Chapter 5, “The Prose of Criticism,” and Chapter 6, “The Prose of Translation,” together run to about 9,000 characters, short within this book. But Mishima’s view of prose shows clearly in them. (English renderings of the quotations are ToL translations. Page numbers follow the edition described in the overview article.)
Chapter 5: the prose of criticism
Criticism too is a work of art
Mishima says that not only drama, fiction, and poetry, but criticism too can be a fine work of art. Whether criticism is a work of art is a question outside what a Bunshō Tokuhon deals with, he says, only pointing to Oscar Wilde’s essay. He says he finds it harder to read badly written criticism than badly written fiction. And he says that terrible abuse written in a magnificent style pleases him more than reading a poor novel (p. 109–110).
The “logic” of Japanese
Here Mishima sees the difficulty of critical prose in “the thinness of logic in Japanese.” The modern critic who wrote the most magnificent critical prose, Mishima says, was Paul Valéry. Using the lucidity of French while adding the ornament of affectation, he accomplished in style a synthesis of the cool intellect and the graceful society person, he judges (p. 110–111).
Japanese critics, by contrast, Mishima says, have tasted deep intellectual solitude through the illogical nature of Japanese and the poverty of their subject matter (p. 111).
Kobayashi Hideo and Nakamura Mitsuo
As one who broke that solitude, Mishima names Kobayashi Hideo. Logical like Valéry, yet with a strength of clinging to the sensory mode of thought of the Japanese tradition, he says (p. 111).
Next he names Nakamura Mitsuo. Nakamura cast off Kobayashi’s submission to Japanese, and while excluding the Japanese pattern of thought, made a strictly logical style, Mishima says.
氏が有名な「です口調」を使い出したのは、私には普通口語文のともすると陥りがちな日本的感性から身をそらし、現代の口語文の一種の有機性に背反し、無機的な文体を作ろうとした結果だと思われます。（p.112）
(That he began to use his well-known “desu tone” seems to me the result of trying to turn away from the Japanese sensibility that ordinary spoken-language prose easily falls into, to go against a kind of organic quality of modern spoken prose, and to make an inorganic style.)
And he judges that in that logical style the fine threads of sensibility are skillfully woven in from behind, yet the sensibility never pushes logic aside and spills over.
いつもかならず感受性が論理の侍女になるように躾けられています。（p.112）
(It is always trained so that sensibility becomes the handmaid of logic.)
Mishima says it is “a strange phenomenon” that such a stoic style is seldom seen in the modern novel and is found instead in the realm of criticism.
Chapter 6: the prose of translation
The recognition that there are no “famous translations”
Chapter 6 begins from the fact that Japanese literature has begun to be translated abroad. Works of Tanizaki Jun’ichirō and Kawabata Yasunari, and Ōoka Shōhei’s Nobi (Fires on the Plain), have been translated into English. But of Japanese literature translated into foreign languages by Japanese, Mishima says, there are almost no famous translations (p. 116).
On the Japanese side, on the other hand, from Futabatei Shimei’s time a curious literal “translationese” spread and the quality of translated prose deteriorated. But translations excellent both linguistically and literarily were made, translated prose and Japanese fused, and today translationese has entered Japanese prose itself, Mishima says (p. 116–117).
Foreign publishers dislike footnotes
From his own experience, Mishima says, he learned that foreign publishers and readers value the beauty of the translation as English. In Japan, translated fiction is given solemn footnotes. Foreign publishers dislike footnotes in novels. To make readers understand without footnotes is the translator’s skill and courtesy, they hold (p. 117–118).
Two attitudes
Mishima sees two contrasting attitudes to translation (p. 118–120).
- The translation of a strongly individual writer — transferring love for the original author, dyed in one’s own individual color, so that it is as though it were one’s own work. Ōgai, Hinatsu Kōnosuke, Jinzai Kiyoshi, Saitō Isoo, and others are given as examples.
- The orthodox translation — a conscientious linguist’s translation that tries to reproduce, as far as possible in Japanese, the atmosphere of the original. Sugi Toshio’s translation of Mérimée is given as an example.
As the standard for choosing between the two, Mishima says: a translation that stands abreast of Japanese literature, that one could bring out without oddity as a treasure of Japanese literature, is a fine translation.
The cultivation to read translated prose
Mishima’s words to readers are severe. If a translation is hard to understand or poorly written, throwing it away at once is courtesy to the original author, he says. And there is no such foolishness as “I can’t criticize a translation because I don’t know the language.” Translated prose is, after all, Japanese and Japanese prose.
翻訳は八分の功績と二分の害悪がある薬品のようなものであって、（p.122）
(Translation is like a medicine with eight parts merit and two parts harm,)
Mishima gives examples of the harm done by translators’ arbitrariness: Rilke introduced sentimentally, Gide lyrically, Storm and other Romantics as reading for girls. At the same time he stresses, as in the introduction, how much the richness of modern Japanese owes to translation (p. 122).
What to keep in mind when reading
First, Mishima’s view that “Japanese is thin in logic” is the impression of one writer in 1959. General linguistics is cautious about the view that one language is more logical than another. In reading this chapter’s assessments of critics (Kobayashi, Nakamura), too, it is worth distinguishing that it is Mishima’s view.
Second, the situation around translation has changed since then. Translation from Japanese into foreign languages, of which Mishima said there were “almost no famous translations,” has greatly increased since. In this article we have not checked the later situation.
Third, these two chapters show the attitude Mishima asks of readers. The attitude that one needs no specialist knowledge to savor prose, that one should distinguish good prose from bad by one’s own judgment, connects with the “attentive reader” of Chapter 1.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Criticism | Criticism can be a work of art. The thinness of logic in Japanese is the difficulty of critical prose |
| Style of criticism | Valéry, Kobayashi Hideo, Nakamura Mitsuo. A style where sensibility is the handmaid of logic |
| Standard for translation | Does the translation stand abreast of Japanese literature? |
| Two attitudes | The individual translation / the orthodox translation |
| To readers | You can judge a translation without the language. Throw away bad ones |
In a nutshell — Mishima asked of criticism a sensibility that serves logic, and of translation a beauty that can be read as Japanese, and in both trusted the reader’s own power of judgment.