bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky

ハヤブサは飛ぶ　/ the hawk's flight

Only in silence the word,
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight
on the empty sky.

[Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea]

These day's I have been reading (and re-reading) UKLG's A Wizard of Earthsea in both Japanese and English. It serves as a form of language study for me, and a subject for discussion at my weekly tea-and-conversation meetings with my next-door-neighbour Mrs. Watado. She is also reading the book at the moment, on my recommendation and in preparation for the upcoming release of Miyazaki Goro's animated version, ゲド戦記 (lit. The War Journal of Ged.)

It's such a fantastic novel, I am eager to see the film. I will go see it on the 11th of August, probably at the Roppongi Hills cinema complex where I saw ハウルの動く城　(Howl's Moving Castle) 2 years ago. This will be the 3rd Ghibli movie premiere I have seen while living in this country. They seem like milestones to me somehow.

As I discussed with Mrs. Watado this morning, though, the translation into Japanese is a little odd. The long, flowing sentences of the opening passage in particular, sketching the isle of Gont where the boy Ged spent his youth, are truncated and cut into mere descriptive text. It makes me wonder how much I have lost of the countless books I have read translated out of their native tongues into English. It makes me want to study Ancient Greek and resail the wine-dark seas of The Odyssey, to get lost again in the twisting paths the Spanish Labyrthinths, to take up arms once more against the kenning guile of the skalds and their Edda.





影を放つ / the loosing of the shadow

meanwhile, i am reading a lot of blogs from lebanon. i wrote myself an email from my phone:

soundtrack to an insane world
vicarious
black swan
packed in a subway car
immersed in the blogosphere








歌詞

vicarious

the universe is hostile
so impersonal
devour to survive, so it is
so it's always been

we all feed on tragedy
it's like bood to a vampire

vicariously i live while the whole world dies
much better you than i

black swan

buy a ticket and get on the train

cause this is fucked up, fucked up

レバノン戦記

http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/
http://cedarseed.livejournal.com/
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/
http://chercheusedor.blogspot.com/
http://www.michaeltotten.com/
。。。