Fifty Sounds, page 30
Ray Monk, “Looking for Wittgenstein,” review of Ludwig Wittgenstein: Ein biographisches Album, ed. Michael Nedo, The New York Review of Books, 6 June 2013.
¶ GIZA-GIZA
Helen Gilhooly, Teach Yourself Japanese Language, Life & Culture (London: Teach Yourself, 2002).
Brandon Labelle, Lexicon of the Mouth: Poetics and Politics of Voice and the Oral Imaginary (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).
Yukio Mishima, Confessions of a Mask, tr. Meredith Weatherby (London: Panther, 1972).
Kenzaburō Ōe, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, tr. John Nathan (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1994).
Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart, tr. Philip Gabriel (New York: Knopf, 2001).
¶ ZARA-ZARA
Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (London: Vintage, 1991).
Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life; Young Ludwig, 1889–1921 (London: Duckworth, 1988).
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore, ed. G. H. von Wright (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974).
Gottlob Frege, The Basic Laws of Arithmetic I, 1893. As quoted in P. M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, tr. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (London: Routledge Classics, 2001).
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967).
Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations” (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).
¶ NOBI-NOBI
The Velvet Underground, “Ride into the Sun,” Another View, Verve Records, 1986.
Rachel Cusk, “In Praise of the Creative Writing Course,” Guardian, 18 January 2013.
Roland Barthes, Empire of Signs, tr. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983).
bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions (New York: William Morrow, 2001).
¶ MOJA-MOJA
Heinrich Hoffmann, Struwwelpeter, or, Pretty stories and funny pictures (London: Pavilion, 2010).
¶ YOCHI-YOCHI
Anne Fernald and Hiromi Morikawa, “Common Themes and Cultural Variations in Japanese and American Mothers’ Speech to Infants,” Child Development 64, no. 3 (June 1993).
¶ ZU’
Toni Morrison, Beloved (London: Vintage, 2019).
¶ MECHA-KUCHA
House, dir. Nobuhiko Ohbayashi, 1977.
Timothy J. Vance, “What Students of Japanese Can Learn from Akkadian Cuneiform,” Japanese Language and Literature 48, no. 2 (October 2014).
¶ CHIRA-CHIRA
The Yellow Monkey, “Miteinai yō de miteiru” [Pretending Not to Look at You], Sicks, Ariola Japan, 1997.
Love Exposure, dir. Sion Sono, 2008.
¶ JIN-JIN
Jun Togawa, “Virgin Blues,” Shōwa Kyōnen, Teichiku Entertainment, 1990.
Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet (Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1988).
Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, tr. Richard Howard (London: Vintage, 2002).
Slime Forest Adventure (Fight Slimes, Save a Princess, Learn Japanese!), Project LRNJ. http://lrnj.com.
¶ BARE-BARE
Iris Murdoch, The Sandcastle (London: Chatto & Windus, 1957).
Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature, ed. Fredson Bowers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017).
¶ JARA-JARA
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell, Interscope, 2003.
Arcade Fire, “Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels),” Funeral, Me´rge, 2004.
Kō Machida, Kokuhaku [Confessions] (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 2008).
¶ KORO-KORO
Susan Ervin-Tripp, “An Analysis of the Interaction of Language, Topic, and Listener,” American Anthropologist 66, no. 6 (December 1964).
Alice Robb, “Multilinguals have Multiple Personalities,” New Republic, 23 April 2014, https://newrepublic.com/article/117485/multilinguals-have-multiple-personalities.
¶ KIRA-KIRA
aiko, “Kira Kira,” Kanojo, Pony Canyon, 2006.
¶ SHOBO-SHOBO
Nicholas Bornoff, Pink Samurai: The Pursuit and Politics of Sex in Japan (London: Grafton Books, 1992).
Garth Greenwell, “ ‘I Wanted Something 100% Pornographic and 100% High Art’: The Joy of Writing About Sex,” Guardian, 8 May 2020.
¶ KIRI-KIRI
Audition, dir. Takashi Miike, 1999.
David Howe, Attachment Across the Lifecourse: A Brief Introduction (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Keiko Takahashi, “Examining the Strange-Situation Procedure with Japanese Mothers and 12-Month-Old Infants,” Developmental Psychology 22, no. 2 (1986).
Antonia Dodge and Joel Mark Witt, hosts; Bruce Muzik, guest, “Attachment Theory in Relationships,” Personality Hacker (podcast), episode 0125, 16 May 2016.
Spitz, “Kaede,” Fake Fur, Polydor, 1998.
¶ SHI’KURI
Misumi Kubo, So We Look to the Sky, tr. Polly Barton (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2021).
¶ HI’SORI
Tadaaki Imaizumi (ed.), Wakeatte shinimashita [Died for a Reason] (Tokyo: DIAMOND, Inc., 2018).
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Gilles Deleuze, Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty & Venus in Furs, tr. Jean McNeil (New York: Zone Books, 1999).
¶ UWAA
List of SFX at http://japan-and-me.com/japanese-sfx/.
Tadahiro Ōtsu et al., “Blue Monday Phenomenon among Men: Suicide Deaths in Japan,” Acta Medica Okayama 63, no. 5 (2009).
¶ UDA-UDA
Takashi Murakami (ed.), Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005).
¶ DON
“Kabedon,” Wikipedia, accessed 5 May 2020.
Tom Hanaway, “It’s Time to Talk about ‘Terrace House’ and Consent,” Japan Times, 10 May 2020.
¶ BORO-BORO
Devo, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! Warner Bros, 1978.
¶ SARA-SARA
Roald Dahl, The Witches (London: Jonathan Cape, 1983).
Nanae Aoyama, “Kakera” [Fragments], tr. Polly Barton, The White Review, no. 23 (October 2018).
Kakera: A Piece of Our Life, dir. Momoko Ando, 2009.
¶ GU’TARI
Jun Togawa, “Teinen Pushiganga” [‘Laughing, Dancing and Drinking Song of Resignation’], Tamahime-sama, Yen Records, 1984.
Talk Talk, “Time It’s Time,” The Colour of Spring, EMI Records, 1986.
Yura Yura Teikoku, Hollow Me/Beautiful, DFA Records, 2009.
¶ UHO-UHO
Kikuko Tsumura, Kono yo ni tayasui shigoto wa nai [There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job], tr. Polly Barton (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).
Tenniscoats, “Oetsu to Kanki No Nanoriuta (Given Song by Sob and Joy),” Tan-Tan Therapy, HEADZ, 2007.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK HAS GROWN OUT of tens of thousands of conversations and meetings and textual encounters, and I’m grateful to everyone who and everything which has helped to shape the ideas in here, in some way. Special thanks go:
To Kimihiro Tomioka, for always being there and always making me feel like I’m worth something; to Geraint Howells, for Matsusaka, and for trying with me; to Rose O’Gallivan, for being a perpetual source of books, talks, and joy across so many years; to Michael Troy Judd, an inspiration and an ally; to Asa Yoneda, for helping me understand myself and the world better; to Bernice Birleson, whose wisdom, calm, and optimism I still carry with me; to the earlyish readers of this book, Jozef van der Voort and Daniel Joseph; to Hiromitsu Koiso for tolerating my crazy questions at all times of the day.
To the other people whose friendship and support helped me get through my times in Japan: Caroline and Cameron Archibald, Daniel Demarse, Reiko Ogawa, Ellie Smith, Mila Zviarovich, Masumi Jōmura, and Yuji Nishino.
To people who have helped connect me with ideas and sources which have helped in writing this book: Katherine Finkelstein, Mattho Mandersloot, and Michiyo Miyake. And to all the people at the Spike Island Art Writing Group, especially Leah Reynolds and Eleanor Duffin.
To Jacques Testard, for believing I could do this damn thing when I still didn’t, and for his transformative edits; and to Tamara, Joely, and Clare at Fitzcarraldo.
To Guy Robertson, for bringing about one of the most magical summers ever, and to everyone whom I shared my time in Spoleto with.
To the people whose names I can’t say here, but who have shaped this book.
To George, for your invaluable help and interlibrary loans, and for being a true friend.
To my mum, for so much, but particularly for showing me the joy of words. To my dad, for always being on my side, and for the Sunday phone calls in Japan. And to both of you, for all the stories.
This book is for Y. Thank you for everything, and for not being scared.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
POLLY BARTON IS A JAPANESE literary translator. Her translations include Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura, and Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki. She won the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize for Fifty Sounds. She lives in Bristol, England.
Copyright © 2021 by Polly Barton
First American Edition 2022
Originally published in Great Britain by
Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2021.
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830
Jacket design: Jenny Carrow
Jacket photographs: (front) Navapon_Plodprong /
Getty Images; (spine) Minneapolis Institute of Art /
Gift of Ellen and Fred Wells / Bridgeman Images; (back) Saowakon Wichaichaleechon / Getty Images
Production manager: Beth Steidle
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN 978-1-324-09131-8
ISBN 978-1-324-09132-5 (ebk.)
Liveright Publishing Corporation 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS
Polly Barton, Fifty Sounds
Thank you for reading books on ReadFrom.Net
Share this book with friends
¶ GIZA-GIZA
Helen Gilhooly, Teach Yourself Japanese Language, Life & Culture (London: Teach Yourself, 2002).
Brandon Labelle, Lexicon of the Mouth: Poetics and Politics of Voice and the Oral Imaginary (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).
Yukio Mishima, Confessions of a Mask, tr. Meredith Weatherby (London: Panther, 1972).
Kenzaburō Ōe, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, tr. John Nathan (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1994).
Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart, tr. Philip Gabriel (New York: Knopf, 2001).
¶ ZARA-ZARA
Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (London: Vintage, 1991).
Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life; Young Ludwig, 1889–1921 (London: Duckworth, 1988).
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore, ed. G. H. von Wright (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974).
Gottlob Frege, The Basic Laws of Arithmetic I, 1893. As quoted in P. M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, tr. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (London: Routledge Classics, 2001).
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967).
Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations” (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).
¶ NOBI-NOBI
The Velvet Underground, “Ride into the Sun,” Another View, Verve Records, 1986.
Rachel Cusk, “In Praise of the Creative Writing Course,” Guardian, 18 January 2013.
Roland Barthes, Empire of Signs, tr. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983).
bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions (New York: William Morrow, 2001).
¶ MOJA-MOJA
Heinrich Hoffmann, Struwwelpeter, or, Pretty stories and funny pictures (London: Pavilion, 2010).
¶ YOCHI-YOCHI
Anne Fernald and Hiromi Morikawa, “Common Themes and Cultural Variations in Japanese and American Mothers’ Speech to Infants,” Child Development 64, no. 3 (June 1993).
¶ ZU’
Toni Morrison, Beloved (London: Vintage, 2019).
¶ MECHA-KUCHA
House, dir. Nobuhiko Ohbayashi, 1977.
Timothy J. Vance, “What Students of Japanese Can Learn from Akkadian Cuneiform,” Japanese Language and Literature 48, no. 2 (October 2014).
¶ CHIRA-CHIRA
The Yellow Monkey, “Miteinai yō de miteiru” [Pretending Not to Look at You], Sicks, Ariola Japan, 1997.
Love Exposure, dir. Sion Sono, 2008.
¶ JIN-JIN
Jun Togawa, “Virgin Blues,” Shōwa Kyōnen, Teichiku Entertainment, 1990.
Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet (Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1988).
Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, tr. Richard Howard (London: Vintage, 2002).
Slime Forest Adventure (Fight Slimes, Save a Princess, Learn Japanese!), Project LRNJ. http://lrnj.com.
¶ BARE-BARE
Iris Murdoch, The Sandcastle (London: Chatto & Windus, 1957).
Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature, ed. Fredson Bowers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017).
¶ JARA-JARA
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell, Interscope, 2003.
Arcade Fire, “Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels),” Funeral, Me´rge, 2004.
Kō Machida, Kokuhaku [Confessions] (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 2008).
¶ KORO-KORO
Susan Ervin-Tripp, “An Analysis of the Interaction of Language, Topic, and Listener,” American Anthropologist 66, no. 6 (December 1964).
Alice Robb, “Multilinguals have Multiple Personalities,” New Republic, 23 April 2014, https://newrepublic.com/article/117485/multilinguals-have-multiple-personalities.
¶ KIRA-KIRA
aiko, “Kira Kira,” Kanojo, Pony Canyon, 2006.
¶ SHOBO-SHOBO
Nicholas Bornoff, Pink Samurai: The Pursuit and Politics of Sex in Japan (London: Grafton Books, 1992).
Garth Greenwell, “ ‘I Wanted Something 100% Pornographic and 100% High Art’: The Joy of Writing About Sex,” Guardian, 8 May 2020.
¶ KIRI-KIRI
Audition, dir. Takashi Miike, 1999.
David Howe, Attachment Across the Lifecourse: A Brief Introduction (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Keiko Takahashi, “Examining the Strange-Situation Procedure with Japanese Mothers and 12-Month-Old Infants,” Developmental Psychology 22, no. 2 (1986).
Antonia Dodge and Joel Mark Witt, hosts; Bruce Muzik, guest, “Attachment Theory in Relationships,” Personality Hacker (podcast), episode 0125, 16 May 2016.
Spitz, “Kaede,” Fake Fur, Polydor, 1998.
¶ SHI’KURI
Misumi Kubo, So We Look to the Sky, tr. Polly Barton (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2021).
¶ HI’SORI
Tadaaki Imaizumi (ed.), Wakeatte shinimashita [Died for a Reason] (Tokyo: DIAMOND, Inc., 2018).
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Gilles Deleuze, Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty & Venus in Furs, tr. Jean McNeil (New York: Zone Books, 1999).
¶ UWAA
List of SFX at http://japan-and-me.com/japanese-sfx/.
Tadahiro Ōtsu et al., “Blue Monday Phenomenon among Men: Suicide Deaths in Japan,” Acta Medica Okayama 63, no. 5 (2009).
¶ UDA-UDA
Takashi Murakami (ed.), Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005).
¶ DON
“Kabedon,” Wikipedia, accessed 5 May 2020.
Tom Hanaway, “It’s Time to Talk about ‘Terrace House’ and Consent,” Japan Times, 10 May 2020.
¶ BORO-BORO
Devo, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! Warner Bros, 1978.
¶ SARA-SARA
Roald Dahl, The Witches (London: Jonathan Cape, 1983).
Nanae Aoyama, “Kakera” [Fragments], tr. Polly Barton, The White Review, no. 23 (October 2018).
Kakera: A Piece of Our Life, dir. Momoko Ando, 2009.
¶ GU’TARI
Jun Togawa, “Teinen Pushiganga” [‘Laughing, Dancing and Drinking Song of Resignation’], Tamahime-sama, Yen Records, 1984.
Talk Talk, “Time It’s Time,” The Colour of Spring, EMI Records, 1986.
Yura Yura Teikoku, Hollow Me/Beautiful, DFA Records, 2009.
¶ UHO-UHO
Kikuko Tsumura, Kono yo ni tayasui shigoto wa nai [There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job], tr. Polly Barton (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).
Tenniscoats, “Oetsu to Kanki No Nanoriuta (Given Song by Sob and Joy),” Tan-Tan Therapy, HEADZ, 2007.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK HAS GROWN OUT of tens of thousands of conversations and meetings and textual encounters, and I’m grateful to everyone who and everything which has helped to shape the ideas in here, in some way. Special thanks go:
To Kimihiro Tomioka, for always being there and always making me feel like I’m worth something; to Geraint Howells, for Matsusaka, and for trying with me; to Rose O’Gallivan, for being a perpetual source of books, talks, and joy across so many years; to Michael Troy Judd, an inspiration and an ally; to Asa Yoneda, for helping me understand myself and the world better; to Bernice Birleson, whose wisdom, calm, and optimism I still carry with me; to the earlyish readers of this book, Jozef van der Voort and Daniel Joseph; to Hiromitsu Koiso for tolerating my crazy questions at all times of the day.
To the other people whose friendship and support helped me get through my times in Japan: Caroline and Cameron Archibald, Daniel Demarse, Reiko Ogawa, Ellie Smith, Mila Zviarovich, Masumi Jōmura, and Yuji Nishino.
To people who have helped connect me with ideas and sources which have helped in writing this book: Katherine Finkelstein, Mattho Mandersloot, and Michiyo Miyake. And to all the people at the Spike Island Art Writing Group, especially Leah Reynolds and Eleanor Duffin.
To Jacques Testard, for believing I could do this damn thing when I still didn’t, and for his transformative edits; and to Tamara, Joely, and Clare at Fitzcarraldo.
To Guy Robertson, for bringing about one of the most magical summers ever, and to everyone whom I shared my time in Spoleto with.
To the people whose names I can’t say here, but who have shaped this book.
To George, for your invaluable help and interlibrary loans, and for being a true friend.
To my mum, for so much, but particularly for showing me the joy of words. To my dad, for always being on my side, and for the Sunday phone calls in Japan. And to both of you, for all the stories.
This book is for Y. Thank you for everything, and for not being scared.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
POLLY BARTON IS A JAPANESE literary translator. Her translations include Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura, and Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki. She won the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize for Fifty Sounds. She lives in Bristol, England.
Copyright © 2021 by Polly Barton
First American Edition 2022
Originally published in Great Britain by
Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2021.
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830
Jacket design: Jenny Carrow
Jacket photographs: (front) Navapon_Plodprong /
Getty Images; (spine) Minneapolis Institute of Art /
Gift of Ellen and Fred Wells / Bridgeman Images; (back) Saowakon Wichaichaleechon / Getty Images
Production manager: Beth Steidle
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN 978-1-324-09131-8
ISBN 978-1-324-09132-5 (ebk.)
Liveright Publishing Corporation 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS
Polly Barton, Fifty Sounds
