Forum - View topicREVIEW: Legend of the Galactic Heroes Novel 1
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Marzan
 Posts: 515 |
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It surprises me that Kizumonogatari's awkward prose style was lauded on this page some weeks back while Legend's writing is criticized. I dowonder how much of the stiff prose is down to the translation?
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Themaster20000
 Posts: 863 |
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Am enjoying it so far,but I agree with it being overwritten at points.Not sure if's the translation or the author's inexperience as a writer at this point
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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When it comes to novel translation the correct answer is usually "both". Most japanese writing is stilted like this, due to the nature of written Japanese itself being inherently more formal than spoken Japanese. So yes, the original prose is awkward and stilted, but that doesn't mean it feels like that to a native Japanese speaker... They view that kind of thing more like a "literary" feeling, it's not a bad thing necessarily. But what usually happens is that the translator and editor hews too close to the original prose and the english ends up with this awkward or stilted feelings. The translator could rewrite a lot of the book, and would inevitably change a lot of the prose to something more original to the translator. Translations of high profile novels like Murakami's novels will usually create their own prose style in the native language... creating something that's partially new. But to do that well requires a translator and/or editor with actual writing chops and large self confidence in their own abilities. It's much easier to just translate the text as it is written, sentence by sentence, instead of essentially rewriting the novel in your own language. |
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Parsifal24
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I pre-ordered my copy but it's tied up with my The Irregular at Magic High School, Vol. 1 and My Monster Secret Vol. 2 pre-order so I won't be getting it till late April.
I look forward to reading it I don't mind overly blunt or ungraceful prose if it gets the message across one can be overly obsessed with abstract visual symbolism in prose fiction. Or not have a guided narrative structure. Still haveing only read a brief preview of the novel I have liked what I've read so far. |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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Tanaka has already had a bunch of novels and short stories under his belt when he started LoGH, so no inexperience there.
I don't think the original is awkward or stilted, not at all. It's dry, sure, but it's a choice on the author's part (and partly his usual style, as can be seen from his other works). I'm not saying it's perfect, it can get a bit weird in a "well, these paragraphs describing how beautiful Reinhard is in great flowery detail were certainly unexpected and kind of stick out from the rest of the prose" way, every now and then, but I definitely disagree that it's overall stilted or awkward. Also, I very much disagree that most Japanese literature is stilted and awkward. I mean, sorry if I misunderstand but to me what you wrote sounded as "English literary traditions are the standard, if something is not like what we have in English it's automatically inferior." Japanese writing has different literary traditions than English, that's all. If you start reading a novel in Japanese and expect it to follow the same conventions as English then sure maybe you'll be a bit surprised, but on the other hand if you do read a novel in Japanese then you should already be aware that it's not the same language, not the same culture and not the same conventions. I agree with the rest of your comment, though. These novels require translators who can find their own voices based on the original novel's style, and basically rewrite the story in their own language, instead of trying to reproduce the original. (I tend to think of translating these texts as being similar to writing dubs, insofar as with dubs it's usually impossible to stick close to the original lines due to various constraints, so the only thing the translator can do is rewriting them in a way that best resembles to how the lines would sound if they were originally in the target language.) Anyway, I'm sad that the translation is not as good as it could've been, but regardless I've ordered my copy to support the release of the rest of the series. |
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merr
Posts: 470 |
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The clunky translation means I'll pass. Viz should have let Alexander O. Smith handle this one.
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danpmss
 Posts: 766 |
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^What this guy just said. I came here as a japanese edition reader myself to say the same thing. This translation is weak and it feels repetitive at times (the author's prose is almost purple at some points, but fairly well written and justified even then). For a proper translation of Tanaka's novels, one might have a well-rounded nice vocabulary in both languages and make a usage of better synonyms/phrase elaboration (those who also study linguistics would agree with me on that) for some parts. But this is Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu, so I will buy everything without remorse. I just hope they start to do some polishing in their text before completing the translation next time around. Break a leg, fellow translators, you can do this! |
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russ869
Posts: 422 |
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Ah yes... Oberstein. That's actually one of my favorite scenes from the anime. Obviously not because it's well written, but because it's totally ridiculous.
Regardless of any translation issue... Just judging by their anime adaptations (since I haven't read either book), I will say I definitely perfer NisiOisiN's prose to Yoshiki Tanaka's. Just by nature of the fact that while Tanaka is writing in an epic style almost like a history book, NisiOisiN tends to focus primarily on dialogue, bizarre non-sequitur philosophical conversation, and meta-conversation (i.e. conversation about the conversation taking place). NisiOisiN also has a way of putting into words things that you never really heard described before but sort of instinctively know exactly what he means. I've experienced a similar thing while reading Chuck Palahniuk (although I certainly wouldn't say the 2 are at all related). |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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Yes, I hope they'll pay attention to the reader feedback. A bit of extra attention wouldn't hurt, especially since I read elsewhere that there are some rather embarrassing typos as well.
I have a feeling you and the reviewer both misunderstood what that scene is about. It's a ridiculously audacious move from Oberstein, and that's exactly the reason why he's doing it, and that's part of why Reinhard finds him impressive enough to consider dealing with him. |
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Deacon Blues
Posts: 386 Location: Albuquerque, NM |
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In defense of the translation (as a translator), readers need to keep in mind that finding a voice for a particular work right out of the starting gate often times isn't as easy as it looks. I'd say give it another volume or two to see how things go. That'll be the next test.
But, part of this "translation" critique (as most do) falls apart because many people attempt to critique it just based on how it reads in their native language. Just because it sounds awkward to one person doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense to another. If you honestly want to compare the two, cite a paragraph and then translate it yourself with how you think it should read and then cite the official translation as well and begin the commentary there. But also, we don't know if this was an unpolished version the editing department passed along. Many times with freelance work (at least from what I've heard from people working with TokyoPop back in the day) is that they'd just forego any sort of editing department run through and just start slapping translations into the bubbles, which is how we ended up with a lot of honorific-laden manga out there... |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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Oberstein's scene isn't bad like that. He essentially ran away from the battlefield (and lived because he knew it was lost. His only hope of not losing all rank and privilege was to get someone powerful to take him in. Either he loses everything by not going, goes and is rejected and loses everything, or bluntly states the truth and has a chance to get saved, and perhaps used in a userful manner. He could just be playing a bad hand of cards the best he can. People worry and fret about being unable to read him through the series. Everything about Oberstein is so interesting.
Frankly Oberstein is like Tyrion from Game of Thrones, but without the snarky 'we like the underdog' angle he is presented from. |
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Ali07
 Posts: 3333 Location: Victoria, Australia |
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Kind of disappointing to hear that the translation of a series that is only guaranteed 3 volumes isn't the best...I'm holding out due to not knowing how much of this 10 volume series is going to be released. But, knowing that the translation may not be the best read, makes me wonder if it will end up turning people away.
Add to that, I've already seen a review that only harps on about the treatment of women in this novel. They don't even take into consideration of the when and where the original was written, they just wanted to harp on about one thing. |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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You're agreeing with me. When I said that it's awkward and stilted I meant that in the context of "if it were written in the same manner in english it would be awkward and stilted to an english speaker". But like the second half of the sentence said, "but that doesn't mean it feels like that to a native Japanese speaker... " An interesting argument could be made though that the traditional Japanese novel writing style being a bit harder to read on average than the typical english novel writing style has contributed to the popularity of manga and the rise of "light novels" written in a more dialog-based manner in the Japanese market. But that's a bigger question. |
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nargun
Posts: 925 |
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I suspect it's actually cribbing the prose style of Karl Marx. [I can't believe I only just realised this. "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please": LoGH is heavily informed by marxist historigraphical approaches.] |
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MrBonk
Posts: 192 |
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I don't feel the example given as "Labored" was labored at all.
Plus, you really have to give these books a bit of an extra level of leeway considering the time period they originate from. The translation might need to be better. But, still the resultant writing is still leagues better than something like Star Wars Aftermath. Which has a decent story, set of characters, view of the state of the universe. Underneath the incredibly terrible prose, writing and out of place jokes. |
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