The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike are the two major works of classical Japanese prose. The complete versions of both works are too long to be taught in one term, and this abridgement answers the need for a one-volume edition of both works suitable for use in survey courses in classical Japanese literature or world literature in translation and by the general reader daunted by the complete works. The translator has selected representative portions of the tw… More >>
Genji & Heike: Selections from The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike
I am not a historian or a scholar of ancient lituriture, I simply have a passion for Japan and it’s history. So as a reader for fun i found it very difficult to understand, I read the version published by Stanford University Press which did have some apendixes and foot notes but I found them very wieldy and not very useful. I tink it might be useful to have reverse pager notes or a short summery of each page at the top of the page, like i had seen in some Shakespear and the Odyssey. I have read brief portions of Heike Monogatari in modernized japanese and I understand the difficulties of translating into English and I think the translator did a magnificent job in keeping very close tho the original meaning. But i would also probably forgive slightlymore poetic licence in order to make it easyer to read. But as for the content of the tale itself I think it reviels alot about 12th century Japan. The Strong charictors often weeping, making extreem oaths such as promising to die in cirtan circomstances that are protrayed in the Monogatari tells about what the japanease found entertaining in that time, it reminded me some what of the charictors in Lord of the Rings by Tolken. The main theame of the comming of the latter days of the law I found very ineresting and to see the story of Japan falling from a noble society and beurocracy centered arowned the Empiror to a Warior society ruled by the Shogun was quite intesting.
Rating: 5 / 5
Recent publications have rendered Helen McCullough’s volume almost obsolete.
We now have three complete English translations of The Tale of Genji: those by Waley, Seidensticker, and Royall Tyler. (Considering accuracy and readability, I prefer the Seidensticker translation.) For those who want an abridged Genji, both the Seidensticker and Tyler translations are readily available in abridged form, and both are superior to McCullough’s abridgement in the volume under review.
Burton Watson’s new translation of the most important parts of The Tales of the Heike completely eclipses the three complete English translations (by Sadler, Kitagawa/Tsuchida, and McCullough) in readability and in incorporating a valuable bibliography, and renders McCullough’s abridgement, in the volume under review, obsolete.
In short, my recommendations are Seidensticker’s Tale of Genji, either complete or abridged (but by all means read the complete Genji if you can), and Watson’s The Tales of the Heike.
Rating: 3 / 5
I disagree with the reviewer who thought Dr. McCullough’s translation is unwieldy. I have read Waley, Seindesticker and McCullough and I only wish McCullough had printed a full version. It is difficult to present tenth century ideas in a form comprehensible to late 20th century Westerners. I think Dr. McCullough does a fantastic job, and I encourage readers to read her abridged version of the Tale before attempting the full version by any other translator. To suggest that Dr. McCullough take “slightly more poetic licence [sic] in order to make it easyer [sic] to read” is missing the point of translation. If you want to read the results of “taking more poetic license”, read Waley. But know that he messed up the chronology and threw out an entire chapter because it “didn’t fit.” Murasaki Shikibu wrote that chapter for a reason. We should not disregard the work of this paragon and progenitor of Japanese fiction simply because it “doesn’t fit” with our idea of how a story should read. It is a masterpiece, and Helen Craig McCullough’s translation is accurate AND readble.
Rating: 5 / 5