I ask the reader to join me in an excursion of otsoggery [1] that begins in a steamy Japanese dystopia and ends in a suburb of Zürich, having at its center one of the great Latin poets. This expedition stepped off with a note on the American Literary Translators Association online chatroom: “I just finished [Haruki Murakami’s 2010 novel] 1Q84,” Dennis Dybeck wrote,
and was struck by what seemed an odd quote from C. G. Jung. In the novel, an enigmatic character, Tumaru, asks an unfortunate private investigator he’s about to painfully assassinate whether he’s ever heard of an inscription Jung carved in stone. “Cold or not, God is present.” It’s a striking scene with the question almost a meditative consolation for victim, assassin, and the reader, as well. Googling it this morning, it seems that “Cold or not, God is present” is a deliberate misquote of an ancient phrase Jung is said to have found quoted in Erasmus. “Vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit.” (Called or not, god is present.) I’m wondering if anyone knows how the pun is handled in the original Japanese.
more from J. Kates at Harvard Review here.