Review of Kawabata's "Palm of the Hand" stories and their translation into English

A detailed review posted on the AI and rationality forum LessWrong provides a rare, technically-minded analysis of literary translation, using Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata's 'Palm of the Hand' stories as a case study. The reviewer, 'sudo', praises the collection's masterful craft—highlighting the haunting vividness of 'The Girl Who Approached the Fire' (1924) and the precise, three-page buildup to a poignant meditation in 'The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket'. However, the core of the analysis is a critique of the English translation by Lane Dunlop and J. Martin Holman, arguing that while the translated work remains brilliant for new readers, significant precision is lost.

The review culminates in a close reading and partial retranslation of the 1944 story 'Water', which follows a wife moving from water-rich Japan to arid Manchuria. The reviewer dissects specific passages, contrasting the original Japanese text with the published translation to illustrate where emotional resonance and linguistic subtlety fade. For instance, a line about the cost and quality of water is presented in both forms to show a flattening of visceral impact. This exercise serves a dual purpose: it showcases Kawabata's brilliance in intertwining imagery and language, and it provides a concrete example of the gaps that translation—and by extension, perhaps even AI language processing—can create, making it a valuable reference point for discussions about meaning preservation across languages.