There's a used book store on the corner down from my house and I saw some nice-looking books with those slide covers, so I decided to check them out. Before long, names I recognized from Modern Japanese Literature class senior year popped up, starting with Kawabata Yasunari. I got excited and kept looking and eventually found Mishima Yukio and Akutagawa Ryunosuke, too! The only thing left to determine whether I would buy them or not was the price - after all, these may be used but they were nice books. I went into the store for the first time and asked the guy: 100 yen each. That's about $1.20 for each 300-500 page book of classic modern literature each. YES, very YES.
I don't even know how well I can read these, but I was excited to see a couple of stories I recognized from that class or from having read the English version, and that was enough to get me going. Still, I still am not anywhere near the end of 1Q84 by any stretch of the imagination and I also bought a new book recently called Muri (「無理」), which is about the lives of five people living in a small town in Japan being forced by the government to merge with other small towns, a trend that's been very common lately during the recession and pretty much only benefits the government while disrupting the economies and societies of the towns. There are so many things to learn about! I feel like a total nerd, in the best way. I am so excited, not only by learning new things, but just at the possibility of learning new things!!
1 comment:
did you buy Rashomon?!?
Post a Comment