1.07.2011

Overheard at the enkai: Encore edition

SS teacher: Elizabeth-sensei...
JTE who has been sitting next to me and translating for the past two hours: Well, I'll just let you young people talk then! Bye-bye!
ALT: D:
SS teacher: So, you have boyfriend?
ALT: That question AGAIN?
PE teacher: Don't listen to him. He is monster!
SS teacher: No! I am safety! Eh? Safety?
PE teacher: Idiot, that's "anshin." (to ALT) He is liar.
SS teacher: I am... truth! Look into my eyes!
ALT: Do you know the word "creepy"?
SS teacher: No! What means?
ALT: Maybe..... kimochiwarui?

(SS teacher falls on floor moaning in despair at his emasculation while PE teacher points and laughs. Curtain.)

1.06.2011

2. Emma Donoghue: Room

Room, Emma Donoghue
Picador, 401 pgs., 2010

I can already tell that the hardest part of this challenge is going to be the blog write-ups. Room is every bit as hard for me to write about as The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, though for completely different reasons. It's an easy read, without much to interpret, but my initial reaction to it could be summed up as "Meh." Just as "It's just wrong!" didn't suffice as a grammar explanation when I first began copy editing, though (my writers certainly didn't like it much, anyway), "Meh" won't cut it for a review or in-house memo, especially when many reviewers seem to be raving about the book (it was even shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize). I became a much stronger copy editor when I learned to verbalize why something wasn't working grammatically. Working that muscle.

Room is told through the eyes of Jack, a five-year-old boy who lives with his Ma in a single, locked room. Unlike some of the more negative Amazon reviewers, I wasn't bothered by Jack's childish narrative voice (he talks about "hotting" the thermostat and measuring his "heavy"), but neither was I particularly impressed by it. Nor was I a fan of the constant references to Dora, Spongebob, et al--I suppose it does lend an air of realism to things, but it doesn't seem to serve any real purpose, unlike in the works of say, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, where junk mainland pop culture is a metaphor for the mainstream's cultural domination over Hawaii. The subject matter gives the book some artificial suspense, but so many pages are devoted to Jack and Ma's daily routines in Room that it becomes dull very quickly. I thought the idea behind Room--a young girl abducted and isolated, a boy born and raised in confinement, the bond they form and the readjustment they must go through after their escape--was compelling, but there was so much more the author could have done with it. Overall, disappointing.

I'm about a week ahead of schedule, so I'm going for something slightly more ambitious this time. Next up: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

1.05.2011

1. Yukio Mishima: The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Yukio Mishima
Tuttle, 181 pgs., 1963, translated by John Nathan in 1965

Before I start here I feel compelled to mention (because SOMEONE will throw a fit if I don't) that although I started reading this book in 2010, I didn't pick it up the whole week I was in Tokyo. By the time the trip was over I had lost the thread of the story (not to mention any hope of understanding anything deeper), so I began again from the first page yesterday and finished it the same day. I officially read the whole book in 2011, so I don't want to hear any more whining that I'm cheating. Better step up your game, bitches.

That said, my goal this year is to not only read a lot, but also to retain what I've read. There are so many great books that have passed through me like sand simply because I read them and then put them back on the shelf without a second thought. For me it takes thinking, rereading, supplementary materials, writing, and discussion to fully digest a book, so I'm hoping to blog all the books I read this year to get used to thinking about literature. I'm rusty--I've been out of school for a year, and I haven't taken a good literature class since I was 18. But I'm hoping that this will force me to have something smart to say about each book I read this year, and that, like a muscle, the ability will grow with repeated use.

If we're going to extend the metaphor, though, picking The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea for my first book of 2011 is like running a marathon without training. It's not Finnegan's Wake, but I found it pretty damn inaccessible in parts. The back cover text alludes to Mishima's belief that Japan "will only become truly great once more when she forcibly purges herself of all Western influence." Without reading that, I could have taken the book as an isolated tale of disillusionment and insanity, but that blurb taunted me into trying to discover an allegory in the characters' lives (which is an interesting comment on how the cover material influences how we experience a book). Part of the problem is that I can't find any information on Mishima's nationalist views. According to his Wikipedia entry, he was strongly influenced by Western literature--so did he only resent Western military influence as opposed to cultural influence, or was he just a contradictory figure?

The book centers around the relationship between Noboru, a 13-year-old boy; his mother, Fusako; and Ryuji, Fusako's lover and the titular sailor. Fusako clearly stands for Western influence--she runs an upscale import clothing shop, and has Ryuji wear expensive Western suits and take English conversation lessons so that he can take over the business. And the sailor Ryuji would be Japan, caught between his seafaring life and vague notions of future "glory" on one side, and a domesticated life on shore with Fusako on the other. It's with Noboru that the allegory idea begins to break down for me--as the character who takes it upon himself to restore Ryuji to his former heroism, he would be the character most strongly identified with Mishima's own views, but he and his gang are deliberately presented as childish, and the gang's chief in particular is both completely insane and strangely helpless, his insanity the obvious result of his parents' neglect. All of the characters, in fact, come off as pathetic, which is why I want to read it as a tale of social decay and not an expression of Mishima's political views.

The prose is beautiful, and the book is quite short, though it's too disturbing to be described as an easy read. I bought another Mishima book, The Sound of Waves, when I was in Tokyo--it sounds quite different from this one, and I'm excited to read it.

Next up: Room by Emma Donoghue