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Spoiler Courtesy
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This week we’ll be reading and discussing Kafka’s short story 橋 (original German title “Die Brücke”, known in English as “The Bridge”). This is an ultra-short two page story and Hirano presents it with minimal introduction, so there are no spoilers this week.
(I suspect the German and English versions can probably be found on the web somewhere, but I shan’t try to link to anywhere because likely many of them would be copyright infringing…)
The German originals at least are open license since Kafka has been dead more than 70 years. They can be found for example at the Gutenberg library. I don’t know about English translations, but I’ll leave a link to the German text here.
The ending where the bridge is unable to resist turning over to see who is crossing, leading to its fall, reminded me of the Greek myth of Orpheus in the underworld, which has a similar theme of looking back leading to tragedy.
Comparative translations:
Einmal gegen Abend war es – war es der erste, war es der tausendste, ich weiß nicht
It was toward evening one day—was it the first, was it the thousandth? I cannot tell
ある日の夜のことだ―もう何度くり返してきたことだろう
The Japanese here is a bit free with the translation for my taste.
Wer war es? Ein Kind? Ein Traum? Ein Wegelagerer? Ein Selbstmörder? Ein Versucher? Ein Vernichter?
Who was it? A child? A dream? A wayfarer? A suicide? A tempter? A destroyer?
誰だろう？ 子供か、幻影か、追剥ぎか、自殺者か、誘惑者か、破壊者か？
The English has translated Wegelagerer into “wayfarer”, but a dictionary suggests that the Japanese 追剥ぎ is right and the English translation’s choice is wrong here. (“Waylayer” not being a word in English, “highwayman” or “footpad” would be closest I think.)
Hirano talks about the oddity of the bridge being first バラバラになり and nonetheless 岩の尖に刺しつらぬかれた, but this may be an artefact of the Japanese translation. The English has no such self-contradiction:
I had not yet turned quite around when I already began to fall, I fell and in a moment I was torn and transpierced by the sharp rocks
Not speaking German I don’t know which is a better rendition of the original:
Ich war noch nicht umgedreht, da stürzte ich schon, ich stürzte, und schon war ich zerrissen und aufgespießt von den zugespitzten Kieseln
The English is closer to the German I think. “Zerrissen” and “aufgespießt” happen concurrently in the original by Kafka.
And I think you’re right about the first point as well. The Japanese translation feels quite a bit more removed from the German than the English one does.
This has been my favorite of the reading sections so far since it’s self-contained.
Mid-way through reading the interpretation part I looked up the English translation to compare my understanding. I noticed how even though I understood the meaning of the Japanese words, I was able to pick up on the tone and implications much better in English.
For example, when the bridge is listing off questions about how the person will cross the bridge, in Japanese I took this as just wondering how it would go. But in English I could sense the excitement from the bridge finally having his purpose being fulfilled.
I wonder if this is because I need to put more energy into understanding Japanese, so I don’t have as much left to look into the meaning, or if this is just from practice?
Also I agree with others on the バラバラ part my first question was how it was worded in the original.
