Lilisin in 2021

Hello again everyone!

I read the most books I've ever read in a year in 2020, ending up with 46 books. Obviously the events of the year most likely had a great effect on this but I have also been placing a greater priority on reading as well. I feel I can and want to read even more. However, despite the increase in quantity it wasn't a very memorable reading year as I didn't fall in love with any of the books I read. I much preferred the nonfiction I read which has been interesting to see my shift towards nonfiction these days. This year I think I'd like to get back to the basics, my foundation: Japanese literature (and subsequently asian lit). I haven't been reading some of the Japanese books I own due to the lofty idea of wanting to read them in the original language, but I have to accept my current reading speed in Japanese and that if I want to read more books, I'll have to mix in other languages. But this is my big prediction for the year, more Japanese everything. Now, hopefully I'll actually update my thread as I read these books. That's the big thing I gave up on in 2020 so I'd like to fix that. In any case, as always, thanks to all the people who make the effort to lurk and comment on my threads. I really love the journey we are riding together.

Books in 2021:
1) Yeonmi Park : In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
2) Kenzaburo Oe : A Quiet Life *abandoned
3) Takeshi Kaiko : Darkness in Summer *abandoned
4) Margaret Atwood : The Testaments
5) Sarah Krasnostein : The Trauma Cleaner
6) HG Wells : The Time Machine
7) Sanmao : Stories of the Sahara
8) Cao Xuequin : The Story of the Stone, Volume 1
9) Cao Xuequin : The Story of the Stone, Volume 2
10) Hongci Xu : No Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison
11) Amelie Nothomb : Petronille
12) Stefan Zweig : Destruction d'un cœur
13) Jules Verne : Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine
14) Emile Zola : La fortune des Rougon
15) Yuri Herrera : Signs Preceding the End of the World
16) Thant Myint-U : The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and Democracy in the 21st Century
17) Fumiko Enchi : Masks
18) Cormac McCarthy : Blood Meridian
19) Keizo Hino : Isle of Dreams
20) Barbara Demick : Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town
21) Yuko Tsushima : Child of Fortune
22) Jesmyn Ward : Sing, Unburied, Sing
23) Aki Shimazaki : Azami
24) Aki Shimazaki : Hozuki
25) Dave Cullen : Columbine
26) Philip K. Dick : The Man Who Japed
27) Soji Shimada : Tokyo Zodiac Murders
28) Risa Wataya : Pauvre Chose
29) Hideo Furukawa: Slow Boat
30) Cao Xuequin : The Story of the Stone, Volume 3
31) JMG Le Clezio : Peuple du ciel, suivi de 'Les Bergers"
32) Aki Shimazaki : Suisen
33) Martin Luther King : Why We Can't Wait
34) Wilkie Collins : The Woman in White
35) James Welch : Winter in the Blood
36) Cao Xuequin : The Story of the Stone, Volume 4
37) Machado de Assis : The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
38) Edmond Rostand : Cyrano de Bergerac
39) Seio Nagao : Meurtres à la cour du prince Genji
40) Horace Walpole : The Castle of Otranto
41) tr. Edward Seidensticker : The Gossamer Years
42) 史恵 近藤 : インフルエンス
43) Jung Chang : Mao

Books read in 2020 - 2019 - 2018 - 2017 - 2016 - 2015 - 2014 - 2013 - 2012 - 2011 - 2010 - 2009

On the other hand, the more you read in the language, the better and faster you get at it. Even with Japanese with all the kanji I suspect - probably not as rapidly as with alphabet and abjad based languages but still. :) But yes - it can be annoying.

I will be keeping track of what you read - I seem to pick up a lot of Japanese books somehow and they work well for me :)

You know I'm here to follow along no matter how much you post. Your threads our are always a wonder of information and great perspectives. I envy you can read Japanese, while I wait to see if I can get my hands on a translation. I am looking forward to adding yet more to my TBR from your reading lists.

Happy 2021 L. I’ll be following.

Happy New Year! I'm here dropping off my star.

Thank you everyone for the well wishes!

>2 AnnieMod:
Yes, it's the curse of anything you're trying to master, isn't it? If you do that thing more, you get better, but you have to do that thing more to get better. I just want to be good already! With Japanese there are definitely more pitfalls to slow you down versus the latin alphabet but the same theory still applies: read more to read faster. The problem is getting too comfortable at a certain level, thinking you've mastered the universe, and then getting crushed by it when you try to go up a level. Wait, am I talking about reading in Japanese or my violin lessons?

Happy new year! Looking forward to reading your reviews this year.

Hello, continuing my voyage around the Club... impressed as ever with your Japanese projects and versatility.

Happy new year. I'm looking forward to following your reading again this year. I always find interesting books and perspectives on those books, even if I rarely leave a post. I hope you'll enjoy your reading, whatever quantity and language you end up with!

>6 lilisin: Wait, am I talking about reading in Japanese or my violin lessons?

Yes. :) Once you do master it, it all is worth it but the slog towards it can be... annoying. I had been playing with the idea of picking up a new language -- something outside of the language families I am somewhat familiar with and that's what really makes me stop and wonder - do I want to spend that much time on a new language when I can use the time reading in my languages... Oh well.

>10 AnnieMod:

Yes, that temptation is real! I did a semester of Korean in college and I would love to pick it back up again but I have to think about what my purpose in learning the language is. Is it for a flex or do I have an actual goal? Also, Chinese. I would love to speak and read Chinese! But my other languages are suffering hard so I have to accept that I might have to stop here. Fortunately (unfortunately?) Japanese is a continuous study!

>8 LolaWalser:, >9 raton-liseur:
Thanks for stopping by. I feel the same way. I read every single post on your threads but you read so widely and so much it's hard to slip in a comment. But I always leave inspired!

Happy new year! Look forward to following along with your reading journey again this year (I tend to lurk).

Hi lilisin, and Happy New Year! I'm always interested in following your reading, especially the Japanese reading.

Hi, just popping in to see what you are reading.

What an unproductive start to the year reading rise. I tried reading two books that I abandoned half way through (and they were only 200 so pages long!) and so ended up with only one book in January as I slogged through the pages I did read on those other books.

And surprisingly, the two books I abandoned were both Japanese, basically the country I fall back to always when I don't know what to read!

1) Kenzaburo Oe : A Quiet Life *abandoned
This was supposed to be my first read of the year and it took two weeks just to read the first 100 pages at which point I decided that it was time for me to adopt a policy of it being okay to abandon books. I must admit to feeling a little bit of pressure to finishing this because a) it's an Oe and I like Oe!, and b) I feel like I'm known for reading Japanese books so I don't want my opinion to sway people's reactions too much. With this book, although few, all the reviews here on LT were glowing. I just couldn't get through it.

This book is sort of a meta book where Oe expresses his sense of guilt at abandoning his handicapped child via a character who is also an author and who has left to the US with his wife for a writing workshop, leaving his 20 year old daughter behind to take care of her older handicapped brother. We do not follow the author's perspective and instead we follow the daughter as she goes about her duties and talks to family and friends as they discuss the emotion left pending in the air.

This book has a topic I should have fallen in love with, especially as I absolutely loved A Personal Matter, which had also explored the topic of a father's guilt to having a handicapped child. But while that book was bold, daring, and almost vulgar, this book was almost heavy with its mundane-ness. And unfortunately I just couldn't get through it. There were sections I found myself confused at wondering what they had to do with the topic of the book and I couldn't read 10 pages without finding myself staring at the walls in boredom.

So yes, I abandoned this. It just wasn't for me. Maybe it's for others as other reviews seem to prove, but this book was just a bit too quiet for me.

2) Takeshi Kaiko : Darkness in Summer *abandoned
Another story I couldn't get through, but this time not through the way the story is presented as the writing is superb (not to say Oe's writing isn't wonderful but Kaiko is indeed fantastic at describing the tension in a scene), but instead due to the story itself. A story of two former lovers who find themselves together again in Germany and fall into the same disastrous tendencies they had back in Japan. The woman had initially escaped Japan due to the patriarchal society preventing her from succeeding as a woman, just to find herself back into the clutches of her former lover, a man without passion or direction who spends his days sleeping and dragging her down with him.

Me abandoning this book was a case of not liking the characters, which is typically fine with me as I don't have to find characters likeable to enjoy a book. But as he dragged down his former lover, he was also dragging me down with him and I just had to let go of the book to escape his clutch.

While I relatively enjoyed Kaiko's other book Into a Black Sun about a Japanese journalist reporting on the Vietnam War, I had mostly enjoyed that book because of the interesting perspective: a perfectly neutral view of the war. But with this book, I don't think I'll be revisiting Kaiko's work again. It's funny because the blurb on the front cover of my book states that Japanese critics state Kaiko is the best Japanese author since Kobo Abe himself and all I find myself wondering is who the hell these critics are and how many of them there actually are.

>15 lilisin: Too bad Oe was so lackluster in this one, sounds harder to see your guilt through another character without watering it down.

I can totally see Kaiko's work dragging you down. Even in into a Black Sun he didn't treat his lover with much compassion, remaining at a distance. Never really being honest with her. An entire book of that would be awful in the extreme.

Sucks to start the year off on the wrong foot. Here's hoping the rest of your year turns around!

3) Yeonmi Park : In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom

This became my official first read of the year after I abandoned the other two, and I'm very happy it ended up being the first book of the year as I was very much immersed in Yeonmi Park's story. In it she tells of her upbringing in North Korea, going from a comfortable middle class to losing everything and having to live off grass clippings in the mountains as her father tempted fate with a smuggling business.

From here she explains how the conditions in North Korea got to such a point that her sister decided she was going to escape, upon which Yeonmi and her mother follow, although are separated along the way. Yeonmi further discusses her time in China under the hands of her smuggler, then her crossing into Mongolia to finally make her way to South Korea.

It's an exhausting story and you can only feel admiration for Yeonmi in surviving and sticking to her morals. She was quite fortunate in her misfortune but I suppose those who survive to write memoirs are inherently fortunate.

This is a story I'm quite familiar with now but it remains nevertheless mindboggling that a human should have to go through such a thing. There were two parts however that truly struck me as horrendous; even more than the livelihood she had to go through when in China and was being pressed by her smuggler for sexual relations at 13 years old. What really killed me was the role of her "saviors". Yeonmi's escape route to South Korea via Mongolia is possible via the help of a missionary. To keep his or her identity secret she mentions nothing of their nationality or any other identifying points of interest. But she tells how she was required to study the Bible, repeat the verses and pray, to join the party that crosses the border. At one point, when her group is finally chosen to cross, the missionary says she can't go because she has sins she hasn't repented for yet. Basically, the missionary is implying that she was in the sex trade and that she should confess these horrible sexual sins. Although Yeonmi was actually able to escape becoming a prostitute, it shouldn't matter. The fact that this missionary, this supposed man of god (no, god does not deserve a capital G here), would risk someone's life just to satisfy his imaginary friend is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. That doesn't make you a man of god, that makes you a man trying to play god. Fortunately Yeonmi is clever here and says how pretending to pray to this god of the missionary is no different than how she was brought up in North Korea to basically pray to the Kims, and she manages to persuade the missionary to let her cross over. But I still left disgusted.

Another instance where I was horrified was once she finally makes it to South Korea. All North Korean refugees are placed into an institution for a few months to help them transition to this new world. They are taught the facts behind the Korea War, and are re-versed in actual history, while also being taught how to enter a modern society with phones and bank accounts. Here again, an employee basically looked down upon Yeonmi and doubted Yeonmi's assertion that she wasn't in the sex trade. That an employee working for an organization that helps refugees would dare to judge someone who has just had to endure horrors upon horrors to survive was again, disgusting. And a fellow woman at that! Ugh ugh ugh!

In any case, I really enjoyed this memoir.

I'm glad to hear you broke you "bad book" streak. Upwards and onwards!

>17 lilisin: crazy story, but glad you finished book 1. I also enjoyed your comments on the two you read part of.

>17 lilisin: I've been hestitant about picking up this book for awhile now. I've wanted to read a first hand account from someone born/raised/found the courage to escape their own awful circumstances from North Korea. And to think gall of people that volunteer to help but only if it fits with their values is disgusting. It does sound like an exhuasting but worthwhile read.

>18 rhian_of_oz:, >19 dchaikin:

Thank you!

>20 stretch:
Nothing to be hesitant about! It's a nice memoir and I think it's a nice accompaniment to Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy if you've read that.

Yes, very interesting. I hesitate to ask (not sure how to frame it best...), what is your impression of the general attitude in Japan to Korea (either, both), at least in the media, etc.? Is there an interest greater or lesser than in (say) the US? A sympathy... or not? As you can see, I'm not sure what I'm asking about, it's just a curiosity about the relationships of faraway countries. But not in the official, diplomatic sense, just... cultural.

Oh, for instance--are the Japanese interested in learning, say, Korean or Chinese, do they have an affinity for Korean or Chinese literature etc.? More or less than for, say, Western traditions. I know it's awfully general! but it's hard to get an impression for such things from translated literature alone...

I have thoughts. Lots of thoughts about the works I've read recently.

4) Margaret Atwood : The Testaments

A perfectly readable read as I was reading it, but quite unmemorable once you finish.
This is the story of The Handmaid's Tale Aunt Lydia and how she became Aunt Lydia, and how she decides to stop being Aunt Lydia. I feel like she was quite out of character in this book and I would have preferred knowing that she had actually always been that strict. Her being the reason Gilead falls seems too convenient. While I will of course accept the canon that Atwood has created, I still can't stay I was convinced.

I feel like Atwood created such a perfect world in the first book that there was nothing to explore in the sequel and it didn't succeed as a character study either. So, the book ended up being fun to read and page-turning as always since Atwood has such fluid writing, but while I would reread the first, I would not reread this one. Once is enough.

5) Sarah Krasnostein : The Trauma Cleaner

This is a nonfiction I read out of curiosity to see what are truly the tastes of this one booktuber I follow who praised this glowingly.
Let's just say for now that I was nonplussed over this one.

This is the story of Sandra and how she became a trauma cleaner. Well, technically. It's actually more an exploration of her past and how that led her to stumble upon trauma cleaning. Seems like a subtle difference but there is one. In any case, you follow her life born as Peter, adopted into an abusive family. Peter leaves the family and joins the gay scene in Australia but still doesn't find this to be the right fit so Peter begins to transition into Sandra. Sandra believes that staying in the gay community means she will always be trans, while going out in the real world, she can actually just be a woman. I agree with this. We follow her as she goes from job to job, working as a brothel owner and prostitute for quite a while until she finally enters the world of trauma cleaning.

There is no denying Sandra's tragic past what with the abuse, lack of love, sexual assault, and having to deal with being trans in Australia's anti-trans 1970s. And the strength she has to overcome her struggles is remarkable. But I still wasn't able to be perfectly sympathetic to the character as I don't think she is as good a person as the author tries to portray her as. She created a family out of selfishness, abandoned them (her wife and her children), and while she loves to be seen as "the savior", she is quite the poor businesswoman and demands things of her employees without providing them the tools to do such a dangerous job as trauma cleaning. She is quite negligent when you think about it and is as selfish as one can be. You can say she deserves to be selfish with the life she had but that way of thinking can be just as dangerous.

I also didn't really like the author trying to manipulate our feelings like she did. And the way she would sometimes insert herself into the text was just as frustrating. I'm not here to read about her life, I'm here to read about Sandra's. And to be honest, the sections about trauma cleaning, while an interesting topic, get kind of tiring. If you've seen even 2 episodes of the show Hoarders, then you get it.

So I don't know. It just felt like the book abounded with manipulation and I just found myself not caring.

>22 LolaWalser:

Sorry Lola! I didn't mean to ignore your question!

Your question is hard to answer because to be honest I don't hear much about Korea at all here. Also I don't want to accidentally generalize too much but here are some observations I suppose. It's actually quite surprising how much I don't hear anything about Korea. When I have asked friends if they've been or want to go to Korea they all answer no, but when I ask why they can't really explain. They try to make up excuses like "I heard it was dirty", "I heard they swindle you" but when I tell them, actually, the food is good, the shopping is great, and the night time entertainment is plentiful with great lounges and terraces outside, they all go "oh. Maybe I should go then". So it's quite weird.

While I know many Koreans learning Japanese I don't hear much about the other way around. The Korea idol bands are relatively popular here but as Japan has its own similar idol groups where they actually understand the lyrics, it's not as strong as I would say the non-asian female fans who are proud to say they are a part of the BTS army. So less, fanatical, I would say.

Korean literature I want to say doesn't exist here at all. I just checked Korean books in translation online and it seems that most of the Japanese translations are of books that had success in English translation like The Vegetarian and the new book out recently Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. So it seems they only translated it after seeing the success in the foreign market.

(The foreign market can have a huge influence on Japan. Japan's own Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri was a no-name book here until it won the foreign translation prize and then all of a sudden bookstores were ordering it and people started reading it. Before the prize announcement when I tried to find the original Japanese version I couldn't find a single copy in any of the huge chain stores.)

And this only answers about South Korea.

When it comes to North Korea there is even less media around that. I think most everyone agrees the Kims are idiots but I'm not sure if they actually take into consideration the actual conditions the North Koreans are living under.

So in all I would say Japan first and foremost cares about their own country's media as there is so much in abundance here. Then, they look to the US or the UK. After that, interest will depend on personal curiosity. Just looking at some of the Japanese language booktubers here, so far I've only seen one book in translation and if I remember correctly it was The Great Gatsby. Otherwise, they all only read Japanese books. Oh, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

>24 lilisin:

Thanks so much for taking the time, that's extremely interesting and just the sort of thing I was looking to learn about! I keep wondering whether proximity makes people understand others better, whether there is more curiosity and perhaps sympathy, but time and again it seems we're very "local" creatures.

>23 lilisin: I agree with your options of The Testaments. Out of the seven novels of I’ve read by her, this ranks dead last. It’s not a bad novel per se, but it was far from a great one. It’s a beach book, not literature. I thought it was more of reaction to the success of the TV series and the TV series should never have ventured beyond the first season. The first novel was a masterpiece of the unresolved ending.

Lurking and enjoying your reviews and recent discussions.

Glad you've got back into your reading mojo. I'm struggling to settle my mind on reading at the moment.

6) HG Wells : The Time Machine

I have now read four books by Wells and I would rank them as such (publication date in parantheses):
1) The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)
2) The Time Machine (1895)
3) The Invisible Man (1897)
4) The War of the Worlds (1898)

I've ranked this one high because I liked the return to the darkness that was in Moreau - return as in I read it after reading Moreau. This book is about exactly what the title states: a time traveler who has returned from his travels and tells of his nearly deadly adventure. He has managed to travel to the year 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a creature so advanced that it is no longer human, and no longer follows a society as we humans had established. The night that he gets to know the Eloi creatures, his time machine has been stolen and he must begin to search for it, upon which he stumbles upon the Morlocks; the creatures who fear the light and thus live underground. The Eloi seem to have only one fear and that is the Morlocks, which our time traveler has to figure out why.

I liked this one due to the darkness that lingered in this story. Our adventurer initially has fairly naive ideas about this new civilization and is quick to assume that we have finally managed to create a utopia. Only to discover that this society is actually divided still by class and there is a payment to be made if the Eloi are to live peacefully.

I also enjoyed his further travels 30 million years into the future where he witnesses the end of all living creatures. I found the traveler's reflections quite serene, in a way, despite the sadness that comes with the idea of the death of our planet.

In any case, I enjoyed this one. It's interesting, now that I've looked up the publication dates that his most famous works are also his first.

Enjoying your reviews as always. I particularly like the way you discuss your thoughts on a work, finished or unfinished.

Oh look, I've fallen behind again. As if that wasn't unexpected at all!

7) Sanmao : Stories of the Sahara

This is a pretty famous memoir of Sanmao when she lived in the Spanish Sahara with her husband, Jose, in around 1974-1975.
This book was a frustrating read for me even though I was still engrossed. Basically Sanmao wrote a bunch of great stories, but I hated pretty much everyone (including Sanmao herself) and I don't trust Sanmao at all. Here's what happened.

Basically, all the stories are good, and super engrossing but the thing is it that if you step back just a bit you'll notice that all of her stories are a result of her recklessness, poor decisions, and frankly, quite the savior complex. In the most extreme example, she and her husband left for the desert at 5pm. 5pm! They lied to a sort of guardian at the entrance and told him they'd be right back even though they obviously were not. Just there, you can't help but shake your head at the stupidity. Every one knows you don't go into a desert so late! So of course their car gets stuck, Jose gets trapped in quicksand, she can't figure out how to save him, he's suffering from the incoming cold putting him at risk of death via dehydration and hypothermia. Then when a car of men drive up, she thinks they've come to save her but of course they see a single women and their intentions go elsewhere. So now she has to run away to defend herself against rape. It makes for a thrilling story, but it was all avoidable if they hadn't entered the desert in the first place.

And basically every story starts with a poor decision such as this. Her utter disregard of the rules when it comes to driving, for example. She's so proud that she knows how to drive without having ever get a license and laughs when police try to stop her. The arrogance is palpable .

Then there is her savior complex. Despite not being a doctor she gives medicine to the people in her community, and diagnoses their problems dispensing things as minute as aspirin to making some traditional Chinese medicinal concoction. Although everything goes well she creates a huge risk factor for her "patients" that is staggering. Yes, she says herself to the people that she's not a doctor and that she shouldn't be doing this but she can't stop from doing this anyway. She has a constant obsession with wanting to "fix things".

Then there is the community she is in. She is surrounded by the native community in the area, a subset of Islam. And the way they manipulate their faith to defend their poor actions is angering! They steal from Sanmao, and when she accuses them of such they scream at her "you hurt my pride! you hurt my faith! I was just borrowing!", and yet when they return the items, the items are so beyond repair that Sanmao is left to throw them away.

Every character in this memoir is pretty much despicable but I can't deny it's a good story and it still gives an interesting insight on the community that lives in that area, even if from the eyes of a foreigner.

However, at the end of it all I don't know how much I can trust Sanmao. Particularly since at the end of the novel she interacts with a fairly major historical figure. But according to the timeline, she was in the area in 1974-1975, while he disappeared/around in 1970 most likely. So what is the truth?

A complicated read. I don't know whether to recommend it or not.

12) Stefan Zweig : Destruction d'un cœur

I'm running out of Zweig to read. This bindup included the following short stories:
- Destruction d'un coeur
About a father who witnesses his daughter slipping out of the room of a stranger in the middle of the night. He has difficulty accepting his daughter's new carnal desires, and he starts to deteriorate both mentally and physically. I enjoyed this but not Zweig's best although shows how amazing he is at exploring and describing human emotion.

- La gouvernante
Two girls discover that their governess is "with child" but don't understand this expression and become confused when the governess is fired. Not interesting nor original at all.

- Le jeu dangereux
The best of the three and the most Zweig-esque. An older man has been observing a young woman at a hotel and decides to give her the experience of love by writing her fake secret admirer letters. He then proceeds to watch her reactions, and tells his experience to another hotel guest.

13) Jules Verne : Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine

Kin-Fo is an extremely wealthy man, however, he is terribly bored and when news reaches him that he has lost his fortune, Kin-Fo decides to commit suicide as living rich is boring but living poor would be even worse. However, on the night he has chosen to commit suicide, he suddenly stops, thinking that he doesn't want to die without having ever felt a thrill in his life. Kin-Fo then hires his philosopher friend Wang to murder him within a certain time limit. In the meantime however, Kin-Fo has now found the will to live, his fortune turns out to have not been lost, but Wang has now disappeared, and Kin-Fo has to go on an adventure to save his life!

I was worried about the potential problems that could arise from Verne writing about the Chinese people and culture but I found none of that and instead ended up loving this one. Even better is that I own Verne in old 1960s paperbacks that have no synopsis anywhere so I got to go into the book entirely blind and was left to discover all the twists and adventure and humor.

>17 lilisin: Thank you writing a comprehensive review of Yeonmi Park. I have read a few North Korean memoirs, and of course the fabulous Nothing to Envy. Monica (trifolia) and I are currently doing a shared read of The Girl with Seven Names. She was seventeen when she snuck across the border on a self-dare and never went back. Her self-absorption was frustrating, but I suppose typical of a teenager. It is very different from the other memoirs I've read where it's very difficult to leave, such as the one you read. Thank you too for describing your understanding of the Japanese interest in Korea.

>23 lilisin: The Trauma Cleaner would be traumatic for me to read, I think. I had never heard the expression before.

>30 lilisin: If I were to pick a Zweig novel, which would you recommend? I have not read him before and have been meaning to.

>30 lilisin: Reminds me, that I've put Stefan Zweig's Chess Story on my list for years now, I need to go ahead and get a copy. He seems like an author I should read because I might enjoy his sort of writing.

>31 labfs39:
I understand what you mean by the teenage viewpoint. It can be hard because if they are too saintly it can be hard to believe the truth due to their age, but if they act like a teenager you think "they're just a teenager" which can by belittling as well. It's why I went for Yeonmi's memoir first out of the several memoirs there are to choose.

Yes even though I wouldn't consider myself squeamish, the idea of being a trauma cleaner myself is a very much "no thank you!" moment.

Thanks for your comments. With Zweig I would start with either Amok, Chess Story, or Beware of Pity.

>32 stretch:
Yes, you would definitely enjoy Zweig. I'm surprised actually you haven't gotten to him yet.

I too have been meaning to read Zweig for ages. It turns out I have one of your recommendations on my Kindle - Amok. Let this be a good push for me to get to it!

*ahem* Mic check. 1,2,3. Check, check. 1,2,3. Ah, ah, ah.

23) Aki Shimazaki : Azami
24) Aki Shimazaki : Hozuki
32) Aki Shimazaki : Suisen

I read Azami in 2018 and wrote the following about it:

Azami is a little book that I would consider "traditional Japanese literature", not in a Yasunari Kawabata praising traditional Japan kind of way, but in its look at a Japanese marriage on the brink of falling apart and the husband starting to look outside his marriage. Our protagonist is a copy editor who finds himself in a sexless marriage after his 2nd child is born. He has become frustrated with his situation but remains faithful to his wife and has no intention of divorcing. However, when he is taken to an entertaining bar by a childhood friend he hasn't seen in ages, he finds that his first childhood love Azami is working there as a hostess. His curiosity to discover why, despite having been such a good student, she has fallen into the entertaining business leads him down a path to infidelity. But in the arms of Azami he finds a resolve to change things between him and his wife.

A good little book to see the life of a very common marriage situation in Japan, followed by a look at the real everyday Japanese culture: not tea ceremonies, not geisha, but the backstreets of sexless Japan.

I had read Azami without thinking too much about it once I finished reading it. It gave a glimpse into a life that I've become familiar with since living in Japan but it was nothing too transcendental. However, this year, I then picked up Hozuki and was amazed to recognize the character of Azami. Turns out, these books are part of a pentalogy called L'ombre d'un chardon, and it's actually quite a genius idea.

It's the series for those who have ever wondered what happens to 'the other character'. What is their backstory? What happens to them?

This series does exactly that and it absolutely changed my feelings towards Azami (which I reread after reading Hozuki).

Hozuki follows our mysterious hostess, Azami, from the first book, Azami. We see what led her to become a hostess, who the child is who is with her, and what she does after her affair with the copy editor ends. It's a lovely book about a woman who finds a meaning to her life after finding a deaf mute child in a storage locker at a station. We relive her life as she reflects on those people and experiences that have directed her to her path now.

Then, the book Suisen follows the childhood friend, Goro, from the first book Azami: The owner of the sake company who runs into our copy editor and brings him to the hostess bar that will eventually lead to his affair with Azami. In this book, Goro is the typical Japanese CEO-type who has inherited his father's company, and believes he is the master of all things. He spends his time 'networking' at different events making sure to flaunt his title of CEO, as he chases after actresses (they must be attractive of course) which he believes he is owed as he takes appropriate care of his little woman at home. But everything comes crashing down when he loses his title of CEO and his mistress and wife leave him.

There are two more books in the series that I am eager to get my hands on as never have I read something where I'm allowed to glimpse into the lives of side characters. It's really a remarkable and clever idea. And Shimazaki (who lives in Canada and writes in French, not Japanese), writes in such a lovely straightforward manner that really brinks out each character's personality. Really enjoyed these.

39) Seio Nagao : Meurtres à la cour du prince Genji (Death in Genji's Court)

I was excited about this one as it was a chance to revisit Genji. I mean, how exciting is the thought of a murder mystery in the middle of Heian Japan! Unfortunately this read as a good bad fanfiction. Yes, a good, bad fanfiction, meaning that it was written quite well but all in all it's a fanfiction that utterly scrambles the original characters. I was even excited at the prospect that the author, Murasaki Shikibu, is herself a character in this book as she is written to have been a tutor of the young Genji. But Nagao seems to not know whether he wants to make her a strong character with personality or a typical weak female and he just ends up disrespecting her entirely as he allows her only to predictably fall in love with Genji.

In any case, I loved the revisit of the time period, with the sleeves of royal kimono peaking under their screens, dark corridors connecting the different apartments of the court, the political plotting of the Minister of the Right, and the Minister of the Left. All with the addition of poisoned needles, evil spirits, and revenge. It was really a fun book if it hadn't been for the additional unnecessary murder of the original characters.

Read this for the whimsy of this but ignore all you know about the original Genji Monogatari.

Happy to see you back! >35 lilisin: I had not heard about this series. It sounds an interesting read, with a fresh look on the book structure!

>35 lilisin: Rats, they don't seem to be available in English. Someday, when my French is back up to par perhaps

Edited to add: She has written two other pentalogies. I wonder if they are the same structure?

>37 raton-liseur:
I don't know if I'm 100% back on my own thread as I just posted because I finally had some free time at work. But I have continued commenting here and there despite ignoring my own thread.

>38 labfs39:
The French is quite simple so it wouldn't take too much to read them! I also wonder if her other two series are similar. I can't think why not. I'm eager to get my hands on those as well though.

38) Edmond Rostand : Cyrano de Bergerac

I have always wanted to read this famous play as I love the movie with Depardieu. And knowing the movie so well really made reading the play so much more fun as I could really imagine the actors. Not much to say other than I of course love the humor, the rhyme, the rhythm of the words, and the character of Cyrano. So happy to have finally read this.

40) Horace Walpole : The Castle of Otranto

As a fan of gothic fiction I had to of course read this.

On the day of Conrad and Isabella's wedding, Conrad is killed when a giant helmet has fallen on him. Having lost his only heir, Manfred decide he will take Conrad's young widow for himself so that he might create another heir. However, Isabella, now freed from her obligation to Conrad has no intention of marrying Manfred and flees, which brings on a series of events that Manfred will have to overcome to get his way, which will prove difficult as there is something out there that plans to prove that Manfred is not the true lord of Otranto.

It's a fun drama full of adventure and dark prophecies looming around each corner, but it reads as a simple adventure.
It misses the depth that gothic fiction will have in the future, such as The Monk, and My Cousin Rachel. So I had fun with this but I definitely wanted more from it.

31) JMG Le Clezio : Peuple du ciel, suivi de 'Les Bergers"

So far, despite my French cousins' objections, I am a fan of Le Clezio. I have yet to reach his most famous works so am still reserving my opinion on him but I loved his L'africain, and I loved these two short stories: Peuple du ciel, and Les Bergers. I find his writing absolutely beautiful and his landscapes stunning.

Peuple du ciel:
This short story is about a blind girl who likes to sit in the sun while overlooking the cliff. When a man walks by she asks him to explain the color blue. This leads to a wonderful juxtaposition as we are granted the beautiful descriptions Le Clezio is giving us as he describes the warmth of the red-brown dirt she sits upon as the wind travels across her cheek, descriptions that she can only feel, and which we can only see. As we are provided the beauty of her immediate surroundings she asks the man what lies beyond the cliff and towards the sea, and what fills the sky, and this is we are revealed the brutality of this period as we find out the man is a soldier and what lies beyond the cliff is destruction. And there the blind girl sits feeling the warmth from the dirt, oblivious to the destruction beyond.

Les Bergers:
Another beautiful short story about a boy who stumbles upon three siblings who take care of sheep in the wild. They seem to have no family other than each other, and the boy cannot speak their language, but he joins them anyway. They show him how to survive in the wild; how to build shelter, how to hunt rabbits; how to rile up snakes. But when one of the siblings tries to kill the King of the Lake, the boy must make a choice. Again, Le Clezio is beautiful with his words and I just loved how we are able to feel the interaction between the four kids despite their inability to communicate with one another. The scene with all the sand? Stunning.

Looking forward to my next Le Clezio.

>40 lilisin: Those two short stories are part of a larger short story collection, Mondo et autres histoires. According to LT, I've read it pre-LT time but have no recollection of it. Your review makes me willing to revisit it!

>41 raton-liseur:

Oo, I might have to get my hands on that then. This was just one of those 2 euro Folio poche books which are actually quite nice for dipping into short stories.

>42 lilisin: Actually, that's why I don't like this collection: it's part of another book, and I feel half cheated... The two short stories you've read are the two last ones of the Mondo collection. I hope you'll enjoy the other ones!

15) Yuri Herrera : Signs Preceding the End of the World

I haven't actually read any cartel books but this felt like yet another cartel book.
Unfortunate as I was excited about this one as the blurb made it sound like this book would transcend the genre.

Signs Preceding the End of the World is one of the most arresting novels to be published in Spanish in the last ten years. Yuri Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and those who cross it. He explores the crossings and translations people make in their minds and language as they move from one country to another, especially when there’s no going back. Traversing this lonely territory is Makina, a young woman who knows only too well how to survive in a violent, macho world. Leaving behind her life in Mexico to search for her brother, she is smuggled into the USA carrying a pair of secret messages - one from her mother and one from the Mexican underworld.

But as I read the book I got none of that. I didn't witness any translation nor any significance in language, and the "secret" messages are made out to be more than they actually are. Really, it's just another story of a girl trying to cross the border to find her brother and she has to enlist the help of the cartel to get through. They help her, she helps them. The quote on the book that says that Yuri Herrera is the best Mexican writer out there, also seemed like a huge exaggeration and the translator in her translator's note didn't sell me on the text here. Not wanting to be rude to the translator but if the language is truly as innovative and beautiful as she says, then she didn't do a good job translating that feeling.

So yes, I was disappointed with this one and gave it quite the mediocre rating.

>44 lilisin: To me Signs was a very muddled story as well. Herrera never fully settles on what this story is about, which in the end left me confused. Confused by the use of language, by the flow of the story, and finally its outcome. The unnamed woman is both fully in control of her journey and destiny, but lets the world at times dictate terms. The "innovative" use of language is more annoying, adding nothing to a confused narrative.

34) Wilkie Collins : The Woman in White

I fell absolutely in love with this book. I was entranced from the very beginning and it became a book that haunted my thoughts while at work and while doing other chores when all I wished was to pick up the book again. This is probably my favorite fiction read of the year. (Or at least tied with the Zola I read but have not reviewed yet.)

It's the story of Walter Hartright, a young art teacher, who encounters and gives directions to a mysterious and distressed woman dressed entirely in white, that he meets in the middle of the night on the road to London. After parting with her he overhears by policemen that she has escaped from an asylum. Despite this strange start to a new journey where he is to be employed as an in house art teacher, he travels to Limmeridge House in Cumberland, the home of his new students: Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe, her devoted half-sister. Walter realises that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, who is known to the household by the name of Anne Catherick, a mentally disabled child who formerly lived near Limmeridge and was devoted to Laura's mother, who first dressed her in white.

The story complicates further when Hartright and Laura fall in love, but Laura is already promised to another man with whom she refuses to end the engagement. While Marian begins to investigate this mysterious woman in white, Laura is left to her new husband and his frightening confidante, The Count, and we being to see the truly powerful influence this woman in white has on the entire lot.

An amazing character story, Marian Halcombe and her counterpart, the Count, are brilliant and they keep you on your toes throughout the entire book. The construction of the story is brilliant as well as, while we start off with Walter Hartwright's perspective, we are then brought into the perspectives of the other characters as the story can only be told by those who witnessed it. So if one character was another city during a timely event, then another character has to pick up the story where they are included.

To be able to pull this off you need to have very strong and independent personalities and Collins is just amazing at creating a full breath for each character. Each character has his own twitch, mannerisms, humor, manner of speaking, and unique voice. Truly brilliant.

Question is, which Collins should I read next?

I am very much ready to start a new reading year. I have lost a lot of momentum since August and I think January will create a nice pick-me-up. Plus a new list of book always helps! I've purchased the following books as my annual Christmas haul.

Machado de Assis : Don Casmurro
- after loving The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, I need to read another from this author.

John Wyndham : The Chrysalids
John Wyndham : The Midwich Cuckoos
Philip K. Dick : The Man in the High Castle
- some nice selections of science fiction with which I think I will start the year with. Good to start a new year with fresh (and quick-reading!) adventure.

Jung Chang : Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
- I also want to read the primary source Two Years in the Forbidden City by the lady-in-waiting of the Empress but I'm loving Jung Chang's biography of Mao and this one was more readily available. But I will read both eventually and will enjoy comparing the two.

Nella Larsen : Passing
Denis Diderot : The Nun
J. Sheridan Le Fanu : Uncle Silas
- Book titles picked up here and there that I think will be absolutely fantastic.

Luigi Pirandello : One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand
- my only experimental choice as I could love this or hate it; looking forward to trying it though.

26) Philip K. Dick : The Man Who Japed

This book is set in 2114 in a new society (after the old was mostly destroyed during a nuclear war) that is built on a puritanical sense of ethics and morality and Allen Purcell is on the road to being promoted to the top ethics marketing position. But along the way Purcell has managed to steal the head off a statue of this society's founder and he'll be in big trouble if anyone finds out but the problem is that he has no memory of any of it.

While not outstanding I enjoyed this one (it's only my second Dick book though) and appreciated the use of humor as a means to stabilize a new government. Seeing all the uptight dictators of moral society get their panties in a bunch over realistic human interactions was fun and really helped show the absurdity of the entire show.

The book reads with a great pace that keeps you turning the page and I've already ordered the next book I plan on reading by this author.

22) Jesmyn Ward : Sing, Unburied, Sing

This was a beautiful story telling the story of family, race, slavery, abuse, superstition and voodoo, and everything in between as it follows a woman and her children who go to pick up their father who is being released from prison in Mississippi. It primarily follows the young boy, Jojo, half black (mother), and half white (father) as he takes care of his little sister as his parents are better at taking drugs and going to jail than they are as care-keepers.

But as he tries to keep his sister from safe from his parents, he also has to deal with the spirit of a dead child, Richie, who we discover was the friend of Jojo's grandfather, when his grandfather had done a stint in the same prison as Jojo's father. The dynamics between Jojo and Richie reveals a rich but dark underground to the story that reveals the horrors of American slavery at the time.

Although I don't really enjoy books with drug use, I found the writing beautiful and really appreciated the depth of the characters. An easy recommend.

25) Dave Cullen : Columbine

I've had my eye on this nonfiction book ever since it first came out. I used to read the blog of the man who designed the book cover as it was really interesting to see his thought process behind the cover and other covers he has designed. Now that I'm officially a fan of nonfiction I decided to finally pick this up.

I was in 9th grade when the Columbine shootings happened but I didn't watch the news with my parents back then so I knew nothing of the details and I watched nothing of the reportage done during and after. My school also didn't make any sort of acknowledgement of the incident and nothing changed in our day to day. All my knowledge of the event really came from references in other media, or hearsay.

So it was fascinating to find out the true story; that this wasn't a story about two kids targeting the bullies and popular kids in school. Not at all. In fact, Columbine was supposed to be a mass murder suicide. They wanted to kill everyone. But they failed. Miserably. None of the bombs they build worked so instead they just started shooting aimlessly until they got bored and finally took their own lives.

So the book -- which is incredibly thoroughly researched and well presented -- really brings into understanding the two young killers and their struggles and motivations. Who was the mastermind? Could they have stopped themselves? The ignorance from friends and family is mind-boggling and it's interesting how the two boys were able to manipulate the adults around them. Red flags were everywhere and yet it was all annoyed.

All of this with the police "cover-up" of their mistakes and a great look at religious services and media using the event to manipulate their target crowd was a must-read. My edition was the newest anniversary edition which includes a few edits from the author (which he explains) and comments on the most recent shooting at the time (Sandy Hook).

Very happy to have read this finally.

>46 lilisin: I read The Moonstone after that, but did not think it as good as The woman in white. In February, reading along with the Monthly Authors Group, I will tackle some of the shorter works like Basil and The dead secret but I am also considering Armadale and No Name which are both on my TBR.

28) Risa Wataya : Pauvre Chose

I scored a bunch of Japanese into French translation books at the yearly summer (and very large) French language book sale. Since all the books were 60% off which is even cheaper than what I would get in France, I pretty much just picked up every Japanese book in the sale boxes. Which is a lot since the store being in Japan it definitely features those books quite prominently. In any case, this was one of those books by an author I had never heard about.

Julie is quite tolerant of her boyfriend letting his ex, Akiyo, stay with him as Akiyo is struggling to find a place to live in and can't seem to find a job either. She is quite certain that love is what is most important and so love is what will keep them together. But wait? There was love between her by and his ex? Perhaps that love ranks higher? In any case, something has to give, eventually.

What seemed like just a cute light story was, well, it was exactly that, but I was also surprised with how much I enjoyed this. It turns out that the boyfriend and Akiyo were a couple in the US and came back to Japan together, both being half-Japanese. Julie, despite her name (which she resents her parents for) is actually full Japanese, so the book comes up with many interesting musings on the difference between in-Japan Japanese and Americanized Japanese. She tries to explain many things away by stating cultural differences and is actually amazed at the truly honorable American custom of being able to remain friends with your exes. But of course, she becomes equally horrified at the idea, along with other things.

As the story progresses with great humorous conversations with her friends ("Yeah, they're totally doing it"), her fears take over and she ends up ending the relationship although in reality nothing was going on between the bf and the ex. But at the end of the day, there was just too much of a cultural gap. They are just too American.

So a great fun story that shows the continuing struggle to understand other cultures. Really enjoyed this one.

27) Soji Shimada : Tokyo Zodiac Murders

Note before starting this review: I read the French translation which is actually the translation of a reworked version of this book. (If you were to read the English translation you will be reading an earlier version.)

Heikichi Umezawa has come up with the ultimate artwork: to create the perfect creature which he plans to create using different parts from his daughters. But before he can work on his masterpiece he has been murdered. A few days later, his daughters are discovered murdered as well using the exact instructions from Umezawa's manuscript. But Umezawa being already dead, who could have murdered the daughters? Was he actually murdered or did he actually succeed in his plan and it was just a suicide after killing his daughters?

The mystery has remained unsolved for decades until a new clue appears and is handed over to two "detectives" to solve the case. These two aren't detectives at all, in fact one is but a mere fortune teller. But his genius, along with his assistant, are being trusted to discover how this case came to pass.

I found this to be a fun mystery and was really engaged for about the first half but eventually thought the book runs too long. I understand that a lot of the repetitiveness of the story was to highlight the difficulty of the case but the constant recapitulations of every detail as our detectives struggled got a bit tiring. It got better once they got past that point and finally had a path to take into solving the case. However, I also never ended up enjoying the two "detectives" which means that I would not read more works with them as the lead characters. But the mystery is indeed quite clever and I can see why it was a difficult case to crack.

So, despite what I wrote it's still a recommended mystery but I would have liked 100 fewer pages, that's all.

>49 edwinbcn:

The Moonstone seems half of interest, and half not, so I'm hesitating on that one. I think like you I might go for one of his shorter works, next.

>46 lilisin: Adding Woman in White to my wish list.

>47 lilisin: Nice book haul. I have both Mao and Empress Cixi on my shelves, but have hesitated starting them because I know so little Chinese history. Do you think they make ok starting points, or should I read an overview first?

I should read Columbine too.

Edited to add: Woman in White was already on my wish list. I think that's an indication I need to get to it.

>52 labfs39:

The Woman in White was truly just a fun and thrilling ride, perfect for any time of year. The length was also no factor at all as the chapter breaks work really well and really egg you into reading more.

The accessibility of the Mao biography is exactly why I decided to pick up the Empress Cixi by the same author. It's so thorough (without being pretentious and academic) and really explains everything going around so I find myself not having to add any supplemental Wiki searches at all. Even though I've read a few other Chinese history accounts from the same time period, this is my first look from Mao's point of view, and I think this is an easy way to get into the time period.

I'm really happy I read the Columbine because now when (not if, but when), the next school shooting happens and Columbine is once again mentioned in the media, I will be able to fix any misinformation that is presented. Plus, it was an interesting look into a mindset so different from my own.

>53 lilisin: Unfortunately my library doesn't have The Woman in White, but I'll definitely be on the lookout for a copy.

Thank you for your advice about the Mao book. I think I will try to read it during the Asia Reading Challenge. I forget which month is China, but it's later in the year.

when (not if, but when), the next school shooting happens

Unfortunately, I think you are right. Mark (msf59), over on the 75 books thread, posted a cartoon recently that showed two school children talking and one says "I wish they paid as much attention to school shootings as they do critical race theory."