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The poem near the end is a translation of the first part of Rilke’s Requiem for a Friend, written in 1908. You can read an English translation of the full thing here; the part the book quotes is
I have my dead and I have let them go
and was amazed to see them so contented,
so at home in being dead, so cheerful,
so unlike their reputation. Only you
return; brush past me, loiter, try to knock
against something, so that the sound reveals
your presence. Oh don’t take from me what I
am slowly learning. I’m sure you have gone astray
if you are moved to homesickness for anything
in this dimension. We transform these Things;
they aren’t real, they are only the reflections
upon the polished surface of our being.
ICH habe Tote, und ich ließ sie hin
und war erstaunt, sie so getrost zu sehn,
so rasch zuhaus im Totsein, so gerecht,
so anders als ihr Ruf. Nur du, du kehrst
zurück; du streifst mich, du gehst um, du willst
an etwas stoßen, daß es klingt von dir
und dich verrät. O nimm mir nicht, was ich
langsam erlern. Ich habe recht; du irrst
wenn du gerührt zu irgend einem Ding
ein Heimweh hast. Wir wandeln dieses um;
es ist nicht hier, wir spiegeln es herein
aus unserm Sein, sobald wir es erkennen.
Thanks for sharing - the poem was definitely not an easy read. Was surprised to see the ゐ there (which I guess is expected from an older poem), but it definitely didn’t make it easier to understand.
Anyway, last week.. for those who finished, any thoughts to share? Be it from a more technical side (how was the difficulty of the book, or what did you think of it from a literary point of view) or from a more emotional side (how do you feel after finishing? Which parts did you like/dislike the most, or which sort of feelings rose up while reading?)
First of all, it wasn’t as hard as I anticipated. After getting used to the author’s style, it’s quite possible to read long passages with nature descriptions. From an emotional point of view, well… I turned my emotions off. I didn’t want to suffer with the characters. From the very beginning, it’s clear that there is no happy end to this story, and I didn’t want to be swallowed by despair. There is so much unspoken sadness, it’s too difficult to process.
I think that at this point in my life I am unable to deeply experience such books. It’s funny though, because I loved reading Dostoevsky, and his works are very depressive. Overall, it was an interesting experience, but I wouldn’t choose similar books in the foreseeable future.
I did find it a worthwhile read; it was also good to stretch myself a bit with something with language complicated enough to need some thought while reading. Some parts of it felt to me as if the author were trying very hard to convince himself that they had been happy together even through the difficult times of her getting gradually worse, trying to find something to balance out the death even a little bit. I don’t know if he convinced himself, but I don’t think he really convinced me.
Something I noticed from the timeline of the author’s life at the back of my edition of the book is that it wasn’t originally published all at once or in the final order. First in December 1936 he published the 序曲 and 風立ちぬ sections; then in January 1937 the 冬 section and in March the 春 section (which in the final book is earlier, just after the 序曲). And the last 死の影の谷 section wasn’t published until March 1938.
His real life stay at the sanatorium was a little shorter than that of the narrator in the novel, but otherwise the timelines are very similar: he got engaged to his fiancee in September 1934, they went to the sanatorium in July 1935, and she died in December 1935. (In the novel they arrive at the sanatorium in late April.) So this was written indeed only a year after she died, and the whole experience must have been still very raw for him.
Also, his mother died in the 1923 Kantou earthquake, when he was 19, and he was only 48 when he died himself, in 1953. That seems like an unfairly large share of tragedy for one life to me.
I read it twice since January. On a purely linguist point of view, it was difficult, but as @pm215 said, reading outside of your comfort zone is always good, and the feeling of achieving something new is really nice. For me the real difficulty was not so much in the long nature descriptions, but in some convoluted reflexions with nested clauses. Will I read the other 4 stories in the book ? Maybe…
I find it a half-emotional read. Worthwhile or not, I am not sure, but it’s worthwhile to read something challenging once in a while. The somewhat emotional part made it more worthwhile to read.
Difficult from linguistic point of view, indeed, and I ended up not liking Kindle Android app, comparing to Bookwalker prose reader (except for 50 highlight limit, which I don’t reach this time). – Maybe it’s about paper color and font (not the same beige paper and font too soft); or maybe about Bing Translate not as good as Google Translate, and not suggesting Kana readings. Dictionary maybe helpful, JJ good, but not enough by reading choice and no scroll, and no de-conj anyway…
Obsolete Kana was prepped by the previous Aozora advent in Natively (by pm215) ゐ. I guessed ヰ from some possible word – but I can’t actually find the actual reference or English/German title, until I looked at the second post.
Maybe I can read more on the same theme, but maybe try a different author. Also maybe other historical works.
Mmm… have you considered converting Kindle books to epub and using ttsu reader in a browser instead, on Android?
It has multiple options for customizing page and text, gives access to Yomitan, Google Translate, Deepl Translate, whatever other browser-based tools you might want.
Preparing for conversion takes a bit (not too long or overly complicated) but it’s more or less a one-and-done setup, after that it’s all streamlined and quick.
Oh okay, I don’t think ttsu has highlighting, at least I’ve not seen an option. No automatic sync either, although it has some import/export functionality for stats, I believe - haven’t tried to use this, as I only read on one device.
Weeell… I’m of the opinion that once you’ve paid for a book (or a film, or a game, or whatever), it is yours to do with as you please
Speaking of Aozora: did you read this one using the free older ebook (Aozora?), or the newer “revised” one?
I see the newer one only has a “fake” L30?? level ranking on Natively - I wonder if it’s just a matter of formatting fixes or also content updates to make it an easier read…
Interesting to read the similarities between everyone’s response. I also agree that it was quite an interesting literary challenge for me (as the hardest Japanese book I’ve read so far), but it is definitely not something I’d pick up to read in English. Maybe because I was focusing on the learning aspect, I tried to zone out from actually empathizing with the story in parts, because I really don’t enjoy tragedy (especially based on realism) as a genre. I guess it’s a sort of ‘protection’ mechanism of myself to not get so deeply lost in the sadness of the story.
About a month late after taking a month off from this book but I’m finally done. Mostly I agree with everyone else about the difficulty level. It was definitely the hardest thing I’ve read so far, but large swathes of it felt not so bad. It was just when I did get lost, trying to go back and decipher the incredibly long sentences became long and difficult. The amount of old kanji-forms etc which I’d never or hardly never been exposed to were incredibly helpful, along with some of the grammar. It was definitely something I enjoyed being able to read, and to be fair, I think I would have liked to read it in English too. The last chapter 死のかげの谷 was quite moving in how his feelings came across, and I really appreciated little bits like the interactions with the 神父 and his constant walking, walking, walking. The poem admittedly mostly went over my head until I read pm’s useful info about it.
I definitely think this is a book to come back to over time, when my level is a bit better, to reapproach it again more completely. I really enjoyed it, though, and I never would have read it without this club, so thanks to everyone for joining, @snowwater for hosting etc.
Maybe in a few months I can get back to some “proper” literature like this, and try my hand at 雪国…
