The Tale of Genji

The world’s first novel?

what I’m reading at the moment…

 Indeed The Tale of Genji [jap. Genji Monogatari 源氏物語] is considered to be the world's first ever written novel. It originates in the Japan of the Heian period and was written by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu. It is still highly praised and one of the most important pieces of japanese literature. Over the centuries it eventually found its way on to western bookshelves and has ever since inspired many readers. The complexity of the characters involved in the life of "Genji the Shining Prince"[the protagonist of the story] has left a lot of readers utterly blank, if asked to 'briefly retell' the tale. That is why I chose to reach out to a "Readers's Guide" for assistance of understanding this challenging book. 

Today I’ll be talking about the translations of this very special book.

After I’ve battled the approximately 800 pages, I will make sure to update on the content and give a review. I’m reading other books as „sidekicks“, because the english is kind of difficult and there’s a lot of cultural and historical background knowledge required, which means a lot of research while reading.  I'll need a break once in a while. Something easy to relax my mind again and step back from the story to fully understand the content. So it might take a while until the promised review. [In the mean time I will of course keep updating you guys about the other stuff I'm doing. :-) ]

Until then, I hope you’ll enjoy today’s post:

more than just one…

Several attempts were made to translate the famous work of Murasaki Shikibu.

The thing about the Japanese of the Heian period, in which the „Tale of Genji“ was written, is, that it is very different from the Japanese nowadays. The biggest problem here is the variety of meanings of the used Kanji characters! Not only does Japanese use rather a whole lot of Kanji, the meaning of a lot of them has also changed over the past centuries. Some Kanjis, for example, had a completely different meaning during the Heian period, than these Kanjis have today! Others are not even used anymore. That makes it rather difficult to find exactly the meaning, Murasaki Shikibu had in mind, while writing her novel. It’s one of the reasons that makes  reading this highly complex story even hard for native speakers. Not to mention translating it „the right way“.

To help you understand this battle of translation, I’ll have to go a little more into detail:

Kanjis were originally adapted from the Chinese writing. Where as in China everything is expressed/written with these characters, in Japanese there are also the two Kana tables [Hiragana and Katakana, which are both syllabaries], to specify the way of writing a little more. Written Japanese is therefore a mixture of three different kinds of writing. 

Back to the adapted chinese characters: Each Kanji has a meaning for itself and can stand on its own. It’s very common for a kanji to have several meanings. Especially when combining them, the way the Kanjis  are read varies rather srtongly. Though there is a formula to study, it can still be confusing for foreigners. As I am myself only just beginning to understand, yet alone study, Kanji, I unfortunately won’t be able to give you concrete examples. But this is how far my knowledge goes:

When a Kanji is connected with another Kanji, the meanings of the connected Kanjis, create a new meaning. To speak in mathematics:

„A plus B equals C“ 

[Something plus Something creates Something else/Something new…]

For my german readers: you could compare this to the freedom of combining german nouns. Putting two or more nouns together, connects their meaning with eachother and creates a new meaning-> A new word is formed!

So to be able to read a Kanji properly you not only have to study how it’s read out loud when standing on its own, you also have to memorize how it is pronounced/read, when connected with other Kanjis. And to get even more complex: with each combination, the Kanji you’ve studied, is most likely to change its pronunciation, yet again. So to to say: how to read a Kanji correctly depends on (1.) wether it is standing alone or (2.) with what other Kanji it is connected.

Due to the fact that the reading of Kanjis is so complex, the characters themselves are often redescribed, with little Hiragana signs standing next to or above the actual kanji character, to indicate the correct pronounciation. You will find these „reading helpers“ in japanese books, as well as in magazines, the newspapers, at public explanation signs, at school and so on….

There are more than 50. 000 Kanji! [But the majority of them is no longer used!] The japanese "Ministry of Education" came to the conclusion that about 2.000 kanji are necessary for everyday-life. Therefore the media [TV, newspapers, most of the books, excluded are scientific works, public speeches, etc.] work with these Kanji. However, the average educated Japanese knows about 5.000 Kanji [at least passively].

So to tap it of, as if it wouldn’t be confusing enough already, for foreigners to translate modern japanese texts, the translators of ancient japanese literature, also have to cope with the problem of finding the „ancient“ meaning, or „the meaning the author of the literary work meant“ before being able to look for a matching word for their translation. In many cases it is hardly or not possible at all to track down the exact „old“ meaning of a certain Kanji. This makes the author improvise which translation is, in his or her opinion, closest to the original. That makes the translation itself a very subjective piece of work, because obviously certain things are understood differently of certain people. So with translated japanese literature, there is hardly ever only one right translation, but a combination of several translations that, considered together,  get quite close to the original. Reading the stories in Japanese it’s the same way: the „real“ original can only be read by the author himself. 

I hope you've enjoyed my going-on about literature :-D.

XOXO Avria