Thursday 17 January 2013

From here on in..Chapter 2 and beyond: Structure

Chapter 2 will be the subject of the next posts. It seems to me that this is the real beginning of the action of the novel from the standpoint of the protagonist. There is more substance to the following chapters than the prescript of Ch.1 so what I plan from here on in is the following:


1. Give an indication of the Chapter characteristics in terms of the text I am using (cf. the first post re Woman in the Dunes for my purposes referred to as WOD from now on). So for example Ch.2  is from pp 8-18 in the text I am looking at.

This will help when I am referring to a passage that I may not post in translation but wish to mention in connection with a comment or reference.

2. Describe a overview of the structure of the 'action' or content of the individual chapter. So with Ch 2., I can break it down into about 5 sections.

3. Post a selected passage for translation and language/style comment from each section of a given Chapter structure.

4. Give a synopsis or recap every so often so that I can remind us all of where we have been with the novel and where we might be headed.

5. Provide links to freely available and free access articles about the novel and related subjects. I have found a couple already but although very interesting as they are they refer to the novel as a whole (spoiler alerts and so on) and cover areas I have not posted about so I will leave them until a bit later on.

Next up will be Chapter 2.

I still haven't located a copy of the 1991 English translation of Dale Saunders (in Penguin Modern Classics) so I am still flying by the seat of my pants translation-wise so I am sure to be making some errors. When I can get hold of it for comparative purposes I may have some more things to say re that! I am very interested in the process or 'art' of translation, especially in terms of Japanese novels and therefore will be trying to add more about the process I am going through to arrive at a given take on a particular passage, phrase or word.

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