A Special Offer

A pitch for supporting the Library's translation efforts

Last week, Castalia Library completed the first-ever English translation of the six books of THE SECRET SCROLLS OF NARUTO by Eiji Yoshikawa. All six books are now available on Amazon and are in the hands of the paid subscribers to this substack.

A few of our newest subscribers last week who had not known about the program asked if we would let them catch up on the earlier books, so we did so. Now, as we’re about to embark upon starting a new series in a different language tomorrow, we would like to make the same offer to anyone who becomes a paid subscriber to this substack this week.

The new book has already been sent out to the current subscribers, and, of course, the new subscribers this week will get that one too. It’s the first in a very serious, and a very significant, translation project that will be delivered over the course of the next 24 months. As with Naruto Hicho, the greater part of the next series has never been translated into English before.

None of our translation efforts changes the primary purpose of this site, which is to ensure that subscribers to one of Castalia Library’s five leather book subscriptions are kept up-to-date on the progress of our book productions as well as the activities of the Castalia Bindery. And we very much appreciate their support for the books, which is the whole point of all of this activity, including the translations.

Speaking of production, this weekend we finally finished the audit of the 795 waka in THE TALE OF GENJI. Both volumes have now been translated, all of the poems are now verified, translated, and formatted correctly, and now it’s a matter of laying out the interiors and designing the endpapers and cover stamps. This is a landmark translation of GENJI, because it’s the first time the waka have been ever been translated in distinct styles that reflect the characters writing them instead of making them sound as if one elderly Victorian wrote them all.

For example, this is the first waka to appear in Lady Murasaki’s classic novel, written by the highly literate dying Empress.

限りとて別るる道の悲しきに / いかまほしきは命なりけり

Now the parting comes,

this road of farewell

heavy with sorrow:

what I would walk toward,

what I long for, is life.

Which, of course, reads very differently than the waka later written by the unsophisticated young woman of the Hitachi residence.

着てみれば恨みられけり唐衣 / 返しやりてむ袖を濡らして

I put it on,

and found myself resenting it,

this Chinese robe:

shall I send it back again

with sleeves still wet from weeping?

So you can see how both the book and the site subscribers are supporting the entire literary endeavor, in one form or another, and all in the service of creating the best and most beautiful books in the world.