As urban and social changes have broken through the polite fiction of Japan as a homogeneous, harmonious, and consensus-driven society, the importance of the café in allowing or filling gaps—social, temporal, institutional, and personal—increases.
1. the polite fiction of Japan as ... 更多应指对日本社会高度同质化的某种“虚拟”印象或建构?尽管按此理解也一定程度上可以说这种社会氛围本身存在虚构性。且存疑;关键在于如何理解fiction。
Tokyo's old innercity spaces, for example, display remarkable endurance in the face of transformations in the economy that pull Tokyo's neighborhoods out of a traditional merchant/ shop model and into a “global” frame of meaning—from two-story shop-plus-home residences to high-rise luxury condominiums. It is likely that, having resisted the pulls of modern affluence, such neighborhoods might also resist the pushes of decline. Outmigration has not threatened them much, either; what might endanger them in the future are the aging population and the low birthrate, but even in hard times, many of these neighborhoods are revitalizing without gentrifying.
作者认为,东京中心老城在推动Tokyo's neighborhoods的经济转型之中体现出了耐力(抵抗力)。这里Tokyo's neighborhoods究竟是如译文所言,指“东京周边地区”,还是指“东京的一些地方(社区)”(亦即与Tokyo's old innercity spaces的所指为同一空间,只不过更强调其社区存在)呢?我认为指代后者会更符合逻辑,这样讨论的对象就一直是东京;况且要说周边地区的话,大概会用neighboring areas/cities的表达。更了解东京及周边城市发展的朋友应该更好作出判断(做记号留着问萌...)。然后是整句的结构:that pull Tokyo's neighborhoods out of [...] 的pull与前面transformations主谓一致,而非与endurance一致,因此后面描述的变化都是经济转型的现象,而非如译文理解是“耐力”的作用。
“[A] ‘global’ frame of meaning”我没太理解是什么意思,但“更具有全球结构意义的模式”我认为不通:什么叫“全球结构意义”?此外原文里frame of meaning是对标model的,但译文译成“(全球)结构意义”后不得不加上“模式”才能成句。作者认为东京的这种转型是having resisted the pulls of modern affluence——我不了解经济学和城市社会学,不能用专业的语言转述相应过程,但我想pulls应该作为“牵力、引力”解,而不是“诱惑”?
最后一句译文从中文本身来讲存在主语变更并丢失的问题,不能读通;也是促使我去对这部分原文的诱因。 [M]any of these neighborhoods are revitalizing without gentrifying,我想是说许多neighborhoods没有就此更新成为城市中产阶级聚集的社区,而是几乎以原来的面貌振兴起来。“向中产阶级靠拢”不通。
As in Tanizaki Junichiro's novel Naomi, in the less-traditional world of the café, a certain bohemian style blurred cultures of class and patterns of behavior. Naomi, a flapperish, freethinking or at least free-behaving café waitress, is the “quintessential literary evocation” of the café waitress.
1. Naomi是『痴人の愛』的英译名,中译本通常作《痴人之爱》。
2. the less-tranditional world of the café字面义为“不太传统的咖啡馆世界”,“颠覆传统”或许太过。
3. cultures of class较“社会阶层”本身更强调这一“文化”。
4. flapperish形容美国20世纪20年代的“飞女郎”(flappers),主要指女性享受自我、突破社会常规的行为方式;freethinking or at least free behaving直译即,“思想自由或至少行为自由”,思想与行为二者严格来说并非译文呈现的并列关系。主要关注的仍是娜奥米行为层面的表现。