Books
I love libraries. I always have. There's something so amazing being surrounded by so many books to read. I have really started to appreciate it now that I'm in Japan and I can't read things as easily as I can read all English. So on Sunday when I went to the Chou Library because they had a large English-language collection, I again felt that tiny trill of sheer happiness, being surrounded by so many books that I could read. I guess it's a hard feeling to explain to someone who's never lived in a foreign country where it is so hard to actually read literature that the 'dirty secret' that many teachers don't tell you is that even after studying the language for years, you aren't ready to read actual literature.
Nonetheless, I went a little overboard and took out six books. I wanted to put up a small sample of the ones I read to keep a little note for them. I'm still reading Good Omens That Holly got me, but I'm slowly savoring it, and trying to get the library books tucked away first. I've already read two, so I feel that is a quite awesome achievement to squeeze so much reading in between my hectic days.
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, translated by Anne Born. (Whose name is not actually on the cover.) Winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Award.
Quote:
"I have done a lot of reading particularly during the past few years, but earlier too, by all means, and I have thought about what I've read, and that kind of coincidence seems far-fetched in fiction, in modern novels anyway, and I find it hard to accept. It may be all very well in Dickens, but when you read Dickens you're reading a long ballad from a vanished world, where everything has to come together in the end like an equation, where the balance of what was once disturbed must be restored so that the gods can smile again. A consolation, maybe, or a protest against a world gone off the rails, but it is not like that any more, my world is not like that, and I have never gone along with those who believe our lives are governed by fate. They whine, they wash their hands and crave pity. I believe we shape our lives ourselves, at any rate I have shaped mine, for what it's worth, and I take complete responsibility. But of all the places I might have moved to, I had to land up precisely here."
The prose is long and pretty, there are certainly a lot of run-ons, but it's not a bad thing. It's translated beautifully, and I really liked the dreamy mood of the book with the constant flash-backs to the past, and the his father's past. And even after reading it, it didn't answer all the questions, because some where just unknown to him, and I liked that.
The second book I read was Dishwasher by Pete Jordan and it was absolutely hilarious. I think I liked it better because I have dished before, and the idea of a guy trying to dish in all fifty states is amusing, and he's just a good writer.
I got to know Jess better when I learned he'd picked up a dish gig of his own. It was the closing shift at the same restaurant where Jeff had dished the previous year. From having hung out there with Jeff, I already knew my way around that restaurant's sinks. So I showed up with cookies for Jess's first solo night and helped him close up.
This time, instead of Superman, he called me a dishwashing saint. Afterwards, we walked around town. When I saw a penny on the sidewalk, instinctively I stopped and bent down. As my fingers stretched to grasp the loot, Jess's own fingers swooped in and snatched the coin. I was dumb-founded. In all my years of coin-finding, I'd never had competition for pennies.
"Oh, hey man, sorry 'bout that," he said. "Here, you take it." He handed me the penny.
"No, you take it," I said. But he wouldn't take it back.
Jess was truly a kindred soul."
-Later in the book-
"And everywhere I roamed, pennies--if not fancier denominations of coins--awaited my discovery. The coin-finding record was absolutely shattered here as I booked success on thirty-three days days straight! On one of those days, in twelve different finds, I plucked from the ground a total of thirty pennies! The streets of Portland were truly paved with copper.
-When he grabs a job on an oil rig and he was waiting to be flown out and put on the form that he had rode in a helicopter before-
Every five or ten minutes, a helicopter would land and a couple pf guys would hop out, a couple others would hop in, and away the helicopter would go again. Everyone looked so suave, dashing in and out of the helicopters. It was if they all possessed some inside knowledge about flying in copters--knowledge I didn't have.
I marched straight back to the counter, grabbed the clipboard and changed my answer: No, I told the guy, I'd never flown in a helicopter.
"What happens now?" I asked.
He didn't know. He conferred with the other two behind the counter. They weren't sure either. As far as they knew, I was the first person who'd ever answered no to a question that was a mere formality. They discussed the issue among themselves and then led me into a back room. I sat on a couch while one of them put on a safety video and another made popcorn for me. As I watched the presentation--which focused largely on what to do if the helicopter plunged into the sea--the heliport employees looked on and added comments like "That's news to me" and "I never heard that one before."
The warning about not chopping off one's face by stepping into the helicopter's rotary wing made a strong impression on me. So did he warning that I should expect to vomit. I hadn't even considered vomiting. So, for the next few hours, my pacing around the heliport now included worrying about puking in the helicopter.
After four hours of watching everyone else come and go via the blue morning sky, I finally heard my name called. When I ran out to the helicopter, I gave wide birth to the tail rotary wing. I tossed in my duffel bag and hopped into the co-pilot's seat. I strapped myself in, put on the radio headset the pilot handed me--and was still scouting for a good place to vomit when the pilot asked, "All set?"
With all the control panels on all sides of me, the only reasonable place to upchuck was between my legs, onto the windowed floor of the bulbous front end of the helicopter. ....The sensation was so much more surreal than nauseating that I didn't shower the floor with partially digested popcorn after all."
Haha. <3 Anyway, today I'm off on an adventure of my own! But first I want to return my read books, go to the bank, and go and retrieve my bicycle. Wish me luck~!
Nonetheless, I went a little overboard and took out six books. I wanted to put up a small sample of the ones I read to keep a little note for them. I'm still reading Good Omens That Holly got me, but I'm slowly savoring it, and trying to get the library books tucked away first. I've already read two, so I feel that is a quite awesome achievement to squeeze so much reading in between my hectic days.
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, translated by Anne Born. (Whose name is not actually on the cover.) Winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Award.
Quote:
"I have done a lot of reading particularly during the past few years, but earlier too, by all means, and I have thought about what I've read, and that kind of coincidence seems far-fetched in fiction, in modern novels anyway, and I find it hard to accept. It may be all very well in Dickens, but when you read Dickens you're reading a long ballad from a vanished world, where everything has to come together in the end like an equation, where the balance of what was once disturbed must be restored so that the gods can smile again. A consolation, maybe, or a protest against a world gone off the rails, but it is not like that any more, my world is not like that, and I have never gone along with those who believe our lives are governed by fate. They whine, they wash their hands and crave pity. I believe we shape our lives ourselves, at any rate I have shaped mine, for what it's worth, and I take complete responsibility. But of all the places I might have moved to, I had to land up precisely here."
The prose is long and pretty, there are certainly a lot of run-ons, but it's not a bad thing. It's translated beautifully, and I really liked the dreamy mood of the book with the constant flash-backs to the past, and the his father's past. And even after reading it, it didn't answer all the questions, because some where just unknown to him, and I liked that.
The second book I read was Dishwasher by Pete Jordan and it was absolutely hilarious. I think I liked it better because I have dished before, and the idea of a guy trying to dish in all fifty states is amusing, and he's just a good writer.
I got to know Jess better when I learned he'd picked up a dish gig of his own. It was the closing shift at the same restaurant where Jeff had dished the previous year. From having hung out there with Jeff, I already knew my way around that restaurant's sinks. So I showed up with cookies for Jess's first solo night and helped him close up.
This time, instead of Superman, he called me a dishwashing saint. Afterwards, we walked around town. When I saw a penny on the sidewalk, instinctively I stopped and bent down. As my fingers stretched to grasp the loot, Jess's own fingers swooped in and snatched the coin. I was dumb-founded. In all my years of coin-finding, I'd never had competition for pennies.
"Oh, hey man, sorry 'bout that," he said. "Here, you take it." He handed me the penny.
"No, you take it," I said. But he wouldn't take it back.
Jess was truly a kindred soul."
-Later in the book-
"And everywhere I roamed, pennies--if not fancier denominations of coins--awaited my discovery. The coin-finding record was absolutely shattered here as I booked success on thirty-three days days straight! On one of those days, in twelve different finds, I plucked from the ground a total of thirty pennies! The streets of Portland were truly paved with copper.
-When he grabs a job on an oil rig and he was waiting to be flown out and put on the form that he had rode in a helicopter before-
Every five or ten minutes, a helicopter would land and a couple pf guys would hop out, a couple others would hop in, and away the helicopter would go again. Everyone looked so suave, dashing in and out of the helicopters. It was if they all possessed some inside knowledge about flying in copters--knowledge I didn't have.
I marched straight back to the counter, grabbed the clipboard and changed my answer: No, I told the guy, I'd never flown in a helicopter.
"What happens now?" I asked.
He didn't know. He conferred with the other two behind the counter. They weren't sure either. As far as they knew, I was the first person who'd ever answered no to a question that was a mere formality. They discussed the issue among themselves and then led me into a back room. I sat on a couch while one of them put on a safety video and another made popcorn for me. As I watched the presentation--which focused largely on what to do if the helicopter plunged into the sea--the heliport employees looked on and added comments like "That's news to me" and "I never heard that one before."
The warning about not chopping off one's face by stepping into the helicopter's rotary wing made a strong impression on me. So did he warning that I should expect to vomit. I hadn't even considered vomiting. So, for the next few hours, my pacing around the heliport now included worrying about puking in the helicopter.
After four hours of watching everyone else come and go via the blue morning sky, I finally heard my name called. When I ran out to the helicopter, I gave wide birth to the tail rotary wing. I tossed in my duffel bag and hopped into the co-pilot's seat. I strapped myself in, put on the radio headset the pilot handed me--and was still scouting for a good place to vomit when the pilot asked, "All set?"
With all the control panels on all sides of me, the only reasonable place to upchuck was between my legs, onto the windowed floor of the bulbous front end of the helicopter. ....The sensation was so much more surreal than nauseating that I didn't shower the floor with partially digested popcorn after all."
Haha. <3 Anyway, today I'm off on an adventure of my own! But first I want to return my read books, go to the bank, and go and retrieve my bicycle. Wish me luck~!