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A review by versmonesprit
The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Bashō
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Of all the books that turn out to be massive disappointments, the relatively mild disappointment I had with The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches might just be the one to crush my soul the hardest. That is because last year I read Bashō’s haikus, and I ended up crying at the face of their beauty. I saved this book to be the star of another “January in Japan,” but I couldn’t find that same magic here.
And it comes down to translation. First of all, I have a lot of respect for Nobuyuki Yuasa’s love and care for his work. His introduction is packed full with knowledge and a vast selection of poetry, and what he undertook was a tremendous work: at a time Google did not exist, he made sure to include so many notes, this could serve as an academic source material. That is something I always appreciate, but most of the notes were not important at all, and they break up the flow of the original work by Bashō so much that you as the reader cannot immerse yourself in it. And on top, while I understand Yuasa’s reasoning, his four-line translations do not have the same effect as three-line haikus — worse yet, going solely off these English translations, I can easily see ways to make them into three-liners!
As Yuasa mentions in the introduction, Bashō’s prose pales in favour of the haiku in his earlier work. But as they both mature, the prose is able to stand for its own, as well as support the haikus’ context, strengthening their double layered nature. While reading these accounts, I couldn’t help but notice how Bashō had the same restlessness to go back to travelling as Jack Kerouac did in On the Road, further solidifying that impulse, that desire to go as a universal human condition.
And it comes down to translation. First of all, I have a lot of respect for Nobuyuki Yuasa’s love and care for his work. His introduction is packed full with knowledge and a vast selection of poetry, and what he undertook was a tremendous work: at a time Google did not exist, he made sure to include so many notes, this could serve as an academic source material. That is something I always appreciate, but most of the notes were not important at all, and they break up the flow of the original work by Bashō so much that you as the reader cannot immerse yourself in it. And on top, while I understand Yuasa’s reasoning, his four-line translations do not have the same effect as three-line haikus — worse yet, going solely off these English translations, I can easily see ways to make them into three-liners!
As Yuasa mentions in the introduction, Bashō’s prose pales in favour of the haiku in his earlier work. But as they both mature, the prose is able to stand for its own, as well as support the haikus’ context, strengthening their double layered nature. While reading these accounts, I couldn’t help but notice how Bashō had the same restlessness to go back to travelling as Jack Kerouac did in On the Road, further solidifying that impulse, that desire to go as a universal human condition.