The October, 2024 Reading List

 

The time has come again to post a list of books that I've read this past month. With ten books, October leads the year in total number of books read per month.

Two of these books were recommended by the folks at the Commentary Magazine daily podcast; one of those being written by a podcast regular, Christine Rosen - The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World. The second book - Israel Alone by Bernard-Henri Lévy.

In her book, Rosen discusses the cultural and emotional difficulties stemming from our addiction to modern technology.

Israel Alone focuses on the isolation of Israel and the tragedy of October 7, 2023 starting with Lévy’s eyewitness account the day after the attack by Hamas terrorists.

Two of the books on the list were written by one of my favorite modern writers - Haruki Murakami. The 1985 novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and the 2004 novel, After Dark.

I wrote about three of the books making the list in a previous blog post - Arthur Koestler's Trilogy .

The three remaining books making the list were written by this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Han Kang. 

A review of her first novel, The Vegetarian can be found by following this link. Four of Han's novels have been translated into English; three made my October reading list. In addition to The Vegetarian, I managed to finish The White Book, described as "an exploration of personal grief through the prism of the color white", and Human Acts , a story one boy's death during the Gwangju Uprising of 18 May 1980 in South Korea.

The list:

The Extinction of Experience    Christine Rosen

Israel Alone           Bernard-Henri Lévy

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World    Haruki Murakami

After Dark                  Haruki Murakami

The Gladiators           Arthur Koestler

Darkness at Noon       Arthur Koestler

Arrival and Departure  Arthur Koestler

The Vegetarian             Han Kang

The White Book            Han Kang

Human Acts                  Han Kang               

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

When I first read that Han Kang had become the first South Korean writer and the first female Asian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature I decided to look into her work. As of this writing, four of her books have been translated into English - the book receiving the most "buzz" is her 2007 novel, The Vegetarian. Wikipedia describes the book as being "set in modern-day Seoul and tells the story of Yeong-hye, a part-time graphic artist and home-maker, whose decision to stop eating meat after a bloody nightmare about human cruelty leads to devastating consequences in her personal and familial life". That description wasn't enough to encourage me to read the book, but in spite of that ho-hum description Han's winning the Noble Prize led me to download the ebook and place it in the queue.

I'm glad I did. The book is much more than the wikipedia description would have one believe. There are elements dealing with abuse, sexual infidelity and mental illness. Han takes the story to places I did not expect it to go. The Vegetarian has received much deserved international critical acclaim and a number of prestigious awards. After reading this novel, I'll certainly add more of Han's work into the queue.

However, not everyone in Korea is pleased with Han and The Vegetarian. The Confederation of National Parents' Associations in Korea has called for the removal of The Vegetarian from school libraries, arguing that it is harmful to minors. The group says that the extreme and violent content - as well as the sexual content - makes the novel inappropriate for elementary, middle or high school students. I would add that the portions of the novel dealing with mental illness make the book a difficult read for children in that age group.

As much as I believe that this book is well deserving of praise, I don't believe it is a book for younger audiences. I don't feel comfortable with book bans, in general, but there are some books which elementary, middle or high school students shouldn't be encouraged to read.The Vegetarian is one such book.

Arthur Koestler's Trilogy

 

In the early 1980s, I came upon a copy of Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon in my public library and until recently, I believed that, in spite of the fact that I couldn't remember story details, I had read the novel. I wanted to "reread" the book recently and discovered that the book is part of a trilogy on, as Koestler wrote in a postscript to the third novel, "the conflict between morality and expediency".

If I was to "reread" Darkness at Noon, I wanted to read the the other novels in the trilogy as well. The first novel in the series is The Gladiators which portrays the effects of the Spartacus revolt of 73 BC in the Roman Republic. The novel was certainly interesting, but I would not classify it as a "must-read". If I were to grade it on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give the book, perhaps a 6.5 at best. One odd problem with the book is the mentioning of the Romans eating "corn". At first, I thought Koestler's translator was using the word, as it is sometimes used in British English, as a generic term for cereal grain. However, at one point, the word was translated as "maize" which is strictly "Indian corn". Maize was not available to the Romans before the Columbian exchange in the late 15th Century. I put that error on the translator.

It didn't take long into my reading of Darkness at Noon to admit that I did not read the book in the 1980s as I had imagined. Unlike the first book in the trilogy, I would classify this book as a classic and a "must-read". The novel is set between 1938 and 1940, after the Stalinist Great Purge and Moscow show trials. I would put this novel along side Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Albert Camus' The Stranger.

The third novel in Arthur Koestler's trilogy is Arrival and Departure. This was Koestler's first novel written originally in English. According to wikipedia, Arrival and Departure "is often considered to be the weakest of the three. " I wouldn't agree. While not exactly reaching the level of Darkness at Noon , I believe it is better than The Gladiators. The time line and theme of the third book in the trilogy is much closer to the second than is the story of the Spartacus revolt.

If one has the time and inclination, then read the entire trilogy. If you don't have the time, read Darkness at Noon. As I said, that one is a "must-read".

The September, 2024 Reading List

 

Today is the last day of the month, so the list of books read this month is called for. September is a relatively short month, but I still managed seven books - that's about average for me.

You might say the September list was inspired by Japanese writer, Akimitsu Takagi. Four of the seven listed were written by Takagi; two of the seven were mystery novels by other writers, but were books mentioned by Takagi in one of his novels. Only one book, The Lady of the Barge & Other stories by W.W. Jacobs, is in no way related to Takagi.

I've written blog posts on four of the books on the list - The Tattoo Murder Case by Akimitsu Takagi, The Three Coffins (AKA The Hollow Man) by John Dickson Carr, The Noh Mask Murder and The Informer, both written by Akimitsu Takagi.

I wanted to read S.S.Van Dine's The Greene Murder Case because it was mentioned favorably in The Noh Mask Murder. This, in spite of my having read another in Van Dine's Philo Vance series and not being impressed. The Greene Murder Case turned out to be better than I had expected.

Takagi's The Informer was top notch. Like all of Takagi's work, I highly recommend it.

The outlier in this month's list is W. W. Jacobs' The Lady of the Barge & Other stories. This book is a collection of short stories by the English writer. The most famous story in the collection is The Monkey's Paw, which was adapted into film in 1915, 1923, 1933, 1948, 2008 and 2013. My interest in reading the collection came from Commentary Magazine's John Podhoretz mentioning The Monkey's Paw on the magazine's podcast, in reference to the idea that wishing for something you shouldn't wish for can lead to tragic consequences.

Some of Jacobs' stories are humorous, while others are meant to be "horror" stories. The horror stories aren't really frightening by today's standards, but the book is, by and large, entertaining.

So now, the list:

The Tattoo Murder Case   by Akimitsu Takagi
The Hollow Man (The 3 Coffins)  by John Dickson Carr
The Noh Mask Murder   by Akimitsu Takagi
The Informer    by Akimitsu Takagi
Honeymoon to Nowhere   by Akimitsu Takagi
The Greene Murder Case   by S.S. Van Dine
The Lady of the Barge & Other stories   by W. W. Jacobs