false 49 336 234 true 5644968 read 2 true 4229213 currently-reading 100 true 4229212 to-read 67 false 6490329 nobel-prize 31 false 6490316 short-stories 26 false 6490299 japan 25 false 6490295 eastern-europe 17 false 6490303 poetry 13 false 6490307 biographies-memoirs 13 false 6490300 the-far-east 7 false 6490311 travel-books 4 false 6490324 south-america http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/243229-the-last-films-you-saw Kris made a comment in the World Cinema group:

THE ASCENT (Larisa Shepitko). The only real masterpiece I've ever seen directed by a woman. No offense to the ladies out there, but it's a simple fact: there have never been many women directors. Nor am I an affirmative-actionist, the sort of lunatic who assigns Kathryn Bigelow, a hack director of routine action pictures, "auteur" status simply for being female - apparently such people never saw Point Break. I've seen a number of fine movies directed by women - Claire Denis and Jane Campion come to mind - and I'm sure there are several more I haven't seen (Chantal Akerman and Tanaka Kinuyo to name a couple suspects) but never an honest-to-God classic that ranks with the best. The Ascent is not a flawless movie by any means - I have little interest in either overt Christian symbolism or Soviet (or any other kind of) patriotism - but a movie of extraordinary physicality, made with intelligence and sympathy. Rarely has snow been used to such effect in movies, and in the haunting black-and-white cinematography the snow seems to obliterate landscapes and people completely, tree trunks and Russian overcoats appear as inkspots on the blinding white canvas of the image. The movie's "message" is pretty pedestrian - better to die with dignity than live as a coward - but the brutal beauty of the movie (with a final scene to rival those of Sergio Leone for drawn-out tension and tight close-ups) more than makes up for its defects.

2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER (Jean-Luc Godard). "Isn't it incredible" the heroine asks the camera "how on August 17, 1966 people in Europe can be thinking about people over in Asia?" Shortly afterward still photos of casualties of the American fiasco in Vietnam play across the screen. But my far more interesting question while watching this movie was: Isn't it incredible that Jean-Luc Godard could make such laughable drivel for decades and continue to be heralded as cinematic genius? Followed by: Isn't it incredible that a this movie, so rife anti-American sentiment, fails to once mention the disgusting French brutalization and occupation of Vietnam that lasted for the better part of a hundred years and was only ended in a bloody colonial war? I understand Godard's anti-American, anti-capitalist sentiment, I have a great deal of sympathy for such a stance, but criticism must be well thought-out, not a bunch of vague ideas in search of a movie. 2 or 3 Things is a sloppily considered, poorly made, pretentious flick that thinks that whispered voiceover equals profundity (apparently a stance that most film critics agree with), and that manages the facade of profundity by bouncing so hyperactively from one point to the next that it doesn't give anyone enough time to consider that most of what its narrator or onscreen people (one couldn't call them characters in any sense) say is frighteningly banal only when it isn't utter nonsense. How many times have I brutally overruled my desperately pleading intuition and sat through yet another Jean-Luc Godard film? Godard was always a second-rate thinker, and this joyless zombie movie, candy-colored though it may be - and I find all of Godard's movies joyless, even the supposedly "fun" ones like Band of Outsiders - is all the filmmaker's worst inclinations in one convenient (seemingly interminable) 86-minute package. Godard doesn't lack brilliance, and there are startlingly good moments in all of his films (in 2 or 3 Things it is the contemplation of a cup of coffee that immediately comes to mind), which makes their failings all the more frustrating - they're nine parts annoying for each brilliant part. Although I haven't seen all of them I'm now convinced that the only one of the filmmaker's movies not worthy of contempt is Le mépris, where producer Carlo Ponti was there to rein him in, curb his excesses and egomania, and channel the best of the filmmaker's instincts. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/209781-beauty-and-sadness-by-kawabata-yasunari Kris made a comment in the Japanese Literature group:

Julia, ever read Nabokov's book Nikolai Gogol? I don't know if it's the same thing in the context of Kawabata's novel (I don't remember the Eurasian half-sister), but Nabokov thought that the genius of Gogol lay in these weird little scenes where he would introduce a character, sketch them vividly in a few lines, and then... drop them. Because the reader's natural inclination is: "Ah, he's introduced this character and given him these traits, this character will be important" but Gogol pulls the rug out from under the reader time and again (in the same sense I've always wanted to make a movie in which a major character has a fit of coughing somewhere in the beginning... and doesn't end up dead of cancer by the end! in fact, it's only a fit of coughing, like that which attacks so many non-movie people who don't end up eventually dying of it!).

For me the supreme beauty of Kawabata as an artist is this sense of deep mystery (try finding a Kawabata novel or story with a neat resolution!) of what's said, what's left unsaid, what seems important only to be never mentioned again, these deep and unfathomable currents beneath the surface of human existence. I've never found a writer who's able to convey as much in "a few brush strokes," so to speak. For those interested - though the translation can also be a bit stilted - the Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Kawabata are extraordinary. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/221891-kris-catalogues-with-brief-commentary-for-no-particular-reason Kris made a comment in the 50 Books A Year group:

View with a Grain of Sand Selected Poems by Wislawa Szymborska

Stunning poems by this master of whimsical darkness. How is it that so often these poems which seem so light and dancing can be so unsettling? They often end with a punch line that stops you in your tracks. This is a generous sampling from nearly forty years and I shouldn't complain, but... Oh, the rhymes! I have too much difficulty believing that rhymes in translation aren't achieved without some real damage to fidelity. A line or two here and there? Certainly. But a whole poem with a completely intact rhyme scheme? I have difficulty. It muddies the water for me. I am grateful, regardless. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/231235-book-nominations-for-november-december Kris made a comment in the Japanese Literature group:

Mr Murakami is a "rockstar" because he manages the feat of appearing somewhat "literary" while remaining chock full of pop culture references to give the kids what they want. Though his books certainly aren't in the John Grisham depths of the intelligence barrel, he's thankfully never threatened his readers with anything approaching a deep thought. As far as I can glean - and keep in mind that this is having read a number of the author's works (Wild Sheep Chase, Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, Sputnik Sweetheart, and The Elephant Vanishes as far as I can recall) - Murakami is pretty much content to create a vague sense of urban ennui and dread, coupled with a number of "surreal" episodes, references to whatever pop song the hero may be listening to at any given time, and keeps the pace fairly brisk - and it's a good formula that serves him well. And I've liked the books, even if in retrospect I have a hard time telling them apart (only that Wind Up Bird had some war sections that showed real brilliance and that Kafka had a few uncomfortably Oedipal scenes). But it's not truly great art as far as I'm concerned.



I think the depiction of Japanese women in classic fiction is a little more complicated than people here make out: are they all subservient little dolls or are they just treated that way by their men? And consider how the Japanese man is presented in many of these books too: cold, cruel, boring, boorish, incapable of real affection, never in any way "heroic." The women, while often superficially in the minor role, often find ways to pull the strings, and often come across as ultimately more awake, more human than the men. And they certainly didn't always play the passive role: Kawabata's Beauty and Sadness - and others, like Tanizaki's Quicksand, or Mizoguchi's great film Sisters of Gion - contrasts the repressed traditional Japanese woman with the "modern girl" who takes the role of avenger.

The best Japanese writers had insight and sensitivity, and if they created passive women they were simply reflecting the reality of the time; and sometimes holding a mirror to reality is enough.

As for "new and refreshing" Japanese fiction, most of it holds about as much appeal for me as the latest "new and refreshing" Dan Brown extravaganza. But I admit to a preference for traditional Japan, its elegance and attention to aesthetics (without denying its faults and cruelties) to the modern-day cityscape of pachinko parlors, pornographic comic books, singing toasters, and the terrifying ubiquity of the dastardly Hello Kitty. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73477384 Reunion (Panther) by Fred Uhlman
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/25782-please-vote-by-clicking-on-a-book-for-the-november-december-edition-of-t Kris made a comment on the poll Please vote by clicking on a book for the November/December edition of the Book Club:

I also think that the Oe books - both of which I'm sure are fine - should be seperated. Let's keep it to one. That said, I hope both of them, together or seperate, give the running book a good thrashing. Oh no, wait, the running book is winning. Eh, whadoiknow? ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77180718 The Melancholy of Resistance (Paperback) by László Krasznahorkai
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77180706 Spring Miscellany and London Essays (Paperback) by Natsume Soseki
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77180691 Indecent Dreams (Paperback) by Arnošt Lustig
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77180680 Once a Greek... (Hardcover) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
bookshelves: to-read
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