Thursday, July 20, 2006

finding the words

I've been happily living part-time in the fantasy world of Haruki Murakami, whose beautiful and surreal writing defies description. Towards the end of Kafka on the Shore, his latest novel, a line leapt out at me:

"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."

Tearing apart reminded me of imagery from Bach cantatas, and I thought it would sound even more dramatic in German:

"Erinnerungen wärmen Dich von innen auf. Doch sie reißen Dich auch auseinander."

Nowadays, I think with fondness of the warm memories I have of the hot country I was in this time last year, so Italian came to mind:

"Le memorie ti riscaldano dall'interno. Ma ti fanno anche a pezzi."

I wonder what would I would think of if I knew the original Japanese....

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