So you can imagine how the flame leapt up when I finished the Rubin translation of Norwegian Wood (Murakami's first huge best seller in Japan, published there in 1987 but not brought out in America until 2000) and read a reference in the Translator's Note to "Alfred Birnbaum's earlier translation of Norwegian Wood, which was produced for distribution in Japan ... to enable students to enjoy their favorite author as they struggled with the mysteries of English." We should not, the note enjoined us, try to obtain this bootleg version, for "the present edition is the first English translation that Murakami has authorized for publication outside Japan." Aha!, I thought. So Murakami (or Murakami-plus-Rubin) is indeed running away from Birnbaum, consciously suppressing him, attempting to do away with this shadow self.
Naturally I sought out the bootleg version immediately. Thanks to the Internet, such things are now readily available, if at a shocking price: The two little paperbacks of the Kodansha English Library edition cost me over $100. Not surprisingly, I found that the Birnbaum version was better, in exactly the way his opening sentences of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle were better.
