Over the past 100 years the two most important books in English -- Joyce's Ulysses apart -- have arguably been translations. Of each of these works there are multiple translated versions; but for each, one translation stands out.
One of these is Scott Moncrieff's Proust, the first volume of which was published a century ago, in 1922. The other is Arthur Waley's great translation from 1925-33 of the thousand year old 'psychological novel' by Murasaki Shikibu, Genji Monogatari.
Despite some criticism for his free handling of the work, Waley's translation is a great recreation of Murasaki's life of 'Shining Genji', the Kyoto Heian period prince. The work itself feels amazingly 'modern', being event driven, and not dependent on plot. It also contains an amazingly vivid picture of aristocratic life in Heian-jidai: the painting competitions, the gardens, and above all the poetry of the period.
Genji also contains a vivid description of why literature itself arises. Speaking to his ward Tamakatsura, who has been reading widely, Genji remarks:
"But I have a theory of my own about what this art of the novel is, and how it came into being. To begin with, it does not simply consist in the author’s telling a story about the adventures of some other person. On the contrary, it happens because the storyteller’s own experience of men and things, whether for good or ill―not only what he has passed through himself, but even events which he has only witnessed or been told of―has moved him to an emotion so passionate that he can no longer keep it shut up in his heart. Again and again something in his own life or in that around him will seem to the writer so important that he cannot bear to let it pass into oblivion. There must never come a time, he feels, when men do not know about it."
We can be assured that this time will never come for the Kyoto period known as the Heian!
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Top reviews from other countries
Madame M de C
A fascinating and beautifully written translation.
Reviewed in France on September 5, 2020
