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Jun. 15th, 2001 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verbminxI can't decide what to read next. It's not for want of choices, it's more from a surfeit of them.
I finished Welcome to My Planet (Where English is Sometimes Spoken by Shannon Olson this week. The main character is named Shannon Olson. It's billed as a beach read; most of its blurbs are from questionable sources (women's fashion mags), and it's supposed to be funny. I think this was all misleading: while it's not the sort of thing to get rave reviews in the Times Book Review, it's also not a laugh riot. It's a fairly serious book about a young woman, somewhat hapless, trying to navigate her post-collegiate years. It had more depth than I expected, though it's not great literature.
I also finished Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman, which I was carting around in my purse for two days. A quick read, more ideas than plot. It's a series of vignettes about the possible functions of time and space. One describes a universe where people have no concept of the future, another describes one in which time is a physical dimension, a third is about a world in which time moves more slowly at higher altitudes, a fourth is a place in which nobody ever dies except by choice. Certainly intriguing and worth rereading. People who like surrealism and Borges might appreciate it. Lightman is a physicist who has taught writing and overseen MIT's humanities program. The book is slight but charming, challenging, and involving.
Books I'm considering reading next: Sputnik Sweetheart, Ulysses, Deus Lo Volt!, House of Leaves, Bee Season, The Amber Spyglass, Time's Arrow, The Chess Garden, or the remainders of several books I've started... I've really been stockpiling, figuring a time would soon come when I wouldn't be able to afford to buy books for a while, so I have a nice backlog of things to read that could keep me occupied for at least several months.
Plans to go out for the evening have just abruptly been called on account of storms, so... I'm going to sit at home and listen to the storm, I suppose, and read whichever book it is that I choose. I could also work on Project Desk.
I finished Welcome to My Planet (Where English is Sometimes Spoken by Shannon Olson this week. The main character is named Shannon Olson. It's billed as a beach read; most of its blurbs are from questionable sources (women's fashion mags), and it's supposed to be funny. I think this was all misleading: while it's not the sort of thing to get rave reviews in the Times Book Review, it's also not a laugh riot. It's a fairly serious book about a young woman, somewhat hapless, trying to navigate her post-collegiate years. It had more depth than I expected, though it's not great literature.
I also finished Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman, which I was carting around in my purse for two days. A quick read, more ideas than plot. It's a series of vignettes about the possible functions of time and space. One describes a universe where people have no concept of the future, another describes one in which time is a physical dimension, a third is about a world in which time moves more slowly at higher altitudes, a fourth is a place in which nobody ever dies except by choice. Certainly intriguing and worth rereading. People who like surrealism and Borges might appreciate it. Lightman is a physicist who has taught writing and overseen MIT's humanities program. The book is slight but charming, challenging, and involving.
Books I'm considering reading next: Sputnik Sweetheart, Ulysses, Deus Lo Volt!, House of Leaves, Bee Season, The Amber Spyglass, Time's Arrow, The Chess Garden, or the remainders of several books I've started... I've really been stockpiling, figuring a time would soon come when I wouldn't be able to afford to buy books for a while, so I have a nice backlog of things to read that could keep me occupied for at least several months.
Plans to go out for the evening have just abruptly been called on account of storms, so... I'm going to sit at home and listen to the storm, I suppose, and read whichever book it is that I choose. I could also work on Project Desk.
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no subject
Date: 2001-06-15 04:50 pm (UTC)woah. I think i want 2 read that.
James Joyce
Date: 2001-06-15 07:10 pm (UTC)Re: James Joyce
Date: 2001-06-15 08:52 pm (UTC)the information looked entertaining when it came out - i remember reading the new yorker profile about it, years ago. but i was more drawn to time's arrow as i've never read amis before. i also have a copy of delillo's underworld lying around. i'm an underachiever.
Re: James Joyce
Date: 2001-06-15 09:13 pm (UTC)And echoing my boy Superfly up there, Nicholson Baker's always a good read. (Though his latest is called Double Fold, not Double Bind.)
Re: James Joyce
Date: 2001-06-15 11:42 pm (UTC)Re: James Joyce
Date: 2001-06-15 11:53 pm (UTC)no no, i'll read Ulysses. i'm probably going to tackle a few more short things ahead of time though, because I foresee it being a monster that sucks up all of my reading time for a month.
Sputnik Sweetheart
Date: 2001-06-15 08:15 pm (UTC)If you aren't familiar w/ Murakami, it seems like a good intro to his work. Not quite as dark and depressing as Norwegian Wood, but captures its economy of words ... and therefore not quite as magically surreal as his other novels, but still holds on to their playfulness.
Re: Sputnik Sweetheart
Date: 2001-06-15 08:42 pm (UTC)I know there are also other books of his which haven't been translated yet. I wouldn't be surprised if Vintage starts bringing them out once each year. They seem to have a schedule of "new Murakami paperback every six months" lately.
Re: Sputnik Sweetheart
Date: 2001-06-15 09:12 pm (UTC)as far as Vintage's publishing schedule ... one can only hope. According to this page (http://www.shimonoseki-cu.ac.jp/~uekura/haruki/) translations of his earlier works have been published by Kodansha Int'l. I was able to pick up a translated copy of Norwegian Wood at a Japanese bookstore called Kinokuniya years before Vintage released an American copy. You might want to look into that venue if you're impatient about tracking down his older novels.
Re: Sputnik Sweetheart
Date: 2001-06-15 09:47 pm (UTC)the kodansha books are usually published in english translation for japanese people learning english, or for the occasional english-speaking traveller in japan. i know that norwegian wood was retranslated for the Vintage release, though Kodansha's translation was by Alfred Birnbaum and therefore couldn't have been that bad.
other than that I didn't see anything. at the moment they seem to have their main Japanese-language section (where I did see HM's books), and then a small English section that carries Japan-themed books you could order in just about any bookstore... mostly not imports. The Kodansha translations were only available as imports. A few years ago, before the Vintage NW came out, there was a pretty brisk trade in "my pal in Japan will pick up these books for you..." - which is the reason I know about this, actually.
Occasionally some of the Kodansha English-language versions of HM's books that have never been released in the US pop up on ebay or amazon z-shops or auctions. i've seen a few. they usually go for at least $50 though.
I think my favorite Kodansha paperbacks are their Kodansha International "Japan's Modern Writers" anthology series. Monkey Brain Sushi and The Mother of Dreams are the two I have, both very good & representing a wide spectrum! :)
Re: Sputnik Sweetheart
Date: 2001-06-15 10:07 pm (UTC)The Kodansha translation of Norwegian Wood is actually pretty good. Reading through it didn't give me the impression of being dumbed down for ESL purposes (a fear I had going in already) and I paged through the Vintage translation when it was released and never noted any significant discrepancies in content or style. Doing a more substantial compare'n'contrast between the two has been a possible project for me (though admittedly, one with a low priority).
...
Date: 2001-06-15 09:06 pm (UTC)Re: ...
Date: 2001-06-15 09:11 pm (UTC)someone i knew who works at random house gave me a promo copy of bee season before it even came out... and i still havent read it. that's pretty sad. i have about two bankers boxes of unread books. i'm my own librarian.
no subject
Date: 2001-06-16 07:12 am (UTC)