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larryhammerI recently came across the Japanese idiom/proverb korogaru ishi ni koke musazu -- "a rolling stone does not grow moss." This is used with a meaning opposite that in English: patience is a virtue, perseverance pays off, stop rolling around and stay put and you'll eventually grow moss -- moss being pretty and a sign of age and stability. Rather than, keep moving or you'll get old. An admonition, not excuse.
It's not the words that matter as much as how they're used.
Which statement can be sliced in a different direction. As someone who knew Japanese poetry only through translation, I had a preference for poetry from earlier parts of the period covered by the Hyakunin Isshu -- the Man'yoshu and Kokinshu eras, up to around 900 AD. However, working through the final poems of the anthology, from the late 12th/early 13th century, I find it very difficult to come up with translations that feel even adequate, let alone good. It's not so much the allusions to other poems all over the place, which can be handled by footnotes just like they would in an English work, as the frequent shifts of tone and phrasing and referents. It's making me step back and take another look at what I wasn't liking when I was reading them in English.
For my main language practice, I've returned to poking my way through Ooki na Mori no Chiisa na Ie, better known in English as Little House in the Big Woods. It continues to stretch my reading comprehension, and given the leisurely plotting it's not like I'm missing a zippy story by plodding through a half-hour to a page. One difficulty I have (aside from boning up on a vocabulary associated with frontier life) continues to be consistently recognizing comparatives, and when I do see them, identifying what is the more/better and what the less/worse. And between Mary and Laura, there's a lot to compare. The presence of yori helps, but as you know Bob, not all constructions use it. Also, I need to sit down and memorize counters already. Dammit.
After/alongside that, I have a handful of shoujo manga (including a Chiho Saito short story collection about various performing arts) and a children's book about a stray dog that's pitched even younger than Little House, judging by the type size and even less kanji. None of which I have English versions of -- look, Ma, no parachute!
One day, someone's going to write a story about a contemporary Japanese schoolgirl who gets reincarnated as a tyrannosaur named Ralph, and it will be AWESOME. (Rather than the other way around, which sucked.)
---L.
It's not the words that matter as much as how they're used.
Which statement can be sliced in a different direction. As someone who knew Japanese poetry only through translation, I had a preference for poetry from earlier parts of the period covered by the Hyakunin Isshu -- the Man'yoshu and Kokinshu eras, up to around 900 AD. However, working through the final poems of the anthology, from the late 12th/early 13th century, I find it very difficult to come up with translations that feel even adequate, let alone good. It's not so much the allusions to other poems all over the place, which can be handled by footnotes just like they would in an English work, as the frequent shifts of tone and phrasing and referents. It's making me step back and take another look at what I wasn't liking when I was reading them in English.
For my main language practice, I've returned to poking my way through Ooki na Mori no Chiisa na Ie, better known in English as Little House in the Big Woods. It continues to stretch my reading comprehension, and given the leisurely plotting it's not like I'm missing a zippy story by plodding through a half-hour to a page. One difficulty I have (aside from boning up on a vocabulary associated with frontier life) continues to be consistently recognizing comparatives, and when I do see them, identifying what is the more/better and what the less/worse. And between Mary and Laura, there's a lot to compare. The presence of yori helps, but as you know Bob, not all constructions use it. Also, I need to sit down and memorize counters already. Dammit.
After/alongside that, I have a handful of shoujo manga (including a Chiho Saito short story collection about various performing arts) and a children's book about a stray dog that's pitched even younger than Little House, judging by the type size and even less kanji. None of which I have English versions of -- look, Ma, no parachute!
One day, someone's going to write a story about a contemporary Japanese schoolgirl who gets reincarnated as a tyrannosaur named Ralph, and it will be AWESOME. (Rather than the other way around, which sucked.)
Here is a children's film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy. A film with no villains. No fight scenes. No evil adults. No fighting between the two kids. No scary monsters. No darkness before the dawn. A world that is benign. A world where if you meet a strange towering creature in the forest, you curl up on its tummy and have a nap.Roger Ebert on My Neighbor Totoro.
---L.
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Date: 22 August 2010 11:14 pm (UTC)http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2010/08/sunday-sweets-threadcakes.html
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Date: 23 August 2010 04:15 am (UTC)---L.