Translation: On Knowing and Not Knowing

One is one-one, one-one is One.

So said the Japanese philosopher Baien Miura (1723-1789), and I feel, in the same ontological musing way, that I’m nascent, open, and always creating. In Finnish the sentence might read “Yksi halaa kahta muuta ja kaksi avaavat uutta yhtä” (One embraces two others and two opens one other). My knowledge is not final. It strives to gain new knowledge and a new greenness, because reality is a comprehensive, dynamic process, and because “the self of a person can’t exist without interaction” (Leena Krohn). And how delightful it is to be able to know what I don’t know. How thankful I always am that I am creating new knowledge and that I am setting out on a journey toward new knowledge.

I awaken to new knowledge when I am empty, on unknown ground. That’s how a new creation is born. Finnish literature and its translation make me listen. Translation happens in a charmed circle where I can disconnect from everyday activity and thematic ruts. Or, as happens in Leena Krohn’s bee pavilion, where still unknown thoughts fly to meet you. These thoughts awaken new knowledge within me, which is one of the most surprising experiences in translation and its process.

One precious experience of mine is that I’ve been able to encounter good books and writers, whose rhythm I recognise as my own. These books don’t impose any authority, instead they create their own style that radiates its own beauty in its own way, and yet still say something of lasting human value. These are the books I want to translate, the books that I want to draw attention to. Due to my sheer clumsiness, however, it takes some time to get a book noticed, for books to rise on wings in our target language in Japan. I have been grateful that the writers have blessed my stilted, inadequate efforts with their forbearance, have seen the small seed in them and believed that it would germinate and break through.

Translating has never left me all alone. I feel myself always a part of a whole, interconnected, in relationship with others, interacting with others. I am learning to know potential worlds and interpretations and also that nothing is unambiguous.

The first day of spring has blown in. With a full-throated howl, thudding into the trees and leaves. There are crocus leaves in my flower pot. The soil is saturated with water and is binding itself to the sun. Opposite leaves like pine needles rise from the asymmetric tuber. Festive white wisps streak the narrow leaves. I’m waiting for them to soon be crowned with lilac grapes. Everything is making green.

Translated by Lola Rogers

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