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Title: Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (Classics S.) by Basho Matsuo ISBN: 0-14-044185-9 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1967 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Enjoyable.
Comment: A book with five autobiographical travels, three of them being his expectant last journey of life, with required farwell party etc., of Basho with haiku injected by the author, his traveling companions, or persons met along the way. It was quite an interesting read on culture and the way of life in Japan during Basho's day. The book was satisfying and interesting as a travel journal and for a taste of Bashofs personality and of the cultural mores of Japanese feudal society. A sense of the Japanese appreciation of nature and of symbols in nature was also conveyed. Haiku seems to embody something beyond words, natural symbols that we observe everyday captured; a sometimes great ineffable meaning in the mundane.
Some of the poetry was good, as far as the translation communicated, however quite a lot also seemed lost in translation that might have been expounded upon. Yuasa Noboyuki, the translator, and writer of the forward, might have done better by talking about these difficulties and that might have brought some light to many of the haikus. The translating haiku with all of the original sense is almost impossible, so I have been told. I also have been told that Ezra Pound expounded, someplace, on just how impossible translating haiku into English is. Noboyuki might have done better to expound on his difficulties translating Japanese haiku into English and his futile attempts to convey the totality of the haiku, which could have raised the vibrancy of some of them; it was vague effort that he included in talking about this aspect.
The poems were charming, as were the autobiographical travel stories of Basho. A good read.
Rating: 4
Summary: Wonderful Material, Questionable Translation
Comment: Tension. We all feel it, though for many different reasons. Sometimes it's as if we're caught between two worlds, being pulled in different directions by different aspects of our lives, of our selves. Basho felt it, too, I think, which was one of the reasons he took to the road, leaving hearth and home for weeks, even months at a time, travelling around Japan in search of history, beauty, poetry, and himself.
As a travel narrative the book excels, describing, as Basho himself states, all the unique and arresting things he has encountered while omitting a bland historic report of every person and place he saw. The result is a dreamlike narrative, bouncing from rainy nights spent in temples to the solitude of a moonlit beach. He never sacrifices clarity for style, though. In fact, the raw, physical immediacy of his poetry is what struck me most my first time (and so far only) time through. The prose, too, is excellent, conveying his thoughts on art, his musings on Buddhism, and describing scenes with nearly as much flavor as the poetry.
My one problem with this text has more to do with the translation. I am not an expert on the Japanese language, but some of the terms employed seem a little loaded to an English reader, making me wonder whether Basho really meant some of the implications of the English words. In addition, as other reviewers have noted, the poems lose a lot in translation, including much of what makes haiku such an interesting form.
Granted, these are problems with any translation of poetry, but I still feel unsatisfied with this translation in a way I am not with other translations from Japanese. Perhaps it is a problem with the translation, or perhaps I find Basho so amazing that I just want his text to shine completely unhindered by the problems of my language.
Rating: 1
Summary: bad translation
Comment: I read the sample review of the book on the web.
The translation of the Haiku is Wrong in the highest degree and completely fails to convey the original spirit, often even reversing the original meaning.
Try Robert Aitken's "A Zen Wave" instead, if you want to get into Basho's spirit.
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Title: The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon by Sei Shonagon, Ivan Morris, Ivan I. Morris ISBN: 0231073372 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1991 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: Narrow Road to the Interior: And Other Writings (Shambhala Classics) by Matsuo Basho, Sam Hamill ISBN: 1570627169 Publisher: Shambhala Publications Pub. Date: 12 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Essays in Idleness by Kenko ISBN: 0231112556 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: World of Zen by Nancy Wilson Ross ISBN: 0394703014 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 September, 1964 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Chushingura by Donald Keene ISBN: 0231035314 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.50 |
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