**\*EDIT 6/17** \- Thanks to all of you who worked through this and provided feedback or comments! Since a day has passed and we’ve had a healthy discussion, I’ve decided to add my own (spoiler-marked) translation so you can compare it against your own interpretation if you’d like. Once again, I appreciate everyone’s participation and look forward to doing this again sometime soon!
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All right, I’ve had this idea approved by the mods, so I’m going to be occasionally posting passages of untranslated Japanese literature as reading practice. The idea is to offer some interesting, “bite-sized” exposure to native materials, give people a chance to ask questions about anything they don’t understand (I’ll do my best to answer all questions eventually, and I of course welcome any other veterans or native speakers who want to help answer people), and introduce them to Japanese authors/works they might enjoy.
First, some background on our reading selection.
Today’s passage is excerpted from a chapter of Haruki Murakami’s (村上春樹) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (ねじまき鳥クロニクル) that was omitted from the English translation. Personally speaking, Murakami has been one of my favorite authors ever since I read a short story of his back in university (this was right about at the time when he was starting to emerge as an international literary figure). The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is considered by many his magnum opus, and I’ve been re-reading it these days with the release of the Japanese audiobook version (also *highly* recommended — the reading by Naohito Fujiki 藤木直人 is superb).
The novel has an excellent English translation by Harvard professor Jay Rubin (who some of you may also know as the author of this [excellent book](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B08Q84BHBX/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) for Japanese learners), but a not-insignificant amount of text was cut from from the Japanese original at the request of the publisher, as Murakami was not yet the bestseller he is now and they were concerned about the rather overwhelming length of the three-volume (in Japanese, at least) work. I was surprised, however, to notice that some of the cuts were to my favorite chapters in Book 2.
Anyhow, that brings us to today’s passage. For some basic context:
* Our everyman protagonist, Toru Okada (岡田トオル), is reacting to a magazine article he just read about the novel’s antagonist, Noboru Wataya (綿谷ノボル) — Toru’s brother-in-law who is at this point in the story an aspiring politician.
* Kumiko (クミコ) is Toru’s wife.
* Toru hates jellyfish because of a traumatic childhood experience when he got stung repeatedly.
That should be enough for you to follow what’s going on. YMMV, but I personally find it hilarious in Murakami’s signature deadpan style (the humor is somewhat enhanced when read in the context of the full novel, which contains some extremely powerful and disturbing passages that contrast rather brilliantly with the seeming absurdity of this impassioned defense of jellyfish).
Anyhow, here we go:
> それから僕はクラゲのことを考えた。「このような理念なき政治はやがてこの国を、潮の流れのままに揺られ、運ばれる巨大なクラゲのような存在に変えてしまうことだろう」と綿谷ノボルは語っていた。綿谷ノボルは本物のクラゲを間近に見て観察したことがあるだろうか。たぶんないだろう。僕はある。水族館で嫌々ながらではあるけれど、クミコにつきあって世界中のクラゲたちの姿をこの目で見たのだ。クミコはひとつひとつの水槽の前に立って、ほとんど口もきかずに、じっとクラゲたちの穏やかで精妙な動きに見とれていた。初めてのデートだというのに、彼女は僕が隣にいることをすっかり忘れてしまっているようだった。
>
> そこには本当にいろんな種類のいろんなかたちのいろんな大きさのクラゲたちがいた。クシクラゲ、ウリクラゲ、オビクラゲ、ユウレイクラゲ、ミズクラゲ……クミコはそのクラゲたちに夢中だった。僕はそのあとでクラゲの図鑑を買っ てクミコにプレゼントしたほどだった。おそらく綿谷ノボルは知らないと思うけれど、ある種のクラゲにはちゃんと骨もあるし、筋肉だってある。酸素呼吸をするし、排泄だってする。精子と卵子だってあるのだ。そして彼らは触手や傘を使って美しい動き方をする。潮の流れのままにただふらふらと揺られているわけではない。決してクラゲの弁護をするわけではないけれど、彼らにも彼らなりの生命的な意思というものはあるのだ。
>
> ねえ綿谷ノボル君、と僕は言った。君が政治家になるのはかまわない。それはもちろん君の勝手だ。僕が口を出す問題じゃない。でもこれだけは言わせてくれ。不正確なメタファーを使ってクラゲを侮辱するのは間違ったことだ。
Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Ask away!
*-edited to add-*
As this is the the first post in what I plan to make a series, I’m happy to take suggestions on how to improve further posts, requests for authors/genres/etc., or what have you. You can reply here or message me directly if you have any thoughts. Thanks!
16 comments
Thank you so much!
This is a great idea and I do hope you keep it up 🤩
Love that you’re adding some context too
Thanks for making this thread! You’re right, that’s a pretty fun passage.
> 僕はそのあとでクラゲの図鑑を買ってクミコにプレゼントしたほどだった。
I don’t think I’ve seen this precise usage of ほど before, where it’s used as a predicate by itself. Am I right that the implication is: “She seemed very impressed/taken with the jellyfish, to such an extent that I…”?
> それはもちろん君の勝手だ
I would be very interested in hearing people’s thoughts about the most faithful way to translate this into English. I get the basic meaning — “you’re free to do that” — but it feels like there’s a disdainful nuance that I’m not quite sure how to best express.
Ooh, that’s a great idea, and I’m super glad you proposed this because I had no idea Murakami was actually fairly readable for me ; I thought authors like him would be much harder to understand!
I had a hard time on one passage with incomplete broken-up sentence parts at the end:
> 綿谷ノボルは本物のクラゲを間近に見て観察したことがあるだろうか。たぶんないだろう。僕はある。
I re-read multiple times and I _think_ it means this, am I right ?
> I wonder if Wataya Noboru ever saw a jellyfish up close? Probably not. But I have.
読ませてくれてありがとうございます。面白くなくはなかったですけど、爆笑したわけでもないです。いい練習にはなりましたけど。
知らなかった単語： 理念、揺る、穏やか、精妙、排泄、触手。あとはクラゲの種類の名前もそうですけど、いちいち覚える必要はないでしょうねw
このようなスレッドを立てるのは素晴らしい発想だと思います。 次のを楽しみにしています。
In the first 2 lines, この国を connects to 変えてしまうことだろう, right? “Such idealless politics will turn the country into jellyfish-like being” (I left out some description parts ofc).
Also, why are first names written in katakana? I’ve seen it in コンビニ人間 too (but only for main character’s “friends”).
While I don’t have any particular questions pertaining to this passage, I think this sort of thread is great! I’ll be looking forward to future posts, hopefully bringing more variety into my reading.
On a side note, are Murakami’s novels around this difficulty in general? If that’s the case then I might just pick up one of his novels in Japanese. I’ve read a few of his works in English already (including this one) and quite enjoyed each of them, so reading his novels in their original language has always been a goal of mine.
Hey thanks for proposing reading threads from the other day. I am not sure if you have heard of [bunsuke](https://bunsuke.substack.com/) before though. I still think it is a great addition to this sub. It will motivate people like me to get into literature instead of anime/manga. lol. I am looking forward for more posts in future!
Lol funny passage.
Murakami always loves doing metaphors with animals for some reason- it makes for some interesting passages and internal monologues.
Will add the book to my reading list!
This is so great, thank you! I look forward to you continuing this series. Since the first part is crucial to understanding the rest of the passage, but also (in my opinion) the most difficult part, I think I’ll provide a little one word hint for other readers:
>!運ばれる means the jellyfish is being carried along by the tide (in a passive lumbering way)!<
Personally this has made me realize that I am more than ready to step into real books, and that my attempts to do so so far have just been hampered by how much of a pain looking up words is on the formats I’ve tried and given up on (paper books, DS emulator VN games). Being able to immediately double check the pronunciation of words I knew but wanted to be sure of, and the meaning and pronunciation of new words by copy-pasting was such an easy experience. I feel like if I had the paper novel I would have read that literally 10x slower stopping to check words I doubted myself on. I really need to start getting books on an E-Reader with a good dictionary function / took. Any recommendations for Android?
Also I think I am really going to read this book. The style of writing immediately seems accessible, human, and full of humor and emotion.
This is really cool, thank you!
This is a very generous thing you’ve made. I love the insights into the process. I work as an actor and one of my favorite parts is the mechanics and contributions behind the final performance. Thank you for this and, altough its a little above where I’m at currently, I’ll take my time to slowly grind through an attempt at a translation.
今村上の「女のいない男たち」の途中ですのでこの文章がとっても善がった。立ってくれてありがとうございます。
ちなみに、村上春樹の本にどんな特徴がありますか?日本語の文学にあんまり触れていませんのでまだわからないことが多いです。
Please do more of these posts! The passage was indeed written in a nice manner. I’ve added the work to my lists of books that I want to read, so thank you for that:). Any book recommendations are always much welcomed. Besides, the sub is mostly a repetition of the same 4/5 questions on learning hiragana and kanji anyway.
Well, since a day has passed since this post — and it seems like the discussion has run its course — I thought I’d offer my translation of it, so those of you who read it can compare it to your own interpretation.
I’ll spoiler-mark it for anyone who hasn’t read the Japanese passage yet and wants to try without being influenced by an English version of it.
As with any translation of a creative work, this is by no means supposed to be the definitive “right answer”. Certainly, there are almost infinite other renditions that could be equally valid.
>>!Then, I thought about jellyfish. “These visionless politics will eventually transform this nation into an entity not unlike a giant jellyfish, tossed about and carried along by the tides,” Noboru Wataya claimed. But has Noboru Wataya ever observed a real, live jellyfish up close? I bet he hasn’t. Well, I have. I hated every second of it, but I went along with Kumiko to that aquarium and saw, with my own eyes, jellyfish from around the world. Kumiko stood in front of one fish tank, then the next, saying barely a word, just gazing in awe at their gentle, delicate movements. It was our first date, and yet it was as if she had completely forgotten I was beside her.!<
>
>>!There were just so many jellyfish, of all types, shapes, and sizes. Comb jellyfish, cauliflower jellyfish, crown jellyfish, ghost jellyfish, moon jellyfish…Kumiko was entranced. So much so that afterwards I bought her a field guide to jellyfish as a present. Noboru Wataya may not know this, but certain types of jellyfish have bones, and even muscles. They breathe oxygen, and they defecate. They have sperm and eggs. And they use their tentacles and umbrellas to move in the most beautiful ways. They aren’t just floating along aimlessly, tossed about by the tides. I’m no advocate for jellyfish, but even they have their own sort of will as living creatures.!<
>
>>!Listen, Noboru Wataya, I said. I don’t care if you become a politician. If that’s what you want, suit yourself. It’s none of my business. But let me just say this. Insulting the dignity of jellyfish with your inaccurate metaphor is wrong. !<
(Ack, it’s not letting me use bold or italics inside the spoiler-marked text, but in my version here, everything in the final paragraph except for “I said” is italicized, and the very final “word” is italicized and underlined.)
One more liberty I took as a translator was not to translate each the five jellyfish names exactly, but to change some of them that aren’t called “◯◯◯◯ jellyfish” in English and substitute them with ones that were to preserve the parallel rhythm (which struck me as more significant than which five specific jellyfish out of assumedly hundreds the narrator chooses to list).
Anyhow, feel free to offer any thoughts, suggestions, or possible alternatives if you’d like to continue the discussion!
*edited to fix formatting*
Thank you so much for doing this. To be able to read Murakami was one of my long term goals and I was so happy when I was able to finally read his works in Japanese. Like you said, it wasn’t as hard as most people think. “Drive My Car” short story was the first thing I read in Japanese by him, then I realized I could read his novels as well.
Do you know if any other novels by Murakami were released in abridged versions in English? I had no idea this particular book had material cut out.
Also do you know if this has happened to other Japanese authors? Are they any other English translations that have removed a lot of material from the original Japanese novel?
Question, regarding “ほとんど口もきかずに” what does this mean?