Number 61 March 2012 Translating P G Wodehouse by Tamaki Morimura Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Japanese readers of the opportunity to enjoy ALS: The Journal of the Alliance of Literary Wodehouse. Societies, Volume 5 (2011) . We are publishing it , with Speaking of lost opportunity, we Japanese were Tamaki’s kind permission , as the first in a series of deprived of Wodehouse for nearly 50 years. He had articles on translating Wodehouse into other languages. been practically forgotten for half a century after World War II. Before the war, Wodehouse used to be translate P G Wodehouse into Japanese. I call popular in Japan, and about ten of his books had myself a fortunate translator because I believe I been translated. But after the war, he was forgotten, hIave been very lucky. I have done 15 Wodehouse probably because the magazines that carried his books so far , and two of them later appeared in stories and the publishers who published his books mangas, which are Japanese comic books. went out of business. There were several attempts to Translating Wodehouse is fun. If you are a singer, reintroduce Wodehouse after the war, but none of you probably enjoy singing Mozart. If you are a them really succeeded. translator, you would definitely enjoy translating Some people said that the British sense of Wodehouse. When you sing Mozart, you can be humour was untranslatable into Japanese, and that constantly surprised by sophisticated phrasings, Japanese readers would never be able to appreciate impromptu wit, solid construction , and clever twists, Wodehouse in the truest sense. Gussie Fink-Nottle in all along with incredibly lovely Right Ho, Jeeves called such an melodies. The joy of attitude defeatist. I confess that I translating Wodehouse is used to be defeatist myself. Even something akin to that. One when I actually began can become lost in translating translating Wodehouse, I could Wodehouse. not throw off this view But, of course, it is not like completely, wondering if having fun singing karaoke Japanese readers would really with one’s kind and patient appreciate Wodehouse’s inimit- family or friends. When you able prose, and if I could convey sing for a paying audience or in the wonderful humour of his front of a recording ideas and jokes to them. microphone, you have a Luckily, I kept on translating responsibility to your audience, the ‘untranslatable’ Wodehouse to the composer, to your agent , books while thoroughly enjoying and to the record company. them. And it has turned out that Similarly, I have this Mozart of many other Japanese readers a comic writer as my also love Wodehouse. That is responsibility, and it is I who why I call myself a really must make him intelligible to fortunate translator, and why I Japanese readers. If I get it now know that the defeatist wrong, then I might destroy view is wrong. Still, although him literarily. If my poor mistaken, the questions that translation means the books do view raises are worth not sell well, I am depriving Cover of one of Tamaki’s 15 – no, 17 – translations considering. Wooster Sauce – March 2012 Hilaire Belloc once wrote that “the end of writing characters. This may be immaterial in English , but it is the production in the reader’s mind of a certain is very important in Japanese when one remembers image and a certain emotion. And the means towards that, with one exception, the many superb Wooster that end are the use of words in any particular and Jeeves stories are narrated in the first person by language; and the complete use of that medium is the Bertie Wooster. choosing of the right words and the putting of them That is enough about ‘I’, and I shall forbear from into the right order. ” Belloc believed P G Wodehouse commencing on ‘you ’, which my Japanese thesaurus did this better than anyone else and called him the lists in 20 different ways. best English writer then alive. Finally, I should mention the matter of When you know you are translating the best translating Wodehouse into a completely different English writer, one persistent question is : Am I doing medium: mangas, which are Japanese cartoon books. justice to the Master? Am I choosing the right Many Wodehouse stories and novels have been made Japanese words and putting them in the right order? into movies, plays , and TV and radio shows, but I hope that I am doing it. It is a challenge , and I know rarely into cartoons. I should emphasise that I am trying to attain an unattainable goal. What I can Japanese mangas and animated cartoons are honestly say is that I am doing my best. As for conveying the full sense of Wodehouse, I am more optimistic. Of course, there are so many things that need to be explained to Japanese readers. But I firmly believe that there exists a universal sense of what is funny and laughs that can be shared, regardless of time, language , and nationality. And Wodehouse’s works possess a quality that enables us to laugh heartily. To supply explanations, I decided to include notes in the text, telling readers that, for example, this is an excerpt from the poet Tennyson’s Mariana ; that is a Cover of the manga of The Inimitable Jeeves , drawn by Bun Katsuta reference to King Lear , act 1, scene 2; what a deaf adder is; and who Aubrey Smith and renowned for their artistry and not considered to be Marie Lloyd were. So mine is a kind of fully a form of entertainment just for children. There are a annotated version, and even though there are always great many cartoon series for adults, and I am risks of interrupting the flow of writing , and there delighted to tell you that the ‘Jeeves Manga ’ is one of might be other ways of providing supplementary the very best. It is drawn by an extremely talented information, I think my approach is working young artist, Ms Bun Katsuta, and, if you see one, reasonably well. you will probably want to learn Japanese to It seems that there are common problems in the appreciate the full meaning of what she has drawn. art of translation, and there are problems that are You will be astonished at the precision of her specifically inherent in Japanese translation. As an drawings and impressed by her obvious desire to example, I would like to point out what I call the ‘I ’ depict the world of Wodehouse accurately. problem. In English, there is the first person ‘I’ and Acting as a background adviser in creating a this ‘I’ is something unmistakable, unshakable, Wodehouse manga is a very interesting experience. I definite – always ‘I’. But, in Japanese, ‘I’ does change. would not call it a collaborative effort because I do I (I mean, I) just looked at a Japanese thesaurus and not suggest what Ms Bun should do; rather, I want found ‘I’ (I mean ‘I’s) has 33 different ways of Ms Bun to create and develop her own world of putting it, and I personally can think of more. With Jeeves and Wooster, so I just answer her questions. more than 30 ways of identifying oneself, ‘I’ can be When I first started doing this, I became aware of something that represents one’s personality and how little I knew about the mundane details of the identity, and that shows what one is, where one lives, Wodehouse world of the 1920s–30s. One of Ms Bun’s which school one went to, one’s way of life, and so first questions was what the old ‘tenner ’ looked like, on. I might seem to be overstating the roles of ‘I’, but and I spent some time finding an image of an old ten- in Japanese I have to treat ‘I’s this way, and I have to pound note. We travelled to London together to show decide which ‘I’ a certain character should use as an her real English stately homes; old shops; country integral part of narrating the story and describing the inns; the original of Wodehouse’s Drones Club (still Page 2 Wooster Sauce – March 2012 in existence); and the minutiae of Bertie Wooster’s London, including townhouses, Victorian shop fronts, Society News 1920s architecture, lampposts , and postboxes. We are very fortunate , too , to have the secret weapon of knowledgeable English friends, especially A Wodehouse Weekend in Norfolk Norman Murphy, who is a renowned Wodehouse If you were interested in joining the Society’s scholar, social historian , and architecture enthusiast, excursion to Norfolk, time may have run out by the and his wife, Elin. They very kindly took on the task of time you read this. Or it may not. At the time of showing us the background of Jeeves and Wooster, going to press, the coach was almost, but not quite, pointing out features of English buildings and life full, so there may yet be a chance to get a seat. If you seemingly unchanged since Wodehouse’s time. live in Norfolk and want to join the group there, I do not want to sound complacent, but I cannot that may also be possible. help thinking I am extraordinarily fortunate. Bertie Wooster once said: “These things cannot be mere coincidence. They must be meant. What I’m driving at Cricket 2012 is that Providence seems to look after the chumps of Last year, for the first time in the Society’s history, this world; and, personally, I’m all for it. ”I both our traditional cricket matches, against the wholeheartedly agree with Mr Wooster and thank Dulwich Dusters and the Sherlock Holmes Society Wodehousean Providence for allowing me to follow the of London, were cancelled due to rain.