Seidensticker Reflection - Ellerie

 What stood out to me most in this reading is how often Seidensticker talks about flaws. He mentions that he likes an author more if they have flaws, like how he believes Shakespeare did not write perfectly the first time because he is imperfect. It brings up the interesting point of how to translate while accounting for the original author's flaws. If the author makes a mistake, is it up to the translator to clarify? Even with the discussion of changing the translation because of ambiguity, how much can we justify with grammatical arguments, such as needing a subject, and how much is the translator trying to fix the author's vagueness. I feel like there's a thin line between accommodating for the language difference and 'fixing' an author's flaw, at least with the examples given in the reading.

Another thing that stood out to me that was mentioned almost off-handedly in the reading was the concept of dark and light in Japanese works. I'd never thought about the visual aspect of kana versus kanji on print before, but the idea of using the contrast is interesting to me. Especially with the cultural implications of kanji representing a Chinese influence and kana representing a more Japanese feel, it would be interesting to read a novel that plays with the contrast.