Tag: books read 2012

The Books of 2012

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My Library at LibraryThing One might think that the animated parade above of the covers of the fifty-some books (plus a couple I’m partway through at the moment, which I’m counting since they were and will continue to be huge reading projects) is not bad for a year’s reading… but if you look closely at my list of books (there’s a list below), you’ll find a couple of things worth noting. Some of the books are short; some are game books (which are usually short as well); some are slim tomes of verse. I actually felt like I didn’t get …

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Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin, and Some Thoughts on Culture-Specific Modes of Reading

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Last semester, a student of mine gave me a paperback copy of the English translation of Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin. It was a very kind gesture, and I appreciated it very much. This whole culture of gifting professors–sometimes before exams, which is a little uncomfortable, but more often after–is rather nice. I’ll be honest, though: while some mainstream Korean literature I’ve found enjoyable, a lot of it leaves me kind of cold, for reasons that remind me of things my own students say when I ask them to interpret texts. I find that the standard mode of …

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The Mays of Ventadorn by W.S. Merwin

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The Mays of Ventadorn
This entry is part 27 of 57 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

While I must admit to having read none of Merwin’s poetry, I found myself quite curious about his book, The Mays of Ventadorn; since encountering the most famous of the songs of Bernart de Ventadorn, I have always considered him my favorite troubadour. (And while this is not unusual–Bernart was something of a rockstar in his day, and is well-remembered today–I was pleased to discover that my fascination was shared by Merwin.) This book was published by National Geographic Directions, and is part of a series titled The Literary Travel Series, a job for which Merwin is well-suited, having spent …

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Ezra Pound Posts Delayed

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This entry is part 26 of 57 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

Those reading along will note that I missed last week’s Ezra Pound post: I got busy, and am still working my way through the source text I want to discuss. To add to that, I’m currently traveling and though I’ve read and thought about Cantos XXXI-XXXIII, I won’t be able to post about them until sometime tomorrow or the next day. I don’t really have a lot to say about them at the moment, so maybe that’s a sign more thought is needed anyway. Anyway, more coming soon…  

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Our Twisted Hero by Yi Munyol, Trans. Kevin O’Rourke

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I haven’t read a lot of Korean fiction lately. Of course, I haven’t read a lot of fiction lately, so that is part of why. But after a conversation in which this book came up, I decided to pick it up and try again, after having set it down twenty pages in, a year or two ago. I’ve been ill this weekend, and needing a break from grading, so I’ve read two short novels so far, of which this is the second. Our Twisted Hero is quite transparently an allegory of the process of dictatorship — especially the cult-of-personality type …

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