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Topic: Wildly Different Versions of Genji?

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Rick B. (bup) - ,

Subject: Wildly Different Versions of Genji?

Date Posted: 4/18/2008 11:56 AM ET
Member Since: 11/2/2007
Posts: 2,625
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Among all the versions of The Tale of Genji ( http://www.paperbackswap.com/book/browse_advanced.php?k=genji ), the page lengths vary from ~200 pp to over 1,000!

I understand they're different translators, but does anybody have a better explanation than that? Is anybody familar with particular versions, and know which one(s) are good?

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Margaret H. (ExPeruanista) - ,

Date Posted: 8/10/2009 7:44 PM ET
Member Since: 1/10/2009
Posts: 332
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I'm guessing some of them are considerably abridged. I liked both the Seidensticker translation and the Arthur Waley one, though each of them seems to reflect the prose style of the time when it was translated, or maybe it's each translator's personal preference for how he thinks Japanese sentences should sound.

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Discussion Forums - Foreign-Language/World Literature

Topic: Wildly Different Versions of Genji?

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