After reading Terry’s article, I initially agreed with his understanding of faithfulness in translation. If a work is enjoyable and fluid in Japanese but becomes awkward and difficult to read when translated literally into English, can we really call that faithful to the author? An author creates not just words, but a reading experience. If a translation preserves the words but loses the original rhythm, humor, and appeal, perhaps it really is a “dead lion.”
However, I began to hesitate when Terry explained how he removed place names and historical details from Musashi. He argues that Japanese readers would not remember the names of those rivers and temples anyway, so there is no reason to slow down English readers with them. But does forgetting a detail mean it has no effect on us? Not everything we experience in literature comes from conscious understanding. Even if I cannot remember the name of a temple, its presence may still give me a sense of history, place, or cultural unfamiliarity.
This made me question how much a translator should decide on behalf of the reader. Terry wants English readers to move through the text as effortlessly as Japanese readers do, but to achieve this, he must decide what is worth preserving and what can be sacrificed. The more a translator tries to close the distance between the reader and the original, the more they risk erasing the cultural differences that make the work unique. Perhaps a good translation does not need to eliminate all unfamiliarity. The awareness that we are reading a work from another language and culture is itself part of the reading experience.
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