Regretful Late Comer to Literature

One thing is qiguai (strange, 奇怪, 不思議) about myself is that I’ve never been so attracted to Japanese literature. It seems all the novels I chanced on in high school textbooks eluded my attention. It does not mean at all that I think light of them. In fact, in recent years, I reread some masterpieces, say, by Natsume Soseki (夏目漱石). They didn’t impact me so much and the devotion I find towards Maugham, Greene and now Styron was simply not there. Or overwhelmingly powerful political writings by Said and Chomsky. Is it because I read Japanese books so leisurely? Well, let me try to re-reread Natsume. I may find treasures I’ve failed to detect so far. Even about Maugham, Greene and Styron, I feel that I should’ve read them years ago, though I did read some of Maugham some 20 years ago. But I have to admit that this could not have been done as English was (still is) a foreign tongue to me… All the same, it is regrettable that it took me so many years to reach for their works. In my 20’s and 30’s, I was really mad about news magazines of the US and the UK while almost ignoring literature. I was reading at least four weekly news magazines. Thus my pathetic lack of adjective/adverb vocabulary.

There must be non-Japanese who devour Japanese novels. They may be feeling the same kind of zeal that I have towards non-Japanese works. If true, does it show that there is something magical in the experiences of reading foreign books?

Inevitably, this leads to the issue of translation. I believe when Japanese people talk about the writing “style” of such and such non-Japanese author, they are actually talking about the style of the translator, as the majority of them read a translated version. Even though no translator is allowed to turn the original work into his own, there is a huge difference between reading the original and its translated version. Perhaps, I should check how the translated version of “Sophie’s Choice,” for example, is managing to convey and express the impression evoked by a particular way of talking of the South or words uttered in Yiddish, French or German and see if I get the same images.

*

I’m not a compulsive cleaner. But the daughter of a former unit owner said to me, “You are untidy but not dirty.” When I do wipe tables, I find the surface is as black as soot. Why? This is not only about my current lodging. Is this air pollution? How can dust be so sooty?