Book review: Sanshiro

Posted on January 17, 2020 by WordsAndPeace

Sanshiro
by Natsume Soseki
First published in Japanese in 1908
Translated by Jay Rubin
With an introduction
by Haruki Murakami
Penguin Classics edition
ISBN13: 9780140455625
2009
Literary fiction/Japanese literature
235 pages
Goodreads

I recently decided to keep this long format only to review books received for review, and write shorter reviews in my Sunday Posts, right later I finish reading a book.
Well, my review of Sanshiro was getting too long, so here it is by itself. It makes sense, for this amazing classic.
I read it both for the Japanese Literature Challenge, and for The Classics Club (Classics Spin #22).

Click to continue reading

The Classics Club: The Classics Spin #22

Posted on December 18, 2019 by WordsAndPeace

#theclassicsclub
#ccspin

The Classics Club
2019-2024

The Classics Spin #22

Time for a new spin!

At your blog, before Sunday, December 22, create a post to list your choice of any twenty books that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.

On Sunday 22nd December, we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by 31st January, 2020.

Here are 20 titles I have selected from my 2nd list of 50 classics.
I hope to get a Japanese title, as I already have a lot on my TBR for December and January (that’s also why I only have rather short books here), plus that would fit perfectly with the Japanese Literature Challenge.

1	Jun’ichiro Tanizaki	A Cat, a Man, and Two Women (1936)
2	Xavier de Maistre	Voyage Autour de Ma Chambre (1794)
3	A. A. Milne	The Red House Mystery (1922)
4	Henry David Thoreau	Civil Disobedience (1849)
5	Freeman Wills Crofts	Inspector French’s Greatest Case (1924)
6	Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky	The Letter Killers Club (1926)
7	Stefan Zweig	Confusion (1927)
8	Edmond Rostand	Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) = reread
9	Machado de Assi	Dom Casmurro (1899)
10	Marcel Proust	Days of Reading (1905)
11	Natsume Soseki	Kusamakura (1906)
12	Kakuzo Okakura	The Book of Tea (1906)
13	Natsume Soseki	Sanshirō (1908)
14	Natsume Soseki	The Miner (1908)
15	Robert Walser	Jakob von Gunten (1909)
16	Natsume Soseki	To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (1910)
17	Natsume Soseki	The Gate (1910)
18	George Orwell	Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
19	Christopher Morley	Parnassus on Wheels (1917)
20	Jun’ichiro Tanizaki	Devils in Daylight (1918)

COME BACK ON MONDAY 23
TO SEE WHICH BOOK I HAVE TO READ SOON.
HOW MANY HAVE YOU READ?
WHICH ONE IS YOUR FAVORITE?

MY FULL LIST IS HERE

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Japanese Literature Challenge 13

Posted on December 16, 2019 by WordsAndPeace

JAPANESE LITERATURE CHALLENGE 13

#JapaneseLitChallenge13 #JLC13 #JapaneseLiterature

So glad DolceBelleza (@bellezzamjs) is organizing this challenge again!
Click here or on the logo to read more about it.

Checked my history, and realized this is my 5th participation. I did the Japanese Literature Challenge from 2012-2015, but for some reasons, I stopped after that, even though I regularly read Japanese Lit.

I have currently 13 Japanese novels I mean to read, so this Challenge, running from January-March 2020, is perfect.

Here is my TBR for this event:

📚 Ebooks received in 2019 through Edelweiss Plus:

1. The Ten Loves of Nishino (2003), by Hiromi Kawakami (transl. by Allison Markin Powell)

2. Inhabitation (1984), by Teru Miyamoto (transl. by Roger K. Thomas)

***

📚 Books on my physical shelf:

3. The Sound of Waves (1954), by Yukio Mishima (trans. by Meredith Weatherby)
4. N.P. (1990), by Banana Yoshimoto (trans. by Ann Sherif)
5. Some Prefer Nettles (1928), by Junichirō Tanizaki (trans. by Edward G. Seidensticker)

***

📚 For my Classics Club list (besides # 3 and 5 above):

6. Kusamakura (1906), by Natsume Sōseki (trans. by Meredith Weatherby)
7. The Book of Tea (1906), by Kakuzō Okakura= (listened to) reviewed on 1/12/20
8. Sanshirō (1908), by Natsume Sōseki (trans. by Jay Rubin) = reviewed on 1/17/20
9. And Then (1909), by Natsume Sōseki (trans. by Norma Moore Field
10. The Gate (1910), by Natsume Sōseki (trans. by Francis Mathy)
11. To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (1910), by Natsume Sōseki (trans. by Kingo Ochiai and Sanford M. Goldstein)
12. The Miner (1908), by Natsume Sōseki (trans. by Jay Rubin)
13. Devils in Daylight (1918), by Junichirō Tanizaki (trans. by J. Keith Vincent)
14. A Cat, a Man, and Two Women (1936), by Junichirō Tanizaki (trans. by Paul McCarthy)

***

You notice several books by the same authors, it’s just that these have been on my TBR for a long time. Thankfully, most are rather short, so I should be able to read at least 4 per month, besides other books. And I’ll try to listen to some!

NB: there are some other huge Japanese authors not on this list: my favorite, Haruki Murakami, Ishiguro, and many more, because I have already read many by them, or mostly because I don’t need to read them urgently if I don’t have an egalley of them waiting; if they are not collecting dust on my shelf; or they are not on my Classics List to read in 5 years. But your recommendations are welcome for later in the year or this challenge another year!

1/12/20 update: I just discovered that Sanshiro is actually the first volume of a trilogy, so I’ll read And Then and The Gate after it.

I’ll update this page as I go along.

CLICK ON THE BEAUTIFUL LOGO TO JOIN!
WHICH OTHER BOOKS WOULD YOU ENCOURAGE ME
TO READ FOR THIS CHALLENGE?