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| Tokyo Central: A Memoir (Mclellan Book) | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 2 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1250549
Category: Book
Author: Edward Seidensticker
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Studio: University of Washington Press
Manufacturer: University of Washington Press
Label: University of Washington Press
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 250
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0295981342
Dewey Decimal Number: 895.609
EAN: 9780295981345
ASIN: 0295981342
Publication Date: February 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Edward Seidensticker's translations have introduced two generations of English-language audiences to the masterpieces of classical and modern Japanese literature. His patient rendering of novels ranging from the eleventh-century Tale of Genji to works of such modern masters as Junichiro Tanizaki, Yukio Mishima, and Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata has earned him the National Book Award as well as the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan's highest honour for foreigners. In this colourful, sometimes prickly, memoir, Seidensticker tells of his introduction to Japan at the Navy Japanese Language School in 1942, at the age of 21. He recounts his formative experiences as a young diplomat during the Occupation, his early impressions of the Japanese literary scene and its stormy PEN session meetings, his encounters with American luminaries such as Arthur Koestler and Edwin Reischauer, and his gradual immersion in Tokyo life. He offers vivid glimpses of Japan's intellectual and political elite as it moved from the ashes of World War II through Cold War political storms in the 1950s and 1960s, when strikes and radical politics abounded, through the 1970s, when the nation's strategic and cultural alliances hardened with the United States and Europe and Japanese politics turned decisively more conservative. Tokyo Central illuminates the translator's challenge in approaching classical and modern Japanese culture, and gives singular insight into the writing and personalities of many leading Japanese novelists.
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| Customer Reviews:
Memoirs of a Japanologist January 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
From time to time, I will provide a little review of books relating to Japan. I got the idea from the Asian Bookshelf in the Japan Times. One of my favorite gaijin authors, Donald Richie, writes a book review each week for J.T. Right now I have over 206 books on Japanese history, language, and culture, and one day I will get around to writing reviews for each one. Enough of my boring introduction, on with the review.
Tokyo Central: A Memoir by Edward Seidensticker
One day, when I was teaching Conversational English to a mixed-bag collection of students at the Nova school in Toyonaka, I happened to pass by the bookstore and went in. I bought a copy of Kansai Time Out and saw that Edward Seidensticker would be at Doshisha University in Kyoto. It would be on a day that I had to work. So, I pretended to be sick that Monday and actually did call in sick that Wednesday just to see him.
I arrived at the college and just walked into an empty auditorium because I had arrived several hours early. No one came until just before the start. Then suddenly I must have fallen asleep because just a moment ago the whole place was empty and now was full. I looked around and it was mostly women. I later learned that Doshisha is a womans' university. Anyway, Edward Seidensticker appeared on stage, with two extremely cute nurses, and talked about the difficulties in translating. He spoke the most about translating The Tale of Genji and spending almost an entire decade on it. I listened and afterwards got his autograph.
Now it has been a few years, since I met him at the autograph session, and I saw his book about his life as a translator and had to get it.
In Tokyo Central, Seidensticker talks about growing up in Colorado, studying at the Navy's Japanese Language School, where Donald Keene once studied, and finally his first year in Tokyo as a "Scholar-Diplomat" like Sir George Sansom.
He didn't really take to diplomat life so he started teaching and translating great works of Japanese literature. The book really shines in his thoughts on such great modern writers such as Tanazaki Junichiro and Kawabata Yasunari. I was amazed and envious to learn that he was taken out to expensives dinners by both men.
Seidensticker is never boring and his writing sucks you into that time in his life that you are reading. The 244 pages seem to go by quickly; yet despite the small pages, it is the weight of ideas and compression of 80-years of his life that causes you to think and reflect on what has happened to Tokyo before and what is going on now.
Here is a remarkable story of someone who didn't set out to be a translator and how ended up sharing the stage with Kawabata Yasunari recieving the Nobel Prize
A good quick read for the summer and highly recommended to anyone interested in Tokyo history and the life of a engaging academic who is never boring.
Perspective on the Great Translator December 23, 2004
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Somehow I wound up reading the memoirs of Genji's translator before tackling Genji itself. Perhaps that alone is testament to the clear and interestling writing style of Seidensticker himself, one of the great observers of Japanese culture.
The story is much more than just about Tokyo, though. It starts in Colorado, weaves through his introduction to Japanese language through the US military in WW2, and only then hits his life in post-WW2 Japan during the reconstruction. It covers his introduction to Japanese fiction, as well as his translation. Finally, the book wraps up with his return to US, and introduction to academia.
The book reads rather well for the first biographical (autobiographical at that) work of a translator. Although Seidensticker made his name in translations, we also learn of his attempts at fiction and other writing.
Perhaps one complaint is repetitive word usage. For instance, the word "eminent" is very overused for such an "eminent" translator. I'd expect better. But that is not nearly enough to stop anyone from reading these memoirs.
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