FF: When My Homework is Done

Mei-Ling Contemplates the Costs

As I mentioned on Wednesday, I’m reading the page proofs for my forthcoming novel, Library of the Sapphire Wind.  However, since I can’t work on proofs for more than about an hour at a time without the danger of starting to skim, which would rather defeat the purpose, I’ve been reading other things, too.

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.  And it’s also a great place to tell me what you’re reading. 

Completed:

Chobits by Clamp.  Manga.  Re-read.  This starts off as a Pygmalion story and, takes the question of created companions much farther.  As is often the case with Clamp, the elaborate, frilly art conceals a dark and thoughtful story, in this case about what it is to be human, what it is to really love.  And what you must be ready to give up to be the one and have the other.

In Progress:

Age of Faith by Will Durant.  Audiobook.  Yes. In the section about the developments of conflict between philosophy and theology, which led to the development of scholastic philosophy, which attempted to reconcile the two.

Fallen Into the Pit by Ellis Peters.  Despite the biblical-sounding title, this was actually one of Peter’s contemporary (then) novels, set in the years following WWII.  A dark, gritty tale of ambition, environmental concerns, social change, and racism that speaks to today as much as it surely did at the time it came out.

Also:

A new edition of my favorite manga, Saiyuki came out, and I splurged.  I know the story very well, so there are no big surprises, but I find it interesting how a different translator’s word choices and idioms slightly shifts what the story is about.  At some point, I’ll probably go all scholarly and do some side-by-side comparisons, but not until my homework is done.