Paradox in Cultural Studies

I was reading the introduction to the Tale of Genji yesterday.
The tiny English text drove me dizzy in no time. I don't know why English text has this effect on me. Wish I had the original.....well maybe not the original, cos that would be in classical Japanese I won't be able to understand.
Anyhow the English version is all I have from college days.
I was thinking that it may be time to purchase a few classical novels from Amazon....ouch, it's going to be expensive.

Back to the Tale of Genji; the author, Edward G. Seidensticker, stated that in translating to English, many side notes were left out, and some details simplified so the western readers can more easily understand the story. He said if all the explanation to connotations were included, the notes would probably be thicker than the book itself.
So how much details might a person miss by reading the English version of a classical literature.

Then it dawned on me, how can we study a culture without first learning the language?
Isn't that the most fundamental thing?
Why does the Center for Japanese Studies not use Japanese books but instead English translations?
In order to fully appreciate the literature, one must read the original.
How can it not be a prerequisite to first learn the language before studying the culture?

From my personal experience this is especially true.
During college I took various Japanese literature and history classes. But not until recently, after watching Japanese historical dramas, and doing research on wikipedia had I come to some understanding of what their history was really like.
Without seeing things from the Japanese perspective, reading history on paper was just like words with no meaning. They were just a bunch of names and dates.

One good example, without knowing Japanese, one cannot appreciate the different names people had throughout their lives, and their meanings.
As Seidensticker said, he kept the name Aoi consistent throughout because western audience can only accept the idea of one unbreakable name.

To further my studies of Japanese history, I hope to learn classical Japanese someday.