The April 2024 Reading List

 The latest list:

Spiral (Ring 2)  by Koji Suzuki
Replay  by Ken Grimwood
Loop (Ring 3)  by Koji Suzuki
Past Master  by R. A. Lafferty
Utopia  by Thomas More
The Double  by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Small House at Allington  by Anthony Trollope

The Ring Series by Koji Suzuki - Book Three - "Loop".

 

Having finished books 1 and 2 in Koji Suzuki's Ring series, rather than go immediately to book 3, I took a detour with Ken Grimwood's Replay. In my earlier post on the Ring series I said that there will be more to follow once I'd read the remaining books. That time has come.

The Ring series was originally conceived as a trilogy - with a collection of short stories coming in 1999 to put an end to the series. More than 20 years after the first book in the trilogy was written, 2 more novels were written in 2012 and 2013. I've read the 3rd book making up the original trilogy; the additional books will come later. If Suzuki could wait 20 years, I can put them off for a bit.

Loop begins very differently than the first two. Ring and Spiral have both been described as Japanese horror/mystery novels - and they are that - Loop however, fits more into the Sci -fi genre. No horror at all, as I see it. It is so different that I could not see how the stories could be related - at least until I was 30% into the book. Even when I couldn't find a connection, I was still enthralled; and when I finished reading the book, I was all the more impressed with Suzuki's talent as a writer and storyteller.

As usual, I'm not inclined to give spoilers; I will say that I can highly recommend this trilogy.

The Ring Series by Koji Suzuki

 

About eight or nine months ago, I came upon a web page giving a list of the 65 Best Japanese Books of All Time. Of course, this list was right in my wheelhouse. I made a copy of the list and downloaded not only the 65 books listed, but anything I could find in English by all the authors named.

I had read a few of the books prior to coming upon the list and a few more since then. One of the books making the list is a Japanese, mystery/horror novel, Ring by Koji Suzuki which I read in March.

Suzuki's Ring series was originally written as a trilogy - Ring (1991), Spiral (1995), Loop (1998). In 1999, a short story collection, Birthday was added to the series. Finally, two additional novels were added - S (2012) and Tide (2013). Unfortunately, Tide has not been translated into English.

As of this writing, I've read the first two books in the series.

I'm not inclined to give spoilers, but I will give the first paragraph of a wikipedia description of Ring:
"This story is set in present-day Tokyo. When four teenagers mysteriously die one night at the same time, Kazuyuki Asakawa, a journalist and uncle to one of the teens, takes a particular interest in the case and investigates. This leads him to a holiday resort called Hakone Pacific Island, where the four teens stayed one week before their death. There he watches a videotape left behind in their room which contains a series of abstract and realistic images. At the end of the sequence of cryptic and disturbing images, a warning appears: 'The one who saw these images is destined to die in one week at this time. If you do not wish to die, do as will be said from now on. That is—' but the rest is erased by an advertisement. This has a strange mental effect on Kazuyuki, who immediately believes that the tape has now placed its mark on him".

I enjoyed the first novel so much that, of course, I'd go on to book two. After I had finished reading the first book, I thought I had a good idea how book two might progress. I was surprised from the very first page. The events were not going as I had thought. To me, book two (Spiral) is even better than the first. The remaining books in the series will be most definitely put into the queue.

On a side note - several films have been produced based on the novels, in Japanese, Korean and English. I'll look to see if the Japanese and Korean films are available online with English subtitles. I watched the first American film from 2002 and while interesting, it doesn't live up to the first book. The film strays too far for my tastes.

There will be more to follow once I've read the remaining books.

The March, 2024 Reading List

 

Anyone who is even slightly familiar with this blog knows that I am an avid reader; I am constantly looking for recommendations for books to download. When a book recommendation does pique my interest, I'll go to a particular website that is basically an online library where almost every book imaginable is available. I'll come upon the name of an author and download everything the author has published in English. As a consequence, I have more e-books than I can read in my lifetime. The e-books will be filed away, to be retrieved later.

Just before finishing 1Q84by Haruki Murakami I went to my digital library for an e-book to put into the queue for March. I don't recall exactly when I downloaded Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck - the file properties says Feb.14- and I couldn't remember where the recommendation for the novel came from. I did a web search for Erpenbeck and the reviews I found for her work were very impressive. Visitation was the first book I read this month. Sadly, I was disappointed.

From a review on themodernnovel.org:
"Erpenbeck really does an excellent job of showing German history of the twentieth century in such a short book. The valuables hidden in the lake when the Soviets arrive and buried when the architect leaves the area are equated with the burial of the bodies of local Jews found in the forest. Erpenbeck has written not a Holocaust novel nor an East German novel but a German novel, warts and all, showing us that Germany has buried its past but, like the bodies of the Jews or the valuables hidden in the lake, everything come back to the surface sooner or later. Everything except the gardener, who disappears."

If you're looking for a fictionalized account of German history of the twentieth century you be better off reading Günter Grass.

Next on the list for March is The Girl of his Dreams by Donna Leon. This is #17 in Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti series. It's no secret that I'm a fan of the series.

From time to time, I'll get book recommendations from the books I'm reading. That was the case when I reread,last year, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when I discovered the book was a favorite of Japanese writer Kenzaburō Ōe. It was also the case when I came upon a character in a book by Haruki Murakami who had a copy of Oliver Twist in their library. At one time, both books would have been considered classics in literature, but have fallen out of favor due to the racist views of Twain and Charles Dickens.

Oliver Twist became book # 3 for March. Dickens' antisemitism may have been typical for people of his social class in the 19th Century, but it makes reading his books today difficult. In Oliver Twist, Fagin is particularly despicable - so is Bill Sikes for that matter; but in the case of Fagin, Dickens is forever reminding us that he is a Jew. Dickens could have just as easily portrayed Fagin as a villain without the antisemitism.

Ring by Koji Suzuki is the first in a series of Japanese mystery horror novels by the writer. His second book in the series will be the first in April's reading list.

#5 on the March book list is Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami. Wikipedia describes the novel as..... "a Bildungsroman that tells the story of Japanese railroad engineer Tsukuru Tazaki". Haruki Murakami continues to live up to my expectations.

Next on the list is The Three-Body Problem by Chinese Sci Fi writer Liu Cixin. The book is the first in a trilogy, Remembrance of Earth's Past. The book has recently been released as a Netflix movie and was highly recommended by the folks at the Commentary Magazine podcast. I have to say that I can't add my recommendation. Most of the book went right over my head and I had difficulty following along. It's unlikely that I'll finish the trilogy.

Reading Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki as a bildungsroman brought to mind another novel which falls into that category - Demian by Hermann Hesse. I read Demian fifty years ago, so needless to say, I remembered very little of it. It was so long ago that I'm not 100% certain I actually finished it. I have two translations of the book in my digital library; the 1965 English translation by Michael Roloff & Michael Lebeck and the 2013 translation by Damion Searls. I couldn't decide which version I should read so I read the two simultaneously. I have to say I prefer Searls translation. According to Wikipedia, there are three additional English translations, although I was unable to locate a free ebook version of those. There is, however, an English translation from 1923 by N. H. Priday available as an audiobook at Internet Archive.

The next book on the list was also a recommendation from the Commentary Magazine podcast. A Brutal Design by Zachary Solomon is a nightmarish, dystopian novel. It starts off Kaffaesque and then quickly branches off into a world that is a cross between Yevgeny Zamyatin and Mikhail Bulgakov.

Now, for the list:

Visitation    by Jenny Erpenbeck
The Girl of his Dreams    by Donna Leon
Oliver Twist   by Charles Dickens
Ring    by Koji Suzuki
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage  by Haruki Murakami
The Three-Body Problem  by Liu Cixin
Demian   by Hermann Hesse (Tr. Michael Roloff & Michael Lebeck)
Demian   by Hermann Hesse (Tr.Damion Searls)
A Brutal Design   by Zachary Solomon