Nick Bradley Four Seasons in Japan

 

This is a very well-conceived and structured book; it kept my attention throughout. Flo Dunthorpe living in Japan decides to translate an obscure though modern Japanese novel titled Sound of Water by Hibiki and pitches her material to a US publisher before she has completed the translation and before she tries to contact author and publisher for permission. The novel comprises her completed translation divided into sections each representing one of the four seasons. Sandwiched between and within sections are third person accounts of Flo’s troubled life, parts of which parallel the troubled lives of the main characters of the Japanese novel. A late section narrates the search to identify and find the reclusive author.

As I began reading I felt that the prose had been constructed deliberately to suggest a first draft (literal) translation of the novel; the prose was rather stilted and didn’t flow or transition easily - things which a re-draft would correct. But maybe it was meant to suggest something about Japanese formality and if so I think it succeeded.  However, I encountered prose choices which caused me unease

Flo Dunthorpe signs off in “Tokyo 2023” and the Hibiki novel appears to be set sometime after 1990 since the characters have smartphones; the Japanese LINE messaging app they are using dates from 2011. But the register of the novel often suggests an earlier period and even then some of the exclamations and idioms which characters use feel awkward. Some examples relating just to one of the three or four main characters, Ayako, the elderly and strict grandmother:.

“Put that blasted thing away …” said Ayako in reaction to her grandson consulting a Weather App. (p 118)

“Usually she [Ayako] would’ve made a cup of coffee for herself and sat down next to Sato for a decent chinwag” (p 125)

“Those were the kinds of stories Ayako used to like to overhear and snicker about …. Telling her the juicy news she so desperately wanted to hear” (p 223)

“Oh wow” said Ayako, in surprise (p 255)

“I kept going. I never gave up…. I was discovered by some Mountain Rescue guys who whisked me off to hospital” (p 267)

It suggests an author who is a non-native speaker who is looking online for idioms (a mixture of American and English ones) and not quite getting it right either for time or place.

I have other minor niggles; Nick Bradley uses “must’ve” and “would’ve” in authorial prose – see the example from page 125 above. I can’t remember the last time I saw ‘em used. They stick out.