Lost in Translation

Thursday, February 5, 2004

I just finished reading Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, which was the basis of the cult movie.

Much has been said about the graphic violence of the book, but what really had me transfixed was the imperfect English translation of the original Japanese. The translation renders the English very formal, and in the context of a book in which 42 highschool students try to kill each other, almost comical as well.

Here are some of my favourite bits:

The slashing sound Megumi heard sounded like a lemon being cut.

It was a nice sound. The knife must have been really sharp and the lemon fresh, the way they are on television cooking shows, as in, “Today we’ll be cooking lemon salmon.”

Toshinori no longer played dead. He remained frozen. Blood dripped out from under the helmet, which resembled a bowl of sauce.

Yoshimi shielded Yoji’s body. The sickle was planted in his skull. Her tears fell onto his body. The sickle was telling her: shaking me won’t revive me, don’t shake me, there’s a sickle stuck in me, man, that hurts.