Jane
Austen and Kanai Mieko: comic sisterhood
Excerpts: "A number of modern Japanese
writers--both men and women--have expressed their strong respect and admiration
for Jane Austen's literature. Kanai Mieko (b.1947), ...in particular...The
following discussion will show the ways in which Kanai skillfully subverts the
patriarchal canonisation of Austen and other texts, and creates laughter that
empowers women[...] Soseki's phrase the 'authority of realism' was to be quoted
again and again; ...Here we have the prototype of the conventional reception of
Jane Austen in Japan--the emphasis on canonicity, authenticity, and realism,
sanctioned by the canonical writer and authority on English literature, Soseki,
and maintained and propagated by his readers and disciples and their students,
resulting in a preponderance of male translators, (10) scholars, teachers, and
commentators on Austen literature. Notably, Soseki's lengthy quotations from
Austen's original English text are usually removed in these secondary sources
and, hence, the comic element evident in the Bennets' dialogue disappears,
leaving only the 'realism' and 'authority'. Besides Soseki's comments, those of
other male authorities, including Walter Scott, (11) Somerset Maugham (12) and
Vladimir Nabokov, (13) have been
introduced (and translated by male translators) to strengthen this
construct.."
references
and bibliography:
(10) Even though women have played important roles in
translation since the late nineteenth century, they have tended to be assigned
peripheral genres such as children's literature, romance and mystery. Because of
the canonical status of Austen, the majority of Japanese translations are
published by male scholar-translators. We may also note that until relatively
recently university professors were mostly men - even at women's
colleges.
(13) Nojima Hidekatsu has translated
Nabokov's Lectures on Literature as Yoroppa bungaku kogi, Tokyo: TBS Britannica,
1982.
(22) Vladimir Nabokov Lectures on Literature, ed.,
Fredson Bowers, introduction by John Updike, New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1980, p.10. It seems an ironic coincidence that this book is
introduced by John Updike, the author the 'inferior' girl student chooses in
Kurahashi's novel. It is not clear whether Kurahashi might have had access to
the Nabokov lecture (circa 1950) before the above posthumous publication but it
seems reasonable to assume that the similarity of the handicraft metaphor is
coincidence.
(40) This unfortunate man is named Teiichiro, sharing the first
Chinese character with Teinosuke, the husband of the second Makioka sister.
Kanai calls Part I of her novel 'Sankan shion' (lit., three cold days
and four warm days, indicating the gradual change from winter to spring) which
Tanizaki had in mind as an alternative title for Sasameyuki... There is also a
comic reference to The Makioka Sisters in Kanai, Ren'ai taiheiki, vol. 1, pp.
115-16, where the eldest sister Yuka, who is working as a librarian in a public
library in America, is asked by a man which she would recommend, The Snow
Country or The Makioka Sisters. .. Yuka's former
husband, Harold, took Nabokov's literature course at
university (Kanai, Ren'ai taiheiki, vol. 1, p. 112).