This Week In Books: #4
Nov. 6th, 2006 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanIn which I managed to read four books. I hope no one expects me to keep this trend up when I'm on week 50, say. At any rate, Bombs away.
1) The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
If I had to say anything about this book, I'd say it was everything The Da Vinci Code should have been but failed at miserably. Its plot unfolds across continents, languages, and historical locations in many short chapters, many ending in a cliffhanger of sorts, but does so with grace, agility, and subtlety. The Historian also masterfully employs several of Anne Rice's favorite narrative devices (narrative spanning decades and centuries; flashbacks within flashbacks), whilst demonstrating that said devices do not have to suck. I didn't think I would like it all that much at first; several of the characters seem to share the same voice; but they grew on me, boy did they grow on me. Historian also reminds me of Rebecca in that it shares the latter's unrelenting sense of foreboding. The scenery and settings are beautifully rendered, and made me feel I was there while simultaneously lending me the traveller's sense of not-belonging. The plot's revelations are paced wonderfully throughout the narrative, and oh, did I feel like weeping when I finally understood the significance of Paul's second visit to Saint Matthieu with his daughter.. Of course, it isn't perfect; a few minor issues aren't adequately dealt with by the story's end, but here's the thing: the book is so good that I didn't mind. Definitely Read This Book.
2) The Trouble With Islam - Irshad Manji
Oh, Irshad Manji. Recipient of my platonic love for the past three years. This is a nicely thought-out book that raises a lot of issues about Islam's current adherants and role both in the West and in the East. My main complaint is that it isn't academic enough; I would have preferred notes, for instance, but Manji says herself it's intended as an open letter to those of her faith, and not as an academic work. Still, I love her upbeat, ironic, and honest tone, and the way she manages to successfully employ it without dulling or dumbing down her message. Note that the title was changed (and, I believe, photographs were omitted) from later printings.
3) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Buddhism - Gary Gach
This is my second read-through of this book, and it stands up well. Gach does a good job of explaining Buddhism to people who aren't Buddhists and thus harbor misconceptions about what Buddhism is. The general material is the best. He gets a bit shaky when tackling the respective Buddhist schools; one gets the feeling he practices some form of Vipassana, and is a bit uncomfortable with the other schools, especially the far Eastern ones. Unfortunately, the final 1/3 of the book, with its tenuous attempts to relate Buddhism to pop psychology, pop culture, and scientific disciplines Gach knows precious little about, is quite poor compared to the earlier material. And it shows, judging by the fact that said sections are riddled with grammatical and typographical errors, whilst the first two are not. Also interesting to note--the Buddha on the cover is the Kamakura Daibutsu, not the Nara Daibutsu, as the book claims.
4) How Koreans Talk - Sang-hun Choe & Christopher Torchia
What a cocktease. Ostensibly a book about Korean idioms and slang, How Koreans Talk falls far, far short of similar offerings in the Japanese language field. For one thing, the first five editions of the book failed to even include Hangeul for the listed sayings; luckily I held off purchasing until the sixth was published. Even so, only about 10% of the included sayings provide Hangeul; 20% include romanizations sans Hangeul, and the other 70% are only given in English translation, begging the question as to how anyone would be able to recognize said sayings in Korean without ever having encountered them...in Korean. To make matters worse, there's no index, and the English-only expressions are often included under entries far removed from the general categories in which they've been included, resulting, for instance, in ten expressions involving tigers located in the "Seoul Slang" chapter. (PS: WTF?) Other unforgivable sins include lack of standardisation in the romanized entries...even within a single entry, and a general lack of comprehensibility: "Buddhist monks abandon temples when routine and comforts fray their devotion to the pursuit of enlightenment. Some stick around." End of entry and explanation. (PPS: WTF?) Furthermore, not only does the book not provide quasi-literal translations of the Hangeul entries, it often fails to provide translations at all, or worse yet, substitutes equivalent English idioms, leaving readers bereft of any means of understanding what said expressions are actually saying. Useless. It's also interesting to note that the English explanations default into the masculine pronoun unless said explanations are unflattering in nature, in which case the pronoun of choice is "she." I did manage to glean a few interesting trivia tidbits about Korean culture from this book, but that's about all that can be said in its favor.
That will be all.
1) The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
If I had to say anything about this book, I'd say it was everything The Da Vinci Code should have been but failed at miserably. Its plot unfolds across continents, languages, and historical locations in many short chapters, many ending in a cliffhanger of sorts, but does so with grace, agility, and subtlety. The Historian also masterfully employs several of Anne Rice's favorite narrative devices (narrative spanning decades and centuries; flashbacks within flashbacks), whilst demonstrating that said devices do not have to suck. I didn't think I would like it all that much at first; several of the characters seem to share the same voice; but they grew on me, boy did they grow on me. Historian also reminds me of Rebecca in that it shares the latter's unrelenting sense of foreboding. The scenery and settings are beautifully rendered, and made me feel I was there while simultaneously lending me the traveller's sense of not-belonging. The plot's revelations are paced wonderfully throughout the narrative, and oh, did I feel like weeping when I finally understood the significance of Paul's second visit to Saint Matthieu with his daughter.. Of course, it isn't perfect; a few minor issues aren't adequately dealt with by the story's end, but here's the thing: the book is so good that I didn't mind. Definitely Read This Book.
2) The Trouble With Islam - Irshad Manji
Oh, Irshad Manji. Recipient of my platonic love for the past three years. This is a nicely thought-out book that raises a lot of issues about Islam's current adherants and role both in the West and in the East. My main complaint is that it isn't academic enough; I would have preferred notes, for instance, but Manji says herself it's intended as an open letter to those of her faith, and not as an academic work. Still, I love her upbeat, ironic, and honest tone, and the way she manages to successfully employ it without dulling or dumbing down her message. Note that the title was changed (and, I believe, photographs were omitted) from later printings.
3) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Buddhism - Gary Gach
This is my second read-through of this book, and it stands up well. Gach does a good job of explaining Buddhism to people who aren't Buddhists and thus harbor misconceptions about what Buddhism is. The general material is the best. He gets a bit shaky when tackling the respective Buddhist schools; one gets the feeling he practices some form of Vipassana, and is a bit uncomfortable with the other schools, especially the far Eastern ones. Unfortunately, the final 1/3 of the book, with its tenuous attempts to relate Buddhism to pop psychology, pop culture, and scientific disciplines Gach knows precious little about, is quite poor compared to the earlier material. And it shows, judging by the fact that said sections are riddled with grammatical and typographical errors, whilst the first two are not. Also interesting to note--the Buddha on the cover is the Kamakura Daibutsu, not the Nara Daibutsu, as the book claims.
4) How Koreans Talk - Sang-hun Choe & Christopher Torchia
What a cocktease. Ostensibly a book about Korean idioms and slang, How Koreans Talk falls far, far short of similar offerings in the Japanese language field. For one thing, the first five editions of the book failed to even include Hangeul for the listed sayings; luckily I held off purchasing until the sixth was published. Even so, only about 10% of the included sayings provide Hangeul; 20% include romanizations sans Hangeul, and the other 70% are only given in English translation, begging the question as to how anyone would be able to recognize said sayings in Korean without ever having encountered them...in Korean. To make matters worse, there's no index, and the English-only expressions are often included under entries far removed from the general categories in which they've been included, resulting, for instance, in ten expressions involving tigers located in the "Seoul Slang" chapter. (PS: WTF?) Other unforgivable sins include lack of standardisation in the romanized entries...even within a single entry, and a general lack of comprehensibility: "Buddhist monks abandon temples when routine and comforts fray their devotion to the pursuit of enlightenment. Some stick around." End of entry and explanation. (PPS: WTF?) Furthermore, not only does the book not provide quasi-literal translations of the Hangeul entries, it often fails to provide translations at all, or worse yet, substitutes equivalent English idioms, leaving readers bereft of any means of understanding what said expressions are actually saying. Useless. It's also interesting to note that the English explanations default into the masculine pronoun unless said explanations are unflattering in nature, in which case the pronoun of choice is "she." I did manage to glean a few interesting trivia tidbits about Korean culture from this book, but that's about all that can be said in its favor.
That will be all.