.

    Her intense loneliness and staggering fear reverberated throughout my heart. In my dream, I started crying. Does grandma feel this way?  I honestly don't know.

    But I woke up, wishing I were in LA, feeling guilty about being up in the Bay.

    I'll be flying down next Saturday.


    Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

    I love Murakami books, but even after 6 books, I'm still not sure I understand his stories.  Perhaps the Japanese way is too subtle, expressing an unspoken feeling that is expected to be understood.  Or perhaps I am not supposed to extract "meaning" from those words; but to take and accept as-is.

    Either way, the oddness and raw emotion in these stories keep me hooked. 

    "Once you make up your mind to get rid of something, there's very little you can't discard.  No - not very little.  Once you put your mind to it, there's nothing you can't get rid of.  And once you start tossing things out, you find yourself wanting to get rid of everything.  It's as if you'd gambled away almost all of your money and decided, What the hell, I'll bet what's left.  Too much trouble to cling to the rest."
                                                                                                         "Man-Eating Cat"

    I may not necessarily understand the rest of that story (about man-eating cats), but I know that feeling, all too well.

Comments (7)

  • Perhaps ask her in person?  Open your heart, say everything you ever wanted to say to her...

  • I have a convinced prejudice against translated books. Between two equally well-regarded works: On in English and one in Austrian/Japanese-- the Enligsh work is the natural choice.

    I can't help but fixate on the literay losses in translation.

  • On what Grace said: Yeah. Through langauge and geographic barriers, I never got to know any of my grandparents.

    And by now, it's impossible.

  • I LOVE LOVE LOVE Murakami.  I think english translators don't have it quite right.  There's a deeper "feeling" to it than can be translated in english.  Conceptually, at least.  It's still very subtle in Japanese, but there are words and phrases that just don't work in english, because of an innate understanding that people have when you grow up in that culture.

  • @chow@ireallylikefood - Awesome! What's your favorite Murakami book / short story?  Do you read Japanese?  Yes, I often get that feeling too; that there's something lost in translation... but there are feelings in there that I can definitely relate to, and circumstances that I can understand. 

  • @lilniteanngel - I actually grew up Japanese, so culturally I'm more Japanese than Chinese.  As for my favorite?  100% Perfect Girl.  I think its so well done, not only thematically but down to the texture of the words.  It also has a very strong "feeling" to me, like it applies to my own life.

  • @chow@ireallylikefood - I found a version of this story online: http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/murakami-perfect.html

    I absolutely love it.

    Thank you for sharing this.

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