Reading Wrap-Up

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I'm currently reading Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn. Hearn has a pretty interesting biography, he was born in Greece, raised in Ireland, worked in the US as a reporter and eventually emigrated to Japan where he became a teacher and married a Japanese woman, dedicating his writing to the translation and retelling of Japanese literature. This was all in the late 19th century and he was an important early source on Japanese literature. His style is very good, and feels almost modern. There's little adaption, he often leaves important terms or concepts untranslated and explains their full implications and possible double meanings in notes. Kwaidan is a collection of ghost stories, most of which are very short. So far all have been enjoyable and many of them really stir the imagination. Here's one of the shortest and also one of my favorites.

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I read this a couple weeks ago:



Saikaku was an author in the 17th century, who was one of the first if not the first professional author, since there was enough of a middle class at that point to support commercial art and literature. Unlike earlier works of Japanese lit, his work was written with a wide audience in mind, and reflects the tastes and customs of the lower classes. This is a collection of several short stories (if they can even be called that, many are more like vignettes) about New Years Eve, the day on which all the debts that had been incurred over the year were to be settled. Most of the stories revolve around pawning or auctioning off belongings, avoiding or chasing off debt collectors, and coming up with ways to quickly drum up money. The stories often aren't completely structured as one would expect, because its such an early example of the medium. Story details are given that end up being unimportant, or the story ends up radically shifting its tone or purpose halfway through. The stories are quite humorous on account of Saikaku being very witty and a great observer of human nature. This one isn't completely representative of the book, since most don't have any supernatural elements whatsoever, but it's one of the more entertaining ones:

[AdamZane]

Here's a book that fits in with Container's above: Book of Laughable Stories, or Book of Entertaining Stories by Bar Hebraeus
Bar Hebraeus is a immensely prominent and prolific figure out of the Edessa milieu of Christian intellectuals, almost the poster child. He was made Maphrian (Grand Metropolitan) of the Syriac Church in the middle 13th century, and went on to write prolifically on metaphysics, regular physics, history, optics, linguistics, economics, logic. He wrote encyclopedias about every branch of extent science of his day, and translated numerous works out of Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He was an incredibly tolerant and well read man. My first encounter with him was his preservation and editing of ancient heretical documents he had previously set out to destroy. Upon reading, he decided instead to keep what he saw as good and throw out the bad, and republish.
The Laughable Stories is a collection of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and stranger people's anecdotes, aphorisms, and stories from the middle-ages-middle-east. The words of Greek Philosophers, Persian and Jewish Sages, "Stories of men who followed despised handicrafts", "Stories of the speech of irrational beasts", of "clowns and simpletons" and "Lunatics and demonics". There's crazy shit in here, natively, but a lot has the added garnish of people translations centuries out of time in a language not even remotely related. So, occasionally you end up with stories such as: Another silly man was asked, "How many years old art thou?" He replied, "I know not, but I have heard my mother say that I was born before the grapes were ripe, 'and', said she, 'thy brother is older than thou by two months and half a year."
Here's a good little spread for you guys:

[containercore]

Here's a book that fits in with Container's above: Book of Laughable Stories, or Book of Entertaining Stories by Bar Hebraeus
Bar Hebraeus is a immensely prominent and prolific figure out of the Edessa milieu of Christian intellectuals, almost the poster child. He was made Maphrian (Grand Metropolitan) of the Syriac Church in the middle 13th century, and went on to write prolifically on metaphysics, regular physics, history, optics, linguistics, economics, logic. He wrote encyclopedias about every branch of extent science of his day, and translated numerous works out of Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He was an incredibly tolerant and well read man. My first encounter with him was his preservation and editing of ancient heretical documents he had previously set out to destroy. Upon reading, he decided instead to keep what he saw as good and throw out the bad, and republish.
The Laughable Stories is a collection of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and stranger people's anecdotes, aphorisms, and stories from the middle-ages-middle-east. The words of Greek Philosophers, Persian and Jewish Sages, "Stories of men who followed despised handicrafts", "Stories of the speech of irrational beasts", of "clowns and simpletons" and "Lunatics and demonics". There's crazy shit in here, natively, but a lot has the added garnish of people translations centuries out of time in a language not even remotely related. So, occasionally you end up with stories such as: Another silly man was asked, "How many years old art thou?" He replied, "I know not, but I have heard my mother say that I was born before the grapes were ripe, 'and', said she, 'thy brother is older than thou by two months and half a year."
Here's a good little spread for you guys:

I like it already!

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