It's here! It's here! It's here!

[gurdymonkey]

No, not Harry Potter And The Whatever of Whosis. My book shipment from Cornell University Press showed up today. I will have most excellent things to read on my flight.

Sacred Rites In Moonlight (Ben no Naishi Nikki), the diary of a 13th c. lady courtier (one of Saionji's contemporaries!!!!) in the service of Emperor Go Fukakusa. (Enough with the gutter luge, vsct_caius. That's a real name. "U" is pronounced "oo" in Japanese - except when it's not pronounced at all.)

And In Little Need Of Divine Intervention. 1066 had the Bayeux Tapestry. 13th century Japan has the Mongol Invasion scrolls commissioned by Takezaki Suenaga, who fought against them. This should be particularly interesting as I recently finished reading Andrew Bridgeford's 1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry.

Oh, to resist their siren call and save them for those long hours when I will need their diversion!

Comments

You must be the only one

[yolsgaard.livejournal.com]

That isn't obsessing about Harry Potter. Even I am doing so. My shipment is lost, I think. Will check post awful tomorrow. Sigh

Re: You must be the only one

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it and it suits My Curmudgeonly Nature.

I read the first HP after seeing the first movie and thought, "Yeah, OK, it's cute and you'll think that Erised ('desire' spelled backwards) is incredibly clever if you're 12." I lay the blame upon Dear Dad, purveyor of fat, weighty Victorian novels, thick with descriptive prose and elaborate vocabulary - and the sort of names that Rowling might not have invented if she did not have the Dickensian tradition to inspire her. Two or three HPs was plenty for me. I confess I read the last one and found myself getting irritated that it took SO long for Hogwarts to rise up in revolt against whatserface. Bloody stiff upper lip English. No wonder they couldn't keep the Colonies.

I have set myself a reading routine as I do a great deal of it on my work week lunch hour. If I've just finished a work of fiction, I try to follow it with a work of non-fiction. Sometimes I don't, but it keeps things varied. I like my fiction intelligent, I like my non-fiction full of footnotes.

[reynardine.livejournal.com]

Yes, I got my copies a couple of days ago and am salivating! I also picked up the one about Capital and Countryside in Japan: 300-1180. Some interesting essays in there. A few are of political nature but there were two about travel during the Heian period which look to be useful.

I read a few chapters into The Principles of Poetry by Hagiwara Sakutaro and am riveted. It is a modern work (the poet flourished during the Taisho and early Showa periods), but I've been making inroads into modern Japanese tanka. It's fascinating to compare what this guy thinks against the essays of Ki no Tsurayuki and Fujiwara no Teika. Why, yes, I am a poetry geek. ;-D

re: Harry Potter, I don't think it's great literature or anything, but it's a fun read. I love the names she comes up with, very droll. It's neat to see kids getting excited about reading, ne?

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

I could easily have bought more books than I did, but I have to budget for Pennsic, car insurance and putting some money aside for a brake job that I will probably be due for in a month or two.

If you go back about a week, I did a "Formative Reads" entry. Potter is aimed at an audience of a particular age. At that age I was already reading adult literature. So when I finally read "Sorcerer's Stone," (after seeing the movie), I recall thinking that a lot of the names were derivatively Dickensian. I also decoded "Erised" without thinking about it because I can read backward and upside down.

In other words, we can blame my lack of Potter-mania on my Dad. ;-D