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More often than healthy, I try to catch hold of my thoughts in flight to consider them as they flutter by, but the problem of course is that the only thing I have to catch them with are other thoughts, which themselves cannot be captured unless by — yes, exactly! — other thoughts.

I craved for Knausgaard’s writing after reading a bunch of this year’s Booker Prize nominees… it really takes skill to write simply.

It was the era of insurmountable information, where the problem was not insufficient language but far too much of it. Only the loudest are heard, and what is the fate of facts, then? What is the fate of reality when all manner of counterfeit narratives sweep over the people in ridiculous noise?

The kiwis in particular grew so thick that on moonlit nights when the wind was blowing, the whole hillside would tremble as though covered with a swarm of dark green bats. At times I found myself thinking they might fly away at any moment.

特にキーウイは枝がたわむほどで、風の強い月夜などは、深緑色のコウモリが何匹も何匹も、ゆさゆさと丘を揺らしているように見えた。何かの拍子に彼らがいっせいに飛び立ちはしないかと、心配になることもあった。

'the fact is that, pain being one of the consequences of education, in that it grows greater and sharper with the growth of ideas, it follows that the more we try to polish the minds and refine the nervous systems of the under-privileged, the more we shall be developing in their hearts the atrociously active germs of hatred and moral suffering.'

Pity the self that cannot self-deceive.
Can someone deceive it for me, please?
I am not a rose-eating dog,
but a gilded owl with daytime vision.

He could detect such inveterate stupidity, such hatred of his own ideas, such contempt for literature and art and everything he held dear, implanted and rooted in these mean mercenary minds, exclusively preoccupied with thoughts of swindling and money-grubbing [...], that he would go home in a fury and shut himself up with his books.

Me

Even "original" works are full of twists and holes akin to mistranslations, and it is these holes that give the work its unsettled quality. So if translation is a necessary evil, then so is literature itself. Or perhaps it is an unnecessary evil. But, as Numano-san writes, "evil" has its own pleasures, sometimes more than "good". And if it is unnecessary, it is even more enjoyable.

What is more fascinating, however, is something the man's mother in Japan related to me. She said: 'Growing up, that boy of mine learned everything there was to know about Japanese. That's why he moved to the West, where they have words that aren't in our dictionary."

Truly a great book for language learners

Sometimes a taker who wishes they were a doer will occupy themselves with time-consuming tasks of no utility, tasks with no measurable result save using up time, no aim save to better convince themselves and their peers that they are a doer, [...] A taker has to have an elevated sense of self, enough that they can't see the implications of all their taking, they have to see it as political, as meaningful.

🫪

Once, I was invited to a literary festival in Canada, and was surprised to find myself listed in their program under "Literature of Color." At first I thought it was describing my work as colorful,

HAHAHAHAHA

As for Rose’s father, he’s gone off the radar. Not dead, but apparently stuck in that zone where fathers get lost — the Bermuda Triangle between their job, their best mate and one or more women somewhere.

Back then, California didn't yet have the reputation of a warm, comfortable place that it has now. If anything, the majority of German authors living in exile there struggled to adapt to the climate. Leonhard Frank once said that in California "there is no air inside the air." He complained about the lack of seasons, describing Hollywood as a hell "where one is permanently exposed to the sun, far removed from life."

She talks about her frustration with her Friday-night shrink, a woman. [...] When she walks out, exhilarated, tearful or joyful, those three-quarters of an hour have become like semicolons in the narrative of her life. Meaning builds, like the construction of a house, but for now there are too many doors and windows all over the place.

I’m scared because I remember DNFing his other book earlier this year (The Course of the Heart) because I was very lost. But his prose is *chef’s kiss*

いくつもいくつも、彼女はキーウイを食べた。飢えた子供たちがむしゃぶりつくように、あるいは病んだ老婆が嘔吐するように食べた。アイロンのかかったブラウスも、美しても、すぐにベタベタになった。

Snyder tr: she stood there eating kiwis, one after another. She consumed them like a starving child, dizzy with hunger. Her carefully ironed blouse and her beautiful hands grew sticky.

This translation is so lacking. She was basically DEVOURING the kiwis and sucking on it intensely, like an old crone regurgitating.

... I don't like the flower

Uh. I read the first story while having my morning poop. It was unnerving

Wait, why is every single one of my WITM'26 selection such a fucking hit

I didn't know how to reach him, where to find him... it's so mysterious, the land of tears.

どうすれば思いを届けることができるのか、心と心を結ぶことができるのか。いつの間にか、涙で何も見えなくなっていた。本当に、不思議だね。涙って、どこから湧き出してくるのだろう。

This translator added some extra flair; something like "How do I reach my thoughts to him, or connect one heart to another? Before I knew it, tears had blurred my vision. It's truly strange. Where do tears come from?