Bookses.

I'm reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. It's a post-scarcity look at a guy who lives in Disney Land.

Anyone else into SF?

Reading Pynchon's V. and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Yeah, man I was a lit major, I know about reading a lot. Though this is a dense modernist tome that's about 1200 pages.


*CORRECTION. 1800 pages.

Youyesyesyes said:
While corey's 偉そう attitude is kinda annoying it is quite plausible. I read Three Kingdoms in like 3 weeks, just depends on your capacity to do one thing (reading) for a long time I suppose. That and your tolerance to not stop reading when you get to a part of a book you may find "boring", that used to be a very bad habit of mine and it took me ages to finish things.

Read The Setting Sun and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea recently. Setting Sun was very well written but unfortunately, I think, it has to live in the shadow of No Longer Human. Same thing with Mishima, I get the feeling anything else I read by him will fail to compete with his Sea of Fertility.

Be nice if I can finish Snow Country and a collection of Chikamatsu plays I have before I leave. Would round out my spree of Japanese literature nicely before I go, didn't plan on taking much much of it with me besides Tale of Genji/Ise and The Pillow Book.

I've only learned kana — what does the kanji mean?

I didn't mean to sound boastful. Also tbf I was living with my parents, not going to school and only working about 15 hours a week, so all I did was read. Nowadays I'm lucky if I read a 500-page novel in a month.

My bf just finished The Sailor and I'd really like to read it. I need to read more Japanese literature — I've only read Mishima's "Confessions of a Mask" and Kawabata's "Beauty and Sadness". I ordered Sōseki's Kokoro and I Am a Cat from the library.

cccooorrreeeyyy said:
Youyesyesyes said:
While corey's 偉そう attitude is kinda annoying it is quite plausible. I read Three Kingdoms in like 3 weeks, just depends on your capacity to do one thing (reading) for a long time I suppose. That and your tolerance to not stop reading when you get to a part of a book you may find "boring", that used to be a very bad habit of mine and it took me ages to finish things.

Read The Setting Sun and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea recently. Setting Sun was very well written but unfortunately, I think, it has to live in the shadow of No Longer Human. Same thing with Mishima, I get the feeling anything else I read by him will fail to compete with his Sea of Fertility.

Be nice if I can finish Snow Country and a collection of Chikamatsu plays I have before I leave. Would round out my spree of Japanese literature nicely before I go, didn't plan on taking much much of it with me besides Tale of Genji/Ise and The Pillow Book.

I've only learned kana — what does the kanji mean?

I didn't mean to sound boastful. Also tbf I was living with my parents, not going to school and only working about 15 hours a week, so all I did was read. Nowadays I'm lucky if I read a 500-page novel in a month.

My bf just finished The Sailor and I'd really like to read it. I need to read more Japanese literature — I've only read Mishima's "Confessions of a Mask" and Kawabata's "Beauty and Sadness". I ordered Sōseki's Kokoro and I Am a Cat from the library.

偉そう

I know I'm gonna sound like a pretentious prick here but...to be honest, Japanese (and Chinese) literature takes a lot of work to get into for most western readers. Many times when picking up a novel by Mishima or Kawabata one is overwhelmed by the amount of (seemingly) esoteric references they might make to pieces of classic Japanese or Buddhist literature. There's also the wordplay involved with kanji but honestly the former takes a much larger priority.

If you really want to get into modern/post-war Japanese literature (like Soseki, Mishima, Dazai, Akutagawa, Kawabata etc. etc.) I would highly recommend first reading some of the classics.

Genji / Ise / Heike monogatari are pretty much essential. For Ise and Heike the translation by Helen Craig McCullough are very good. Genji has a few translations and just like any other famous piece of literature with multiple translations I would go with the one that feels right. The Pillow Book and Essays in Idleness would also go with these as well as any collection of Japanese Fairy Tales and Folk Stories (like The Bamboo Cutter and Momotaro)

In addition to those (and yeah that's already a huge amount) there's also the issue of references to Buddhist scriptures that are very prevalent. Perhaps one would want to read these first but sutras such as The Lotus, The Heart, The Diamond, The Lankavatara, The Avatamsaka and The Surangama are all usually pretty important. If nothing else The Lotus is easily the most important for Japanese literature. Oh and for those pesky Kawabata Nichiren references there's a nice collection of his works by Philip Yampolsky. For sutras/shastras you can't go wrong with the likes of D.T Suzuki, Thomas Cleary, Red Pine or Thich Nhat Hanh.

Also with regards to all that brushing up classic Chinese literature will also be a big help (Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West etc. etc.). For example The Heike Monogatari's opening lines are beautiful and even more beautiful when you've read Three Kingdoms and The Heart Sutra.

tl;dr

It's kinda like reading The Divine Comedy, it's really not that enjoyable unless you've got a Bible sitting nearby.

Or I guess like reading Kokoro without knowing anything about Pure Land Buddhism or Confucianism.

I'm sure you already know that though, I'm just trying to be helpful and I enjoyed typing that out...

Thanks You-chan. Are you majoring in Eastern Studies?

I've read a bit of Buddhist literature but mainly Theravada and Vajrayana texts. Need to get into the Mahayana stuff. Nichiren was insane.

Need to finally read the Red Pine translations of the Diamond Sutra and the Blue Cliff Record. I had them from the library but they just sat on my nightstand until I took them back.

Yeah I was very close to starting the Shambhala training but decided Himalayan Buddhism is too theistic/authoritarian for me. Still haven't decided whom I should practice with, and now I haven't been practicing for the past three months u_u.

Nichiren actually is pretty interesting but the various shu seem pretty dogmatic and slightly theistic. His biggest mouthpiece is Soka Gakkai which is prob not the best organization to get involved with.

u_u

I might have mentioned before, but I enjoyed Mishima's The Temple of the Golden Pavilion a great deal.

VaR is currently reading Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans. I don't know why I chose this book over Remains of the Day.

sharkeyanti said:
finished the as-yet-complete A Song of Ice and Fire series. Took about two months for 5000+ pages. Just about as fun as fantasy plots get.

I read all of them in June/July. Pretty interesting series so far, eh? Towerofthehand.com has some fairly interesting essays and discussions. I just hope fatty stays alive to finish the series.

actually i'll probably read auto-da-fe before i kill myself since it's been on my bookshelf (my book pile. i have a pile of books because shelves are bourgeois) forever