‘The Tale of Genji’ – The Washburn Genji

After more than a century of translations of Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji, you’d have thought that we’d all be happy with what we’ve got, but that’s definitely not the case.  In some ways, though, given the variety of approaches taken in the past, it’s unsurprising that someone might think there was another way to handle the work, perhaps navigating a route somewhere between the previous versions.  That’s the case with the adaptation we’re considering today, the most recent full translation, and one that attempts to combine some of the advantages of earlier works while avoiding some of their drawbacks. Successfully?  Well, that remains to be seen – let’s find out 😉

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Dennis Washburn is an academic and translator, and with the possible exception of Kenchō Suematsu, probably the least-known of The Tale of Genji translators.  Perhaps it’s just me, but I must confess that I only heard his name fairly recently, and only in connection with this translation.  His version of the Tale first appeared in 2015,  marking the fourth full-length attempt at bringing the work into English, and it certainly has many differences to earlier versions.

His lengthy introduction is one of the more substantial efforts, containing a wealth of information on the Heian Era and the rise of the ruling Fujiwara clan.  There’s also a fair bit here on Murasaki Shikibu herself, as well as on how the work was received in the centuries following its creation.  I’d already learned much of this from other books (e.g. The Diary of Lady Murasaki or Reading The Tale of Genji: Sources from the First Millennium), but it’s nevertheless a good overview, and probably very useful to readers new to the era.

The final part of the introduction sees a slight change of focus as Washburn explains his decision to contribute another Genji.  While he doesn’t mention other translations by name, he does discuss certain approaches that point in a particular direction, justifying his decisions in advance:

Still, one of the tasks of translation is explication (or explanation), and so I concluded that adding brief phrases to clarify passages that would have been understood by the author’s contemporaries (but that now might cause confusion standing on their own) does no more violence to the text than footnotes.
‘Introduction’, p.xxxvi/xxxvii (W.W. Norton & Company, 2015)

Yes, he’s obviously referencing another version – whose can it have been?

No prizes for guessing that he’s setting his translation up against the most recent predecessor, the Tyler Genji, and the difference between the two is clear from the start.  Take this early extract from the ‘Kiritsubo’ chapter, for instance:

The days passed in a meaningless blur for the Emperor, who dutifully observed each of the seven-day ceremonies leading up to the forty-ninth day after the funeral.  Despite the passage of time, His Majesty was so lost in grief he could find no comfort.  He was indifferent to the consorts and ladies-in-waiting who attended him in the evenings and instead passed his days and nights distracted and disconsolate.  For all who observed his grief, it was truly an autumn drenched by a dew of tears.
‘The Lady of the Paulownia-Courtyard Chambers’, p.7

As the dreary days slipped by, His Majesty saw carefully to each succeeding memorial service.*  The passage of time did so little to relieve his sorrow that he called none of his ladies to wait on him after dark but instead passed day and night in weeping, and even those who merely witnessed his state found the autumn very dewy indeed.
‘The Paulownia Pavilion’, p.7 (Penguin Classics, 2003)

There are obvious discrepancies here in flow and length.  Washburn uses four sentences to Tyler’s two, and far more words.  This is due in part to Tyler using a footnote on the ceremonies (where I’ve placed an asterisk), whereas Washburn has opted to add these details to the body of the text.

One effect of all this is to increase the size of the book.  The Washburn Genji is a monster, a tome I wouldn’t recommend lifting without safety equipment.  Despite the Tyler text having small sketches included on many pages, the Washburn translation, which has none of these, ends up being over two-hundred pages longer.  With this latest version containing just as much explanation as translation, you might wonder whether these additions consist of extra muscle or superfluous fat – the answer may well depend on the mood of the reader…

The Washburn Genji stands out in many other ways.  The translator refers to characters by their names, rather than their titles, which may come as a relief to some readers.  His version also omits the famous ambiguous last line of the Tale, then adds a page saying why he made that choice!  In terms of the chapter titles, he uses roman numerals and seems determined to go out of his way to provide lengthy, unique titles.  In addition to the example in the extract above, we find ‘Momiji no Ga’ rendered as ‘An Imperial Celebration of Autumn Foliage’ and ‘Hanachirusato’ becoming ‘The Lady at the Villa of Scattering Orange Blossoms’ (those wanting to compare all the versions can check out this handy Wikipedia list).  There’s a sense here of the translator purposely making his version stand out, even if the choices seem a little unnecessary at times.

When it comes to the poetry, Washburn again takes a slightly different path to his predecessors.  As he explains in the introduction, his method is to divide the poems into three lines in italics, rather than two, with each line having an equal syllable count that can vary from poem to poem.  Let’s look at two examples from the ‘Azumaya’ chapter, where Kaoru and Nakanokimi are discussing Ukifune:

Tears welled up again as he was speaking, and so, in order to hide his true feelings, he playfully composed the following:

     If she is a true likeness of the one I knew
     I’ll keep her near, a purifying doll to stroke
     Each time I feel the surging rapids of desire

The Uji Princess replied:

     Who would believe your vow to keep as close to you
     As your shadow a doll you’ll stroke from time to time
     Then cast adrift on the rapids of lustration
‘A Hut in the Eastern Provinces’, p.1140

For those interested, yes, the sexual inuendoes are intentional…  This format makes for an interesting twist on the poetry side of the book, and even if I prefer the Waley or Tyler approaches, on the whole, it works.

A slightly more controversial feature is Washburn’s insistence on putting internal monologue in italics within the paragraph.  This is nicely illustrated in the following extract, again from the ‘Azumaya’ chapter:

Ukifune’s mother decided that this Lesser Captain was, among all her daughter’s many suitors, the one whose circumstances were most acceptable.  He seems steady of temperament, a man of sound judgement and refined sensibility.  No matter how much I might dream, it’s unlikely that anyone of truly superior status would come to a place like this to find a bride.  With that in mind, she began passing along the young man’s letters to her daughter and, whenever the occasion called for a reply, would have Ukifune write pleasing responses in turn.
‘A Hut in the Eastern Provinces’, p.1123

I’d read that this was a sore point with some readers, and at first, I couldn’t see what the fuss was about.  However, it did start to annoy me a little before long, and it does seem like a gimmick the translation could well have done without.

To give Washburn credit, it’s easy to see what he intended to do with this new translation.  There’s an attempt here to return to the flamboyance of the Arthur Waley Genji and avoid the stiff nature of the Edward Seidensticker version, while also reacting against the ambiguous nature of Tyler’s translation and reducing the number of footnotes.  In doing so, he’s hoping to combine previous (flawed?) approaches into a better one.

Yet I feel that in doing so he unfortunately misses the mark.  You see, Waley’s version is a rich banquet that you might regret the next day, with Seidensticker’s a plain, healthy diet that your doctor will thank you for (but your taste buds won’t), and the Tyler Genji offering up a multi-course menu of small offerings with exquisitely subtle flavours.  The Washburn?  There’s plenty there for everyone, but it’s rather stodgy – all the fat of the Waley Genji, but with little of the taste…

Of course, much of what I’ve said above is subjective (to say the least!), and there’ll be readers who prefer Washburn’s approach.  It’s certainly far easier to read at times than the Tyler Genji, and it has everything you need.  Sometimes, though, you just have to go with your gut feeling, and mine is that this is far from the ultimate Genji the translator would have liked it to be.  On the whole, I didn’t really enjoy Washburn’s take on the Tale, and that’s what really counts.