I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Introduction of "No Longer Human" | English Is Not So Easy 16

In the previous article, I introduced "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger, which was popular among many young people in the United States. This time, I would like to introduce "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai, which was popular among many young people in Japan.

https://www.academia.edu/23537185/No_Longer_Human_by_Osamu_Dazai

After writing this work, he ended his short life by committing suicide by drowning himself and his lover. The novel clearly records what drove him to do this, which is why it moved the hearts of young Japanese people at the time.

It is also surprising to me that it was translated by Dr. Donald Keene, an internationally renowned scholar of Japanese literature. He knew so much about the Japanese language that he is considered a person who knows the Japanese language much better than the Japanese people. When I try to point out errors in his translations, there is a high probability that I will find that "I" do not understand my native language. His English translation is at such a high level that Japanese students of English are not recommended to read it, just as "No Longer Human (人間失格)" is not recommended to non-Japanese speakers of Japanese. However, I used to have enough English to become a Japanese junior high school teacher and should be able to read it!

In this article, I would like to ask him to tell me, as a Japanese person, how he has interpreted Japanese literature.

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PROLOGUE

          I have seen three pictures of the man.

          The first, a childhood photograph you might call it, shows him about the age of ten, a small boy surrounded by a great many women (his sisters and cousins, no doubt). He stands in brightly checked trousers by the edge of a garden pond. His head is tilted at an angle thirty degrees to the left, and his teeth are bared in an ugly smirk. Ugly? You may well question the word, for insensitive people (that is to say, those indifferent to matters of beauty and ugliness) would mechanically comment with a bland, vacuous expression, "What an adorable little boy!" It is quite true that what commonly passes for "adorable" is sufficiently present in this child's face to give a modicum of meaning to the compliment. But I think that anyone who had ever been subjected to the least exposure to what makes for beauty would most likely toss the photograph to one side with the gesture employed in brushing away a caterpillar, and mutter in profound revulsion, "What a dreadful child!"

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

bland: (figuratively) Lacking interest; boring; dull.

vacuous: Empty; void; lacking meaningful content.

modicum: A modest, small, or trifling amount.

(Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

 [Original text]

私は、その男の写真を三葉、見たことがある。

一葉は、その男の、幼年時代、とでも言うべきであろうか、十歳前後かと推定される頃の写真であって、その子供が大勢の女のひとに取りかこまれ、（それは、その子供の姉たち、妹たち、それから、従姉妹たちかと想像される）庭園の池のほとりに、荒い縞の袴をはいて立ち、首を三十度ほど左に傾け、醜く笑っている写真である。醜く？けれども、鈍い人たち（つまり、美醜などに関心を持たぬ人たち）は、面白くも何とも無いような顔をして、

「可愛い坊ちゃんですね」

といい加減なお世辞を言っても、まんざら空お世辞に聞えないくらいの、謂わば通俗の「可愛らしさ」みたいな影もその子供の笑顔に無いわけではないのだが、しかし、いささかでも、美醜に就いての訓練を経て来たひとなら、ひとめ見てすぐ、

「なんて、いやな子供だ」

と頗る不快そうに呟き、毛虫でも払いのける時のような手つきで、その写真をほうり投げるかも知れない。

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The prologue was not written by the protagonist of the novel, but by someone who was doing research on him. He describes the appearance of a certain person in a photograph, who is the protagonist of this work and the author himself. The child in the photo is not really laughing, but pretending to do so because he understands that it pleases the adults, but the art-loving artist sees through the lie.

If "The Catcher in the Rye," introduced in the previous article, is the story of a young boy struggling to save pure children from adult deception, this story depicts the anguish of Dazai, who became aware of adult deception at an early age and learned to adapt to it.

Translation memo:

Dr. Donald Keene is certainly an excellent translator. It is an accurate translation from a Japanese point of view. I would like to make this part of this article not a correction of his translation, but a place to share my knowledge specific to Japan.

Dr. Keene translated his costume as "brightly checked pants," but the original text is "荒い縞の袴 (lit. roughly striped hakama)." Hakama is the traditional Japanese formal wear for men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakama#Men's_hakama

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          Indeed, the more carefully you examine the child's smiling face the more you feel an indescribable, unspeakable horror creeping over you. You see that it is actually not a smiling face at all. The boy has not a suggestion of a smile. Look at his tightly clenched fists if you want proof. No human being can smile with his fists doubled like that. It is a monkey. A grinning monkey-face. The smile is nothing more than a puckering of ugly wrinkles. The photograph reproduces an expression so freakish, and at the same time so unclean and even nauseating, that your impulse is to say, "What a wizened, hideous little boy!" I have never seen a child with such an unaccountable expression.

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

pucker: (transitive, intransitive) To pinch or wrinkle; to squeeze inwardly, to dimple or fold.

freakish: Strange, unusual, abnormal or bizarre.

nauseating: Causing a feeling of nausea; disgusting and revolting.

wizened: Withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.

 (Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

[Original text]

まったく、その子供の笑顔は、よく見れば見るほど、何とも知れず、イヤな薄気味悪いものが感ぜられて来る。どだい、それは、笑顔でない。この子は、少しも笑ってはいないのだ。その証拠には、この子は、両方のこぶしを固く握って立っている。人間は、こぶしを固く握りながら笑えるものでは無いのである。猿だ。猿の笑顔だ。ただ、顔に醜い皺を寄せているだけなのである。「皺くちゃ坊ちゃん」とでも言いたくなるくらいの、まことに奇妙な、そうして、どこかけがらわしく、へんにひとをムカムカさせる表情の写真であった。私はこれまで、こんな不思議な表情の子供を見た事が、いちども無かった。

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His self-loathing description goes on. Incidentally, there is a Japanese term, "猿真似 (lit. monkey-mimic)," which refers to the act of imitating visuals without understanding the philosophy. A well-known example is Vigneau's satirical drawing of Japan in the late 19th century, in which he imitates Western clothing.

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          The face in the second snapshot is startlingly unlike the first. He is a student in this picture, although it is not clear whether it dates from high school or college days. At any rate, he is now extraordinarily handsome. But here again the face fails inexplicably to give the impression of belonging to a living human being. He wears a student's uniform and a white handkerchief peeps from his breast pocket. He sits in a wicker chair with his legs crossed. Again he is smiling, this time not the wizened monkey's grin but a rather adroit little smile. And yet somehow it is not the smile of a human being: it utterly lacks substance, all of what we might call the "heaviness of blood" or perhaps the "solidity of human life"—it has not even a bird's weight. It is merely a blank sheet of paper, light as a feather, and it is smiling. The picture produces, in short, a sensation of complete artificiality. Pretense, insincerity, fatuousness―none of these words quite covers it. And of course you couldn't dismiss it simply as dandyism. In fact, if you look carefully you will begin to feel that there is something strangely unpleasant about this handsome young man. I have never seen a young man whose good looks were so baffling.

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

adroit: Deft, dexterous, or skillful.

fatuous: Obnoxiously stupid; vacantly silly; content in one's foolishness.

(Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

[Original text]

第二葉の写真の顔は、これはまた、びっくりするくらいひどく変貌していた。学生の姿である。高等学校時代の写真か、大学時代の写真か、はっきりしないけれども、とにかく、おそろしく美貌の学生である。しかし、これもまた、不思議にも、生きている人間の感じはしなかった。学生服を着て、胸のポケットから白いハンケチを覗かせ、籐椅子に腰かけて足を組み、そうして、やはり、笑っている。こんどの笑顔は、皺くちゃの猿の笑いでなく、かなり巧みな微笑になってはいるが、しかし、人間の笑いと、どこやら違う。血の重さ、とでも言おうか、生命の渋さ、とでも言おうか、そのような充実感は少しも無く、それこそ、鳥のようではなく、羽毛のように軽く、ただ白紙一枚、そうして、笑っている。つまり、一から十まで造り物の感じなのである。キザと言っても足りない。軽薄と言っても足りない。ニヤケと言っても足りない。おしゃれと言っても、もちろん足りない。しかも、よく見ていると、やはりこの美貌の学生にも、どこか怪談じみた気味悪いものが感ぜられて来るのである。私はこれまで、こんな不思議な美貌の青年を見た事が、いちども無かった。

================

In his school days, he was handsome and must have been very popular because he had developed a good fake laugh. However, the author also feels uncomfortable with the atmosphere he creates in this photo. It is as if he is an inanimate object pretending to be human. From this description, I personally believe that he hid his feelings from the people around him and communicated only through socialization techniques that he had learned as knowledge, such as how to make a smile. In other words, his laughter is similar to the laughter that "JOKER" makes, which is independent of emotion.

Translation note:

The sentences in the last part of this paragraph are so long and the sentence structure so difficult to understand that even advanced students of Japanese will have difficulty interpreting the meaning of the sentences. But again, his translation is accurate. To be more precise, he does not translate directly from Japanese, but he understands perfectly what is expressed in the original text and uses his genius translation skills to write his novel in English.

Personally, I have also learned something new from reading his English translations. In the original, "鳥のようではなく、羽毛のように軽く" is a part that I also skip because I do not understand the meaning, but when I read the English phrase "it has not even the weight of a bird. It is merely a blank sheet of paper, light as a feather," I understood that his smile did not have "the weight of blood = the weight of a bird. I have no doubt that his understanding is much deeper than mine.

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          The remaining photograph is the most monstrous of all. It is quite impossible in this one even to guess the age, though the hair seems to be streaked somewhat with grey. It was taken in a corner of an extraordinarily dirty room (you can plainly see in the picture how the wall is crumbling in three places). His small hands are held in front of him. This time he is not smiling. There is no expression whatsoever. The picture has a genuinely chilling, foreboding quality, as if it caught him in the act of dying as he sat before the camera, his hands held over a heater. That is not the only shocking thing about it. The head is shown quite large, and you can examine the features in detail: the forehead is average, the wrinkles on the forehead average, the eyebrows also average, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the chin ... the face is not merely devoid of expression, it fails even to leave a memory. It has no individuality. I have only to shut my eyes after looking at it to forget the face. I can remember the wall of the room, the little heater, but all impression of the face of the principal figure in the room is blotted out; I am unable to recall a single thing about it. This face could never be made the subject of a painting, not even of a cartoon. I open my eyes. There is not even the pleasure of recollecting: of course, that's the kind of face it was! To state the matter in the most extreme terms: when I open my eyes and look at the photograph a second time I still cannot remember it. Besides, it rubs against me the wrong way, and makes me feel so uncomfortable that in the end I want to avert my eyes.

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

foreboding: A sense of evil to come.

(Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

[Original text]

もう一葉の写真は、最も奇怪なものである。まるでもう、としの頃がわからない。頭はいくぶん白髪のようである。それが、ひどく汚い部屋（部屋の壁が三箇所ほど崩れ落ちているのが、その写真にハッキリ写っている）の片隅で、小さい火鉢に両手をかざし、こんどは笑っていない。どんな表情も無い。謂わば、坐って火鉢に両手をかざしながら、自然に死んでいるような、まことにいまわしい、不吉なにおいのする写真であった。奇怪なのは、それだけでない。その写真には、わりに顔が大きく写っていたので、私は、つくづくその顔の構造を調べる事が出来たのであるが、額は平凡、額の皺も平凡、眉も平凡、眼も平凡、鼻も口も顎も、ああ、この顔には表情が無いばかりか、印象さえ無い。特徴が無いのだ。たとえば、私がこの写真を見て、眼をつぶる。既に私はこの顔を忘れている。部屋の壁や、小さい火鉢は思い出す事が出来るけれども、その部屋の主人公の顔の印象は、すっと霧消して、どうしても、何としても思い出せない。画にならない顔である。漫画にも何もならない顔である。眼をひらく。あ、こんな顔だったのか、思い出した、というようなよろこびさえ無い。極端な言い方をすれば、眼をひらいてその写真を再び見ても、思い出せない。そうして、ただもう不愉快、イライラして、つい眼をそむけたくなる。

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In the third photo, he no longer smiles, and his expression is drained of life and personality. The author is interested in what made him that way and will appear next in the epilogue.

Translation note:

The part that Dr. Keane translates as "his hands held over a heater" is "火鉢に両手をかざし (lit. his hands held over a hibachi)" in the original text. A hibachi is a traditional Japanese heating device for making a small fire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibachi

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          I think that even a death mask would hold more of an expression, leave more of a memory. That effigy suggests nothing so much as a human body to which a horse's head has been attached. Something ineffable makes the beholder shudder in distaste. I have never seen such an inscrutable face on a man.

          THE FIRST NOTEBOOK

          Mine has been a life of much shame.

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

ineffable: Beyond expression in words; unspeakable.

beholder: Someone who observes or beholds; an observer or spectator.

inscrutable: Difficult or impossible to comprehend, fathom or interpret.

(Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

[Original text]

所謂「死相」というものにだって、もっと何か表情なり印象なりがあるものだろうに、人間のからだに駄馬の首でもくっつけたなら、こんな感じのものになるであろうか、とにかく、どこという事なく、見る者をして、ぞっとさせ、いやな気持にさせるのだ。私はこれまで、こんな不思議な男の顔を見た事が、やはり、いちども無かった。

第一の手記

恥の多い生涯を送って来ました。

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Here the prologue ends and the chapter entitled "The First Notebook" begins. This notebook consists of three chapters, each corresponding to the three photographs introduced in the Prologue.

Translation note:

It is interesting that he used the term "death mask" to describe his "死相 (lit. dead face)". The term 死相 means the face of a dead person, as seen in a coffin, and he used the word "death mask" to emphasize the lack of life in his expression.

Finally, at the time of its translation by Dr. Donald Keene, the novel actually attracted attention in the U.S. as a novel about the "sexual abuse of boys". In this work, he was sexually abused as a child by adults, and his experience of loneliness and inability to tell anyone about it greatly influenced his personality. I would like to end this article by picking it up.

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          ...My true nature, however, was one diametrically opposed to the role of a mischievous imp. Already by that time I had been taught a lamentable thing by the maids and menservants; I was being corrupted. I now think that to perpetrate such a thing on a small child is the ugliest, vilest, cruelest crime a human being can commit. But I endured it. I even felt as if it enabled me to see one more particular aspect of human beings. I smiled in my weakness. If I had formed the habit of telling the truth I might perhaps have been able to confide unabashedly to my father or mother about the crime, but I could not fully understand even my own parents. To appeal for help to any human being―I could expect nothing from that expedient. Supposing I complained to my father or my mother, or to the police, the government―I wondered if in the end I would not be argued into silence by someone in good graces with the world, by the excuses of which the world approved.