On Paths Unknown discussion
The Anything Goes chit-chat thread (subject to tiny fine-print rules)
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EDIT: LOL, we must have posted simultaneously. I'm good with Ben Okri!
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This discussion just reminded me that I have Masks by Fumiko Enchi but never got to it. I'm surprised that one of the few Japenese books I have was mentioned, what are the chances 😱. I also have a Chinese novella 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth that I forgot about. I have a huge interest in Mandarin these days and have started learning it in small bits when I can squeeze in the time. Blame it on a Chinese talent competition I watched, I started hearing it so much that I fell in love with the sounds of the language.
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I've been looking at Chinese works, but it seems as if most of the works from mainland China are preoccupied with their form of statehood- you know, Communism and the cultural revolution, etc. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it can become monotonous in the sense that all the Russian writers being preoccupied with their own political drama became a bit monotonous. But it might be that I have only by chance found older authors and that the modern ones are more diverse?
Seems so, because Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth seems cool! I'm going to see if I can get hold of it, thanks for suggesting it!
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Ok, you're on!
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Chinese is really beautiful. I watched The Untamed last year and really I could listen to it forever."
As I mentioned elsewhere, I love watching Chinese, Korean and Japanese TV shows (well, I did before I came back to GR - now there's no time). In any case, interestingly, to me Korean and Japanese sound similar enough that it takes me a while to figure out which language it's in, but Mandarin is very distinct with that almost sing-song intonation and very soft, almost English-like expression of consonants. It's a much 'softer' language than the other two. Maybe not so much in Untamed, but in Qin Empire - Alliance, which I've been watching, you really hear a difference. My word, I love the intro to that show!
Anyway, Korean shows are still my fave.
Yolande wrote: " I have a huge interest in Mandarin these days and have started learning it in small bits when I can squeeze in the time. Blame it on a Chinese talent competition I watched, I started hearing it so much that I fell in love with the sounds of the language. ..."
I'd be too afraid to try and learn Mandarin, it seems massively hard because of the pronunciation and the alphabet. At least in Japanese one can still get away with ...wait.. hold on Amy - now I suddenly realize why you like Untamed! So much eye-candy! :)
Traveller wrote: "Hi Yolande! We could perhaps start a side-read, maybe just a thread to post comments in of Masks, if you like? I think sadly most of our friends have read it by now. I've been looking at Chinese w..."
That's fine, I might read Masks at the end of the year or later. I don't have a lot of reading time outside of my M studies so if anyone starts 20 Fragments I will join that, or whatever gets picked.
Traveller wrote: "as I mentioned elsewhere, I love watching Chinese, Korean and Japanese TV shows"I have become addicted to K- and C-dramas because of the languages, stories and especially the eye-candy 🤣🤣
I'm starting very slow with Mandarin because of time constraints and to not get overwhelmed. I pick up on the pronunciation fairly quickly because of all the Chinese dramas I've been watching, some frequent words have become so familiar to me now 😋. I'm doing it for fun but I probably won't get far with it, who knows. I'm focusing only on spoken language to start with and leaving chinese characters for later.
I've been learning French for years and though my reading ability has reached at least a high intermediate level, I still can't really speak it much, so I want to do it differently this time around with Chinese.
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But I find French is a particularly hard spoken language to attain for an Anglophone person. I can read it ok-ish,still missing a lot of vocab and struggling with tenses, but I have to really strain when listening, and I'd be too afraid to try and speak it myself- the way that words flow together in sentences. I probably know about as much German as I know French, but it's so much easier to speak!
Anyway, I've now started watching French films and TV shows, and I must say that that does help a LOT.
I've started watching the French series Lupin and loving it so far. Especially since it's inspired by the Arsène Lupin book series, which was the first French fiction I read. It makes me want to read it again now since I'll understand much more this time 😋. The tv series also stars one of my fav actors, Omar Sy, so that helps too.I've also discovered French Korean Youtubers, whose videos combine my two interests of French and Korean culture, so I've been watching them to improve my listening, which has been really effective, especially if they have French subtitles.
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Oh, and graphic novels also help.
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and
Yolande wrote: "I have become addicted to K- and C-dramas because of the languages, stories and especially the eye-candy 🤣🤣"
The eye candy is very good! And also the story turned out to be worlds better than anything I've seen on American TV in years. (Admittedly I have missed out on some of the excellent story telling going on in the cartoon world the past few years.) I'm going to watch Word of Honor next and see if my luck holds up. I have a lot of books to read first though!
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Yolande wrote: "I have become addicted to K- and C-dramas because of the languages, st..."
I was going to mention Word of Honor yesterday! It's stylistically very close to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and House of Flying Daggers. If you haven't seen the latter, it's beautiful. Of course, if that type of 'floating' martial arts is too far-fetched for you, you wouldn't like it, but from what you've been watching, I think you might like it!
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The fantastical elements are part and parcel of wuxia, I think, and TBH I would find it hard to get into straight historical fiction, although I think Xiao Zhan (the actor who played Wei Wuxian) has done some of that and eventually I expect I will catch up with all his stuff. I watch shows at a snail's pace though.
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Like the films mentioned, Word of Honor is in the Wuxia tradition, but it may not have the same emotional depth since it seems to focus more on martial arts wars between several martial arts houses. But do yourself a favor and watch Flying Daggers, it's one of my faves.
Btw, have you seen The Warrior's Way (The film)? It's got more of a fantastical bizarro Wild West flavor, but nice actor, heartwarming story, and de cutest most mignon widdle babykins you will ever see!
I love wuxia movies and my favourite is Hero, but I loved House of Flying Daggers and Crouching tiger as well.
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I have not, but I will add it to my list, along with Hero. I should do some kind of film fest.
This is the wuxia babykins that has my heart on lock:
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Amy, is that from The Untamed?
Hi all,I'm so happy to get it going with a group again! Most of my groups here have become more or less inactive, with one exception, and they talk about anything except books...
I'm deficient in Russian classics, except The Master and Margarita. This year, I told myself to worry less about the number of books read, and just make it through pages. That would allow me to read larger books. My reading took a hit last year. I started Crime and Punishment, but didn't get far before work took me from it.
I've not read any of those except Beloved and Oscar Wilde.
I teach Spanish, so can provide ideas of books from Spain, Latin America, or the Caribbean, when/if the group wishes
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OMG, I've just had an epiphany! Spanish... Gabriel Garcia Marquez is Spanish and his short stories are fab! What do you guys think - how about we do a few Murakami's, a small Chinese story, a Ben Okri short or two, and then a few GG Marquez stories!? And later, maybe a Russian side-read/holiday read for those who want it, heh heh.
Which Spanish books would you like to suggest, Linda?
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A nice smorgasbord. That sounds great.
I'm VERY much up for the short stories! It's good for me at this time, when focus is still hard, because I can read one/put it down, etc.Gabo's short stories have all been anthologized so much....but the ones I seem to like the most are the 12 "peregrino" tales. That means "pilgrim", and I don't know how it was translated into English, but they're 12 stories that he'd carried around the world, working on them. Then, when the editors were pushing him to turn on something, he submitted those.
Another Colombian author, younger, contemporary, that I have liked is Jorge Franco.
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(And now, in my mind's eye, I see this small kid hopping all over the place. 😏 )
Haha, it is ways my goal to read one at a time, but it rarely happens
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Whoever else sees this post is welcome to give more suggestions here in this thread before I put up the poll.
And how about we start somewhere between October 15 and Oct. 25 so we'll be in time to do a dark or mystery story for Halloween? Not sure if anyone here does NaNoWriMo and if it's still in November? Anyway, I guess it will never be the perfect time to start, so we may as well jump in as soon as we can. :)
Maybe some Shirley Jackson for Halloween?
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I'd say Shirley Jackson's quite solid, good idea, she shouldn't be hard to get hold of, and she (her writing, I mean) is suitably strange. Did you have anything specific in mind, Esthy? Perhaps something out of her "Lottery" collection? Remember that we want to keep it short. :)
Lottery collection short stories sounds good to me!
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I've been tied up a bit in RL but I promise I'm going to do that poll and message tomorrow.
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I've been reading through this thread again, and there seems to be some appetite for stories from around the world, and also suggestions to read at least one Shirley Jackson story on or around Halloween.
So, I was thinking, let's read a Murakami from his short story collection First Person Singular: Stories starting Fri October 1, then an Okri, Marquez or one of the Chinese/Japanese authors mentioned earlier, on Fri, Oct 15, and then a Jackson starting Fri October 29 ?
PS. I'm so sad to see all the restrictions being imposed more and more on GR. Why, why why, was this previously fantastic site sold out? I don't want to sound too mean, and who knows if I might have been able to resist the temptation myself, but sometimes people end up selling their souls to the soulless for money... :(
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Yes, I am kind of amazed how much public good is being destroyed by the monopolization. (I mean I shouldn't be, but it's kind of breathtaking to see in real time.) Especially now that Amazon wants to block people's access to their database of books and the Goodreads code. Just evil.
Traveller wrote: "I've been thinking and thinking about what to do here, and I've come up with an idea: How about we read two short stories a month until we've nicely gelled as a group again, and then at some later ..."I love the idea of sticking with short stories for a bit.
As for GR, ... ugh. And the most recent restrictions ... Ugh! Ugh!
Hi, all!Sorry that I've been AWOL. I jad my own personal horror story this summer. The bldg I lived in, an old mansion, sold at the end of July, and we were given, after our landlords advocated for us, until Oct 1st to get out. Because it's a tourist town, and because there are several universities in the surrounding towns, there was nothing to be found in rentals within an hour of here, without spending 50% of my income on rent.
Long story short, I began the equally Herculean task of finding and winning bid on a house for less than $400,000. Ironically, after searching for 5-6 hours/day, 5-6 days a week, in towns about 40 minutes from work, I found a small place right in the city I was living/working in. I closed last week, finished the move Friday (working all the while). Still haven't settled in. Am wiped out.I'm
Love the Jackson idea!
A good Gabo short story comes from the collection I mentioned above. In English, it's something like "I only came to use the phone". Slightly eerie.
Shorts would be perfect.
As for the restrictions, every time I access GR on my phone (what I do most often, lately), I get "likes" from hijacked accounts with no book activity in years, but links to Russian (among other) "dating" sites. I can report until the cows come home, they keep popping up.
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Sorry that I've been AWOL...."
Phew! Sounds hectic, Linda! Glad you finally found a suitable place to live in the end. :)
How strange about the Russian dating sites!
Will investigate the Gabo you mentioned. In the meantime, we started one that you dislike, but I see you commented, so will go chat that side.
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Thank you, Amy (Other Amy). It's not the way I pictured feeling about my first home. But it'll do. Next summer, I'll enjoy the AC, which I haven't had since 1998, the sea breeze and smidgen of water view from the deck!
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Much of Jackson's creepiness is more psychological horror, so of course we can discuss them any time, it doesn't have to be particularly for Halloween, though Amy has suggested a few potentially spooky ones which I'm about to investigate.
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thanks for the spoiler traveller. I tend to read even older theory- mostly philosophy as you note, this just reminds me of when all this way of 'deconstructing lit' was new to me. it might be just nostalgia, but white noise seems to engage those postmodern/modernism disputes with more seriousness than say zizek...
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Michael, you are one of the readers I look up to - I don't know where you guys get the time to read so much complexity, but then I suppose that (as we noted on the other thread) it all adds up over the years.
Mmm, maybe you experience it as nostalgia, but I think in my own case, I feel that the theory I did was all glossed over and hurried, and I'm feeling a need to read it at my own desired breadth and width at my own pace, know what I mean?
Re DeLillo, I don't know, he seems like a bit of a vacuum cleaner to me who hoovers up concepts but doesn't necessarily add anything new to them, except for that atmosphere of reverence or transcendence that I commented on on one of those WN threads.
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On Paths Unknown
Books mentioned in this topic
Infinite Jest (other topics)Infinite Jest (other topics)
The Tell-Tale Heart (other topics)
First Person Singular: Stories (other topics)
Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Bruno Schulz (other topics)Fyodor Dostoevsky (other topics)
Umberto Eco (other topics)
Dan Simmons (other topics)
Anthony Doerr (other topics)
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Ah, ...