A Night In the Oak Grove
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October 11th, 2011.
Very, very dark outside.
Very happy to present the translated copy of A Night In the Oak Grove. It was a joy to work and thankfully, though it was neat having a comparison to glance at from time to time, I did not have to rely on Wallace's version of the tale for comprehension purposes. Up next is Telegraph Poles in the Moonlight, followed by the Origin of Deer Dance. And then? And then Volume One will be complete and we see what happens from there.
Full Disclosure | |
September 26th, Sunny. Good news and bad. Before trying to translate each story, I do a web search to see if anyone else has ever taken a whack at it. As you might expect, it helps to see someone else's interpretation of a tale before starting your own translation. With the previous story, the Mountain Man, I'd known that John Bester had translated it but I had never gotten my hands on the book in which it was published. I have, however, found a copy available on the internet of "Eve of the Oak Grove" by George Wallace, as well an a comparative analysis of the story. Due to this I cannot be claiming to break new ground with my own translation but I will be doing one anyone. I just wanted there to be full disclosure and give credit to Mr. Wallace for his excellent work. Whether his rendition paints or otherwise effects my own remains to be seen. Working on it | |
Saturday, September 17th 2011. Sunny. No one ever said this was going to be easy. Or fast. |
April of the Mountain Man | |
September 24th, 2011 Slightly cloudy, humid. April of the Mountain Man is done at last. I'm not quite sure why the first half was so difficult and the second half went down so easily. It feels great to have done something productive again. On the horizon is Night in the Oak Thicket, or maybe that name will change based on context. Only three more to go before we can call Kenji Incomplete: Volume One a done deal. Stalled | |
Wednesday, July 6th 2010. Partly cloudy. It's one thing to be stalled during a period where I'm unmotivated; that describes a great deal of the last year. It's an entirely different feeling to be on a roll for a little while and the be stalled entirely be forces mostly out of ones own control. Personally I'm going through periods in which I have control and yet am entirely discouraged and also through times when I am out of control and cannot be bothered to care. The camera has yet to come back into focus to that point last month when I was able to do the Crows, the Narcissus Month, and the introduction one after another. The perfect combination of control and motivation is difficult to come by. As far as rough drafts go I'm about halfway through April of the Wildman, or Mountain Man, or what have you. I don't know why it's proving as difficult as it is. It doesn't pop like the last few have. I am not popping like I was. If I might break it down and get a little too personal for just a moment, I'd dare say that this translation project is simultaneously a delightful and needlessly harrowing experience. There is no high like the sense of accomplishment and personal satisfaction that comes with a finished translation or a daydream of the possible future, and yet there is no low quite like the string of failure or the hopelessness of feeling like I'm just not good enough anymore to do this. When it is so slow going that I cannot get through a 4th of a children's story in one afternoon I cannot help but feel that this is going nowhere at all and that I have no business taking it there. In times like those I feel like this whole dream is pointless and that I should give up and concentrate on my job at the battery company. And then a miraculous thing happens. The day ends, and by that time the following week I'm a different person. I may not have made much progress on whatever story into which I was digging, but there are also no other deadlines other than the ones I set for myself. Luckily I have the luxury of only working at this when I feel like someone appropriate to work at it. Like I said before, though, that person doesn't come about too often. Anyway, this sort of talk shouldn't go here. This is for progress reports on the translations and musings about Kenji. Speaking of which, he uses a term in the most recent story that I can only figure translates to 'dirty Chinaman' to describe a person and I don't really know how to fit that in with my view of the author. |