20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
very good collection of buson's stuff, May 12, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Haiku Master Buson (Paperback)
This book has over 350 haiku by Buson in English translation, each with japanese text as well as romaji. The translations seem to be on the whole pretty accurate. Here are a couple of samples: "A springtime rain! / Little shells on a small beach,/enough to moisten them." "With the soundlessness of winter rain / on mosses, vanished days / are remembered." "Time of summer clothes, / and someone on the pathway through the field, / showing faintly white."
I have some reservations. I'm no poet or expert on Japanese, and you need to take what I say with a ton of salt, but I think quite a few of the translations don't exhibit the most elegant choice of words. For example, as much as I like the three haiku above, I'm not sure that whatever is gained by using the word "soundlessness" (compare with "silence") makes up for the longish feel of the word--and there isn't that much of the "s" sound in the Japanese. Or "Springtime rain" versus simply "Spring rain." Or "pathway" instead of just plan "path." I think part of the challenge in translating this stuff is to try to communicate the taut feel of the original. The translations here can be a little wordy, whereas I'd guess that much of the beauty of haiku is its elusive, spare quality, lending itself to a broader range of associations and sentiment. The style of translation in the "Penguin Book of Japanese Verse" (or, for you German readers, Jan Ulenbrook's superb "Haiku--japanische Dreizeiler") seems closer in spirit (though in some ways the translation here might be more technically accurate). Another things that's sort of distracting is the frequent use of exclamation marks here, which--at least to me--are stronger-looking in English than the grammatical mood in Japanese. For example, in "The mountain stonecutter's / chisel is being cooled / in the clear water!", the exclam is kind of odd-looking. Ah well, these are hardly reasons not to get the book.
The book also has some good informative essays, about 35 pp. There are a few paintings--reproduced, alas, in hazy black & white--and letters by Buson, and some writings about him by disciples and friends, such as "A Record of Buson's Last Days", all of them fairly short but some quite moving. Buson remains rather a shadowy figure in spite of these helpful materials, but it does start to give an idea of him, as a modest, quiet man wholly immersed in his arts. Rather ascetic.
Despite some doubts above, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for more of Buson's stuff, e.g. after getting through one or two general compilations of haiku. I confess to liking Issa better than Buson. Buson's poems must be about 180 degrees different from Issa's. They're more "objective" and--as the book helpfully mentions--having a strong optical or snapshot quality to them, whereas Issa imbues what he sees with personality and sentiment. After finishing this book, I still like Issa better, but there are a whole lot of poems here worth reading and remembering, and many thanks to the authors for this.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Haiku Master Buson, April 26, 2011
This review is from: Haiku Master Buson (Paperback)
I have added this book to my personal haiku library. The book tells the story of Japanese poet wanderer Buson through documents and features many of Buson's haiku poetry.
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