My Booklist

I don’t think that this has much to do with Japan, but I have been reading a LOT, so I felt like telling you all about what I’ve read. : )

I was in the middle of a book when I came, but I finished it while I was here, so I will include it. Nicolai Gogol’s stories including The Nose, The Overcoat, The Carriage, Taras Bulba, and more that I can’t recall at the moment. It was simultaneously sad and happy; depressing and uplifting; silly and profound. A lot of fun to read! It was a commitment to read it, but one that I’m very glad I made. ;)

Next, I read Natsume Soseki’s Botchan. It’s a Japanese classic about a young man’s experience teaching at a rural Japanese middle school. Once I found out the synopsis I thought, “What?! That’s me!!” It turned out to not be me after all : ), but it was hilarious in parts and funny throughout. I really enjoyed the subtle ironies hidden between the lines. It was a great book for a person who is new to Japanese culture, and good entertainment at that!

And last, I just finished The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. I haven’t seen the movies, but I can’t imagine that it’s as good as the book. And if it is, then it’s a really good movie! I really got sucked into this book. I didn’t know what it was about before I started, so I was almost repelled by the storyline, but I kept reading and found that it was so real and true, neither happy or sad but very honest. It has a philosophical tone that I occasionally got bored with, but in the end I really liked it a lot. There was one quote that seems negative, but in the context is really positive. I think it reminds my of my situation trying to learn Japanese. Here it is:

“I knew about the helplessness in everyday activities, finding one’s way or finding an address or choosing a meal in a restaurant, about how illiterates anxiously stick to prescribed patterns and familiar routines, about how much energy it takes to conceal one’s inability to read and write, energy lost to actual living. Illiteracy is dependence. By finding the courage to learn to read and write, Hanna had advanced from dependence to independence, a step towards liberation.”

I have found that it’s easy for me to get dogged down by my Japanese illiteracy, so this explanation of my own feelings was quite refreshing! “Someone understands how I feel! And they explained it ever so well!”

Anyway, the next on my to-read list are two compilations of Lefcadio Hearn stories. One book is a collection of Japanese people’s ghost stories that Hearn dictated, and the others are Hearn originals. Lefcadio Hearn was from…Poland?…I forget, but then he eventually visited Japan. Instead of visiting though, he liked it so much that he stayed! He was married to a Japanese woman, had 4 children (I think), and lived in a very traditional Japanese house in the very nearby Kumamoto City. They have spooky readings of his stories at his house now. Wouldn’t that be fun?!

And that’s all I know of literary excellence. Feast, my friends, on words!