MCLC: Sandalwood Death review (3)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Jeff Wasserstrom <wasserstromjeff at gmail.com>
Subject: Sandalwood Death review (3)
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Jonathan Stalling brings up a variety of issues in his commentary on Jiwei
Xiao's Sandalwood Death essay that ran at the Los Angeles Review of Books
as part of a China and the Nobel series that Megan Shank, who co-edits the
LARB Asia Section and I, pulled together. There is a lot to respond to,
but for now I just want to make three points.

First, while I am delighted whenever the text of an LARB China review is
shared with this list, in this case, the fact that only the text appeared
obscured something important about how it was published: with an image of
the cover of the Howard Goldblatt translation of the book.  This may not
have been enough but it is worth members of the list knowing about.  (You
can see what I mean if you click here
https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/theater-cruelty-jiwei-xiao-mo-yans-sandal
wood-death ; at the bottom of that post you will find links to other
essays in the China and the Nobel series if you are interested.)

Second, Megan (who unlike me has worked as a translator) and I both take
translation seriously, as does the LARB.  This is shown by, among other
things, the Q & A with Howard Goldblatt that Jonathan Stalling referred to
in his comment (which we didn't commission or edit, as there are varied
ways that pieces can end up on the site) and other things that have run at
the LARB, from a Q & A that I did for its "China Blog" with translator
Brendan O'Kane to a Q & A on Gao Xingjian we commissioned for the series
from Claire Conceison, someone we turned to in part because she had been
involved in translating his work.

Third, I hope that the comment about having "all but given up on the LARB
reviewing" this particular book wasn't meant to and isn't read to imply
that there are some things that definitely deserve attention from the
publication, as there will always be very worthy books that don't get
reviewed.  It also would be a mistake to think there's a definite
correlation between having a review copy sent to the LARB or one of its
editors--or even an editor saying he or she would be interested in seeing
a review copy and considering getting a work reviewed--and a review coming
out.  There's never a guarantee as far as I know with any periodical,
since there are so many variables, including the chance that a review will
be commissioned and not come in or not seem right to publish for some
reason when it does.  More than that, while the LARB has been a wonderful
publication to be involved with and I've been very pleased with how it has
taken off, it is still very much a start-up and there are limits to what
over-stretched editors and limited staff can do.  Mo Yan is certainly
important, but after having run an interview with Sabina Knight on the
author right after his Nobel win, as well as later that interview with
Howard Goldblatt that was partly about his experiences translating Mo
Yan's works (in which his translation of Sandalwood Death was mentioned),
we could easily have ended up not reviewing that particular book. I'd like
to think that even if we hadn't, the LARBwould have ended 2013 having run
quite a lot of essays on Chinese literature for a non-specialist English
language publication.

Jeff Wasserstrom