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Post by kathleen34 on Jul 17, 2005 20:52:45 GMT -5
Early this month month I read The Kite Runner and just today finsihed Life of Pi... it is now time to start The War Diaries of YSS. I'm sure I won't finish it as quickly as most other books.
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Post by MaaliiHT on Jul 20, 2005 23:16:35 GMT -5
Anyyway, have anyone read Tales of Genji? I'm told its the first fiction novel in history. I've read an abridged version of The Tale of Genji. That Genji, he sure did love the ladies! Yes he sure did, didn't he? I've read the full version (translated by McCulloch) and it is a very interesting book and there is some very memorable writing in it. It is credited with being the world's first true novel--note that it precedes the attributed writing dates of books like ROTK and Outlaws by a good 400 years or so. I found it sort of amusing that much of the subject matter revolves around a seemingly endless succession of extra marital affairs (and this includes wives cheating on husbands as well as visa versa), since Japanese-Americans (I am one) have this image of prudishness (or at least they once did). One thing that I didn't like about the novel is that it doesn't really have an ending. It seems as if the author continued to just add new snippets to the story as time went on and that she left it so that she could add more. Thus, one doesn't have the feeling of completeness one has with reading other classics that generally wrap up so nicely.
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Post by TheBo on Jul 21, 2005 12:07:33 GMT -5
Ooh! Ooh! I've got Gengi, I've been "reading" it for months now! (More like reading, then re-reading to remember what I just read--move slowly? Like molasses.) It's sort of Jane Austen on steroids, with dirty bits included. I guess I forgive the author for not editing well, since she didn't have a computer or even a typewriter to make the rewrites go quickly, LOL.
Bo
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Post by MaaliiHT on Jul 21, 2005 13:55:55 GMT -5
Ooh! Ooh! I've got Gengi, I've been "reading" it for months now! (More like reading, then re-reading to remember what I just read--move slowly? Like molasses.) It's sort of Jane Austen on steroids, with dirty bits included. I guess I forgive the author for not editing well, since she didn't have a computer or even a typewriter to make the rewrites go quickly, LOL. Bo Yes I found it was a somewhat slow read for me too, much more so than, say, the Heike Monogatari or something like that (let alone ROTK). There are, however, some rather extended sections that read very well and really held my interest. I also found myself repeatedly going back and rereading to remind myself who was who and who did what. Note, the translator for the full version of Genji I've read is Seidensticker, not McCulloch as I had stated in my earlier post.
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Post by Skinz Ul on Jul 21, 2005 14:28:21 GMT -5
I just started chapter one and so far I like it. The house of genji grandmother was really written good. I could see the moon over the hill and the high grass right in front of me.
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Post by TheBo on Jul 21, 2005 15:29:12 GMT -5
Yes, I find it poetic and haunting, most evocative. My edition (I don't have it to hand, so I don't know the translator) is fully annotated and it has lots of cool illustrations showing hairstyles, housing, etc, to help explain what's going on. My favorite was, there's an illustration of someone cleaning or ironing (pounding?) clothing, to illustrate a comment a person makes.
I was reading this while watching DJG (see how long it's taking me?) and I remember it threw some light on the precautions taken during interaction of men and women, such as when the doctors on DJG had to sit behind a screen to treat a court woman, and how none of the royal people were ever truly alone, even when they were...um...private...
Bo
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Post by BungalowDweller on Jul 21, 2005 15:33:17 GMT -5
I just started chapter one and so far I like it. The house of genji grandmother was really written good. I could see the moon over the hill and the high grass right in front of me. Gee. . .I've gotta pull this volume out of a box in the attic. I didn't recall it being so good. . .
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Post by MaaliiHT on Jul 25, 2005 20:01:27 GMT -5
The Taiheiki translation (McCulloch) I ordered just arrived last week and I've been reading it with some interest, after re-reading George Sansom's very detailed history of the period (from the middle volume of the 3 volume set, ie 1334-1615, instead of his "short cultural history" single volume). In addition to starting to read the Taiheiki from the beginning, I took the liberty to skim to the end, in part because the translator says she dropped many of the monotonous series of battle descriptions (in her opinion) in order to make for a more coherent work. I am a bit disappointed, because, from what I've read the Taiheiki continues well beyond the overthrow of the Kamakura Bakufu by royalists, and goes into many of the unbelievably intricate series of events that follow (Takauji switching sides again, the defeat and death of the great Kusunoki Masashige, the demise of the Ko brothers, Kitabatake Chikafusa's heroic efforts, Takauji falling out with his brother... etc.). Anyway, it will be nice to get the part up to Kamakura's fall, which will no doubt include Masashige's most legendary battles, but I still wish the translation had the later stuff, even if it made for tedious reading in the opinion of the translator. It also seems to me that the standard Asian epic cycle the rise and fall is really not complete by truncating after the "rise" of the loyalists (even though the very last part forecasts the fall), because it seems the standard rise and fall cycle is not complete until Takauji has completely crushed the loyalists, a good 20+ years after fall of Kamakura.
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Post by ginnycat5 on Sept 20, 2005 18:08:10 GMT -5
Welcome to South Korea is a lessonplan website with many books listed for many reading levels, I think. There are also recipes and photos. ted.coe.wayne.edu/sse/units/SKorea.htmThis will be fun to explore.
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Post by BungalowDweller on Sept 20, 2005 21:31:47 GMT -5
Charles Dickens--Bleak House.
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Post by Eowyn on Sept 21, 2005 13:34:54 GMT -5
Charles Dickens--Bleak House. Nice pick, bungalow dweller. I'm currently reading Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, a history of Babylon, and a novel about Superman.
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Post by TheBo on Sept 21, 2005 16:01:27 GMT -5
Eowyn, is your Superman novel about the people who played him, the people who created him or is it using Superman as a character? What's the premise?
Bungalowdweller, I LOVE Bleak House--I must have read it four times. (To be fair, once was to write a paper about it.) It's my favorite Dickens; maybe that has something to do with working for attorneys.
I never finished the Christina Stead novel--it's got a very boring beginning, intensively rewritten by order of the publishers, and I suspect that ruined it. Right now, I've got an Applewood Nancy Drew by the bed, 'cause that's about all I can handle, LOL.
Bo
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Post by BungalowDweller on Sept 21, 2005 16:48:36 GMT -5
Bungalowdweller, I LOVE Bleak House--I must have read it four times. (To be fair, once was to write a paper about it.) It's my favorite Dickens; maybe that has something to do with working for attorneys. Bo I'm glad to hear it. I had ordered it through Amazon and was a little intimidated when I saw the size of the book. I'm reading so much for school right now I was wondering how to get through it. Dickens is my all-time favorite author and has changed my life. The year my father died I read Oliver Twist continually--6 times. David Copperfield, Pip, all of those characters were and continue to be very real to me. Later in life I met other orphans who felt the same way about the books and read them continually throughout their childhoods. I think that it was cathartic--if Oliver, Pip, David, etc survived calamitous childhoods with dreams and morality intact, I could too. Thank God for good books!
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Post by kathleen34 on Sept 21, 2005 21:26:06 GMT -5
Did you see the preview of Oliver Twist being released at the end of September? Opens tomorrow in 'selected' theaters ... whatever THAT means.
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Post by cafetacbva on Sept 21, 2005 21:37:34 GMT -5
Oliver Twist is Great
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