I started reading this Japan book I got from Boskone (This Country Japan [Edward Seidensticker]); turns out to be a lot of disconnected essays. First one is about the use of nature and seasons in art, especially the Tale of Genji. Japanese art tends to be very specific, with recognizable plants, not just general foliage. Likewise, for a harem ( Read more... )

A followup to my previous first person narrative post ( Read more... )

Hanging out on /r/fanfiction recently, I've run across multiple people who hate 1st person narrators. This baffles me, like "I won't read books by women" or "I won't read books with a girl lead". There are so many great 1st POV books out there, including seminal works of the genre or its penumbra as well as 'literature': Frankenstein, Dracula, ( Read more... )

Somehow I found myself at this trove, and reading some of his essays ( Read more... )