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Tokyo Central: A Memoir
This memoir is by a translator who has introduced two generations of English-language audiences to the masterpieces of classical and modern Japanese literature. His patient rendering of novels ranging from the 11th-century Tale of Genji to works of such modern masters as Junichiro Tanizaki, Yukio Mishima and Nobel-Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata has earned him the National Book Award as well as the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan's highest honour for foreigners.
- GenresJapanBiographyNonfiction
250 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
About the author
Edward G. Seidensticker
50 books34 followersEdward George Seidensticker was a noted post-World War II scholar, historian, and preeminent translator of classical and contemporary Japanese literature.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 17, 2017
"Colorado Kid" Falls In and Out of Love with Japan
I went to Tokyo as an exchange student when I was 16 years old and stayed with a Japanese family. The experience changed my life and influenced me ever after. Though I didn't know it, Edward Seidensticker was living there at the same time, teaching and translating the works of the most famous Japanese authors of the day. He didn't like the attitudes and ideas of many of the intellectual class in those times and eventually left Japan because he couldn't bear a) being thought a capitalist stooge and b) a foreign capitalist stooge. He nevertheless hobnobbed with many famous Japanese of the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. As an American high school student, living with a family that did not belong to the politicized intellectual elite, I never met any famous people, and I never felt any hostility, returning to Japan many times afterwards, though I never thought to make my home there. Eventually, in university, I wound up reading Kawabata's "Snow Country" in Japanese as well as Seidensticker's translations of the same book and many other novels. So, in some small way, I felt close to this autobiography even though my feelings and experiences differed from the author's to a major extent.
TOKYO CENTRAL tells of Seidensticker's early life in Colorado, his education, and how he came to study Japanese. Because this latter was connected to being a translator/interpreter for the Navy in WW II, he was present at the battle of Iwo Jima, though he did not shoot a gun, and later in the Occupation forces. He returned to Japan and lived there for about ten years up to 1962 after which he sold his house in central Tokyo and moved back to the US to teach, first at Stanford, then at Michigan, Columbia, and finally Hawai'i. He wound up translating Murasaki Shikibu's great classic "The Tale of Genji" as well as other Japanese classics. He kept on returning to Japan and ultimately received signal honors. Seidensticker kept a detailed diary for most of his life, it seems, and used it to write this book, full of the people he met everywhere. He seems to have been a friendly man, fond of his drink, appreciative of irony, and perhaps gay, though he is most reticent about it. That is certainly only his business. Though the book reads well and keeps your interest, I found it hard to care for all the vast cast of characters that crossed through his Tokyo and American days, but as one who has loved Japanese literature for over half a century, I found many of Seidensticker's observations fascinating . So intimately connected to the country and its culture, Seidensticker bore it considerable ill-will, though he had many friends. He seems constantly to have been a contrary fellow and admits (p.194) that "I am suspicious of everyone and everything that everyone else likes." This grows quite tiresome. However, if Japanese literature in translation has ever touched you, you may find this book and its pictures of such authors as Tanizaki, Kawabata, Mishima, and Nagai Kafu interesting. I recalled the Tokyo of my youth and enjoyed that too.
I went to Tokyo as an exchange student when I was 16 years old and stayed with a Japanese family. The experience changed my life and influenced me ever after. Though I didn't know it, Edward Seidensticker was living there at the same time, teaching and translating the works of the most famous Japanese authors of the day. He didn't like the attitudes and ideas of many of the intellectual class in those times and eventually left Japan because he couldn't bear a) being thought a capitalist stooge and b) a foreign capitalist stooge. He nevertheless hobnobbed with many famous Japanese of the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. As an American high school student, living with a family that did not belong to the politicized intellectual elite, I never met any famous people, and I never felt any hostility, returning to Japan many times afterwards, though I never thought to make my home there. Eventually, in university, I wound up reading Kawabata's "Snow Country" in Japanese as well as Seidensticker's translations of the same book and many other novels. So, in some small way, I felt close to this autobiography even though my feelings and experiences differed from the author's to a major extent.
TOKYO CENTRAL tells of Seidensticker's early life in Colorado, his education, and how he came to study Japanese. Because this latter was connected to being a translator/interpreter for the Navy in WW II, he was present at the battle of Iwo Jima, though he did not shoot a gun, and later in the Occupation forces. He returned to Japan and lived there for about ten years up to 1962 after which he sold his house in central Tokyo and moved back to the US to teach, first at Stanford, then at Michigan, Columbia, and finally Hawai'i. He wound up translating Murasaki Shikibu's great classic "The Tale of Genji" as well as other Japanese classics. He kept on returning to Japan and ultimately received signal honors. Seidensticker kept a detailed diary for most of his life, it seems, and used it to write this book, full of the people he met everywhere. He seems to have been a friendly man, fond of his drink, appreciative of irony, and perhaps gay, though he is most reticent about it. That is certainly only his business. Though the book reads well and keeps your interest, I found it hard to care for all the vast cast of characters that crossed through his Tokyo and American days, but as one who has loved Japanese literature for over half a century, I found many of Seidensticker's observations fascinating . So intimately connected to the country and its culture, Seidensticker bore it considerable ill-will, though he had many friends. He seems constantly to have been a contrary fellow and admits (p.194) that "I am suspicious of everyone and everything that everyone else likes." This grows quite tiresome. However, if Japanese literature in translation has ever touched you, you may find this book and its pictures of such authors as Tanizaki, Kawabata, Mishima, and Nagai Kafu interesting. I recalled the Tokyo of my youth and enjoyed that too.
April 18, 2008
Interesting to read the opinion of events in Japan's post-war history, but Ed jumps all over the place (a criticism often made of other non-translation works of his) and repeats himself quite often. It could have done with a good edit and tightening. Interesting that one of his good mates, Donald Richie gets no mention, but Donald Keene does. Most times he does mention Keene is in respect to comments Keene has made about Ed's translations of Japanese literature or disagreeing with something Keene wrote in his memoirs released in the 80s. For a look at some of the post war literary figures, such as Kawabata, Mishima and Tanizaki, very interesting, indeed.
June 3, 2015
I enjoyed large swathes of this book---I love hearing people tell stories, I'm interested in translation and Japanese lit, and there's always something wonderful about listening to older folks reminisce about the cities they've loved. However, the book could have used some severe editing. It rambles a lot, and switches from topic to topic in a rather bewildering fashion; it was, at times, incredibly distracting.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews