Mysteries of Translation  An Email roundtable decoration
microphone decoration microphone  decoration microphone Not
thinking about the translator when reading a book originating in
another language can be considered the biggest sign of
acknowledgment of his/her work.  Transfering the athmosphere,
style and background of a book originally written in Japanese is
very demanding and needs full and deep knowledge of both
cultures.  Nothing illustrates the importance of the translator
better than the following example. It's the opening sentence of
Wind-up Bird Chronicle translated by A. Birnbaum and J. Rubin:
"When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of
spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the
overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the
perfect music for cooking pasta. "I wanted to ignore the phone,
not only because the spaghetti was nearly done, but because
Claudio Abbado was bringing the London Symphony to its musical
climax."   "I'm in the kitchen cooking