Lost in Translation

This book is supposedly an international bestseller, the debut novel about twenty-five year old Takako, niece of the owner of the 3^rd generation Morisake Bookshop in Jimbocho, a part of Tokyo with more than 170 second hand bookshops, said to be the place in the world with more second handbook shops than anywhere else. It is a novel not without charm, but it is difficult to see what has propelled it to such popularity and acclaim.

Takako starts out as an ordinary enough young Japanese woman, not very confident, and taken advantage of by her boyfriend who has been cheating on her and one day simply announces he is going to get married to someone else, another girl whom he had been dating for even longer than he has been seeing Takako. Shattered, Takako spirals into depression and her uncle, Saturo, pulls her out of this by giving her room and board at his bookshop, set up by Takako’s great grandfather, and giving her the space and time to heal.

Takako recovers well, and then returns her uncle’s kindness when she helps him out with his relationship with his wife, her aunt Momoko, who is a bit of a free spirit. Woven into the novel are other lovely characters like regular customers to the bookshop, the owner and staff of a café nearby which Saturo and Takako frequent, and also charming episodes of the annual Kanda used Book Festival, or the hiking trip to Okutama, just out of Tokyo, a historic shrine on a huge mountain, with many little inns along the way. All of it is lovely to read about, but whether it is the Japanese style of writing consciousness, or else the fact that this is a book in translation, one always feels very removed, even remote, as the reader. It is as if all this ‘action’ is happening behind a pane of glass, that one can see the characters, but does not connect with them. One is therefore interested but not invested.

The distance could also be partly because of the Japanese reserve and formality, which may not translate well into English, as in, they may come across as stilted and strange, although in their own culture and language, they may well be flowing and natural. For example, during the hiking trip, Momoko and Takako share a room, share the 3 days together, and become very close, exchanging heartfelt discussions. At the end of the trip, they part at Shinjuku Station,

With the crowds teeming around her, Momoko stood in front of the turnstiles and bowed deeply to me (p135).

Momoko thanks Takako for a good time and they go their separate ways without any more ado. But it is a very formal parting, seemingly, for intimate friends, and yet also unceremonious for all the bowing, because they don’t even say goodbye.

The formality in the novel of the relationships between characters holds the reader at arm’s length. Possibly, very possibly, this is an accurate and faithful rendering of typical relationships between people in Japan. Of course, the sense of distance could partly be down to the translation too, for example, when Saturo first calls Takako by phone, he is shouting down the line, so Takako responds,

I rushed to hold the phone away from my ear (p7).

‘Rushed’ is an odd choice of word here, ‘hastily held’, or even ‘hurried to hold’ may read more smoothly. But perhaps these are not failings of translation, but intentional, to render the text non-Western, non-English in texture, to give it that unfamiliarity, even if translated.

 As a non-Japanese reader, I found the local details charming, it is a very ‘sited’ book, carefully placed, even embedded, into its locales. The Morisake bookshop is quaint and lovable, crammed and musty and a book lover’s haunt; the mountain shrine is described with all its serenity and awe-inducing effect. It is not difficult to like this book, a most pleasant read, but I still wonder why it has so captured the imaginations of so many, because it is a quiet enough novel, even commonplaced in the stories it holds, gentle, unassuming, nicely developed and constructed, perfectly pleasant, but hardly life changing or earth shaking. That said, I will cheerfully read its sequel and watch the hit Japanese movie based on it too!