Song of a Reformed Headhunter

My big summer reading book was The Tale of Genji , which I read and blogged about in an earlier post. My feelings toward the book are colored by the start of summer and by summer's long afternoons in Central Park. I borrowed from the school library E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime , which I liked enough to be happy to find another novel by him in the apartment in Nice. The   Waterworks , my second Doctorow, has a rather predictable plot and characters that seem more symbol than flesh-and-blood. It is a pleasant enough way, however, to learn more about New York City in 1871. For instance, where the New York Library now stands, there used to be a reservoir. My second loan from the school library was Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground . I swear that I have tried to read the great D many times, but failed every time to get past Chapter One. I thought that the slimness of Notes might help me get into the great Russian, and, boy, did it. I loved its tortured protagonist, who tries so...

Reading Genji monogatari i s like dreaming a beautiful and sad dream. The splendor of Genji's person, aptly captured in his nickname the Shining Lord, is marvelous. As is the splendor of his power after his return frome exile at Suma, cosmically represented by his house at Rokujo, with its four quarters and gardens corresponding to the seasons of the year. Yet splendor passes, as Genji first realizes when his father the Emperor dies. The Edo period Japanese cultural scholar Motoori Norinaga first formulated the concept of mono no aware in his criticism of the Tale .  The "pathos of things" reaches its highest pitch in the death of Lady Murasaki, the wife that Genji loved above all. In a moment of reprieve from her illness, Murasaki grieves to imagine Genji's despair when she dies: Alas, not for long will you see what you do now: any breath of wind may spill from a hagi frond the last trembling drop of dew. Genji answers, with unbearable poignancy, When al...