"He says I shouldn't say such terrible things and I shouldn't even think them. Perhaps I could manage not to say them but how can I not think them? What can anyone do against their thoughts? They crawl about your body, backwards and forwards, like worms or like diseases."
Translated from the Italian by Dick Davis
I enjoyed reading this novel. It was well written and it felt real. Through the letters that the group of friends wrote each other (this is an epistolary novel), we see fragments of lives of normal people who lived in Rome and the suburbs in an unspecified time. Even though these slices of lives are just normal things happening to any of us in our life, like hanging out with friends, marriage, divorce, relocation, and death, Ginzburg's writing and her sharp and insightful comments made it very charming to read this book. There's no nonsense nor cliche that you sometimes find in other novels. I could see why they described her writing minimalist and realist.
#readingitalianliterature #italianliterature #literaryfiction #translatedfiction #thecityandthehouse #nataliaginzburg #bookstagram #bibliophile #translationthursday
Dr. Pereira was the editor of the culture page of Lisboa, a small nonpolitical evening newspaper in Lisbon. It was 1938, Portugal was under the authoritarian regime of Salaza, and the Nationalists were fighting against the Republicans during the civil war in the neighboring Spain. .
In a difficult time like this, Pereira was content with his life, translating 19th century French authors (Balzac, Maupassant, Alphonse Daudet,...) and writing anniversary pieces for famous authors (Pesoa, Rilke, Vladimir Mayakovsky,...). And obsessed with the resurrection of the body. He also just took on a leftist young assistant to write advance obituaries of great writers who might die at any moment. (Bernanos, Mauriac, Lorca, …). Yes, there are many authors mentioned and a little knowledge of them would help to apprehend the novella.
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Tabucchi questioned the responsibilities of an intellectual in a difficult time. Should Pereira declare that he was apolitical, that he did not care to write about politics, and was content with his life?
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In just 130 pages, Tabucchi also discussed heavy topics, from civil war, politics, to Theodule Ribot and Pierre Janet’s theory of the confederation of souls. I particularly enjoyed his musings on the souls and the ruling ego/super ego (“you must shed your super ego,...slough off grief,...stop haunting your past and try to drop in on the future”), as well as on authors and their political viewpoints.
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“Marinetti’s a swine, he started his career by singing the praises of war, he’s set himself up as a champion of bloodshed, he’s a terrorist, he hailed Mussolini’s march on Rome, Marinetti is a swine and it’s my duty to say so.”
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“Bernanos, exclaimed Pereira.... He’s a great Catholic writer, said Pereira with pride, I knew he’d take a stand, he’s a man of the highest moral principles."
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Even though this clearly is a political novel, the writing is not unsettling, violent, or brutal. The form and the writing is very unique, passionate, charming, and humorous in tone. Reading this novella was a very fulfilling and entertaining experience. An excellent novella!
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Translated from the Italian by Patrick Creagh.
#readingitalianliterature
The Key is a brilliant study of the innermost nature and sexual desires of human beings. I was quite baffled that one is willing to succumb to one's sexual desire and even sacrifice one's life for it. Reading this story is quite a sensual ride.
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Diary of a Mad Old Man is also erotically charged. However it was hard for me to read a story about a perverse seventy six year old man. I was wondering how realistic the character was. My guess is it must be, to some extent, considering Tanizaki wrote the novel in his seventies. Viewed from another perspective, Diary of a Mad Old Man provides insight into the sexual appetite and psychology of old men.
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I was shockingly surprised to read this book, since it's a world of difference from The Makioka Sisters in terms of subject matter. When I read a short article on the JP Times reviewing Tanizaki's autobiography Childhood Years (trans by Paul McCarthy) I came to realize that Tanizaki's infatuation with sexual relationships was rooted in his childhood days and it defined his works and his art.
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In these two novels, there are also traces of Tanizaki's nostalgia for the fading Japanese traditional culture and his observation of the emergence of Western influences on Japanese people and lives. This nostalgia was also explored in his slim book In Praise of Shadows (trans. by Thomas Harper and Edward Seidensticker).
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The Key and Diary of a Mad Old Man
Translated from the Japanese by Howard Hibbett.
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#japaneseliterature #translatedfiction #literaryfiction #bookintranslation #worldliterature #bibliophile #tanizaki #junichirotanizaki #diaryofamadoldman #thekey #januaryinjapan
I wanted to assemble a rainbow spine out of my Jlit collection, and this is what came out.
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It's been fun seeing many popular books and authors posted for #JanuaryinJapan.
However if you want to dig further into Japanese literature, what are your sources?
I'd like to share a few websites which I visit frequently and have learned a lot from over the past few years.
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Tony's Reading List is a blog written by Tony Malone from Australia. His special interests are J-Lit and K-Lit. There's hardly a book of Japanese literature that he doesn't review.
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The Complete Review (complete-review.com) written by M.A. Orthofer, and The Modern Novel (themodernnovel.org) written by John, are mines of gold for not only Japanese literature but for world literature as well. They both read over 100 books per year and in multiple languages. The two websites are very well organized and categorized by region, nationality, authors,...
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The Japan Times Books section is another good webpage for Japanese lit lovers.
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For a hard core Japanophile who wants to have a more or less systematic understanding of modern/contemporary Japanese literature, culture, or history, I'd recommend the website of Dr. Kathryn Hemmann from Washington DC. (kathrynhemmann.com). She's posted her syllabi for the courses she taught in the past few years - Contemporary Japanese Fiction, Introduction to Anime and Manga Studies, Introduction to Japanese Culture, Japanese Science Fiction and Fantasy, etc... She also blogs at Contemporary Japanese Literature (japaneselit.net).
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Where do you go for book news, book reviews, or book recommendations of your interests? .
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#japaneseliterature #translatedliterature #bookintranslation #literaryfiction #worldliterature #bibliophile
I found this tiny book while browsing a small bookstore near UC Berkeley last November. I wonder how long it had sat on the shelf. The book was published by Hokuseido Press and printed in Japan in 1970.
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These two stories were originally published in the 50s but the writing seems very old fashioned for me. The first story Catching a "Kappa" is very interesting though. A kappa is an imaginary animal in Japanese folklore, believed to inhabit rivers, ponds, swamps, and the sea. In the Introduction, they mentioned one of the best stories about kappa is probably Kappa by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, which I had never heard of. .
I might have read Ibuse in one of the anthologies, but didn't remember him until now. Masuji Ibuse is better known for his major works: Black Rain, The Salamander, No Consultations Today, etc...
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#japaneseliterature #translatedliterature #literaryfiction #bookstagram #bookintranslation #masujiibuse #januaryinjapan
