Lilisin in 2011

Hello again everyone.

2010 was an interesting year for me with the first half being full of books while with the second half my focus shifted on other things. So it'll be nice to start over again. I'll be in Korea and Japan till January 9th so I'm setting up my thread now.

So far in 2011:
1) Anna Starobinets : An Awkward Age *
2) Robert Louis Stevenson : Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
3) Kobo Abe : The Box Man
4) Seishi Yokomizo : Le village aux huit tombes (The village of eight tombs)
5) Michio Takeyama : Harp of Burma
6) Buchi Emecheta : The Joys of Motherhood **
7) Shusaku Endo : The Sea and Poison
8) Yasutaka Tsutsui : Hell
9) Keigo Higashino : The Devotion of Suspect X
10) Banana Yoshimoto : The Lake ***
11) Akira Yoshimura : Shipwrecks
12) Esther Kinsky : Summer Resort ****
13) Seishi Yokomizo : La hache, le koto et le chrysanthème (The Inugami Clan)

* Belletrista issue 10
** Belletrista issue 11
*** Belletrista issue 13
**** Belletrista issue 14

Books read in 2010:
1) Eiji Yoshikawa : Taiko
2) Celine Curiol : Voice Over
3) Meisei Goto : Shot by Both Sides (sorta read)
4) Monique Proulx : Wildlives
5) Mitsuyo Kakuta : The Eighth Day
6) Shusaku Endo : La fille que j'ai abandonnee (The Girl I Left Behind)
7) Shohei Ooka : Fires on the Plain (reread)
8) Stefan Zweig : Le joueur d'echecs (Chess Story)
9) Laura Restrepo : Demasiados Heroes (No Place for Heroes)
10) John Steinbeck : Of Mice and Men
11) Stefan Zweig : La confusion des sentiments (Confusion of Feelings)
12) Kenzaburo Oe : Gibier d'elevage
13) Victor Hugo : L'homme qui rit (The Man who Laughs)
14) Cormac McCarthy : The Road
----
Countries represented:
Japan x6
France x2
USA x2
Austria x2
Canada
Colombia

Books read since starting LT (2006):
2006
1) Kenzaburo Oe : Nip the buds, shoot the kids
2) Jose Saramago : L'aveuglement (Blindness)
3) Truman Capote : In Cold Blood
4) J.M.G. Le Clezio : L'Africain (The African)
5) Amelie Nothomb : Antechrista
6) Raymond Hesse : Vauriens, Voleurs, Assassins
7) Isabel Allende : D'amour et d'ombre (Of Love and Shadows)
----
2007
1) Amelie Nothomb : Mercure (Mercury)
2) Ralph Ellison : Invisible Man
3) Luis Sepulveda : Diario de un Killer Sentimental seguido de Yacare (Diary of a Sentimental Killer followed by Yacare)
4) Romain Gary : Les racines du ciel (Roots of Heaven)
5) Yasushi Inoue : La Favorite (The Favorite)
6) Isabel Allende : Ines del alma mia (Ines of my Soul)
7) Emile Zola : Au bonheur des dames (The Ladies' Paradise)
8) Mario Vargas Llosa : Pantaleon y las visitadoras (Captain Pantoja and the Special Service)
9) Milan Kundera : La valse aux adieux (Farewell Waltz)
10) Guillermo Arriaga : Un dulce olor a muerte (A Sweet Smell of Death)
11) Isabel Allende : Zorro
12) J.K. Rowling : Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
13) Nosaka Akiyuki : La tombe des lucioles (Grave of the Fireflies)
14) Dai Sijie : Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise (Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress)
15) Haruki Murakami : Après le tremblement de terre (After the Quake)
16) Yasunari Kawabata : Kyoto (The Old Capital)
17) Fumiko Enchi : The Waiting Years
18) Masuji Ibuse : Black Rain
19) Amelie Nothomb : Acide Sulfurique (Sulfuric Acid)
20) Romain Gary : Les cerfs-volants (The Kites)
----
2008
1) Amelie Nothomb : Journal d'Hirondelle
2) Alan Booth : The Roads to Sata
3) Miguel de Cervantes : Don Quixote de la Mancha
4) Fyodor Dostoevsky : Crime and Punishment
5) Amelie Nothomb : Biographie de la faim (Biography of Hunger)
6) Luis Sepulveda : Un viejo que leia novelas de amor (The Old Man who read Love Stories)
7) Victor Hugo : Notre-Dame de Paris
8) Alexandre Dumas : Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, tome 1
9) Ian McEwan : On Chesil Beach
10) Cormac McCarthy : No Country for Old Men
----
2009:
1) Shohei Ooka : Fires on the Plain
2) Stefan Zweig : Vingt-Quatre heures de la vie d'une femme (Twenty four hours in the life of a woman)
3) Amelie Nothomb : Le sabotage amoureux (Loving sabotage)
4) Haruki Murakami : Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
5) Alexandre Dumas : Le comte de Monte-Cristo, tome 2 (The Count of Monte-Cristo)
6) Stefan Zweig : Amok
7) Kyung Ran Jo : Tongue
8) Kazuo Ishiguro : A Pale View of Hills
9) Alexandre Dumas : Les trois mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers)
10) Ryunosuke Akutagawa : Rashomon et autres contes (Rashomon and other stories)
11) Nobuko Takagi : Translucent Tree
12) Junichiro Tanizaki : Le meurtre d'Otsuya (Otsuya's murder)
13) Victor Hugo : Le dernier jour d'un condamne (Last day of a condemned man)
----
Countries represented:
Japan x13
France x9
Belgium x6
Chile x5
USA x4
England x4
Spain x2
Austria x2
Czech Republic
Mexico
China
Russia
Portugal
South Korea

I run a group called Author Theme Reads. This year we have:

Year-long Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Mini-author 1 (Jan-April): Jose Saramago
Mini-author 2 (May-Aug): JMG Le Clezio
Mini-author 3 (Sep-Dec): Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

This is the thread where I go more in detail with my Japan reads. It's my attempt at conglomerating every Japan read together and comparing them so as to become wiser about my favorite lit.

I don't like to post my projects up here and TBR books since it seems to jinx me and I never finish those things but I'm so far along and I've mentioned it before so I will mention it here.

In September 2010 I started reading Ryu Murakami's Almost Transparent Blue in Japanese (限りなく透明に近いブルー). This is the first full length novel I read in full Japanese and it's been a lot of fun. This substituted the project of reading the short stories as those were just too short to really keep my attention. Counter-intuitive I know. In any case, this has been a huge project occupying a lot of my time and as I will continue this probably till about March, my reading at the beginning of the year might be few and far between. But the reward will be amazing when I finish this book. I'm halfway through now and can't wait to finish.

Anyway, see you guys when 2011 officially begins.

I think it's 2011 where you are now, so happy new year! Looking forward to following your reading and hope to join you all in some of the group reads.

Looking forward to your reading. I'm going to check out the Author Theme Reads this year though I'm not sure how much I can participate.

Hi. I haven't read ANY Japanese literature up until now, but one of my goals for this year - probably the second half of the year - is to read a lot, because I am hoping to visit Japan next year and would like to use literature as a way into the culture before I go. I will be asking for some suggestions on where to start!

Also, of the non-Japanese books on your 2010 list, I loved The Road, absolutely adore all Zweig, and Steinbeck, so it seems we have some tastes in common! I will be very interested to follow your thread.

1) Anna Starobinets : An Awkward Age
3.5/5 stars
Russia

Finally read my first book of the year and it's a collection of short stories by the Russian author, Anna Starobinets. This is apparently her first book and it was nominated for a prize back in Russia. I read this for Belletrista (which I need to write up a good review now).

I'm not one to read short stories so I don't quite know how to write about them but I think most short story readers would enjoy this book. It basically delves into our basic fears of our lives not turning out quite like we hoped they would. From an man who tries to escape his life by altering the lives of others, a child who we can see developing severe obsessive compulsive disorder to another man who's identity has been stolen but manages to find a new life until that new life is destroyed and he is forced to return to the original. It's all quite interesting. Starobinets is quite clever with her almost repulsive descriptions of the situations these characters find themselves that you almost want to close the book so that you don't have to witness the train wreck.

The star of the book is the story with which the book carries it's name, An Awkward Age. A twin slowly starts to deform and morph into a horrific creature, initially mistaken as a bad case of puberty, until his mother discovers his diary once he and his twin sister disappear. This one is disturbing.

My only real flinching came at how modern this books is. You know when the author uses the move "The Matrix" as a reference in her short story that you've reached a point of no return with literature. But perhaps that's just my own fear of entering a society full of warped people with no common sense of community or desire to show any sense of intelligence.

(Official review in Belletrista, issue 10.)

2) Robert Louis Stevenson : Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
4/5 stars
England

This is probably the shortest turnaround I've had in terms of placing a book on the TBR pile and then instantly picking it back up to actually read. I acquired this book at the Borders closing sale and read it yesterday and today. I never actually read this in high school or middle school or whenever it's read and, despite the fact that I already know the story very well -- I mean, who doesn't? -- I wanted to actually read it for myself. And it was basically what I expected. It's Stevenson: well written, great descriptions and really knows how to put you into the book. What else can I say of a book that has been prefaced by Nabokov. Perhaps I'll read the preface as well.

Enjoying your thread. I read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde so long ago it's not true. Perhaps its worth a re-read.

3) Kobo Abe : The Box Man
4.5/5 stars
Japan

This one.
This one was not an easy read.

This is the record of a box man... That is to say, at this juncture the box man is me. A box man, in his box, is recording the chronicle of a box man.

I thought I got it in the beginning. Then the middle I found befuddling. And then the last 20 pages brought the clarity I sought; or at least, the interpretation that seems most relevant to my life and my role in society.

"The nameless protagonist gives up his identity and the trappings of a normal life to live in a large cardboard box he wears over his head... he describes the world outside as he sees or perhaps imagines it, a tenuous reality that seems to include a mysterious rifleman who is determined to shoot him, a seductive young nurse given to disrobing, and a doctor who wants to become a box man himself." Such is the summary presented on the back of the book.

What I ended up seeing is a man who knows not how to relate to his fellow human beings, particularly women, after a certain encounter in his youth. He loses himself in the physical and the ejaculatory when it comes to the touch of a woman and cannot handle the outside world and its "moral" pressures. A touch, an emission, seem so easy to understand but becomes muddied when standards and rules and regulations try to play a part. What can he do but try to isolate himself from this outward stimulation and simplify his life to the world of a cardboard box; a box to counter the stares of his peers like a window shields its contents from the UV rays of the sun.

Unfortunately, despite your attempt at isolation, the world will still bare down on you and even worse, will try to shock you out of unsocial behavior. Thus, the roles of doctor, the rifleman and the nurse. At the end, I believe the doctor and the rifleman are one in the same with the box man, remnants of his outside-the-box character, trying to bring him back to society as he knows is "right to do". But their threatening nature makes him fear for his life knowing that death must be approaching.

The more I think about it, the more complex and amazing this book is. It really does come down to those last 20 pages. So much to say about this one.

Kudos to E. Dale Saunders for the English translation.

There is a moment at the end that I really enjoyed.

The dial of the clock wears out unevenly;
Most worn
Is the area round eight.
As it is stared at with abrasive glances
unfailingly twice a day,
It is weathered away.
On the other side
The area at two
Is only half as worn,
For closed eyes at night
Pass without stopping.
If there is one who possesses a flat watch evenly worn,
It is he who, failing at the start, is running one lap behind.
Thus the world is always
A lap fast --
The world he thinks he sees
Has not yet begun.
Illusory time,
When the hands stand vertically on the dial;
Without the bell announcing the raising of the curtain,
The play has come to an end.

I regret now not having collected quotes from this book. There were some great reflections.

Fabulous review of The Box Man! I read it 8-10 years ago after I was enthralled by The Woman in the Dunes, but I didn't understand it. Your review makes me want to give it another go, right now, if I still have it...

12 - Excellent review!

4) Seishi Yokomizo : Le village aux huit tombes
(The Village of Eight Tombs/Graves)
5/5 stars
Japan

Seishi Yokomizo is one of the most re-known murder mystery writers in Japan, famous for his character Kosuke Kindaichi. I read this due to a recommendation from a dear Japanese friend of mine who is well versed in all Japanese literature (a great asset to have!). And it was just as fun to read as I expected.

This particular book is about Tatsuya, who has been asked to come back to the village from his childhood, the Village of Eight Tombs, to claim an inheritance. However, this is a village that his mother had escaped in his youth due to a frightful attack and this is now a village that, he has been warned, he should not return to lest something horrible happen. And horrible things do happen as a series of murders follow him as soon as he learns about his inheritance.

All in all a fun read with some actually interesting notes on the differences between village versus city mentality and lifestyle.

My only huh? moment was the character Kosuke Kindaichi. He actually rarely makes an appearance in the book and isn't even needed to solve the mystery. From this one book alone I can't tell if he's supposed to be a spoof character of if he's supposed to be a highly respected character. I'd have to read another (and I will) to see if it's the same thing. But really interesting that he really doesn't play a big role at all. In fact, the police are pretty much worthless in this book. Interesting.

Fun read, nevertheless!

5) Michio Takeyama : Harp of Burma
3.5/5 stars
Japan

Read this on the plane coming back from Japan as I've been meaning to read it for quite a while. It takes place during the Japanese occupation of Burma during WWII and reflects on a troop as they try to keep hope alive through music and their refusal to leave a man behind. It's a good story but I can't help but compare it to Fires on the Plain which this book simply cannot compete against. Some of the primary differences:

Fires:
Focuses on despair
Focuses on a single soldier and his struggles
Struggle to keep humanity alive

Harp:
Focuses on hope
Focuses on an entire troop and their struggles
Struggle to leave their humanity and compassion behind

Both books reflected on the struggles of the individual versus society but in slightly different ways. Harp's main concept is the comparison of Burma's way of living versus Japan and which is more correct. A highly civilized advanced society based on military teaching versus a society that sacrifices advancement based on religious training for the sake of a strong sense of religion and community.

"We Japanese have not cared to make strenuous spiritual efforts. We have not even recognized their value. What we stressed was merely a man's abilities, the things he could do -- not what kind of a man he was, how he lived, or the depth of his understanding. Of perfection as a human being, of humility, stoicism, holiness, the capacity to gain salvation and to help others toward it -- of all these virtues we were left ignorant."

It is believed that Japan has lost its moral sense out of greed and that's why they came to lose the war. Men forgot their own independent way of thinking to become patriotic and to conglomerate themselves to a greater sense of unity. But one can't go anywhere with such a group mentality.

This passage along with another debate between two soldiers at the beginning of the book (pg. 46 in the standard copy) are certainly the strongest parts of the book. Although the story of Mizushima is quite heartfelt and admirable.

Overall, a pleasant read but nothing compared to Fires.

I need to read a Kundera next. It's been too long since my last one. I'm craving him like I've been craving a margarita lately.

I've never read anything by Kundera, but if he satisfies margarita cravings, than I need to give him a try! LOL

Try The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Excellent. An old fav.

I had a good day today. Fajitas. Talking with a friend at a coffee shop. Then spending more time there reading in the sun by the lake. (Best coffee shop ever!) Got some healthy color to my skin. Finished a book. Bought some fashion magazines. Drinking some lemonade now. Not exactly a margarita but it sure does taste good. So, not too bad. Not too bad.

6) Buchi Emecheta : The Joys of Motherhood
4/5 stars
Nigeria

Despite my cheerful surroundings, I wasn't reading the most cheerful of books. This book, despite its title, has the joy sucked right out of it. It was actually a little hard to read on a nice summer day; I was much ready to read something else. It discusses the hardship of Nnu Ego, a Nigerian woman, and her struggles to be a traditional Nigerian wife, mother, and daughter against a Nigeria striving to modernize itself. Everyone struggle a woman could go through is in this book; marrying a man she doesn't love, the loss of a child, the burden of a family and extreme poverty just to name a few.

It's a good book in that it aptly portrays Nigerian society at the time with its (continuing) struggles of tradition vs modernity, villages vs big towns, white vs blacks, rich vs poor, women vs men. There is a lot of back and forth as Nnu Ego can't stop contemplating what a better life for a woman could be like but yet continues to uphold her more oppressive traditions as her sense of duty to her children and the men in her life are the only thing she feels is of worth in her life.

An interesting tale with lots to learn.

Official review will be in the next issue for Belletrista.

7) Shusaku Endo : The Sea and Poison
5/5 stars
Japan

Excellent. Simply excellent.

Endo tackles the difficult prospect of understanding how a group of Japanese doctors went through with performing vivisections on American soldiers. Based on a true account, this book is so full of moral complexities and intrigue that it's very hard to put down.

This book could have been written in any number of ways but the way Endo presents it is just wonderful. It begins with a prologue, a man in a barren outskirt of Tokyo looking for treatment at the office of a Dr. Suguro, a quiet solemn man, too advanced in his craft to be a simple village doctor. After some probing we learn that Suguro was one of the doctors who took part in the vivisections and we were are then thrown into Suguro's life. But we do not stay on Suguro; we follow other participants in the vivisections and see how they got to become active members of what seems to be an easy moral decision not to participate.

This book is like walking through the atomic bomb museum in Hiroshima. As a whole, we understand what happened, why it happened and the aftereffects of the bomb that fell. But no matter how much we study, how much we read, we will never be able to fully place ourselves within the mindsets of those who were in the immediate vicinity of that bomb. So like the museum, we walk from artifact to artifact, reading snippets of the lives of the victims; those that died and those that survived. From the pieces of glass melted by radiation to the little lunchbox still containing its scorched rice ball, to the official documents warning against the bomb, to photos of the actual damage. We read, we look, we feel, but nevertheless we will never comprehend the decision to drop the bomb. We will never get the full story.

Was it worth dropping the bomb on innocent civilians to save Japan and the US from further casualties if the war were to continue? As we ask that question, we can only ask the doctors whether it was worth the sacrifice of a few American soldiers to further the medical understanding of the human body.

And with this in mind the characters are introduced to us, characters with no sense of remorse, with no ability to feel anymore, except for the sole Dr. Suguro who cannot help but question how his colleagues have developed such an inability to feel. Is Japanese culture so homogeneous in its thought that no one even dares question something as seemingly inhumane as a vivisection?

All in all, a fantastic insight onto the moral complexities of five very interesting characters and the hospital that houses them.

And as for those who have previously thought that this work wasn't to point because it was one of Endo's earlier works, I ask them to reconsider. Read the book and imagine the other ways it could have been written. Should it all have been told via the original 3rd person outsider; should it have been told via just Suguro's perspective; should it have been 5 separate accounts of the five primary characters? There are so many ways to tell the story and I believe Endo did it just right.

Fantastic review Lilisin! This one is going on the wishlist for sure.

Yes, a great review. I've just put The Sea and Poison on my wishlist.

Yes excellent review Lilisin. I was wondering how the book would read for a non- Japanese reader. Does it capture the psyche of Japanese people at all, albeit in an extreme situation

Thank you for the compliments everyone. It was easy to review as I found it a real pleasure to read. (And now it's a hot review. Thanks!)

baswood -
I think that this this is book is highly translatable to a non-Japanese reader. Endo was equally Catholic as he was Japanese and is quite focused on expressing his thoughts on moral character as a whole. What makes him interesting actually is his use of a Western religion to express morality versus a Japanese mentality of homogeneity and sense of society. Endo is also very much compared to Graham Greene whom I see you have read recently and are familiar with. Perhaps you can read this book and even tell me how similar Endo and Greene are! In any case, I think you can enjoy this book.

stretch - I see you have Taiko tagged as ready to buy. Yes, yes, you should buy it! I drowned in its glory.

Interesting reading, lilisin! I'm looking forward to your Belle review of The Joys of Motherhood - I've been meaning to get round to that one for ages now...
I've made a note of Seishi Yokomizo - I'm always interested to read things that are truly popular in their country of origin. Thanks!

I was really impressed with The Sea and Poison when I read it a couple of years ago. After reading it, I was inspired to read some nonfiction on the biological and inhumane experiments that took place in Japan (and also in Manchuria) during WW II. I haven't yet gotten to it, but the issue plays a prominent part in David Peace's Tokyo novel, Occupied City.

I also liked The Joys of Motherhood The author had a very compelling life with some similarity to the story she tells in the novel.

8) Yasutaka Tsutsui : Hell
4/5 stars
Japan

Yasutaka's Hell isn't engrossed in flames nor is it a scene of unbearable tortures. In fact, those who enter it simply feel nothing. They might meet their murderer, or the man who had an affair with their wife, and still, feel nothing. Simply, they are able to peer into the other's mind and see what it is that so haunted their thoughts while they were living. It's an interesting book that starts off simply then builds and builds like an avalanche, picking up more characters as it goes, building this incredible network of interpersonal connections that you didn't think were going to come up. At the end everyone is linked together somehow and its really fun to see how. This is less of a character study and more a book for those interested in the surreal and seeking a little bemusement. I had fun reading this one and then ending was actually quite pleasant.

9) Keigo Higashino : The Devotion of Suspect X
4/5 stars
Japan

Well I haven't done that in a while. One day, an entire book. Just sat outside in the shade on a 105 degree day in Texas and read. And I must say that I had fun. Lately I've been on a serious Japan kick and decided to finally read the Early Reviewers copy I got of this book. I'm not usually one to reach for a crime thriller but if it involves Japan, I'm definitely want to read it. And I'm glad I did. It was a perfect page turner.

What I liked was that it wasn't a whodunit type of book. In fact, we already know who is involved with the murder and why the murder happened. Instead we spend the rest of the book following the detectives as they try to understand how the suspects are related to the murderer and why nothing concrete is really coming up. It was great fun as our accomplice, the brilliant mathematician Ishigami is paired against the brilliant physicist Yukawa. A battle of wits and I liked their play on conventional math theories and their actual very philosophical outlook; seeing what we want to see versus seeing what we are told to see.

"Which is more difficult: formulating an unsolvable problem or solving that problem?"

All in all a fun, fast read that I'm very happy to have read.
I hear it's quite similar to Natsuo Kirino's Out which I will have to look into as I own the book but have not read it yet.

Coincidentally, I read my latest Early Reviewer book today in a 100+ degree day in Texas as well--but I did it inside with the A/C and ceiling fan going.

I think I just love the heat. When I'm inside in my room I turn off my fan 'cause I find it to be too cold when combined with the AC! What was your ER book?

It was The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams. It won the National Book Award in 1975, but has slipped into obscurity since then. I hope this new edition changes that, because it's quite good.

Incidentally, I ordered The Sea and Poison based on your review, and it arrived this week.

I've added The Devotion of Suspect X to my wishlist. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

I bought The Sea and Poison at City Lights Bookstore this past week after reading your enticing review of it, and I'll read it next month.

ETA: I also bought The Box Man and Kangaroo Notebook by Kobo Abe, and I'll read them in the next month or two.

Not so many books, but excellent choice of what you read. I will be glad to join your Author Theme thread, and will pick up a book by Le Clezio for my next read, and see whether I can read some Llosa before the end of the year.

35 -
Oh I'm so excited to see what you think of all those books! After The Box Man I really want to read another Abe soon.

36 -
Thank you. I enjoy reading but I'm not a voracious reader so I have to make sure that what I do read is good. Hence I haven't even read the authors from my own group! But I'm glad to hear that you are joining. We are a quiet group but we have our influence. You should have seen how much Zweig spread like wildfire last year among all the other groups! So welcome!

I just read The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto so I'm looking forward to putting forth some thoughts on that one. It's the latest English translation of her work so there was a lot of excitement coming into the book.

Also, I'm super excited 'cause I just received Amelie Nothomb's newest book Tuer le père which just came out this August so it's truly straight off the presses! Not even showing up on touchstones yet! Very thrilling.

10) Banana Yoshimoto : The Lake
3.5/5 stars
Japan

I haven't read a Yoshimoto since Kitchen which was so many years ago that I can't even tell you what I thought of it. I hadn't had much exposure to Japanese literature at that point and I was still getting a hold of what kind of literature in general I liked. I don't remember disliking it at all but I don't remember being floored by it as it seems I should be by all the reviews I read these days about that book. So I was excited to refresh my Banana memories with this new book.

And overall it was a pleasant experience.

"The characters, Chihiro and Nakajima, build their relationship off a sequence of exchanged looks from the windows of their respective apartments. Simple glances lead to meetings at coffee shops and from there, Nakajima finds himself at home in Chihiro’s apartment. Yet at their first sexual encounter, Nakajima must admit his discomfort, rising from some trouble in his past. Through Chihiro's narration, we explore her past and Nakajima’s as they find comfort in one another’s arms where there is no judgment, nor outward jeering."

This is a rough excerpt from my official review with belletrista.com.

But I want to state that I did enjoy the ease of Banana's prose even though her characters didn't really do much for me. There was some insight on how we are perceived by others, especially when we come from untraditional backgrounds and I enjoyed the history with the cult at the end. But when it comes to that topic I think Mitsuyo Kakuta's The Eighth Day was more powerful.

These types of books I realize I don't get as much enjoyment out of. Not to say that they aren't very well written or executed but just not my passion. How to describe these books? Perhaps I don't like characters who are so lost and feel that they are so misunderstood that no one can understand them but that doesn't really matter 'cause they don't have a huge effect on the people anyway.

I think it's a mindset I don't understand.
But other than that it's an easy, quick and pleasant read especially in terms of Banana's style.

I want to do more justice with my review of the following book but I'm a bit tired and this is all I can muster at this point.

11) Akira Yoshimura : Shipwrecks
5/5 stars
Japan

After non-stop recommendations, I stuffed the book into my purse for the plane ride to Paris. I ended up feasting over the text, not caring about the fact that my overhead light was probably bothering my neighbors' sleep. The book was just too good to put down.

The power of the book is its imagery. It's a visual feast to read with the first half running through the seasons. The main character, Isaku, goes through the coming and going of the squid, the octopus, and the various other types of fish at the coming of spring, winter, fall and summer. Tempting the octopus with a red piece of cloth at the end of a spear, and lying down flat on a boat on a serene sunny day waiting for a flash of silver to appear before hand catching the gathered fish. It feels like watching a National Geographic documentary; one doesn't even need to close one's eyes to see the images; the images float about the page.

Isaku is learning to become the man of the house as his father sold himself for manual labor on a boat and won't return for three years. A fisherman's catch is pivotal to keep the family afloat, allowing them enough to eat and trade. He hopes that he will become a fine enough fisherman so that his father doesn't need to sell himself again for more money. In the meantime, Isaku goes through his daily duties taking care of his siblings and his mother.

While fishing he learns about ofune-sama, a mysterious entity that allows his people to thrive instead of struggle to survive. But while the ofune-sama can bear a great gift, with it can also come great peril to the unfortunate discovery of the village.

Such a powerful book that I will be recommending to anyone as it was recommended to me. It is too beautiful not to be passed along.

Wow, I really feel your enthusiasm for Shipwrecks. Its now on my to buy list.

Hi. Really liked your review of Shipwrecks. I'm still collecting Japanese titles to read when I eventually am able to travel to Japan, and this one is going right on the list.

Excellent review of Shipwrecks Lillisin. Sounds like the almost exact opposite of Storm Rider which is certainly a good thing. I could definitely see moments where Yoshimura could the sea come alive. I'm curious as to the publication order. Sadly I haven't found all that much information on Yoshimura and his works to satisfy my curiosity. Wikipedia doesn't even list all his works let alone a decent biography.

A very enticing review of Shipwrecks!

You might also like Yoshimura's other books - On Parole and One Man's Justice. I liked these even more than Shipwrecks.

Fabulous review of Shipwrecks, lilisin! I'll look for it later this week.

12) Esther Kinsky : Summer Resort
4/5 stars
Germany

I've rated this book 4 stars but I'm not even sure what that means. The book is very well done. Although at times a bit heavy with the thesaurus, the adjectives do what they are supposed to do; drag down the reader like the summer heat which becomes a main character in itself. It was sometimes hard to pick oneself up from this heat to see the little yet very important things that were happening around the characters as the heat is so heavy that it masks what should normally be devastating events. Kinsky does well to show how lackadaisical the summer can make us. So, I think my 4 stars goes to the writing and the feeling that Kinsky is so good at showing. But for me, it's not a book I would pick up, eager to read and it's not one I would think to recommend easily unless someone was say a Steinbeck fan (think hot Southern summers surrounded by inevitable tragic events) or had read Wildlives. So I leave the book at 4 stars so that others will perhaps be tempted to read the book with the higher rating and they can form an opinion for themselves.

An example of her writing:
"In the great heat they sought out the scanty shade of the trees, huddled together to benefit from the shadow they cast themselves, while the priest sat leaning against a tree and looked towards his white, glistening cemetery in the distance or towards the shepherd's block, which rose up in the middle of the flat shimmering meadowland a long way out of the town, a whole apartment block for shepherds, where car mechanics lived now and accumulated brightly coloured heaps of car parts."

Not the best example but you can see how she boggles down the reader a bit with her writing. It's interesting. But there's definitely a lot of hidden gems in the text. Just looking for a sample sentence I ran into a sentence with heavy foreshadowing that I had missed during my first read. In fact, this might just be one of those books you have to read twice. Hmmm....

My official review will be in issue 14 for Belletrista. A preview of that review sits below.

--- Belletrista preview ---

Oppressive would certainly be the best word to use to describe Esther Kinsky’s world. Oppressive, hot, sticky, dusty, and incapable of getting itself out of the mud. Any attempt at beauty is promptly shredded until all that is left is traces of bleak, sweltering reality. Kinsky wants her reader to feel the heat in the book, taking place in the middle of the hottest Hungarian summer in remembrance for the characters. Add to that fact that the village in question is seemingly sequestered from any sense of civilization or culture that would usually breathe life into what should be a quaint town. Instead, the village seems to consist only of a brothel, a run down bar and a few parched fields surrounded by railroad tracks.

The only luster of hope is a single summer resort near the river, attempting to live up its reputation as the symbol of a normal summer.

... the rest is in Issue 14 of Belletrista.

Sounds intriguing . . and interesting to compare with other books I've read that take place in Hungary. Does it take place in contemporary Hungary or is it historical?

It is definitely contemporary Hungary.

13) Seishi Yokomizo : La hache, le koto et le chrysanthème (The Inugami Clan)
4/5 stars
Japan

I'm not supposed to be reading right now due to it being crunch time in terms of studying for an exam I have Dec 4th but I figured an easy read like a murder mystery couldn't hurt. And it was good to get me to relax a bit.

This is my second Yokomizo, the first being read around May, and it was just as fun even if I did prefer the Eight Tombs book due to it feeling predictable in terms of who the murderer was even if some of the details later are not. Basically, Sahee, the creater of this great company, dies and leaves a will behind as to who gets his inheritance. However, due to his distaste for his daughters, he decides instead to leave all his money behind to the granddaughter of a friend, but not without very complicated parameters such as only being able to get the money if she marries one of his own grandsons. Obviously, to protect her he adds an additional clause in case of her death.

This all leads to a series of murders wondering who will be next and who is the perpetrator. Fun, quick read, from one of the most famous murder mystery writers in Japan. I also believe this is the only one of his works available in English. (I read this in French.)

And unlike the Eight Tombs work, Kosuke Kindaichi has a much bigger presence in this which was good to see. However, I keep wondering who the narrator is who keeps announcing his presence in telling the story.

Fun stuff.

Good luck with that exam. it's good not to feel too pressurized

I am excited to present the list for next years authors-in-focus for my group Author Theme Reads. We're making it a Japanese authors only theme read and although we are having our traditional year-long author and mini-authors, we will also be doing a big thread for Japanese works in general (so as to have fun comparing authors) and we're starting the year off with a group read of 1Q84. Feel free to dip in an out throughout the year.

Year-long Author: Shusaku Endo
Mini-author 1 (Jan-Mar): Natsume Soseki
Mini-author 2 (Apr-June): Kobe Abe
Mini-author 3 (July-Sep): Ryu Murakami
Mini-author 4 (Oct-Dec): Yukio Mishima

+ Year long thread on Japanese authors in general.

Group read of 1Q84 starts in January.

Oh, good. I'll be eagerly stalking the group throughout the year.

My 2012 thread is here. Hoping for more reading then!