Just finished Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians”. It’s excellent, and I’ve not read a fantasy that gripped my attention all the way for a long while. I’m anticipating the release of the sequel here, no idea when taiwan will get it though.
Currently 250 pages into “A Game of Thrones” after catching a few episodes from the HBO series. While the tv series was really well done, I’m addicted to the book, and have decided to finish watching the series after I’m done with the book. So far book trumps show - anyone one else watching/reading this thinks so?
[quote=“ThreadKiller”][quote=“Ecaps”]I just finished Formosan Odyssey: Taiwan Past and Present by John Ross. I can’t believe I’ve been here a decade and never read this…
Wrote more about it on my blog (link below, if interested).[/quote]
Aw … c’mon: at least give us a hint about it here.[/quote]
OK, fair enough…
“Along with beer, Ross seems to be a big fan of Taiwanese history and offers up some pretty interesting bits from yesteryear: George MacKay, the tooth-pulling Canadian missionary in Danshui, absolutely riveting stories of aboriginal head-hunters (there are pictures!) and harrowing tales of British POWs in Japanese-run work camps during the Second World War. For anyone remotely interested in Taiwanese history but uninterested in reading the typical, highly politicized books on the market, Formosan Odyssey is a really fun start.”
I finally got around to reading the first book in the Game of Thrones series. I needed to see what all the hype was about. I’ll admit that it was a hell of a lot more readable than the vat majority of fantasy novels and I enjoyed it but I still don’t understand the hype.
Finished Rice by Su Tong (童忠贵) a few nights ago. It is the first novel translated from Chinese that I have read. A stupendously fast read.
Beautifully worded (and apparently the translator has a good reputation, himself), but delightfully horrid. How unhappy with life could one be to write something like this? It reminds me of Athol Fugard’s journals and his lament (which was something along the lines of) “Where has my joy gone?”
Rice is about Five Dragons, an orphan running from the flooding that occurred in the 1930s. He’s accepted into a family that runs a rice emporium - but only as a near slave. His rise from there is meteoric and the absolute lack of love between family members from then on is bleak. Fear, hatred, and crippling others - that’s all this family knows and all this novel knows. I think I enjoyed it - nice to know that the horror is felt everywhere. The protagonist’s/antagonist’s only joy is rice and inserting it into women.
Su Tong wrote the novel that became Raise the Red Lantern. I’d recommend Rice if you want a nasty little expose of life. If you need things nicer, don’t even touch the book. This is one I will remember as a stark and beautiful entry into Chinese literature.[/quote]
I read that a few years back. What a great/horrible story!
I mentioned in another thread that I just finished George Kerr’s book Formosa: Licensed Revolution and the Home Rule Movement, 1895-1945. Excellent stuff.
It’s been taking me ages to get through books lately. I finally finished Blood Meridian the other day. I liked the book at first, but I think it dropped away a bit towards the end, but the actual writing was incredible. He has such an awesome way with words. The whole thing was like a very vivid dream. Also, the violence didn’t shock me at all. I have heard a lot of people put it down at least once because of the violence. I’ve heard they’re going to make it into a movie in the next few years, but I suspect the movie will completely suck because they will water it down so much, both because of the violence and because it’s so un-PC about the Indians.
I loved “Blood Merridan”, I couldn’t put it down. Sure it’s violent, and some scenes would be unfilmable, and which actor could play the Judge, one of the most memorable literary characters ever created. I also highly recommend “Sutree”, one of my favourite McCarthy’s novel,tough going in parts but worth a read.
Dougster: I think they would sanitise the crap out of it. The violence, and I mean really extreme violence, is fundamental to the book. I’m not sure they’d get away with smashing babies on rocks on film. Also, I think there’d be a major PC backlash for portraying the Indians as savages, rather than noble savages, hard done by the evil white man. The thing that I liked about the story was that there really were no redeemable characters. I’m going to read McCarthy again, for sure, but I want to read a few other books first.
Finished A feast for Crows, and thus all the A Song of Ice and Fire books currently available in Taiwan/Tainan. Not sure when I’ll be able to get a hold of A Dance with Dragons, so I guess I’ll have to find something else to read for a while.
I’ve read all of James Clavell’s books in The Asian Saga except King Rat. I might give that a go.
Have now finished A Clash of Kings, finally! Took me a while to get my hands on the second game of thrones book, be I did. I reviewed it at my blog, linked below.
Excellent account of the horrendous shape of the worlds’ fisheries, but written as part travelogue, part cookbook, part how to (eat sustainably), part participatory journalism as the writer travels the world to sample all the aquatic delicacies before they are gone. This is a rare book: a highly entertaining environmental warning story.
Chewie, surely you aren’t Looney enough to believe Shakespeare did not write his own plays?
It is the first novel translated from Chinese that I have read. A stupendously fast read.
