Book of body and soul

"The Diary of Makoto Kitahira", edited by the Chinese Literature Society of Kyushu University, Phoenix Publishing House, March 2022 edition, 88.00 yuan.

"One Man's World on the Shelf", edited by Alex Johnson, Beijing United Publishing Company, January 2022 edition, 49.80 yuan.

□ Jonathan

The book "Mekada Makoto Beiping Diary", which has just been published, is the diary of the Japanese sinologist Meikata Makoto (1904-1994) from October 1933 to March 1935, the diary not only records the daily affairs of Mekada Makoto's study and life during his study abroad, but also records the interactions with the Chinese cultural celebrities at that time, Such as Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren, Yang Shuda, Yu Pingbo, Qian Daosun, Sun Kaidi, etc. Although the text is simple and provincial, it is also precious. From an editorial point of view, a major feature of this book is that a team convened by Professor Shizunaga Ken of Kyushu University in Japan has added extremely rich annotations to the entire book, not only detailing the names of people, place names, book titles, and movie names mentioned in the diary, but also collecting a large number of auxiliary reminiscence articles to support and supplement Makoto Mekada's records. Such detailed annotations to the diary seem to have been made in chinese publications in the past. Twenty years ago, Mr. Rong Xinjiang and Zhu Yuqi compiled and compiled the "Cangshi Takeshiro Studying Abroad in China" (Zhonghua Bookstore 2002 edition), and also added a lot of annotations, but in terms of quantity alone, I am afraid that it cannot be compared with this book.

In translations and many commentaries, it is only natural that there is occasionally a little debatable. In the process of flipping through, I have written down a few of the most obvious points for interested readers to refer to. On page 31, Makoto Mekada records a chat with Matsumura Taro, one of the topics is "Zheng Zhenduo's son-in-law at the Commercial Press is too popular", and the annotation states: "Zheng Zhenduo took office at Shenzhou Girls' High School in 1922, and Gao Mengdan, who was still a student at the time, met his daughter and married the following year." Here is the reverse of the facts: Zheng Zhenduo married Gao Junzhen, the daughter of Gao Mengdan, the editor-in-chief of the Commercial Press, and said that Zheng Zhenduo was Gao Mengdan's son-in-law. I don't know which link went wrong, the original text may say "As the son-in-law of the editor-in-chief of the Commercial Press, Zheng Zhenduo's business popularity is too heavy", and the annotation may be "Zheng Zhenduo was in 1922 at Shenzhou Girls' High School, and met the daughter of Gao Mengdan, who was still a student at that time".

The note on page 138 quotes an interesting memory from Takehiko Okada: "Many years later, at a large-scale international symposium on Chinese studies in Taipei, one night I watched a Peking opera performance with Professor Kanaya of Northeastern University and Professor Debari of Columbia University in the United States, and performed "Wang Zhaojun", and Professor Kanaya, who saw Peking Opera for the first time, was very excited and said to Professor Debari, 'It's really amazing', and Professor Debari said, 'I prefer Japanese Noh'. I said, 'That's the difference between motion and stillness.' Professor Kanaya here refers to Ji Kanaya, and Professor Debari, now commonly known as Debrai, is a well-known East Asian scholar in the United States. Similar translation questions, such as the note on page 174, describes Keno Komaki, who studies German literature, saying that his works include Novalis and Herdalin Studies, the latter of which apparently refers to Hölderlin Studies.

Other recent books I've read include One Man's World on the Shelf (edited by Alex Johnson, January 2022 edition of Beijing United Publishing Company), an anthology of articles on reading and collecting books. The articles of Bacon, Schopenhauer, and Benjamin are so famous that readers do not have to read them in this book. However, there are quite a few interesting texts in the book, which are usually not easy to see, but unfortunately, the Chinese translation is translated badly, slightly more difficult articles, and a large number of mistranslations, readers may find it difficult to appreciate the true interest of the text.

For example, British Prime Minister Gladstone wrote an essay in his later years, "On Books and the Housing of Them," which was widely known in bibliophiles and was printed separately in pamphlets. The article is written in a Victorian, elegant, slightly witty tone, and even if the author's argument is not profound, it is very comfortable to read. Gladstone's Essay on a Man's World on the Shelf also features Greston's essay, but few sentences are fully translated correctly. Here are just two sentences, and the translation is slightly compared with the original text.

Translation: "A book occupies less space than a person, even a book by Audubon (which I believe is a well-known name); but in terms of available space, I am more worried about the pressure that books put on space than with the number of people." We should all remember, and be extraordinarily aware of, that a book is like a man whose body and soul follow his lineage. ”

原文：A book，even Audubon(I believe the biggest known)，is smaller than a man；but，in relation to space，I entertain more proximate apprehension of pressure upon available space from book population than from the numbers of mankind. We ought to recollect， with more of a realized conception than we commonly attain to， that a book consists， like a man， from whom it draws its lineage， of a body and a soul.

The first mistake is to say that Audubon "is a well-known name." If the author wants to express "well known", he will write the best known, not the biggest known. In fact, biggest here is literally, referring to the largest folio. The first edition of John James Audubon's Book Birds of the Americas was printed in an oversized folio that stood almost half a person tall. The following "a book is like a person, body and soul follow his bloodline", the logic is confused, and the main points of the author's expression are not translated. For the exact meaning of these two sentences, please refer to the humble translation.

Translation: A book, even one of Audubon's works (I think the largest as far as I know), is always smaller than a man's size. But when it comes to space, my anxiety about the pressure on the limited space caused by the total number of books is more urgent than the pressure on the total population. We really should remember more clearly than we usually realize that books, like people (because books originate from people), are made up of two parts, body and soul.

Gladstone said that the book is composed of two parts, the body and the soul, the soul refers to the content of the book, and the body refers to the external form of the book, including typesetting, printing, binding, etc. From this, I think that we may also regard the content of the original work as the soul of the book, and the translations, annotations, etc. as the body of the book. There is only one soul, and the body may be different, and if you are unlucky and "reincarnate" into a bad body, the soul must be very painful.