The Sunday Salon is a virtual gathering of booklovers on the web, where they blog about bookish things of the past week, visit each others weblogs, oh — and read

Just a short Sunday Salon today. No new books came into the house, so that’s good news And I haven’t started any new reading challenges — although I am contemplating participating in the Women Unbound Challenge :\ But I said I wouldn’t join any new challenges before I had finished one of my current, so… Then again, I’ll be reading The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon anyway for my personal and Classics challenge.

A book of observations and musings recorded by Sei Shōnagon during her time as court lady to Empress Teishi during the 990s and early 1000s in Heian Japan.

For the Women Unbound Challenge participants are encouraged to read nonfiction and fiction books related to the rather broad idea of women’s studies (the multidisciplinary study of the social status and societal contributions of women and the relationship between power and gender). As a philogynist I would need to read at least two books of which one non-fiction. The Pillow Book would fit in great!

I finished part 1 of I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki. I’ll need to review it before November 15th because of the Japanese Read-along. That seems early enough but I’m way behind on my book reviews and it’s getting a bit frustrating. Hopefully November will prove better! Books read in October that I want to review aside from I Am a Cat: Coraline graphic novel (Neil Gaiman), The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) and Be With You (Takuji Ichikawa).

But I also have a review backlog from before October: Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates), Brideshead Revisted (Evelyn Waugh) — and many more as you can see in the challenge overview below… Sigh. And these are only book blogposts :\ Well, at least I did write a short review of ‘The Piano Man‘ (De pianoman) during the 24 hour Read-a-Thon!

My current book is In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It’s the November read for my online book group. I haven’t gotten really far yet, even though I said I would participate in this week’s Spooky Booky Readathon at Bookcrossing. I hoped to beat the result of my first attempt in the September readathon, but with only 2:30 hrs read from Friday until now, that will become pretty difficult. Oh well. I knew I was going to have a busy week ahead and my priorities lie elsewhere

I guess that’s it for now. I’ll just leave you with the monthly progress update of my reading challenges.

Challenges / Bookgroups etc.

• Japanese Challenge (Aug 2009-Mar 2010): read 2/1, reviewed 1/1
  (✔ finished, but intent on reading more)
• Classics Challenge (2009, entree level): read 4/6, reviewed 1/6
• What’s In A Name Challenge (2009): read 6/6, reviewed 3/6
• Personal 2008-2009 Challenge: read 9/12
• SIY Challenge #10 (Oct-Dec 2009): read 1/5

Current Bookgroup reads:

• Boekgrrls November book: In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote (now reading)
• Japanese Literature Read-along for November 15th: I Am A Cat (part I), by Natsume Soseki (read, to be reviewed)
• Japanese Literature Book Group for November 30th: The Old Capital, by Yasunari Kawabata (TBR)

5. Different ways of speaking

- A priest’s language.

- The speech of men and women.

- The common people always tend to add extra syllables to their words.

When the festival approaches, I enjoy seeing the men go to and fro with rolls of yellowish green and deep violet material which they have loosely wrapped in paper and placed in the lids of long boxes.

In the old days even people of humble station had a taste for the arts and were interested in elegant pastimes.

A carriage passes with a nasty, creaking noise. Annoying to think that the passengers may not even be aware of this! If I am travelling in someone’s carriage and I hear it creaking, I dislike not only the noise but also the owner of the carriage.

A person who recites a spell himself after sneezing. In fact I detest anyone who sneezes, except the master of the house.

Sometimes one greatly dislikes a person for no particular reason – and then that person goes and does something hateful.

16. Things that make one’s heart beat faster

Sparrows feeding their young. To pass a place where babies are playing. To sleep in a room where some fine incense has been burnt. To notice that one’s elegant Chinese mirror has become a little cloudy. To see a gentleman stop his carriage before one’s gate and instruct his attendants to announce his arrival. To wash one’s hair, make one’s toilet, and put on scented robes; even if not a soul sees one, these preparations still produce an inner pleasure.

It is night and one is expecting a visitor. Suddenly one is startled by the sound of rain-drops, which the wind blows against the shutters.

66. Whether it be a plant or tree, a bird or insect, I can never be indifferent to anything that is connected with some special occasion or that has once moved or delighted me.

67. They say when the copper pheasant cries for its mate it can be consoled if one puts a mirror before it – a very moving thought. What misery these birds must suffer if they are separated from each other by a gorge or a ravine!

111. I need hardly say how splendid I find a learned Doctor of Literature. He may be of lowly appearance, and of course he is of low rank; but the world at large regards him as an impressive figure. As an imperial tutor, he is consulted about all sorts of special matters, and he is free to approach the most eminent members of the Emperor’s family. When he has composed one of his prayers for the Emperor or the introduction to some poem, he becomes the object of universal praise.

61. (p. 114) ‘When you have gone away and face the sun that shines so crimson in the East be mindful of the friends you left behind, who in this city gaze upon the endless rains.’

A woman is angry with her lover about some trifle and refuses to continue lying next to him. After fidgeting about in bed, she decides to get up. The man gently tries to draw her back, but she is still cross. ‘Very well then,’ he says, feeling that she has gone too far. ‘As you please.’ Full of resentment, he buries himself under his bedclothes and settles down for the night. It is a cold night and since the woman is wearing only an unlined robe, she soon begins to feel uncomfortable. Everyone else in the house is asleep, and besides it would be most unseemly for her to get up alone and walk about. As the night wears on, she lies there on her side of the bed feeling very annoyed that the quarrel did not take place earlier in the evening when it would have been easy to leave. Then she begins to hear strange sounds in the back of the house and outside. Frightened, she gently moves over in bed towards her lover, tugging at the bedclothes, whereupon he annoys her further by pretending to be asleep. ‘Why not be standoffish a little longer?’ he asks her finally.

A man whom one loves gets drunk and keeps repeating himself.

A carriage overturns. One would have imagined that such a solid, bulky object would remain forever on its wheels. It all seems like a dream – astonishing and senseless.

As for the hototogisu, they were singing to each other so loudly that we were almost deafened.

At that moment it started to rain in earnest.

One day when I was alone he came up to me and said, ‘My dear lady, I have something I must tell you at once – something that I’ve just heard.’ ‘And what may that be?’ I asked. He approached my curtain. ‘I heard someone who instead of saying, “Bring your body closer,” used the phrase, “Bring up your five parts.”‘ And again I burst into laughter.

The Sunday Salon is a virtual gathering of booklovers on the web, where they blog about bookish things of the past week, visit each others weblogs, oh — and read

Let’s start this Salon post with a confession: I have been a bad grrl and bought 3 more books for myself!

• I Am a Cat (Natsume Soseki)
• The Old Capital (Yasunari Kawabata)
• The Housekeeper and the Professor (Yoko Ogawa)

I’ve got a great excuse though: I joined the new online Japanese Literature Book Group and Read-along at In Spring It Is The Dawn — and these are the first books on the agenda. I am really looking forward to it!

Another fun thing to do over there is this months Hello Japan! mini mission:

Read or watch something scary, spooky, or suspenseful, and Japanese of course!

Since I have enough to read already I decided to rent a movie that has been on my wishlist for a long time now: Dark Water (Honogurai mizu no soko kara), by Hideo Nakata. You might have heard of the American remake with Jodie Foster, but I prefered to see the original. I’ll tell you why in my upcoming review post! It was a nice Friday night activity to surprise Mr Gnoe with, especially with the stormy autumn weather that has set in

But back to bookish things. For the last three months of 2009 I am also participating in the Set It Yourself Challenge (SIY) #10. Just to keep the pressure on my challenges: I have listed all 5 books I need to read before the end of this year:

• The Chosen (Chaim Potok)
• The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
• The Pillowbook (Sei Shonagon)
• The Sea, the Sea (Iris Murdoch)
• The Old Capital (Yasunari Kawabata)

I have joined this Bookcrossing challenge before in 2008 and 2009; succeeding twice, failing once…

Speaking of Bookcrossing: I made a first attempt at the Bookcrossing monthly readathon. But instead of 24 I read for 15 hours and 8 in the last week of September. So technically I failed but I am actually quite proud of the result because it was an awfully busy week. You can read about my thoughts concerning the readathon in Friday’s post. Now I am really looking forward to the autumnal 24 hour read-a-thon of October 24th! I am already making a list of books and snacks to lock myself in with

Partly thanks to the readathon I finished more books in September than I usually read in a month:

• Vlinder in de wind (Butterfly in the Wind) by Rei Kimura (reviewed)
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (review pending), #4 on the list of Banned and Challenged Classics
• Het pauperparadijs (Pauper Paradise) by Suzanna Jansen (no review planned)
• Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (review pending)

Current book: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Wednesday’s update post will tell you why I picked this book. I am ‘buddy reading’ with two Boekgrrls: MaaikeB and Manon, so one of these days I should mail them my thoughts so far!

Another exciting thing going on this week is BAFAB! Buy A Friend A Book. One of my favourite reads of the past years is on its way to a long time friend that is on a busy schedule at the moment. I’ll give the book a chance to arrive for a few days longer, so I can’t say more!
Do you BAFAB?

Challenges / Bookgroups etc.

Progress update on my challenges that I have not yet mentioned above:

• Japanese Challenge (Aug 2009-Mar 2010): read and reviewed 1/1
  (✔ finished, but intent on reading more)
• Classics Challenge (2009, entree level): read 3/6, reviewed 0/6
• What’s In A Name Challenge (2009): read 6/6, reviewed 3/6
• Personal 2008-2009 Challenge: read 8/12
• SIY Challenge #10 (Oct-Dec 2009): read 0/5

Current Bookgroup reads:

• Boekgrrls September book: Away, by Amy Bloom (read and reviewed in Dutch on the mailing list)
• Boekgrrls October book: Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates (read, to be reviewed)
• Japanese Literature Book Group for November 30th: The Old Capital, by Yasunari Kawabata (TBR)
• Japanese Literature Read-along for November 15th: I Am A Cat (part I), by Natsume Soseki (TBR)

That’s it for now. I need to get up my review of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird a.s.a.p. so that I can send this Bookcrossing book along to the next reader. Better get on with it!

As I told you on Sunday, I was showered with books last weekend.

To begin with I was very happy to find a Dutch copy of The Pillowbook by Sei Shonagon in my mailbox: Het hoofdkussenboek. This book fits almost all my current reading challenges! It has been on the list of my personal challenge of ‘Best Foreign Translations’ since 2008 and because of that I also entered it in the Classics challenge of 2009. I figured I could also add it to my JapLit challenge, even though I already accomplished the mission of just 1 book. Why stop? It seems like I will be reading The Pillowbook together with another participant: velvet from vvb32 reads, so that’s FUN!

This Bookcrossing book is a RABCK of stephen-1702. Too kind! I hope she likes the little present I sent her in return…

Another book that I can add to the Japanese Literature Challenge is Be With You by Takuji Ichikawa. I read about it on Chick With Books’ blog (another JLC participant) and it reminded me of Taichi Yamada’s book Strangers, a much loved story! I could not help myself and ran directly to Bookdepository.com to order Be With You… And being in a bookshop (although online) I couldn’t resist buying something else: Trespass, by Valerie Martin. I liked her Orange Prize winning novel Property (2003) but I am not sure about her Mary Reilly, so now that she’s got a new book out I decided I should try some of this author’s other books. The story seems to be somehow compatible to Amy Bloom’s Away, which I recently read: that book being about an immigrant to the US from Eastern Europe a century ago, Trespass at the beginning of this century.

So, Mt. TBR has grown again… With lots of reading challenges to finish I hope I’ll be able to keep myself from hoarding anymore until the new year?!

The Sunday Salon is a virtual gathering of booklovers on the web, where they blog about bookish things of the past week, visit each others weblogs, oh — and read

So, what were my bookish things in the first week of September?

As I told you last week my online book group is reading Away by Amy Bloom in September. I’ve sent in my review (in Dutch). Maybe someday I’ll feel like transforming it into an English blogpost for Graasland, like I did on Wednesday with The Little Emperor (De kleine keizer) by Martin Bril, a book about Napoleon that is part of the What’s in a Name challenge, category ‘profession‘. I have read all 6 books for this challenge but still need to review half of them!

But hey, I quickly finished my reading for the JapLit Challenge this week: Butterfly in the Wind (Vlinder in de Wind) by Rei Kimura. A review is upcoming so I’ll keep my thoughts about this ‘biographical novel’ secret just a little longer!

The day I finished Kimura’s novel, the Bookcrossing bookray of To Kill a Mockingbird arrived from Portugal. Just in time because on Saturday I had to travel 5 hours by train! And you can’t travel without a book, can you? (Although I must admit I spent part of my journey preparing this Salon post

With this book I finally picked up on the Classics Challenge again. I didn’t know much about it in advance, just that it is a classic. And from the movie Capote I learned that Harper Lee was Truman Capote’s assistant – but that he didn’t respect her much as an author. Unbelievable, because To Kill a Mockingbird gripped me from page 1!

The novel is also part of my personal 2008-2009 challenge. My last read from the list was in January (!) this year: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (which I will review for the What’s in a Name challenge, category ‘time of day‘). With 3 more books in my personal challenge and only 4 months to go, it feels good to be back on track!

This week ended with a bookish surprise when I got home from my long journey yesterday. There were no less than 3 books in my mailbox! I’ll tell you about them some other time

This has not been the best day at work, ever. Which is fine. Anyway, read poetry:

The flowers withered,
Their color faded away,
While meaninglessly
I spent my days in the world
And the long rains were falling.

And listen to music. It helps, doesn’t it?

This quotation is from the short film Sans Soleil by French filmmaker Chris Marker.  The film’s narrator describes receiving letters from someone who is moving from place to place in the world – Iceland, Africa, Japan – and describing cultural difference, thoughts on memory, history and time.

He recounts how in medieval courtly Japan lady in waiting to the princess Shonagon likes making lists, her best being a list of things that quicken the heart.  Now that is worth doing; I’d add one of things that freeze it and compare the two.

In Japanese poetry just naming something, like a rock or hail, is enough to quicken the heart in apprehension of it.  In the western canon and life we don’t trust the noun alone and modify it with unnecessary adjectives.

Here is the quotation from the screenplay -

He spoke to me of Sei Shonagon, a lady in waiting to Princess Sadako at the beginning of the 11th century, in the Heian period. Do we ever know where history is really made? Rulers ruled and used complicated strategies to fight one another. Real power was in the hands of a family of hereditary regents; the emperor’s court had become nothing more than a place of intrigues and intellectual games. But by learning to draw a sort of melancholy comfort from the contemplation of the tiniest things this small group of idlers left a mark on Japanese sensibility much deeper than the mediocre thundering of the politicians. Shonagon had a passion for lists: the list of ‘elegant things,’ ‘distressing things,’ or even of ‘things not worth doing.’ One day she got the idea of drawing up a list of ‘things that quicken the heart.’ Not a bad criterion I realize when I’m filming; I bow to the economic miracle, but what I want to show you are the neighborhood celebrations.

He wrote me: coming back through the Chiba coast I thought of Shonagon’s list, of all those signs one has only to name to quicken the heart, just name. To us, a sun is not quite a sun unless it’s radiant, and a spring not quite a spring unless it is limpid. Here to place adjectives would be so rude as leaving price tags on purchases. Japanese poetry never modifies. There is a way of saying boat, rock, mist, frog, crow, hail, heron, chrysanthemum, that includes them all. Newspapers have been filled recently with the story of a man from Nagoya. The woman he loved died last year and he drowned himself in work—Japanese style—like a madman. It seems he even made an important discovery in electronics. And then in the month of May he killed himself. They say he could not stand hearing the word ‘Spring.’

I should be locked in a cabin with just books and NO internet. Or my computer should block all book blogs. What happened? I joined another reading challenge! Like I need one… with those other 3 I already have going on :\

Well, at least Dolce Bellezza’s Japanese Literature Challenge shouldn’t be too difficult for me: I need to read one work of Japanese origin before the end of January 2010. Hey, I can do that, right? I read three in the first half of 2009 and I have several waiting on the shelf anyway! For example:

Butterfly in the Wind (Rei Kimura), in Dutch
Dreaming Water (Gail Tsukiyama)
The Language of Threads (Gail Tsukiyama)
The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (Gail Tsukiyama)
Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Haruki Murakami), in Dutch
The Unconsoled (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Nocturnes (Kazuo Ishiguro)

But first I should make sure I finish my current book because it is taking waaaaaaaay too long!

So, thanks a lot to another cookie crumbles who pointed me in the direction of this challenge… Maybe it provides me with a good excuse to join the 24 hours read-a-thon in October as well?

Edited to add: I was thinking… The Pillowbook by Sei Shonagon is not on my bookshelf yet, but it IS on my other challenge lists already. I should make things easy for myself and try to get my hands on a copy!

Sei Shōnagon, dama de la corte de la emperatriz Sadako, hacia el año 1000, durante la era Heian se dedicó a escribir el diario íntimo o nikki más famoso de la literatura japonesa, el Makura no Sōshi 枕草子 (El libro de la almohada).En este diario la autora evocó los sentimientos más fugitivos, la evanescencia de las cosas, describió la vida de la corte, y sobretodo observó y escribió sobre todo lo que la rodeaba y sobre todo lo que sentía, elevando la lista al rango de género poético. Como dijo Octavio Paz,  el Makura no Sōshi nos descubre un mundo milagrosamente suspendido en sí mismo, cercano y remoto a un tiempo, como encerrado en una esfera de cristal.

Entre las múltiples delicias que descubrimos en las  detalladas listas de Sei Shonagon, encontramos…

Cosas que emocionan
-Encender un incienso muy bueno, y acostarme sola.
-Lavarme el cabello, maquillarme y vestir un kimono perfumado. En este caso me siento feliz y noble, aun cuando nadie me observe.
-Una noche que espero a mi amante, al escuchar el ruido de la lluvia en mi puerta y el golpeteo del viento, sin motivo y de repente me sobresalto.

Nubes
Me encantan las blancas, purpúreas y negras nubes, y las nubes de lluvia cuando las lleva el viento. Es encantador al amanecer ver las oscuras nubes que poco a poco se vuelven blancas. Creo que esto ha sido descrito en un poema chino que dice algo sobre “los tintes que se retiran al amanecer”. Es conmovedor ver pasar un tenue jirón nube sobre la luna brillante.

Cosas odiosas
-Un admirador llega en visita clandestina, el perro lo avista y ladra. Una desearía matar al animal.
-La elegancia de la despedida influye enormemente en el apego que tengamos por un caballero. Si salta de la cama, ronda por la habitación, se ajusta demasiado el cinto, se arremanga y se llena el pecho con sus pertenencias, asegurando enérgicamente su cinturón, comenzamos a odiarlo
-Me he acostado y estoy por adormecerme, cuando se presenta un mosquito, con estridente zumbido. Y hasta me parece sentir la corriente que levanta con sus alas. Aún sabiendo que es un ser insignificante, lo encuentro detestable.

Cosas encantadoras
-Los objetos que se utilizan al jugar con muñecas de papel.
-Arrancar las hojas pequeñas de un loto que flota en el estanque.
-Las hojas de la malva pequeña son también deliciosas. Culquier cosa, si es diminuta, resulta grata.
-El rostro de un niño dibujado en un melón.
-Un pequeño gorrión que viene saltando al imitar alguien el chillido de un ratón.
-También es delicioso cuando al atar a un gorrioncito con un hilo, sus padres le traen insectos o lombrices y se los entregan en el pico.
-Una niña a la que están cortando los cabellos como a una monja, de manera que los ojos quedan cubiertos, despeja su cara sin usar las manos, inclinando su cabeza a un costado pues quiere ver algo. Realmente encantador.
-Ver los tasukigake blancos y limpios de las niñas, ¡qué agradable sensación!
-Un paje de Palacio, todavía muy joven, camina con traje de ceremonia.
-Pollitos blancos con largas patas caminan de una manera graciosa; parecen vestidos con kimono demasiado cortos, pían muy fuerte, y van tras las personas o rodean a la gallina. Ver esto es sumamente grato.
-La flor de clavel silvestre.

El cineasta Peter Greenaway se inspiró en el Makura no Sōshi de Sei Shōnagon para la realización de su bellísima película “The Pillow Book“, un film de carácter iniciático en el que Nagiko -narradora y protagonista- va contando su proceso de aprendizaje. Proceso que se simboliza en el paso de ser soporte de escritura a convertirse ella misma en “pincel”; y que tiene, como etapas intermedias, el conocimiento del amor, de la muerte y de la venganza.

Fotograma de The Pillow Book. Dir. Peter Greenaway. 1996

Hacia la mitad de la película, se hace una cita del Makura no Sōshi que, en cierto modo, la resume:

“Dos cosas no nos han de faltar: las delicias de la carne y las delicias de la literatura”

I was about five years into a 10-year stint of writing about food for a daily newspaper when I stumbled on Sei Shonagon’s list of Hateful Things. Shonagon was a 10th century Japanese courtesan, and her Pillow Book is a classic of Japanese literature.
Like any list, this one draws a picture of its compiler, who is miffed by squeaky carriage wheels, people who leave without closing the door behind them, clandestine lovers who make graceless early morning exits, envious people and flawed inksticks containing a piece of gravel that makes a “nasty, grating sound” when you rub it on the inkstone. The worst offenders draw the comment: “Oh, how hateful!”
Most of her peeves remain as annoying now as they were then. “One has gone to bed and is about to doze off when a mosquito appears, announcing himself in a reedy voice,” she writes. “One can actually feel the wind made by his wings and, slight though it is, one finds it hateful in the extreme.”
When I discovered Shonagon’s list, I realized that almost every story I had ever written about food boiled down to: “Wow! Look at this. Isn’t it wonderful?”
All along, I had unconsciously been compiling an opposite list, a list of delightful things. Passion fruit, real marshmallows, mangosteens, arugula, lemon meringue pie, Florence fennel, cardamom – the list was long and growing.
Good food still delights me. This blog is my list.

Título original: Makura no Soshi
Autora: Sei Shônagon
Traducción: Amalia Sato
Editorial: Adriana Hidalgo Editora

Muchos habrán visto la película “The Pillow Book”, traducida al español como “Escrito en el Cuerpo”.
En la misma, y como marco de la trama, la joven protagonista intenta escribir su propia versión personal de “El Libro de la Almohada”.
Se pueden ver, así mismo, fragmentos del libro original. Se hace especial énfasis en las famosas listas. Podemos encontrar “cosas deprimentes”, “cosas odiosas”, “cosas que emocionan”, “cosas elegantes”, “cosas espléndidas” y “cosas desagradables de ver”, entre otras.
Pero, más allá de lo interesante que pueda ser cada listado, el especial interés se desvía hacia la inigualable calidad literaria pero sobre todo a la personal y casi íntima descripción de una época. No hay que olvidar que este libro fue escrito por una mujer al servicio de la Corte, con una particular relación con la Emperatriz y un ingenio sin igual, hace unos mil años.
Es una interesante mezcla de anécdotas, paisajes, costumbres, listas, poemas, amor, envidia y elegancia.
Es un acercamiento a otro mundo, donde todo resulta absolutamente mágico.

El libro estuvo agotado unos años, pero finalmente lo vi nuevamente en librerías.

Les incluyo aquí unos fragmentos de un listado al azar:

Cosas espléndidas

Brocado chino. Una espada con vaina decorada. La veta de la madera en una estatua de Buda. Largas ramas florecidas de una glicina de bello color enroscadas en un pino.

Una joven de noble cuna ha sido elegida consorte imperial, pero todavía vive en su casa, donde la llaman ‘Princesa’. Cuando un Canciller la visita con un mensaje de parte del Emperador, su dama de compañía, antes de que aquél entregue la carta, le ofrece un almohadón desde atrás de las cortinas. Mientras hace esto, despliega las mangas de su vestido: una extraña visión para un hombre de rango tan humilde.

Una Procesión Imperial de Día.

La cámara de nacimiento de la Emperatriz.

Telas de color borravino.

Un gran jardín cubierto de nieve.

As you may have read in my earlier post, I also joined the 2009 Classics Challenge.

I entered the Classics Entree level, which means I have to read 5 classics this year. Plus I want to go for the bonus by reading a book of the ‘Future Classic List’, since I’ve got some of those titles piled up on Mount TBR!

I think I can manage this additional challenge because I planned to read some classics already. Here’s my list:

• Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (✔ read in April this year; review pending)
• The Chosen, Chaim Potok
  I Am a Cat (vol.1), Natsume Soseki (✔ read in October)
• Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (✔ read in October; review pending)
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (✔ read in September)
• The Pillowbook, Sei Shonagon OR The Sea, the Sea, Iris Murdoch
  Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates (✔ read in September; review pending)

Let’s see how things go: I consider Revolutionary Road a classic already so I might change my level to Classics Feast at the end of 2009 and read another bonus book

To be honest, by joining this challenge I hope to help myself accomplishing the task I had set myself already. Now the hard part is really to blog my reviews!

Gnoe (?) on pile of books

Oh no! NOW look what you made me do, Weekly Geeks! By asking me about reading challenges, I just joined TWO MORE! As if I don’t have enough problems handling just one…

When I failed last year’s personal challenge I decided to cut myself some slack and stretch it to 2009. I had gotten halfway my list of 12 books by December, so that seemed fair. But now… I have only crossed off one more title since January! That means that, of the books on the Best Foreign Books longlist that were already on my wishlist before the election, I still have another 5 books to go:

• To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
• The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
• The Chosen (Chaim Potok)
• a choice of 2 from The Sea, The Sea (Iris Murdoch), The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen) or The Pillow Book (Sei Shonagon) — whichever of these I can get my hands on.

Five might not seem a lot to you, but it’s 20-25% of all the books I can manage in one year!

And now I’ve put some more pressure on by joining the ‘What’s in a Name‘ and ‘Classics‘ challenges! Yes, you may call me stupid if you want to

So why do I take on reading challenges?

I find having a challenge stimulates me in picking up books that I wouldn’t normally read, or that I wish to have read but never feel like starting, or that are almost totally random. And yes, sometimes I get stressed a bit when a deadline is nearing But I think I might never have read the classics Slaughterhouse-Five, Don Quixote or Max Havelaar without these challenges! And I must say that I only enter challenges that (I believe) really stand a chance!

Each year at least one personal challenge just ‘appears’ to me. For example I notice a resemblance in some book titles, or a certain award long- or shortlist matches part of my wishlist, like last year. I’m curious to know if this happens to other people as well! So what reading tasks have I set myself in the past?

• 2005:
  1) read a book from each decade from 1900 until 2005
  2) read a total of 15,000 pages (I failed that by 333 pages…)
  3) finish all Bookcrossing books on Mount TBR
• 2006: read 10 books with numbers 0-9 in their title
• 2007: read all books on the Best Dutch Book (ever) shortlist that I haven’t read yet

More about these challenges can be found in my post about my 2008-2009 challenge, except for 2007 which has its own blogpost.

Speaking about collective challenges, up until yesterday (LOL) I’ve only joined the SIY (Set It Yourself) challenge at Bookcrossing several times. I’ll let the title speak for itself

Having said all this… (thanks for hanging on it might just be that I grew up in the Eighties so that I’m addicted to making lists, like Rob Fleming in Nick Hornby’s book High Fidelity

Recuerdo una mañana clara del noveno mes. Había llovido durante toda la noche. A pesar del sol, las gotas de rocío aún cubrían los crisantemos del jardín.
En las cercas de bambú y entre los setos veía telarañas. A medida que sus hilos se quebraban, las gotas de lluvia quedaban prendidas de ellos como perlas de un collar. Estaba conmovida y encantada.
Poco a poco el rocío fue desapareciendo del trébol y de las otras plantas en las que tan generosamente se había posado. Las ramas, liberadas de peso, se agitaron casi imperceptiblemente y luego, de repente y con toda armonía, se alzaron.
Más tarde describí a los demás toda la belleza que había visto. Pero mi relato no causó ninguna impresión y quedé desasosegada.

El texto precedente es un fragmento de Makura no soshi (o Libro de la almohada), escrito por Sei Shonagon y traducido por la profesora Kuniko Sasaki (de la Universidad de Buenos Aires) y Amalia Sato.

Sei Shonagon, fue una dama de la corte japonesa, durante el periodo Henian en el siglo X. Su Libro de la almohada es una extensa y deliciosa colección de notas que cubren los diez años que pasó en la corte imperial.

Descargad este fragmento (es todo lo que he podido conseguir en la red) y echadle un vistazo. No os arrepentiréis.

Espero vuestros comentarios

I finally got hold of a DVD copy of the Pillow Book. I have been looking for it ever since I heard about Ewan Mcgregor’s “exposures” in it.

More than that, I have also been searching for a copy of the book this film was based on: The Pillow Book (Original Japanese title: Makura No Soshi) of Sei Shonagon, but to no avail.

The Pillow Book is Sei Shonagon’s diary where she recorded random list of things, observations and musings during her time as one of Empress Sadako’s ladies-in-waiting during the 990s and early 1000s in Heian Japan. The reason I became fascinated with this classic piece of literature is best described by David Greer in a nice Kyoto Journal article:

“She complains. She gloats. She finds fault with others. And when she does, the millennium separating her from us vanishes”

You can read the full article here, while the following are translated snippets from The Pillow Book which got me hooked when I first came across them:

Things That Make Me Happy

“I know I shouldn’t think this way, and I know I’ll be punished for it, but I just love it when bad things happen to people I can’t stand.”

Things That Don’t Have Any Redeeming Qualities 

“Ugly people with disagreeable personalities.”

Things That Irritate Me
“Just as a woman is about to tell me something really interesting, and I’m sitting there just dying to hear it, her baby starts crying.”

Things That were Good in the Past But are Useless Now
“A man, amorous in youth, enfeebled by age”

Things That Look Hot and Uncomfortable
“Fat people with hair plastered on their foreheads”

Things That Depress Me
“People who wear clothing out of season”

Things That Make Me Fondly Recall the Past
“On a rainy day with nothing better to do I go through old things – I find a love letter that years ago moved me deeply.”

If I were to write my own pillow book now, it would only be filled with so much longing. And that would be oh so boring. So scratch that.

E’ appena uscito il numero 49 della rivista letteraria LN-LibriNuovi edita dalla CS_libri di Torino. Ecco il sommario:

Contenuti e Contenitori

5 – Sentinella: A tu per tu con Dio

9 – Luna storta: Movimenti tra editori

11 – CS_libri: nonostante tutto

Il Golem

13 – Cultura e coscienza

18 – Per vie traverse

Interzona

22 – Per un manuale del narcos: incontro con Luca Rastello

27 – Barack Obama come autore: i sogni di mio padre / sulla razza

31 – Libri da tasca

33 – Anestesia da supermercato

35 – L’imbecille verita’ delle morte

In un’ aria diversa

37 – L’infinita rabbia dei nuovi indiani

39 – Il carro di fuoco dei dannati

Il Magazzino dei Mondi

41 – Tutti dobbiamo morire. Ma quando?

48 – Un paio di mesi d’inverno

56 – Recensire in coppia

60 – Nulla o quasi davanti a Dio

62 – Knock-out a Knockemstiff

63 – Tolstoi in Piemonte

64 – Niente fumo

66 – La lingua inghiotte tutto

67 – Romanzo da compagnia

68 – Le sette vite di Charles

70 – Giocare di stile

71 – Il romanzo terminale

72 – Letture controvoglia

75 – Napoli nobilissima.

Le divergenti vie del Teatro Napoletano – 2.

86 – Il Sigillo grigio, Cucina turca a Francoforte

87 – Vero noir nel 2008

88 – L’ultima musica

89 – Global Thriller

90 – Pinguini e tacchini

92 – Inganni, segreti e la nascita del poliziesco

TerraNova

94 – Per una storia naturale della narrativa fantastica 38.

Cartoline dalla frontiera? la popular cyberculture

110 – Un te con Thomas Hardy (per tacer di Jess Franco)

121 – Un viaggio verso il surreale

125 – La fine della trilogia

Una frase, un rigo appena

127 – Akutagawa e il comitato di protesta di Massimo Soumare’

Ebbene si’, dopo il racconto con Sei Shonagon edito su Fata Morgana 12, il protagonista del mio racconto, come intuibile dal titolo, e’ un altro grande esponente della letteratura nipponica, lo scrittore giapponese Akutagawa Ryunosuke.
Riporto qui parte del commento di Massimo Citi che precede la storia e che ho molto apprezzato: “Il piccolo <scherzo> in forma narrativa di Massimo ha anche il pregio – non piccolo – di suscitare interesse e curriosita’ per la produzione del grande scrittore giapponese. Da leggere e magari da annotare…”

Lo spero veramente!

昨日、文学雑誌「LN-LibriNuovi」４９号が発刊されて、「Akutagawa e il movimento di protesta」 （「芥川と抗議運動」）短編が載りました！
シュールな、ちょっと可笑しな話で、芥川の作品に出た主人公たちは、もし短編の自分の役目について不満があって作家に文句を言っていたらとの設定だ……。まあ、芥川へのオマージュですね。