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| - The BoxerI checked out Kenzaburo Oë's A Personal Matter from the library today. I have to say that whenever I read any piece of fiction by an Asian (or even Asian-American) author, I have a morbid fascination with the little book review blurbs printed on the cover. Almost without fail, they describe such literature as "lush," "exotic," and other similar adjectives. Whether these adjectives actually apply to the author in question's work is really a matter of opinion, so while I roll my eyes and snicker at the flagrant exoticism in these reviews, I realize that because they are people's opinions, in the end, I truly don't care that much.
However, when such reviewers state things that are just factually wrong, there just is no excuse.
I saw this review on the back of A Personal Matter:
Oë is an astonishing Japanese writer whose books deal with postwar youth with such uncompromising realism that he seems to have wrenched Japanese literature free from its deeply rooted, inbred tradition and moved it into the mainstream of world literature.
"Inbred"?
Seriously, "inbred"? There were three million better ways to write that sentence that would make it sound, you know, not nearly as condescending. The reviewer could have written that blurb in such a way that wouldn't betray the clear bias towards Japanese literature - that before Oë, Japanese literature was alien and inaccessible to Western literary circles. Primitive, if you will.
Furthermore, "an astonishing Japanese writer"? He's not simply an "astonishing writer"? What in the hell kind of damning-with-faint-praise, backhanded compliment is that? "Oh, he's pretty good... for a Japanese writer."
But the patronizing, Orientalist tone of this review is actually the least of my objections. What jars me most is the reviewer's obvious ignorance of Japanese contribution to world literature. Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima had been world-renowned writers even before Oë stepped into the literary scene. Kawabata won the damned Nobel Prize, for crying out loud - a clear signifier of someone who has moved into the "mainstream of world literature." Shusako Endo, Oë's contemporary, was a Japanese Catholic, and thus wrote from the perspective of an outsider - hardly representative of a "deeply rooted, inbred tradition."
I read a similarly-worded review about this same work that claimed that Oë was the first Japanese writer to tackle sex so frankly. Once again, haven't these people read Mishima? And he tackled the topic of homosexuality in pretty frank terms in Confessions of a Mask, written two decades before Oë released A Personal Matter. Hell, one can go back pretty far to find instances of Japanese writers dealing frankly with sex: Tale of the Genji, which was written in the eleventh century - don't they do it nonstop in that book?
Good Lord, are these people illiterate?
Argh.
I just... argh.
</rant> | | |
| - WinterI rarely do serious posts, but I've been thinking about this for a while.
As the semester progresses and I've been learning more about Con Law, I've been thinking a lot about people's approach to the law. Basically, I want to know - are you legal positivists, or legal naturalists? In other words, do you think rights are something given to you by the state, or something that you have at birth? Do you take, perhaps, a moderate position; say, believe that we have particular rights simply because we are human, but not others? And if that is your position, how did you come to the decision about which rights are ours at birth and which are not?
Discuss. You don't have to answer all the questions I posed, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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| - Rebel Without A PauseThe Oscars kind of snuck up on me this year, so I don't really feel like doing commentary, as is my tradition every year.
However, I will say that this may be the first year where I may get more than one prediction wrong. *sob*
Predictions
Best Picture: Brokeback Mountain
Best Director: Ang Lee
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Best Actress: Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney, Syriana
Best Supporting Actress: Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
Original Screenplay: Crash
Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain | | |
| - Neither One Of UsI was going to weigh in on the alleged attempted coup in the Philippines, but I really am not feeling it. Suffice to say I am deeply saddened that my home country, in the grand cyclical tradition of many former colonies, keeps electing power-hungry, avaricious individuals who impede civil liberties. The people then proceed to get angry, attempt to vote out or overthrow those in power, and then proceed to elect more power-hungry, avaricious individuals who impede civil liberties, and then wonder how it happened.
At any rate, in lieu of my deliberately cursory and simplistic analysis of Philippine politics, I am instead going to use the remainder of my break to talk about all the recreational reading I've done. As many of you know, law students don't have much time for recreational reading. (Props to all my law student friends who actually found time last semester to read George R.R. Martin's latest.) Actually, I think that I could make time for reading during law school, but I have this fear, not that I'd never actually finish the book, but that I'd rather be reading for fun than reading case law. In fact, I'm sure of it. Therefore, the only time I can do this is during break.
If you'll look to the right of my blog, you'll see that I've made three additions to my "recently read" list. As you can see, I finally got around to reading Watchmen. I thought it was rich, lush, complex, and thought-provoking. Usually, a book needs a few days to sink in for me, so maybe in a week I'll be raving about it and swearing up and down that reading it was a religious, life-changing experience. For now, however, I'll say it was very well-done. The morally ambiguous ending (indeed, the moral ambiguity of the entire novel) was jarring, as was my incertitude as to what, if anything, the work was attempting to endorse, but what is art's purpose if not to challenge assumptions? And does anyone besides me who's read it think that Willem Dafoe would make an awesome Rorschach?
I read Ha Jin's critically acclaimed novel, Waiting, as well. It was the best book I've read in a while. Jin's prose is very sparse and straightforward, yet strangely poetic. Additionally, despite the simplicity of the plot and language, Jin manages to pose many questions about morality and human nature in general.
And then there was Freakonomics. Truth be told, I was not dazzled by it, despite Malcolm Gladwell's assurance on the book jacket that I would be. It's an easy read, though, and certainly a lot of what Steven Levitt says is plausible. Yet something about it never quite came together for me; never quite convinced me. I don't really know thing one about economics, and have only dabbled in social science, however, so what do I know.
While at the bookstore, I realized that I was pretty close to accomplishing my goal of reading everything Gabriel García Márquez has ever written. However, I don't currently feel motivated to actually meet this goal. I feel that the bulk, if not the entirety, of García Márquez's oeuvre is incredibly well-written, but at the same time, how many times can someone write another Love In The Time of Cholera or One Hundred Years of Solitude?
By the way, if any of you want to recommend anything for me to read, by all means, please do.
As far as non-literary pursuits, I also got Season 1 of Arrested Development. Jorge and I still had $50 on the gift card we got for Christmas, and we needed to go to Sears to get a rice cooker anyway. So we picked out the DVDs as well. Best damn $34.50 I ever spent.
Next up: Oscar predictions.
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| I Didn't Even Have to Use My A.K.
Someone actually wrote the article I requested for Wikipedia. Fantastic.
(Yeah, I know, I could have written it myself, but eh.) | | |
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