Ōe Kenzaburō's "Shiiku" (1958)
Bester's "The Catch" v. Nathan's "Prize Stock"
By William Wetherall
First draft 17 July 2012
First posted 30 May 2023
Last updated 10 July 2023
Comparisons of 3 English versions of 3 passages from Ōe Kenzaburō's 1958 short story "Shiiku"
• John Bester's freer translation as "The Catch" (1959)
• John Nathan's semi-structural translation as "Prize Stock" (1977)
• My structural translation as "Animal keeping" (2023)
Translating "Shiiku" Beginning and end • "kokujin-hei" and "kuronbo" • "sekusu" Sources Ōe Kenzaburō • John Bester • John Nathan • Commentary
"Shiiku" and its translations
"Shiiku" (飼育) was the 3rd of many short stories published by Ōe Kenzaburō (1935-2023) in 1957 and 1958. For "Shiiku" in particular, he was awarded the Akutagawa Prize in 1958. The prize is awarded twice a year, and Ōe recieved it for the first first half. There was no awardee for the second half. He was 23 at the time and still a student of French literature at Tokyo University. He graduated the following year with a thesis on images in the novels of Jean-Paul Sarte (1905-1980), who writings had a major influence on Ōe.
"Shiiku" -- which means "providing food and water to" or "keeping" non-human animals (shi 飼 v. kau), and "raising" any form of life (iku 育 v. sodateru) -- was first published in the January 1958 issue of Bungakukai (文學界), the literary journal of the publishing house Bungei Shunjū (文藝春秋), which has awarded the Akutagawa Prize since 1935 in honor of the writer Akutagawa ryūnosuke (芥川龍之介 1892-1927).
Bester's translation
The first English version of "Shiiku", by the British translator John Bester (1927-2010), appeared as "The Catch" in the January-March 1959 issue of Japan Quarterly (Volume 6, Number 1), which was published by Asahi Shimbunsha from 1954-2001.
Bester's version was also collected in an anthology of five short stories selected and introduced by Shoichi Saeki (Saeki Shōichi 佐伯彰一 1922-2016), entitled The Shadow of Sunrise: Selected Stories of Japan and the War (Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd., 1966, pages 15-61). Saeki, student of American literature and comparative literature, was well known as a literature and arts critic and translator. His translations include Gendai Nihon sakka ron (現代日本作家論) [Views present-era Japan writers] by Edward G. Seidensticker (エドワード・G・サイデンステッカー), on Nagai Kafū, Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, and Dazai Osamu, published in 1964 and 1969 by Shinchōsha (新潮社).
A film version of "Shiiku", directed by Ōshima Nagisa (大島渚 1932-2013), was released by Taihō (大宝) on 22 November 1961. It was released with English titles as The Catch, but it's French-titled release was called Le Piège (une bête à nourrir) [The trap: A beast to feed]. The black American airman, who was captured by villagers when his plane was shot down, was played by Hugh Hurd (ヒュー・ハード 1925-1995 Hugh Lincoln Hurd), an American actors active from 1959-1993. The Japanese male lead was played by Mikuni Rentarō (三國連太郎 1923-2013), who was already a major actor in Japan.
Nathan's translation
John nathan's version of "Shiiku" was published as "Prize Stock" in Teach us to Outgrow Our Madness, a collection of "Four Short Novels by Kenzaburō Ōe" bought out by Grove Press in 1977 (pages 111-168).
Comparing translations
Translators considerably differ with respect to how they go about retelling a story written in one language, in another language. They generally agree that the basic elements of the story should be the same in both languages. If the original features a mountain, then the translation should have a mountain, not a hill or a ridge, nor a mountain range. And if the mountain is big in the original, it should be big in the translation. In other words, elements envisioned by readers of the translaton should be equivalent to those envisioned by readers of the original -- in all possible respects.
Most commentators on Ōe Kenzaburo's Japanese repeat the now familiar opinion that it is somehow RESUME his
What, though, about the story's narrative? The way the story is told? How the author deploys words -- verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adjectives -- in service of dramatizing or describing actions and conditions? And whether the author smiths words in shorter simple sentences, or in longer compound sentences consisting of phrases that unfold in a straight line, or become become grammatically nested if not tangled?
Is a translator obliged to press English into the service of cutting as close to the metaphorical bone of the original as possible? Or should a translator feel free to submit the original to a personal or editorial notion of how the story should be told in English, even it if means cutting or adding words, changing the order of information, inserting explanations, breaking up longer sentences, combing shorter sentences, reparagraphing, activating passive expressions, or turning show to tell, among many other , changing the order of information, passive expressions to active expression, s to actives, or show to tell??representing the author's style in Japanese -- versus submitting the original that imposes the translator's preferences one or another notion of familiar English expression, at the expense of submitting the metaphors and phrasing of the Japanese original to a restylize the Japanese into what the author feels a "natural"
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English versions of Ōe Kenzaburō's "Shiiku" (1958) |
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Beginning |
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Original僕と弟は、谷底の仮設火葬場、灌木の茂みを伐り開いて浅く土を掘りおこしただけの簡潔な火葬場の、脂と灰を臭う柔かい表面を木片でかきまわしていた。谷底はすでに、夕暮と霧、林に湧く地下水のように冷たい霧におおいつくされていたが、僕たちの住む、谷間へかたむいた山腹の、石を敷きつめた道を囲む小さい村には、葡萄色の光がなだれていた。僕は屈めていた腰を伸ばし、力のない欠伸を口腔いっぱいにふくらませた。弟も立ちあがり小さい欠伸をしてから僕に微笑みかけた。 |
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Free translationThe Catch (John Bester)My young brother and I were at the temporary crematory at the bottom of the valley, the rudimentary crematory that had been made, quite simply, by cutting a space in the dense shrubs and spading up a shallow layer of earth. We were scratching about with pieces of wood in the soft surface earth that smelled of fat and ashes. Already the bottom of the valley was submerged in sunset and a mist cold as underground water gushing out in a wood. A light the color of grapes was pouring down on the small village, built along a cobbled road on the hillside facing the valley, where we lived. I straightened my bent back and gave a capacious languid yawn. My brother stood up too, yawned briefly, and smiled at me. |
Semi-structural free translationPrize Stock (John Nathan)My kid brother and I were digging with pieces of wood in the loose earth that smelled of fat and ashes at the surface of the crematorium, the makeshift crematorium in the valley that was simply a shallow pit in a clearing in the underbrush. The valley bottom was already wrapped in dusk and fog as cold as the spring water that welled up in the woods, but the side of the hill where we lived, the little village built around a cobblestone road, was bathed in grape light. I straightened out of a crouch and weakly yawned, my mouth streching open. My brother stood up too, gave a small yawn, and smiled at me. |
Structural translationAnimal keeping (Bill WetherallI and my little brother were stirring with sticks of wood the soft surface that smelled of fat and ash, of the temporary crematory, a simple crematory made by just clearing a growth of shrubs and shallowly digging up the earth. The valley floor already was covered by the dusk and fog, a fog cool like the ground water that springs up in the forest; but on the small village where we lived, which surrounded a road paved with stones, on a mountain side that leaned toward the valley, light the color of grapes collapsed. I straightened my back, which had been stooped, and let a powerless yawn fully inflate my oral cavity. My little brother also stood up, and after affecting a small yawn, smiled at me. |
CommentaryMy structural translation might be touch up a bit -- a word or two changed -- perhaps a phrase or two sacrificed to the gods of English ideom rather than Japanese. the same story., in this particular paragraph at the outset of "Shiiku". | ||
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Middle "kuronbo" (darky) and "kokujin-hei" (black soldier) |
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Original「あいつ黒んぼだなあ、俺は初めからそう思っていたんだ」と兎口は感動に震える声でいった。 「ほんとうの黒んぼだなあ」 「あいつをどうするんだろう，広場で撃ち殺すのかなあ」 「撃ち殺す？」と驚きに息を弾ませて兎口が叫んだ。「正真正銘の黒んぼを撃ち殺す」 「敵だから」と僕は自信なく主張した。 「敵，あいつが敵だつて？」と兎口は僕の胸ぐらを摑み脣の割れめから唾液を僕の顔いちめんに吐きかけながら声を嗄れさせて，どなりちらした。「黒んぼだぜ，敵なもんか」 「ほら、ほら」と子供たちの群れのなかから、弟の熱中した声が聞えた。 「あれを見ろ」 僕と兎口は振りかえり、当惑して見守っている大人たちから少し離れて黒人兵が肩をぐったり垂れ、放尿しているのを見つめた。黒人兵の躰は、作業服めいた草色の上衣にズボンを残して、濃さをました夕闇の中へ溶けこもうとしていた。[ . . . ] |
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Free translationThe Catch (John Bester)"He's a nigger, isn't he? I though so from the start,", he [Harelip] said in a voice trembling with excitement. "A real nigger!" "Wonder what they'll do him. Shoot him maybe," I said. "Shoot him? cried Harelip, his voice breathless with astonishment. "Shoot a real, live, genuine nigger?" "But he's an enemy," I insisted without confidence. "Enemy? Him an enemy?" he spluttered hoarsely, seizing me by the collar and spraying my whole face from the gap in his lip. "He's a nigger! Enemy, indeed!" "Hey, hey!" My brother's voice came excitedly from the group of children. "Look at that!" Harelip and I turned around and stared at the Negro airman. With drooping shoulders, he was urinating a short distance from the grown-ups, who looked on in embarrassment. His black body was gradually melting away into the deepening dusk, leaving only the dark green jacket and the trousers that looked like a workman's clothes. [ . . . ] |
Semi-structural free translationPrize Stock (John Nathan)"He's black, you see that! I thought he would be all along." Harelip's voice trembled with excitement. "He's a real black man, you see!" "What are they going to do with him, shoot him?" "Shoot him!" Harelip shouted, gasping with surprise. "Shoot a real live black man!" "Because he's the enemy," I asserted without confidence. Enemy! You call him an enemy!" Harelip seized my shirt and railed at he hoarsely, spraying my face with saliva through his lip. "He's a black man, he's no enemy!" "Look! Look at that!" It was my brother's awed voice coming from the crowd of children. "Look!" Harelip and I turned around and peered at the black soldier; standing a little apart from the adults observing him in consternation, his shoulders sagging heavily, he was pissing. His body was beginning to melt into the thickened evening darkness, leaving behind the khaki jacket and pants that were somehow like overalls. [ . . . ] |
Structural translationAnimal keeping (Bill Wetherall"The guy's a nigger. I thought so from the start," Hairlip said in a voice that trembled with emotion. "A real nigger." "What'll they do to the guy? Maybe shoot him in the [village] square. "Shoot him?" Hairlip shouted, propelling his breath in surprise. "Kill a real and genuine nigger." "He's an enemy," I proclaimed without confidence. "An enemy -- the guy's an enemy?" Harelip roared out, grating his voice while gripping my colar and spewing saliva all over my face from the from split in his lip. "He's a nigger! What do you mean an enemy!" "Hey! Hey!", from among the throng of children, the heated voice of my little brother could be heard. "Look at that!" I and Harelip turned around, and gazed at the black soldier, a bit separated from the adults who were watching over him perplexed, limply drooping his shoulders, and urinating. The black soldier's body was trying to blend into the deepened evening darkness, leaving his work-clothes-like grass-colored upper garment and pants. [ . . . ] |
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Ending |
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Original僕は子供たちに囲まれることを避けて、書記の死体を見すて、草原に立ちあがった。僕は唐突な死、死者の表情、ある時には哀しみのそれ、あると国は微笑み、それらに急速に慣れてきていた、村の大人たちがそれらに慣れているように。黒人兵を焼くために集められた薪で、書記は火葬されるだろう。僕は昏れのこっている狭く白い空を涙のたまった眼で見あげ弟を探すために草原をおりて行った。 |
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Free translationThe Catch (John Bester) |
Semi-structural free translationPrize Stock (John Nathan) |
Structural translationSexual aggression and deviance (Bill Wetherall |
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Ending |
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Original僕は子供たちに囲まれることを避けて、書記の死体を見すて、草原に立ちあがった。僕は唐突な死、死者の表情、ある時には哀しみのそれ、あると国は微笑み、それらに急速に慣れてきていた、村の大人たちがそれらに慣れているように。黒人兵を焼くために集められた薪で、書記は火葬されるだろう。僕は昏れのこっている狭く白い空を涙のたまった眼で見あげ弟を探すために草原をおりて行った。 |
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Free translationThe Catch (John Bester)Afraid of being surrounded by the children, I forsook the Clerk's body and stood up in the grass. Quite quickly, I had become familiar with sudden death and with the faces of death, now sad, now smiling -- just as the grown-ups in the town were familiar with them. The Clerk, I imagined, would be burned with the wood they had collected to burn the Negro. . . . With tear-filled eyes, I looked up at the narrow white stretch of sky where twilight still lingered, then set off down the field in search of my brother. |
Semi-structural free translationPrize Stock (John Nathan)To avoid being surrounded by the children I abandoned Clerk's corpse and stood up on the slope. I rapidly become familiar with sudden death and the expressions of the dead, sat at times and grinning at times, just as the adults were familiar with them. Clerk would be cremated with the firewood gathered to cremate the black solder. Glancing up with tears at the narrowed sky still white with twilight, I went down the grassy slope to look for my brother. |
Structural translationAnimal keeping (Bill WetherallI, avoiding being surrounded by the children, abandoning the corpse, stood up on the grassy field. Sudden death, expressions of the dead, at times one of sadness, at times a smile, I had quickly become used to them, in the manner that adults in the village were used to them. With the firewood gathered to burn the black soldier, Clerk would also probably be cremated. I looked up with tear-pooled eyes at the narrow white sky of lingering twilight and descended the grassy field to look for my little brother. |
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Selected sources
There are Ōe Kenzaburō has been the object of numerous articles and books in Japanese, and fewer but not a few journal and monograph publications in English and other languages. I am listing here only those that I have cited in this comparison of translations of "Shiiku" (1958).
Oe 1958 "Shiiku"
Shiiku was first published the January 1958 issue of a monthly literary magazine, then republished in September 1958 issue of the monthly magazine that announced the story as the winner of 39th Akutagawa Prize. A year later, it was anthologized with 5 other stories by Ō3 in a bunko edition that remains in print.
1958-01 original edition
大江健三郎
飼育
文學界
東京：文藝春秋新社
昭和三十三年一月號
第十二巻、第一号
Ōe Kenzaburō
Shiiku
[ Animal raising ]
Bungakukai
Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū Shinsha
January 1958 issue
Volume 12, Number 1
I have not seen this issue.
1958-09 Akutagawa Prize announcement edition
The 39th Akutagawa Prize was awarded in September 1958 for the 1st half of the calendar year beginning in January. 7 stories published in commercial or coterie magazines and other publications between January and June 1958 were selected as candidtates. The 11-member selection committee -- minus Ibuse Masuji, who was ill -- convened on 21 July to determine the winner, who was announced in the September issue of Bungei shunjū, which was printed on 20 August.
Selection and commentary Comments by judges
財団法人 日本文学振興会
第三十九回 昭和卅三年度上半期
芥川龍之介賞決定発表
「飼育」大江健三郎
（賞時計及副賞金拾万円也）
文藝春秋
東京：文藝春秋新社
昭和三十三年九月特別號
第三十六巻、第十號
ページ 304-312
Zaidan Hōjin Nihon Bungaku Shinkō Kai
[ Juridical foundation Japan literature promotion society ]
39th 1st half of year 1958
Akutagawa Ryūnosuke Prize decision announcement
"Shiiku" Ōe Kenzaburō
(Prize watch and supplementary prize 100,000 yen)
Bungei shunjū
Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū Shinsha
September 1958 special issue
Volume 36, Number 10
Pages 304-312
This article cites the thoughts Ōe expressed upon receiving the prize, and the appraisals of each of the 11 selection committee members -- Ishikawa Tatsuzō, Kawabata Yasunari, Nakamura Mitsuo, Niwa Fumio, Takii Kōsaku, Satō Haruo, Ibuse Masuji, Funabashi Seiichi, Nagai Tatsuo, Inoue Yasushi, and Uno Kōji.
Prize winning work
大江健三郎
飼育
(第三十九回芥川賞・受賞作)
文藝春秋
昭和三十三年九月特別號
第三十六巻、第十號
ページ 314-346
Ōe Kenzaburō
Shiiku
[ Animal raising ]
(39th Akutagawa Prize prize-winning work)
Bungei shunjū
September 1958 special issue
Volume 36, Number 10
Pages 314-346
This is presumably the text of the story as printed in the January 1958 issue of Bungakukai.
1959-09-25 anthologized bunko edition
大江健三郎
死者の奢り・飼育
東京：新潮社
昭和三十四年九月二十五日 発行
昭和六十一年四月三十日 四十四刷
ページ 73-129
Ōe Kenzaburō
Shisha no ogori · Shiiku
[ Feasts of the dead ·: Animal keeping ]
Tokyo: Shinchōsha
25 September 1959 published
30 April 1986 44th printing
Pages 73-129
This Shinchō Bunko edition collects six short stories, including the two title stories, "Tanin no ashi", "Ningen no hitsuji", "Fui no oshi", and "Tatakai no konnichi"
1959 John Bester translation
John Bester's 1959 translation continues to be
Ōe Kenzaburō
Translated by John Bester
The Catch
Japan Quarterly
January-March 1959 (Volume VI, Number 1)
Ōe Kenzaburō
The Catch
Translated by John Bester
In: The Shadow of Sunrise: Selected Stories of Japan and the WarSaeki
Selection and Introduction by Sho;ichi Saeki
Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd., 1966
Pages 15-61
This collection includes five short stories -- written by different authors and translated by different translators -- beginning with Bester's translation of Ōe's "Shiiku" as "The Catch". The five stories are collectively introduced by !Saeki Shōichi (佐伯彰一 1922-2016), a major literary critic.
Ōe Kenzaburō
The Catch
Translated by John Bester
In: The Catch and Other War Stories
Selected and Introduced by Shōichi Saeki
Kodansha International, 1981
Pages 15-61
This volume includes only the first four of the five stories collected in The Shadow of Sunrise (see above).
1977 John Nathan translation
Ōe Kenzaburō
Translated by John Nathan
Prize Stock
In: Teach us to Outgrow Our Madness
Grove Press, 1977
Pages 111-168
Tachibana 2002
Reiko Tachibana (Pennsylvania State University)
Structures of Power: Ōe Kenzaburō's "Shiiku" ("Prize Stock")
World Literature Today (University of Oklahoma)
Spring 2002 (Volume 76, Number 2)
Pages 36-48, including notes and sources (pages 46-48)
This article is readable on-line at JSTOR (doi.org/10.2307/40157258). An earlier incarnation was presetned as "Circulation of Power in Oe Kenzaburo's 'Shiiku'" at the Southern Comparative Literature Association conference in September 1997.
Reiko Tachibana was an Emerita Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Japanese, and Asian Studies in the Department of Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University at the time of this writing (2023). According to one of her faculty profiles, she received a B.A. in German from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1982, an M.A. in German Literature from New York University in 1985, and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from The Pennsylvania State University in 1991. Her book, Narrative as Counter-Memory: A Half-Century of Postwar Writing in Germany and Japan (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998), is a revision of her doctoral dissertation.
Tachibana's "Structures of Power" examines Ōe's "Shiiku" through a 1995 printing of Shinchōsha's bunko edition, while citing Nathan's "Prize Stock" as "more complete than John Bester's "The Catch" (Note 1, page 46). She observes that Bester's version "omits the majority of potentially offensive or sexual scenes, including the attempted soldier-goat copulation" ((Note 5, page 46). She also cites English and Japanese commentary, and a couple of German sources, in her focus on images of "blacks" in Japan and Japanese literature.