June 29, 2010: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

Finally, the release date for David Mitchell's next book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, has been announced.

I found a description on an English website, http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails-Deshima+-9780340921579.html ,:

'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet' Description


In 1799, Jacob de Zoet disembarks on the tiny island of Dejima, the Dutch East India Company's remotest trading post in a Japan otherwise closed to the outside world. A junior clerk, his task is to uncover evidence of the previous Chief Resident's corruption. Cold-shouldered by his compatriots, Jacob earns the trust of a local interpreter and, more dangerously, becomes intrigued by a rare woman -- a midwife permitted to study on Dejima under the company physician. He cannot foresee how disastrously each will be betrayed by someone they trust, nor how intertwined and far-reaching the consequences. Duplicity and integrity, love and lust, guilt and faith, cold murder and strange immortality stalk the stage in this enthralling novel, which brings to vivid life the ordinary -- and extraordinary -- people caught up in a tectonic shift between East and West.

I just noticed that the UK release date is April15th, 2010.  Amazon.uk... so tempting...

Samurai Night Fever: Two Guys and a Girl

I have totally gotten into the Samurai Champloo anime series. I am now on Disc 5. Two guys, Jin, a ronin, and Mugen, a thief, are traveling with a fifteen year old girl, Fuu, who is searching for the "samurai who smells of sunflowers".   This is a great anime series for adults.  Highly recommended!!

Anime for Adults

I have been really getting into the anime thing thanks to Ms. Amanda, whose business-like exterior hides mad anime/manga skillz, and Ms. Tama from JOH, Crazed Babe of Anime and Teen Anime Club sponsor at Johns Island Regional Library.

I prefer to watch in Japanese with English subtitles. I have picked up a little Japanese doing this.
I find it fasinating how much English has infiltrated Japanese. Here are a selection of some of the best stuff I have seen so far.

Anime From Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation by Susan J. Napier is an excellent reference work for more info on anime. (Click title for catalog info on book.)

Click here for anime related items from the CCPL collection.

Movies

Akira - The classic anime movie. Extremely powerful futuristic fantasy with shades of Blade Runner, Mad Max, and Brave New World.

Steamboy - made by the same director as Akira with some similar characters. Anime Wild Wild West meets Victorian England/Jules Verne with a dash of Greek tragedy.

Whisper of the Heart - Sweet Studio Ghibli teen romance/feel-good movie. Wonderful portrayal of family life in urban, mid 20th century Japan mixed with fantasy.

Paprika - Futuristic fantasy thriller. Awake, she's a prim and proper therapist but, when she's snoozing, she transforms into Paprika, a spicy, secret psychological superheroine battling monsters from the id.

Tokyo Godfathers - A Japanese Christmas story featuring a stolen infant, a tough, runaway teen girl, and an odd homeless couple composed of a hopeless alcoholic with a secret, sad past and his best friend, a transgendered, cross-dresser, who dreams of being a mother.

Series

Cowboy Bebop - (Bladerunner + Star Wars) X cool tunes = Cowboy Bebop. This is a great series.

Samurai Champloo - Even greater series by the creator of Cowboy Bebop. Hiphop cool in samurai-era Japan with great tongue in cheek humor and wonderful characters on a quest. Visually, this is the best of all the anime movies or shows that I have seen. Incredible stuff.

Witch Hunter Robin

- Beautiful, atmospheric future fantasy with witches. Has an X-files vibe plus Gothic Lolita cool clothes.

Ambiguities: Gender Flexing

I have been reading the wonderful, Borges-influenced, Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami's, novels lately and have found it very interesting how he handles GLBT issues. I wonder if this is partly the influence of one of Japan's greatest twentieth century writers, Yukio Mishima, a bisexual, whose work I haven't read yet BTW, or something attributable to Japanese culture in general. All of the Murakami novels, I have read so far contain characters who are GLBT in part or whole.

I have discovered similar, generous treatment of gender ambiguity in Japanese manga and anime, which even have a special genre called "yaoi", "boys love", whose target audience is tween/teen girls, "shojo". Even the muy macho Naruto inadvertantly kisses the equally macho Sasuke in what I interpreted as a humorous reference to yaoi style anime/manga. Yaoi is like a much, much, tamer version of slash fan fiction (longer paper on slash)but with a similar esthetic. (Slash is another fascinating literary subject IMHO.)

The Fruits Basket manga and anime series contains several sexually ambiguous characters, particularly the cross-dressing characters, Ayame, an adult who is the "Snake" of the Zodiac and who takes narcissistic pride in his attractiveness to both sexes, and the younger, more innocent Momiji, the "Rabbit", who risks getting bullied because he prefers to wear a girl's uniform to school. I also felt like there was also a subtle yaoi undercurrent between the two main male characters, Yuki and Kyo, which was expressed in the story's plotline as constant fighting and bickering.

In Western literature, depictions of ambiguous sexual orientation, by which I mean characters or themes having any sort of GLBT overtones, have traditionally been very controversial and potentially career-dampening for the writer (think Radclyffe Hall). Leading a GLBT lifestyle with any sort of openness was even more risky (think Oscar Wilde). Lately I have found more GLBT characters, who are out, literarily speaking, in the books that I read. I have been really pleased by the treatment of these characters by the authors as multi-faceted people and not just sterotypes.

Here is my short list.

Ironman by Chris Crutcher (2000 Winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award)

The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips
Prague by Arthur Phillips (his website)

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize - click for Guardian interview)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize)

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami (He did not win the Nobel Prize in 2007.)

Momiji picture from a fansite, Aucifer. Available at http://fruitsbasket.aucifer.com/character_profile.php?ID=8. Accessed on 5/16/08.