Talk:Suzumiya Haruhi:Volume1 Chapter2

The Fall of Hyperion

About this passage:

All the members are here today. Nagato Yuki sat in her usual spot, reading a hardback book about the effects of Saturn's satellites falling down. Asahina didn't have to come but still obediently arrived, sitting on a steel chair looking confused.

The original Japanese text is:

一応メンバーは揃っていた。相も変わらず長門有希は定位置で土星のマイナー衛星が落ちた とかどうしたとかいうタイトルのハードカバーを読みふくり、来なくてもいいのに生真面目に もちゃんとやって来た朝日奈みくるさんは在所なげにパイプ椅子に腰掛けている。

So far as I can tell, a better translation of the passage would be:

Anyway, all the members were here today. Nagato Yuki was in her usual spot, reading a hardback book about a minor satellite of Saturn falling down, or something like that. Asahina didn't have to come but had still obediently arrived, seated on a steel chair and looking confused.

Obviously, the book in question (as we've seen in the anime) has to be The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons -- but equally obviously, Kyon doesn't recognize it, and thinks it's about Hyperion the satellite of Saturn. This is marked by the tentative nature of his to ka doushita to ka iu taitoru.

I'm changing this passage as shown, in the body text, but I just wanted to explain why I've changed it this way. I really think that we might want to include a translator's footnote here, to the effect that we know which book is meant, but that the confusion was present in the original text, and is indisputably deliberate on the part of the author. Are we going to make footnotes? If so, this is a good place for one.

--Freak Of Nature 19:14, 19 April 2006 (PDT)

That is a reasonable edit in my book. --Baltakatei 22:57, 21 April 2006 (PDT)