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JAT Bulletin 182, May 2000. Publications Committee
This month Geraldine Harcourt (winner of the 1990 Wheatland
Translation Prize) has generously agreed to answer some
questions about her latest project, the translation of
Hirotada Ototake's autobiographical bestseller, 『五体不満足』, under the title No One's
Perfect. Bulletin
readers who live outside of Japan might not have heard of
this book, in which the author, who is still in his twenties,
relates his 'life in progress'. Born with no arms or legs, he
has not let this stop him from tackling life with humor and
great gusto, becoming involved in basketball, American
football, a range of school activities and, in recent years,
the movement to establish a 'barrier-free' environment for
the disabled in Japan. No One's Perfect was
published in Japan in February, and is to be released
overseas later this year.
JAT
Firstly, congratulations on your achievement in bringing this
Japanese bestseller to English audiences. It will be
interesting to see how it is received outside of Japan. It
must have been very rewarding to translate this heart-warming
book. Did you get a chance to meet with the author?
Harcourt
Yes, five times, to ask questions. Doing the translation was
indeed very rewarding but also very hard work, and when I got
bogged down these sessions motivated me by keeping me aware
of what a very likeable personality I was trying to represent
in English.
JAT
How were you selected as translator? Or were you the one to
propose translating this?
Harcourt
Since the original was published by Kodansha, when it became
a best-seller I think it was a foregone conclusion that
Kodansha International would publish a translation. I don't
know how I was selected—I'd done three books years
ago that were published by KI, but since this one was so much
more colloquial than those literary books, and KI's main
market is the U.S. and I'm not American, I would have thought
I was an unlikely choice. Anyway, I was the lucky one.
JAT
In the English version the author's name on the cover is
given simply as "Oto", rather than his
full name, Hirotada Ototake. Was this because it is his
nickname, or because it was felt that the full Japanese name
might be too "foreign"for English readers?
Harcourt
I wasn't involved in the decision, but as I understand it,
the easily remembered and universally pronounceable "Oto" was
preferred, from KI's past experience, and it was also felt
that it had a friendly feeling to it. The jacket design might
have been a factor too.
JAT
Do you know why the photo on the book jacket was changed for
the English edition?
Harcourt
KI's translations usually do have different jackets from the
originals. The photo that was ultimately chosen for the
English edition was in a booklet that came with the Japanese
audio (CD) version—it had to be retaken for the
jacket, but it's the same pose. It was chosen at the
initiative of the Editorial Director, Stephen Shaw. I believe
he felt that the photo was just right to convey the joie
de vivre of the book.
JAT
One thing that struck me was the "cool" American slang used
in much of the dialogue, in keeping with how elementary or
high school boys in the United States would
speak—e.g., Duh!; Bummer; crack the books; he got
zip; mojo man; wimp out; gross. As a New Zealander and a
woman, did you find it difficult to "speak" in a young
"American" male voice? Did you have to "study" to come up
with these expressions—e.g., by reading "hip"
English? And did you consciously aim at using somewhat less
formal language in the translation than was used in the
original book?
Harcourt
Before I get to the slang, I should mention that a more
difficult challenge was the shift in tone that needed to be
made because the book is written for all ages, which sets up
different requirements in the two languages. As JAT members
will know, even when writing solely for adults, Japanese
authors tend to be more 親切 or solicitous toward their
readers (e.g., recapitulating previous points when
introducing a new one), and an English translation that
retains all these features can make us feel (at best) that
the text is wordy, or (at worst) that the author is
underestimating our intelligence. In 『五体不満足』,
Ototake-san was writing for ages ten and up. The text has
furigana throughout for that reason, and there's a
note at the front explaining this. So not only are the
Japanese text's adult readers more comfortable with 親切 than
English readers, but they have in front of them a constant
visual reminder that they're sharing this book with readers
in the upper grades of elementary school. Not that the
original's vocabulary or style is that of a children's
book—it must be quite difficult for 小学生
—but I think the quality that you've identified as
formality might in part reflect the careful way in which the
author makes sure he's getting across to younger
readers.
Also, it seems to me that, in English, books written for
young adults and even preteens are stylistically closer to
adult books than is the case in Japanese. As it happened,
over the same period my friend Yuko Matsuoka was doing the
Japanese translation of Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone, another book that's been hugely
successful among all ages in its original language, and she
faced the opposite challenge: finding a style that wouldn't
exclude younger readers, which she was afraid that a
too-direct translation would do. No One's Perfect
seems to have passed the test of adult readability, and
though I'm no J.K. Rowling, I'm fairly sure it can be enjoyed
from middle school up. I'm trying to encourage my
eleven-year-old niece to give it a go.
To get back to your question: I'm more or less okay as far as basic American usage is concerned (I've lived in the States, and I find myself unconsciously saying gotten, for example). Friends helped, and the final manuscript was copy-edited by an American, Kit Nagamura, who caught the expressions I hadn't known were British and improved on many others. (Mojo was Kit's, by the way.)
But within American English I did have to be highly conscious of demographics. You've politely not pointed out that, besides being a woman, I'm twice Oto's age. That was a biggie. I "studied" a lot—for example, I made a note when the DJs on the American Forces Network radio station used an expression I wanted, and did frequent Internet searches for phrases to check out whether the people using them were young or old, male or female, and so on. I tended to come up with expressions out of my head first and then start paying attention to the contexts they occurred in, rather than read "hip" English for inspiration.
The aim wasn't to be "hip," exactly, because hip English tends to be associated with a worldview that's too cynical for this book. Also, English slang changes faster than Japanese slang, and the hipper it is the faster it dates; since we want the book to read well in five years' time, I tried to avoid the most ephemeral slang. I also avoided stereotypical teenagerisms—no awesome's and only one totally and one "--, like, --,". But "banter" phrases such as Puhlease and Duh! and Whoa and Yeah, right are so popular these days that I came to feel they were almost de rigueur; if I didn't use those resources, I'd end up making Oto sound too earnest and uncool. On the other hand, I didn't want to risk making him sound illiterate. 『五体不満足』 uses some quite literary turns of phrase. So I read a lot to see how people blend colloquialisms and more formal vocabulary. Striking a plausible balance was tricky—it caused me a lot of angst at the editorial stage.
I know I've gone quite far in the direction of assimilating the text to American culture, but I felt that to ask readers to relate to life without arms and legs and the full force of the foreignness at the same time would be too much. I think the personality that comes across in Oto's telling of his story is engaging and remarkable in ways that are universal, but there are aspects of the book which will be distancing to English-language readers, such as the fact that we don't see much of his life outside of school, and so I felt it was essential to make the diction as easy to relate to as I could.
JAT
I was impressed by how you managed to compensate for puns or
introduce new ones on occasion. Do you have any comments on
this?
Harcourt
It was Oto's sense of humor that made the project
irresistible, while also making me wonder if the book was
even translatable. I felt that since the playfulness or
colorfulness of the language inevitably got lost in some
places, I was justified in introducing new plays on words or
colorful language in other places, as long as I sought the
author's approval when I thought I might be going too far. I
was tentative at first, but I guess I was encouraged when he
liked my efforts. This example isn't a pun, but in the
sentence 「自分はモテるという妙なウヌボレではない」 all I
could think of for both モテる and ウヌボレ were longer
phrases, and so the sentence went flat and explanatory. Then
"I don't mean I thought I was God's gift to women" came
floating down from somewhere. That got モテる and ウヌボレ in
one, but somehow it stood out more than the original wording,
so I asked Ototake-san's permission. He read "God's
gift to women," laughed as he translated it into Japanese,
and said "Do you say that in English? What a great
expression!" That encouraged me to go a little bit over the
top now and then, if the alternative was to err on the
conservative side.
Perhaps my most egregious innovation was "I was spinning my
wheels." When it occurred to me, as what I consider to be a
close equivalent in meaning (though not in register) to
「とても無駄な時間を過ごしているのは分かっていたが、自分ではどうすることもできなかった」for
a moment I thought that his using a wheelchair ruled it out,
though I wouldn't hesitate to use it in a non-wheelchair
user's book. But then I thought that if Oto were writing in
English he might use it himself, so why not run it by him?
And he said okay.
JAT
One challenge in translating this book would have been the
handling of culture-specific expressions. Usually you've done
this by unobtrusively adding a brief explanation where
necessary, but at times you have taken it further than that.
For instance, in the Prologue the Japanese text comments on
how Oto's mother unquestioningly accepted not being allowed
to meet her baby for a month after he was born, but in the
translation a whole paragraph has been inserted about the
authority of doctors in Japan and "informed consent”. The
description of the mother's gradual awareness of her baby's
disability seems quite different in the two versions. Was
this change made to cater for differing views on disability
in Japan and the West? Was it at the publisher's suggestion
or on your initiative?
Harcourt
We (the two editors and I) were concerned that readers who
didn't know the cultural background would find his mother's
reaction to being told she couldn't see her baby
incomprehensible. And since it comes in the first couple of
pages, this is the first impression you get of his family. As
Oto says, first impressions are important. We wanted to make
sure that Ototake-san was aware of the cultural gap and how
it would affect reader's perceptions of those events, and
when Kit and I discussed it with him he decided to write some
additional material for the Prologue of the English edition.
It came to about two 原稿用紙 pages.
JAT
The chapter or section headings are sometimes quite different
from the original headings—e.g., ついに、手術の日:
The Surgeon is Ready (I'm Not). Did you feel that the
Japanese sometimes lacked "punch" and needed to be spiced up
a little for an English audience?
Harcourt
I'm embarrassed to say that that was as close as I could get.
Since the headings had to be as pithy as the Japanese, I
decided against trying for an equivalent for ついに, which I
always have trouble with even without the constraints of
brevity, and went instead for the general sense of the
arrival of an anticipated negative outcome, which sort of
implies "sooner than one would have liked, "hence " I'm not
ready."
There are a number of headings that I intentionally changed; once or twice it was just to avoid a repetition, but in a few places it was for impact. "My Favorite Stooge?!" for "ドリフ?!" is an obvious one, since "The Drifs?!" would have been meaningless and "The Drifters?!" misleading by itself, so I borrowed the gloss I used when the Drifters occur in the text.
In the American football chapter I offered Ototake-san a
choice between the literal "Showdown in the Rain," which
works fine, and "How 'bout Those Hornets?,". I explained to
him how the latter expression is used, and he opted for the
change. In both the football and the basketball chapters I
faced a situation where the average American reader is more
familiar with the vocabulary of the sport than the average
Japanese reader, and to withhold terminology because it
wasn't in the Japanese text seemed problematic—in
English, it would make him appear inexpert. E.g., in the
basketball chapter, 大活躍 could—and, I felt,
should—be translated as "a great assist," since an
assist is what it's referring to. And
「バスケを少しでもかじったことのある方なら」 became "if
you've shot a few hoops." Changing "Showdown in the Rain" was
an extension of that approach. But I don't think of it as
spicing it up; I just want to be sure the author comes across
as kakko ii, and "How 'bout Those Hornets?"
hopefully does that.
JAT
In his Epilogue in the English version, Oto says that he
himself chose the English title, No One's Perfect. Did you as
translator have any other titles in mind, or were you happy
with this?
Harcourt
From the start, everyone was asking me with great concern
how I was going to translate the title, and I hadn't a clue.
Then Stephen told me that Ototake-san had suggested a title.
It questioned the concept "perfect," but it was a little
unidiomatic. As Stephen and I talked about it, I said that we
have the saying "no one's perfect." I was just
free-associating, but Stephen liked it. After we got off the
phone I remembered that Americans more often say
"nobody's perfect," but an Internet search turned
up six books that had already used that title (some with a
subtitle, such as "Not Even My Mother”). Stephen was able to
confirm that there'd been only one No One's Perfect
and that it was out of print. I did go on trying to think of
alternatives, without success, and when we proposed No
One's Perfect to Oto he liked it, so that settled it.
Where it's mentioned in the Epilogue, I was adapting a
sentence that referred to why he gave 『五体不満足』that
title, and I used "I chose" in the sense that he
gave us the idea and then approved No One's Perfect.
Am I happy with it? Very, because it's going over well.
JAT
There was a rumor on RENET (Oto was once a member of this
mailing list, whose members are mostly either Waseda students
or community residents) that the English title must have come
from the last phrase in Some Like It Hot featuring Marilyn
Monroe. Do you know if this is true?
Harcourt
I wish I could say it was—it's a great rumor, and
Jack Lemmon is great as Dorothy, or was it Daphne, about
whom the line is said—but I'm afraid not.
JAT
How did translating this autobiographical work compare with
the seven other books you've translated, all of which have
been literary works, I believe?
Harcourt
(One was a sociology book, the others were fiction.) It was
harder. Of course you have to honor the author's intentions
with fiction too, but when the author is writing the story of
his own life, you feel that responsibility to him more
directly. It keeps you honest. (A movie review that I read
while working on the book said that the director "takes great
pains with his liberties, "a notion that appealed to me.)
When you realize that Ototake-san is going to meet people
whose impression of him as a person will have been filtered
through your translation—and, too, he's
bound to become fluent in English, so they'll be able to
compare the way he expresses himself with the way you
have—that's quite a reality check.
JAT
Are you working on another book now that you've finished No
One's Perfect? For example, what about Oto's picture book for
younger children that was published in Japanese in mid-March?
(This is based on 『五体不満足』, but focuses on Oto's
elementary school days.)
Harcourt
No, I've gone back to my regular work. No One's
Perfect was done under deadline pressure and I'm still
decompressing.
JAT
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with readers of the
JAT Bulletin, and all the best in your next venture.