Jan To April 2009
Just so i remember but for anyone interested here’s my reading list so far for 2009 and the odd pithy comment if i can be bothered. In the past in Japan i’ve not really read enough books, especially fiction. I read newspapers, magazines and so on instead. So, the list is a lot longer than i expected it to be.
1. Orhan Pamuk – Other Colours: Essays.
- The essays are very instructive of what kind of writer Orhan is and how it feels to be a Turkish writer stuck between the occidentalism of the west and the orientalism of the middle-east.
- He also made me feel not alone. Like me, he loves his friends and knows a lot of good people but at the back of his mind, also like mine, is the constant desire, nay, need, to go home and write alone.
2. Randy Pausch – The Last Lecture.
- Big thanks to Maki Akiyama for lending this one to me. Randy Pausch found out he had terminal cancer and decided to do a final lecture on life. A truly inspiring book (this coming from someone who feels accutely embarrassed by self-help guides and motivational speakers).
3. Stephen King – The Mist
- Good build up and a neat concept. Of his books this one’s writing style grated the least. As usual he wimps out with the ending as if King constantly has 75% of a story in his mind but has little clue as to how to finish it. Also, personally, the ending of the movie holds on to the concepts a lot better and is utterly bleak.
4. H. G. Wells – The War of the Worlds
- Absolute classic, two good films (despite the Cruise) and a phenomenal radio play by Orson Wells. The book is very different, very British and interesting how most people are referred to by their job and not by name. He is the God-father of SF and invented the alien invasion genre.
5. Orson Scott Card – Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
- In the future they have a device which can see all of history as if everything that has ever happened on Earth has been recorded on dvd. The end seemed under-developed but the overall morality of changing time was well explored.
6. Yasunari Kawabata – Snow Country
- Well recommended by everyone and most of my teachers could quote the first line. Komako is an utterly attractive character. It has the oddness of logic of japanese books but is also tender, whimsical and not at all tawdry. Once again the ending baffles. As if the last chapter fell out of my book; very Japanese.
7. John Nathan – Mishima: A Biography
- Erin chose a Mishima story for the readers club homework and so inspired, i got this engrossing biography of a very strange man.
8. Yukio Mishima – Life of a Mask
- Largely biographical account of his early life. This is perhaps his defining work and the most difficult to get into. It is also bizarre; especially as its almost certainly true… armpit hair fetish…
9 & 10. Osamu Dazai – No Longer Human / The Setting Sun
- Two short and interesting post-war Japan novels. Read them both during my 5 day stint in Taketomi island (someone take me back). Interesting perspectives on the defeated nation but could not help but feel it was just the feelings of an upper class family bereft of its comforts rather than the true hell of the lower classes. No longer human reveals more of his inner nature and shows his preoccupation, like Mishima with suicide.
11. Kobo Abe – The Face of Another
- A man meticulously builds a mask to cover his injured face. An indepth physical and pyschological examination on how it would affect him in the build up and the sense of a new personality a mask would give the person.
12. Mikhail Bulgakov – The Master and Margarita
- Literary types like David Mitchell and interviewees on BBC 4′s Book Club swear by the Russian authors, so does Pamuk. I’ve had my troubles with Dostoyevsky (bored to death) and have enjoyed Nabokov. But, this satire of Stalin’s Russia by Bulgakov is the best so far.
13. David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
- 19th century diary turns into letters from the early 20th century then a murder mystery, a guy ending up in an old persons home by accident, a Korean clone gaining sentience and some bit in the middle i lost all hope with, skipped then enjoyed the conclusions to those other vaguely linked stories. Wonderfully original and full of words i had to look up like tatterdemalion.
14. John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces
- This is genius, funny and written in pure Louisianna, Cajun and New Orleans. Imagine an overweight, moutachioed layabout, fully of pompous ideas trying to get a job; mixed with a useless cop forced by his boss to wear costumes while trying not nab suspicious characters. This is a story for the ride not the plot. Big shout out to Ben Morse for lending me his copy.
15. Jack Kerouac – On The Road (The Original Scroll)
- Interesting insight into his journey across America. Would be worth reading and doing. An insight into the beat poets of their time and how he just wrote the whole story from memory without paragraphs and the like. Hats off to Brandon Johnson who has done part of his journey.
16. Austin Grossman – Soon I Will Be Invincible
- The idea of a super hero novel instead of comic was irresistable. Especially with artwork by Bryan Hitch. Cool idea but the execution isnt the best. Lots of internal monologues and little action.
17. Michael Chabon – Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
- To be honest ive not read his stuff before but the book looked funky, smelt good and was about writing in general. Ive found books designed to teach you to write are useless but writers talking about their own writing is really useful. The best being Stephen King’s On Writing even though i dont really like his stuff. Chabon is interesting, quotes all the right literary types and has an obcession with Golems.
18. Junot Diaz – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- All you need to know about the life of a Dominican Republic Sci-fi obcessed introvert. Very funny book and full of life; keeps you reading and reading. Big thanks to Mindy Owens for the Xmas present!
