May has almost ended and I have read just 1 book this month (next to the The Pillow Book read-along, that is). But it was FABULOUS! I’ve been reading the long expected new novel by David Mitchell: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet — 
I already told you a little about it in a Sunday Salon earlier this month and you can find a quote in my post about new bento goodies. I’m working on a review but it’s not the only blogpost that needs to be written and I don’t seem to have enough time on my hands. It’s #3 on my todo list: first I need to focus on a buddy-review of Murakami’s Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman with Elsje and next is somethingIcan’ttalkaboutyet ;)
Things I’m looking forward to this week
On Tuesday a new Japanese Literature Challenge is setting of! I’ve been looking forward to it very much since I finished the 3rd edition in January :) Er.. I am a bit embarrassed to admit I still haven’t written 2 of my reviews, nor a wrap-up post :\
I hope to finish Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book during those 6 months of JLC4 (150 of 342 pages left) and I also plan to read the next 5 books:
Silence by Shusaku Endo (Japanese Book Group Read for June 28th) – 306 pages- The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki (JLit Read-along from July – September) – 530 pages of small print
- Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (a gift of velvet) – 142 pages
- Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami – 130 pages
- Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami (acquired this week through a bookswap with tanabata from In Spring It Is The Dawn, one of my favourite weblogs) – 179 pages
This means I need to read a book a month (amounting to 1437 pages in total)… Gotta speed up!
ETA: the challenge will run from June 1st – January 30th 2011 so that gives me 2 months extra ;)
If you’d like to join the challenge as well (you actually only need to read one book by a Japanese author!) I can recommend Be With You (Takuji Ichikawa), one of my 2 favourite reads of 2009: The Old Capital (Yasunari Kawabata), The Housekeeper and the Professor (Yoko Ogawa) and any book by Haruki Murakami or Kazuo Ishiguro.
The other MAJOR EVENT I’m looking forward to is a trip to Teylers Museum in Haarlem next Saturday, where I’ll be listening to David Mitchell talking about his inspiration for Dr. Marinus in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
Of course I’ll also have my copy signed, together with our program guide of the opera Wake for which Mitchell wrote the libretto. I hope I won’t be tongue-tied this time… As a non-smoker I need to ask him not to draw a joint — he did that twice before when we got our books signed LOL.
The Pillow Book
Arrived at entry: 85/86
Entries read since last time: 25
Edition: 1986 Dutch translation of Ivan Morris’ Penguin edition: Het hoofdkussenboek van Sei Shōnagon (transl. from English by Paul Heijman)
I’m enjoying Sei Shōnagon’s book more than before. Although I’m really more of a plot-reader I like to learn about the culture & court life of 10th century Japan. I was surprised to find out that Shōnagon was not just writing her journal out of her own initiative but that ‘people’ were expecting her to write everything down and not leave anything out… (entry #67). Also, there are more ladies called Shōnagon among the courtesans: Gen Shōnagon and Shin Shōnagon. Does the name mean something special relating to court? Do the women get a new name (pseudonym) once they enter the Empress’s circle? I hope to find out someway! Maybe you can tell me?
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 ;)
Graasland 
12 reacties
Comments feed for this article
zondag 30 mei 2010 bij 16:05
Anna van Gelderen
You definitely have a lot to look forward to! It´s a pity I live so far from Haarlem, or I might have gone to the David Mitchell event, too (even though I confess to being disappointed that he is apparently a keen smoker).
I have read three of the Japanese Literature Challenge you plan to read: I found Silence very impressive, I loved The Makioka Sisters and I thought Snow Country was a lovely book.
Oh, and The Housekeeper and the Professor is high on my wishlist.
maandag 31 mei 2010 bij 12:06
elma
Ooh, good idea to take the programme from Wake to get it signed – I’ve just got mine out of the growing pile of books it was currently getting buried under to take with me on Saturday. I’m also planning on starting my re-reading of all 4 previous Mitchellian books at the end of this week. Then when I’ve done that I can allow myself to read his new one. (Which I hope to buy and get signed in Haarlem too.)
maandag 31 mei 2010 bij 12:55
gnoegnoe
“Mitchellian books”! Love that :) And there’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll be able to buy Jacob de Zoet and have it signed in Haarlem on Sat. You still plan on going to Broese as well?
zondag 30 mei 2010 bij 18:33
leeswammes
Anna, DM will also come to Utrecht, on Sunday, if that’s any closer.
Gnoe, this Japanese challenge is tempting! I have a few Japanese books on my TBR, but I’m also doing some other challenges and I’m planning to create my own Libris Literatuur Prijs challenge (read all 6 nominees).
I read many, many books per year, but this way it all really becomes a large challenge….
maandag 31 mei 2010 bij 12:59
gnoegnoe
Last year I actually got overwhelmed by all the challenges I had accepted… But I’m doing this for fun so I try not to get stressed about it; whatever works is fine ;) Would be cool to have you participate in the JLC4! And remember: you only need to read one book to actually accomplish the challenge.
Also, Bellezza is a great host!
zondag 30 mei 2010 bij 22:47
debnance at readerbuzz
All my challenges have been neglected this year, but, aha, just wait a few more days….Summer will arrive and I will once again have time in my life to address challenges. Among other things.
zondag 30 mei 2010 bij 23:28
chasing bawa
I’m so looking forward to the Japanese Literary Challenge too! I’ve got a couple of books I’ve kept aside to read for that, but I might just cave in and buy some more!
And did you see the opera Wake? Mitchell spoke about writing the libretto when I went to his talk so I’m very curious about it.
maandag 31 mei 2010 bij 10:47
gnoegnoe
@debnance: I haven’t been doing too great at challenges either but I try not to worry about that ;) Reviewing is the hard part in my case — I never seem to have enough time.
@chasing bawa: Yes, we went to see Wake Thursday the week before. It was a great experience which I hope to blog about but… (see my remark to debnance). It’s quite a complex, Mitchell-like story and we were glad to have had a short introduction before the opera started. The text was sort of ‘subtitled’ in Dutch so I’m happy to have the program guide with the actual libretto! I hope to talk a little more about it soon!
woensdag 2 juni 2010 bij 12:48
elma
nah, not going to Broese on Sunday as I’m going to The Tempest in Amsterdam then. I think one Mitchellian ‘event’ a month is probably enough otherwise I’d be scared of being labelled a full-scale groupie…
vrijdag 4 juni 2010 bij 12:49
Bellezza
I’m so glad that you’re in for the JLC4!! I, too, want to read Silence both for it and for Tanabata’s read-along. Also, Colleen from Bibliophilia mentioned reading The Pillow Book. Maybe we should organize something togeher around reading that book…or, at least get together and talk about it by the end of January!
woensdag 23 juni 2010 bij 20:12
Carin B.
I just went and read your journal entry on Obasan. That is right. The American government wasn’t that harsh after the war with Japanese Americans. They were given a stipend to help them get wherever they wanted to go after camp from what I understand. My grandpa was in the military so they were sent to Minnesota and then to Japan for occupation. After occupation, they moved back to California. I will say that I have read that the Japanese Americans did lose a lot of their property during the war because they had to either ask people to hold their things or sell them after they were ordered to the assembly centers. People would offer them ridiculously low prices for their belongings because they knew that the Japanese Americans were not in a place to refuse.
I didn’t know Canada wanted to expel the Canadian born Japanese after the war! I can’t wait to read the book now. I put it on my TBR list.
Since your father was imprisoned during WWII in Indonesia, you might enjoy The Pacific by Hugh Ambrose. Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman finally made the HBO mini-series (kind of a follow-up to Band of Brothers) and Hugh Ambrose wrote the companion book to the series. I’m reading it right now and it does have the story of an American Marine who was in a POW camp in the Philippines. The Japanese were really brutal in WWII. I highly recommend the TV mini-series as well because it really personifies how horrific war is. I’m going to try to keep reading about WWII in the Pacific because I didn’t know much about it, but I think it deserves as much attention at the war in Europe got so I would like to learn more. If you have any suggestions, let me know!
woensdag 1 januari 2020 bij 18:58
Joining the 13th Japanese Literature Challenge | Graasland
[…] On top of that I mean to read along with #JapaneseLitChallenge13 participants in March, tackling Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters . I have the 576 page chunkster on my shelf since I failed a previous collective reading. […]