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Faust volume 1 (Del Rey)
I had a doctor's appointment today, and ducked into Barnes & Noble to check if they had the latest volume of Samurai Deeper Kyo to read in the waiting room. They didn't, but they had something I hadn't heard of: Faust: Fiction and Manga from the Cutting Edge of Japanese Pop Culture volume 1. This is an anthology of short stories (and probably at least one novella: there's some very long stories in here), essays, and manga originally published in a Japanese literary journal titled, what else, Faust.
It leads off with an excerpt from an xxxHolic light novel (forthcoming from Del Rey on October 28) by NISIOISIN, author of the Death Note light novel, which forms a self-contained short story. It falls kind of flat, but that's only partly the story itself and, I think, partly the translation (or rewriter - see comments).[1] I still pre-ordered the novel just now, because I am currently fangirling xxxHolic, and I hope the prose has gained some sparkle between the version published here and the version that will be published in the novel.
Unfortunately, that was the only story I even halfway liked. The rest were, to me dull, dull, dull, and the one I hated most was the one that the Publishers Weekly review on Amazon singles out for praise:
The manga collected in the back is all very short, and very beautiful, and none of it particularly affected me in anything other than a "Hey, nice artwork!" kind of way.
Summation: if your reading tastes tend to go along with mine, and you prefer short stories with more character, plot, (and HUMOR, which is SORELY LACKING HERE), you might want to give it a miss. If you're always recommending books to me and are disappointed when I bounce hard off them within the first few pages, hey: you might like it.
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[1] Especially the division into paragraphs, unless they're sticking tightly to original Japanese paragraphs; I have no knowledge of the details of Japanese prose. At any rate, there are many, many short one-sentence paragraphs, which tend to give false emphasis to the sentences involved, which makes the narrator sound like an emo teengirl exercising her Portentious Voice. Okay, so the two narrators involved are an emo twentysomething girl and an emo teenboy, but GAH I outgrew that headspace years ago and don't need to return to it! Example:
It leads off with an excerpt from an xxxHolic light novel (forthcoming from Del Rey on October 28) by NISIOISIN, author of the Death Note light novel, which forms a self-contained short story. It falls kind of flat, but that's only partly the story itself and, I think, partly the translation (or rewriter - see comments).[1] I still pre-ordered the novel just now, because I am currently fangirling xxxHolic, and I hope the prose has gained some sparkle between the version published here and the version that will be published in the novel.
Unfortunately, that was the only story I even halfway liked. The rest were, to me dull, dull, dull, and the one I hated most was the one that the Publishers Weekly review on Amazon singles out for praise:
The highlight of the book is Otaro Maijo's Drill Hole in My Brain, a piece of pop culture–filled, avant-garde pornography written in the style of William S. Burroughs or Mark Leyner. A boy with a screwdriver stuck in his brain narrates a brilliant psychedelic stream-of-consciousness sexual fantasy that takes place inside his head.Where they see brilliance, I see pretentious twaddle. But then again, I am a Philistine who fails to appreciate most contemporary literature and writing, quite a lot of which quite a lot of you like, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
The manga collected in the back is all very short, and very beautiful, and none of it particularly affected me in anything other than a "Hey, nice artwork!" kind of way.
Summation: if your reading tastes tend to go along with mine, and you prefer short stories with more character, plot, (and HUMOR, which is SORELY LACKING HERE), you might want to give it a miss. If you're always recommending books to me and are disappointed when I bounce hard off them within the first few pages, hey: you might like it.
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[1] Especially the division into paragraphs, unless they're sticking tightly to original Japanese paragraphs; I have no knowledge of the details of Japanese prose. At any rate, there are many, many short one-sentence paragraphs, which tend to give false emphasis to the sentences involved, which makes the narrator sound like an emo teengirl exercising her Portentious Voice. Okay, so the two narrators involved are an emo twentysomething girl and an emo teenboy, but GAH I outgrew that headspace years ago and don't need to return to it! Example:
She always exacted payment, to the point of heartlessness.This is the sort of prose that I laugh at when confronted with in fanfic, people!
That went for Watanuki...
...and it would go for the woman as well.
Watanuki was currently carrying out his own payment, and occasionally, very occasionally, he wondered: even if his wish was granted, what she took in return was of equal value, and in the end...did it really make a difference whether the wish was granted or not?
His eyes.
The eyes that saw spirits.
When he had paid the price, and his eyes could no longer see...how much would he have lost in return?
The idea scared him.
So he always pushed it away.
Tried not to think about it.
But when it came to other people--that was different. Kimihiro Watanuki's feeling was that introducing people with wishes to Yuko Ichihara was something he absolutely should not do.
Not ever.
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ETA: And the prose in the other pieces in the book he translated doesn't get so clunky, either, so it might be the original. Huh.
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But actually, "translator" isn't the right word - it's the rewriter who'd be at fault here, I think, unless it's an editorial decision to stick to the Japanese paragraphing or the translator does the rewriting as well. (I know they're often two different people, as
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And, ah, that makes sense. So perhaps they haven't actually *done* the rewriting yet? Maybe that's the problem?
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(jumping in--hope you don't mind ^^)
I can't picture any of the manga publishers releasing any part of a translation that they intended to have adapted later. A translation that's intended to be rewritten would probably be very different from one intended for publication.
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If they're going ahead with this style for final publication, all I have to say is GAH IT'S GOING TO BE A BITCH TO READ.
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I adore HOLiC, but I don't know if I'm going to read the novel or not. It'll depend on what I think of the excerpt whenever I finally get around to reading the copy of Faust that's been on my shelf for a couple of weeks now. Spin-off/non-canon novels just aren't that tempting. >.> (Now, if someone would pick up the Ghost Hunt novels or something, I'd be all over it even if the prose was a slog.)
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The light novels in general seem to be rampant with the short sentencess, though, in the small number I've been looking at.
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This is an excerpt from a BL novel I'm translating for a friend. This is just the most recent page I did, but is pretty typical of the entire novel.
I think in the entire 80-some pages I've done so far, I linked a few sentences (for one thing, dialogue is often set off and the "he said" is a separate paragraph, which just won't work in English), but otherwise it's pretty much the same division of sentences and paragraphs as the original.
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You're right, though, it seems odd that they would release some of it if it wasn't in its final form.
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As for straws, um...maybe if you read the entire book, you'll adjust to the style and not mind it...?
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And, y'know, it's not the end of the world if I end up not liking it. It's not like it's canon or anything. Still, I was kind of hoping it would fill the void until xxxHolic 13's English release in March.
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(edited because apparently the comment takes out the leading spaces in the paragraphs)
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I have a feeling the short 'not ever' in Japanese--maybe itsudemonai, no idea of the original--gives that punch because it's short. The other sentences in Japanese would be long and maybe run down the length of the page, visually different, the way your re-paragraphing does in English orientation/presentation. (That is, if the original is published anything like the size of the light novels I'm thinking of.) This in mind, I'm pretty sure its an attempt to be artsy and/or a conscious decision on the part of the editor or translator. I have to give them some credit for trying to stick to what is probably the original paragraphing, but it doesn't read half as well in English that way.
Maybe you have a future side job there...*eyes*
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Thank you. I always wondered why the one sentence paragraph generally reads fine to me in Japanese. Top to bottom format draws your eye to the top line and the top line is always in the same place. No indentations to say 'this next bit is more important than the bit before,' which looks silly if followed by a single word. Even line breaks give too much emphasis to the short sentences and sentence fragments that light literature likes to use.
IM very limited E of uhh heavy literature, the paragraphs are indeed slightly longer. Then again, my experience is pretty much Natsume Soseki who was, I think, influenced by western models.
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(Oooh, you totally need SDK 30! I managed to get a copy on Saturday. After the initial angst-fest where Kamijyo wraps up the ongoing Kyo/Kyoushirou scene, we get gobs of both hilarious and poignant stuff about Hotaru's background, including the introduction of, IIRC, the final big group of secondary characters.)
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Hotaruuuu~! ♥)