Lin Shao-Hua: His Reign as the "China Face" of Murakami Haruki under Threat
By Bruce Humes, published March 4, 2009, 7:08p.m.
I've read Murakami in English, French and Chinese, but have always been struck by how unconvincing his "voice" is in Mandarin. His translator in the PRC, Lin Shao-Hua (林少华), has made a career (and no doubt a small fortune) translating one after another of Murakami's best sellers for millions of Chinese readers. No one else has been able to buy the rights. But at long last Lin's stranglehold has been broken by Li Chang-Sheng (李长声), whose translation of 《当我谈跑步时我谈些什么》has just been published.
In this interview with 东方早报 , Li Chang-Sheng manages to disparage Lin while touching on some fairly important translation issues as well. (To read the original go to http://www.dfdaily.com, click on 书评, and search for 2009.2.15 interview, "李长声谈村上作品的中文翻译").
The Chinese text below is taken from the interview with 东方早报 .
One point he makes is that a translator can't honestly take credit for book sales when the work in question was already a global best seller:
林 [少华］先生最近在反驳被指译文不够“准确”时，引用别人的话中有一句“村上春树在我国的影响，很大程度依赖于林少华译文的精彩”，您认同这个说法吗？
李长声：这个“别人的话”说得不大对。我敢说，村上的小说谁译都畅销。所以才有人说，村上是一个社会现象，不仅在日本，而且在台湾和香港地区以及韩国都是这样，所以藤井省三才能写一本书。好像林少华也译过一本在日本史无前例的畅销的小说，叫什么《在世界中心呼唤爱》，似乎在中国就不大有销路。林少华还是林少华，但作家换人了。
He also highlights the way a translator effectively effaces the original writer in the eyes of the reading public, replacing him with a different persona, one that is arguably distorted but may also be pleasing to the readership:
我了解林少华，当年他读日本古典文学研究生，我当《日本文学》杂志的编辑，他的第一篇译作《天皇的帽子》就是我约他译的。他的长处是中日文都好，相得益彰，这么有两把刷子的译者很罕见。但他也有一个“痼癖”，就是弄词藻。肚子里词藻满满的，顺着笔管往外流。当年我和南京译林的编辑就议论他这一点。说得狠一点，在这一点上他多少把村上庸俗化了。可有趣的是，中国小资读者们接受的恰恰正是这一点，或许这就是与中国实际相结合吧。村上笔下的人物进屋就打开冰箱拿出啤酒喝，听美国流行音乐，不知我们的小资是不是也这个样子。吉野家、肯德基，招牌还是人家的招牌，但味道是适合中国人口味的了，而且比本家高档化，或许就是这么一回事。功过是非，真难说。
And Li Chang-Sheng's parting slap, in which he deftly positions his contract to translate Murakami as an act that breaks the unhealthy monopoly long held by Lin Shao-Hua:
听说《当我谈跑步时我谈些什么》是南海出版公司用高价竞争来的，这是市场的正常现象，而且借此打破了一家出版社垄断、一个译者垄断，在这一点上别有意义。我不了解情况，不明白少华兄为什么作弃妇状，但他能垄断村上，靠的是出版垄断，而为了文学翻译，这种垄断并非好现象。如果能同时出版两个译本，那就更有意思，是出版社做好事，为批评提供文本。
Bruce Humes
www.bruce-humes.com
Chinese Books, English Reviews
Comments
In the version I read, Li Changsheng is introduced as a Japan-resident academic whose interests lie in Japanese publishing. The translator is actually Shi Xiaowei 施小炜.
Anti-Lin backlash has been building for a while. When The Beijing News reported 藤井省三's criticisms in late 2007, it ran a comparison of a line from Norwegian Wood as rendered by Lin and the translators behind the Hong Kong and Taiwan editions.
Shi, an unknown, was plucked from a group of 50 samples (Oriental Morning Post). Lin now wants to publish his own version separately, which apparently will not happen (Shanghai Morning Post).
It might be beneficial if he were able to, like Li implies in his concluding remarks. Elsewhere in the interview, he elaborates:
版权是一个问题，它维护了作者以及译者的权益，却阻碍了翻译水准的提升。翻译需要有比较，有鉴别，但只许这一个人翻译，只许这一家出版，别无分店，就只好看着胡译乱译臭了街。所幸台湾和大陆有繁简字之别，同样是中文，人家可以卖两份版权，而出现两个译本，就有了比较、鉴别的机会，反倒是好事。
jdmartinsen, March 4, 10:14p.m.
@jdmartinsen
Thanks very much for setting the record straight!
Personally, I suspect that part of Lin Shao-Hua's shortcomings lie in the fact that his English may be -- like many students of Japanese in China -- mediocre at best. Since Murakami lives in the US and has been translating out of English into Japanese for years, it has obviously impacted the way he writes in his native tongue. This could make it a bit difficult for Lin Shao-Hua to fully grasp Murakami's lingo.
The "monopoly of the translator" opens up some interesting questions, particularly when looking at the issue of translating Murakami. And I think that copyright is indeed the issue: while we might theoretically agree that competition serves the marketplace better, that also means that in terms of payment, two translations of Murakami (for instance) into the same language would put Murakami in competition with himself. For an author who has expressed his desire to see his translations into other languages published as quickly as possible--because, he says, he's impatient to find out what people in other countries think of his newest work (which sounds to me like he's impatient to earn his royalties form abroad)--this would be a tough spot to be in.
Then again, multiple translations put older authors in competition with themselves all the time. How many translations of Shakespeare, or Goethe, or even James Joyce are floating around the Chinese book market? Of course, modernity and the spread of a global mono-culture seem to be at the heart of Murakami's work (I've only read Hard-Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World, but the phenomenon extends to real life, and how Murakami has fashioned himself, and been fashioned, into the quintessential--some would say token international--New Yorker writer), which indicate how much the facts of money and copyright and global uniformity are fitting binds on Murakami's international publication.
Not a total monopoly. In Taiwan the translations are all by Lai Mingzhu 赖明珠.
There was an interesting piece in Yazhou Zhoukan a while back comparing the two - stylistically totally different - and talking about the time the two of them finally shared a stage at the Hong Kong book festival.
William, March 9, 11:15a.m.
William: Can you tell me the URL for that piece?
Thx!