For Writers: A Different Structure Courtesy of the Japanese

Here is why foreign writers should get our attention in America. Even if it is only in reading about foreign styles.

 From Processing: How Sam Bett Translated Osamu Dazai (Countercraft)

I also get the sense that translating has altered my idea of how fiction is supposed to be structured. Japanese fiction plays a lot with what we might call iteration, going back and back again to the same situations or ideas. Something I admire about Mieko Kawakami, whose work has taught me a great deal, is how she’s willing to repeat the same images over and over. I think we see this in Dazai, too, in these refrains where he comes back to a central obsession. Maybe it’s a bit more like a verse and chorus structure than the bell curve English readers are conditioned to expect. Probably the greatest gift I’ve received from my work as a translator is a skepticism toward the idea that any one way of storytelling is the best, or only, way to write.

Editors and friends hate my repetitions, so I stopped. I got the idea from listening to songs (and maybe legal writing) that repeating a phrase or a word was a good idea. This bit makes me think I was onto something.

It also brought to mind Rashomon with its multiple viewpoints circling around one event. Is that then a traditional Japanese form? 

Something to think about.

sch 2/22