The Great Passage

Another of the translated books Amazon was giving away, this one is a contemporary Japanese novel about finding your passion. The book follows a group of rather awkward people working to make a new dictionary. It's a lifelong dream of two older men, who are nearing retirement and take a young man under their wings. They mentor him and help him learn to interact better with the world around him. He, in turn, helps usher their dream project (which quickly becomes his dream project) to fruition.

There wasn't a ton of conflict in this tale, which is mostly about good-natured and well-intentioned people becoming friends and helping each other out. It can be a nice change of pace to read stories like that. The biggest drama is whether or not they'll meet their deadline. It's something I can relate to, but it's also not like the stakes are all that high. At worst they'll have to push the release back.

It was interesting to learn about the process of making a dictionary, at least in Japan. The decisions about including new words and cutting old words. Quibbling about updating definitions to reflect a changing world. And then checking everything five times, because you absolutely cannot have a typo in the dictionary. It would be disastrous.

It was also fun to read some of the ruminations on language. And especially since this was originally written in Japanese, I got to learn some fun new idioms. Translating this book must have been a unique challenge, and a fair number of Japanese words are left in, with translations provided in the text. The problem is subtly commented on at the end, where various translations of ancient Chinese poems are compared and discussed. It helps highlight the way different words add different shades of meaning.

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