August 5, 2005

'Mark Twain in Japan: The Cultural Reception of an American Icon'

By NINA C. AYOUB

Huck Finn was a good boy. He didn't smoke, steal, or cuss -- at least rarely in Japanese. When Mark Twain's character arrived in Japan, he lost some bad habits. He also lost some depth.

Huck took a while for the journey, notes Tsuyoshi Ishihara, the author of Mark Twain in Japan: The Cultural Reception of an American Icon (University of Missouri Press), a study of the writer's "Japanization." The first Twain novel to be translated was The Prince and the Pauper, in 1898. That tale