<p>My eyes are bothering me lately.Sad but true.</p>
<p>Padad:</p>
<p>I’m really interested in what you are saying, but I think I’m missing something about the connection between Su’s poem and Dai’s novel. (I can’t remember, does Dai call the mountain on which he lives in the book “Phoenix Mountain”?) My understanding is that the framing situation of the book – two artistic, intellectual teenage boys from Chengdu are sent to a peasant village in the mountains of Sichuan for re-education through work during the Cultural Revolution – in fact corresponds to Dai’s biography. Obviously, any regret in the book comes not from failing to meet the female source of beauty, but from too-intimate knowledge of her, and from over-developing the “natural” beauty the boys fall in love with. Of course, I would have missed any allusions to classical Chinese literature, but the parallels to Shaw’s Pygmalion, to Madame Bovary, to Vanity Fair, and to lots of Balzac are fairly explicit.</p>
<p>JHS, Yes, to your question on Phoenix Mountain. The parallels you cited are obviously there but that would be true for any stories that touch on universal themes. To me, the narrator’s regret is clearly there, not as much for not knowing her more intimately but for the brief encounter at a distance and its memories. Su’s poem started to run through my head a few pages into the novel, and i suspect that would be true for many who are familiar with Su. </p>
<p>Needless to say, seeing allusions are unnecesary for enjoying a book. I do have a personal story on it though. Some years ago i was at a bookstore flipping through Anita Brookner’s “Incidents at the Rue Langiere”, where the first line was “My mother read a lot, sighed a lot and went to bed early”. I turned to the woman I was with and noted to her that the mother must be reading Proust’s “in Search of Lost Time”, in which the first line was “lately, i have been going to bed early”. The “sigh” is obviously from the title which in its first English translation was “remembrance of things past”, taken from the Shakespeare lines: “I summon up remembrance of things past”, followed by “I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought”. We flipped through the book some more and confirmed it. The evening ended very well indeed.</p>
<p>mercymom - “Rising Tide” was a really good book. I give it 4 stars. “Devil in the White City” was another good one somebody mentioned.</p>
<p>My lips move when I read so if I actually make it all the way through a book it usually takes a month or two. Right now I am reading “Tuition Rising = Why college cost so much” by Ronald Ehrenberg. It is an interesting example of how a trained economist can get all his facts straight and still reach an erroneous conclusion.</p>
<p>Padad: Thanks a ton. I had loved Dai’s project to imagine a 19th Century European novel about a 20th Century Chinese peasant reading 19th Century European novels, but had obviously missed his project to imagine a classical Chinese poem about a 20th Century Chinese peasant reading 19th Century European novels. I have to get my hands on a decent translation of the Su poem (preferably a French translation).</p>
<p>I read the book (“karlmarx.com”) by Susan Coll, author of a new book mentioned above, “acceptance,” and I thought it was weak. I read the book because it got a good review. Then again this was not surprising because her husband was a big shot at the newspaper at the time her first book was published and reviewed. Maybe she has developed as a writer since then.</p>
<p>I just finished The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss. Great book!</p>
<p>Mountains Beyond Mountains - Tracy Kidder’s book about Dr. Paul Farmer. Fascinating!</p>
<p>Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.</p>
<p>Curiousmother, History of Love was one of my favorites!</p>
<p>Now I must buy Dai’s book. I have seen it but not purchased it.</p>
<p>I just finished ‘The Road’, by Cormac McCarthy, recommended by DotX, and now I have a raging head cold. The two events are related I think :eek:. Anyone else read it? </p>
<p>Also, I recently finished “Evidence of Things Unseen” which I enjoyed immensely although I couldn’t quite follow Wiggin’s billboard-sized hints to Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’. I did sense a structure similar to Dante’s Inferno but again, couldn’t quite pick out all the levels of hell. </p>
<p>padad, what a treat to read your analysis of Dai. If you’ve read the following Chinese novels, would you mind sharing possible Chinese references in :</p>
<p>‘Soul Mountain’</p>
<p>‘One Man’s Bible’</p>
<p>‘War Trash’</p>
<p>One of the fun things about the Internet is where following up something will take you:</p>
<p>Su Tung-p’o – On Crowning a Tranquil Life</p>
<p>Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.</p>
<p>I have to read Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, especially since Balzac is one of my favorite authors. I did see the movie (excellent), however, and later talked to a Chinese scholar who’d grown up during the Cultural Revolution. The furtive reading of foreign literature was spot on, he said. Thanks for pointing the connection to Su Tung-po. </p>
<p>We’re reading Gabriel Josipovici, Goldberg Variations (I should say, I’m reading it, as H loved it and passed it on to me). It’s a variation (what else) on Bach’s idea, with a touch of Scheherazade. In 1800, a rich man can’t sleep and hires a German-Jewish novelist named Samuel Goldberg to tell him stories. The novel progresses, fugue-like, in 30 chapters.</p>
<p>Roshke,
I read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen over the Christmas holidays…It’s a good read…Funny how both History of Love and Water for Elephants start with an old man!</p>
<p>Yesterday, I had a long walk and a long coffee with one of my best friends, a Korean woman. I had a dilema involving my Korean client and I asked for her advice.</p>
<p>First she told me that Koreans are very emotional people while Americans are very logical people. Then she told me a fable.</p>
<p>A famous Korean monk goes into the mountains to gain enlightenment. After many days he is starving and thirsty. He is nearly at the point of death when, one night, he crawls into a cave. At the bottomof the cave, he finds a round bowl filled with water. He drinks it and the water fills him with happiness. He sleeps. The next morning, the monks wakes and discovers that the bowl was a human skull. Instantly, he is filled with revulsion and can hardly stop vomiting. Some time later, the monk gets his enlightenment which is this: The mind controls everything.</p>
<p>Well, I did not get the moral of that tale. She asked me to put myself in the monk’s place. I didn’t think I would be vomiting the next day. I would be happy to be alive. Period. She said I would be happy becuase I am logical, not emotional. This should be my insight into my Korean client.</p>
<p>Forget allusions! I must be missing whole swaths of meaning when I read Chang-Rae Lee.</p>
<p>Love fantasy and science fiction- even took a literature course P/F in it eons ago in college, learned how the genre is just as valid as other fiction (the ongoing disagreement with H). Finally got into the Terry Goodkind series and just finished #11 - Phantom- when my turn at the library came up, final book won’t be out until fall. While waiting for #11 of the Sword of Truth Series I started the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan, in the midst of # 9, sometimes it pays to wait to read books until you can read many in a series instead of having to wait for the next one… Some similarities in the two series- the old lit course points start emerging from the depths of my brain. Jordan has more character development and complexity.</p>
<p>I visit the local (or out of town whenever we travel) bookstore to see scifi/fantasy titles I like then visit the library (online) to get as many as I can there, even many good books aren’t worth buying more bookshelves to dust… Computerized catalog and reserving books to be sent to the closest branch is wonderful.</p>
<p>Waiting for the July 21st final Harry Potter book (H P…Deathly Hallows)- as in the past I figure college freshman son will get it (ordered and paid for by me)and I’ll get to read it when he’s done. His age has paralleled the main characters’ so each book was age appropriate when it came out. He reads even faster, with better recall, than I do- I only have to wait a day or two for my chance…</p>
<p>Ooooh, wis75 I agree. It’s always better to read a SF series after the whole has been published! Whenever I get it in my head to take on an author as I am right now (Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle…3 wonderfully long novels), I buy the entire series. That way when I finish one at 1:00 AM, I can just keep going on to the next!!!</p>
<p>I have a tried an true way of dealing with HP books. I wait until my D falls asleep reading it and stay up all night reading.</p>
<p>Sleep, who needs it!!!</p>
<p>Who recommended "The World to Come’? I loved it–up until the last chapter. Thanks to all for the great suggestions!</p>
<p>I am reading Joan Didion’s book “The Year of Magical Thinking.” It is among the aspects of my current day to day life which make me feel very, very grateful for the life I have. Besides, she is breathtakingly honest without being melodramatic. I am not sure how.</p>
<p>anitaw, I have always loved Joan Didion’s writing and “The Year of Magical Thinking” was wonderful and heartbreaking. Beautifully and honestly written, the fact that I knew that even more tragedy was ahead for her while I was reading it, made it even more poignant. She has now adapted it to a play which just began previews on Broadway this past week, with Vanessa Redgrave playing the role. I am looking forward to seeing it next month.</p>
<p>Always…thanks for that. I will have to look into it for an upcoming swing through NY.</p>