Arthur Waley's translations from Chinese and Japanese "should be read as contributions to English literature." After all, his version of "The Tale of Genji" presents itself as "a modern English novel." In fact, the translator "saw himself more as a creative writer of literature than as a scholar." And, indeed, writes John Walter de Gruchy, author of this interesting study of Waley's work, "I shall argue that translation is as much an act of creation as original writing."
Thus a translation is to be judged, not for its fidelity (and indeed there is here no comparison made between the original Japanese and Waley's English) but for its "style." This, says social critic Edward Said -- much quoted in this study -- is what to look for in a translation and "not the correctness of the representation nor its fidelity to some great original."
De Gruchy is on Waley's side in that the translator himself saw his translations of ancient texts as modern (and even modernist) literature. The author argues that "Waley's 'Genji' " is an English novel in its own right that needs to be located in its proper context: not 11th century Japan but Britain during the time it was translated, the period between the wars.