Sunday, October 27, 2024

BW44: I is for Intertextuality

 




Happy Sunday! I dove into a rabbit hole and became lost in internet land exploring books about and with intertextuality. What is it? Simply put: the relationship between texts, particularly literary text.  

According to literary terms:

"the fact that they are all intimately interconnected. This applies to all texts: novels, works of philosophy, newspaper articles, films, songs, paintings, etc. In order to understand intertextuality, it’s crucial to understand this broad definition of the word “text.”

Every text is affected by all the texts that came before it, since those texts influenced the author’s thinking and aesthetic choices. Remember: every text (again in the broadest sense) is intertextual."

Each story connects or alludes to the next one in some shape or form. Sounds like synchronicity, doesn't it. Yet, synchronicity finds meaningful coincidences without cause while Intertextuality texts borrow words and meaning from each other. 

Literary Hub's The Joys of Influence: In Praise of Intertextuality

Bibliovaults Books about Intertextuality  - a more scholarly view. 

The Book Lovers Sanctuary  - round up of book category intertextuality

Goodreads Intertextual classics (so many I've already read, and will probably reread at some point. Yes, our friend Haruki Murakami is listed.  Plus Goodreads Intertextuality books  - so many interesting stories I'd like to read. How about you? 

Try not to get lost in any rabbit holes. I dare you! :)





Sunday, October 20, 2024

BW43: Japanese Literature

 



Happy Sunday! I have been a fan of Japanese literature for a very long time. I usually start the new reading year with stories written by Haruki Murakami which are full of magical realism.  Fortunately he has a new book coming out in November, The City and It's Uncertain Walls

"We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

 Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world – a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along."

I've branched out quite a bit over the years and have acquired many more books written about and by Japanese authors.  From Reading the City series,(I hope to eventually read them all) I have added the Book of Tokyo, A City in Short Fiction, with short stories written by Banana Yoshimoto and more:

"A shape-shifter arrives at Tokyo harbour in human form, set to embark on an unstoppable rampage through the city’s train network… A young woman is accompanied home one night by a reclusive student, and finds herself lured into a flat full of eerie Egyptian artefacts… A man suspects his young wife’s obsession with picnicking every weekend in the city’s parks hides a darker motive… At first, Tokyo appears in these stories as it does to many outsiders: a city of bewildering scale, awe-inspiring modernity, peculiar rules, unknowable secrets and, to some extent, danger. Characters observe their fellow citizens from afar, hesitant to stray from their daily routines to engage with them. But Tokyo being the city it is, random encounters inevitably take place – a naïve book collector, mistaken for a French speaker, is drawn into a world he never knew existed; a woman seeking psychiatric help finds herself in a taxi with an older man wanting to share his own peculiar revelations; a depressed divorcee accepts an unexpected lunch invitation to try Thai food for the very first time… The result in each story is a small but crucial change in perspective, a sampling of the unexpected yet simple pleasure of other people’s company. As one character puts it, ‘The world is full of delicious things, you know."

My family are also big fans of the Godzilla movies created by Toho Studios in Japan which lead to us wanting to eventually travel to Japan.  The closest we have gotten is through our armchair travels which is why I recently picked up Pico Iyer's A Beginners Guide to Japan:

"In A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, Iyer draws on his years of experience—his travels, conversations, readings, and reflections—to craft a playful and profound book of surprising, brief, incisive glimpses into Japanese culture. He recounts his adventures and observations as he travels from a meditation hall to a love hotel, from West Point to Kyoto Station, and from dinner with Meryl Streep to an ill-fated call to the Apple service center in a series of provocations guaranteed to
pique the interest and curiosity of those who don’t know Japan—and to remind those who do of its myriad fascinations."

I enjoy translated books from a variety of countries but there is an emotional richness to Japanese literature, with layers and complexity that will capture your attention. 

Japanese Literature divided into four periods

Why I love Japanese Literature

65 Best Japanese Books of All Time

Contemporary Japanese Literature 

Where to Get Started with 57 Essential Japanese Books in English

Happy Reading! 





Sunday, October 13, 2024

BW42: Kunstlerroman vs Bildungsroman

 


Courtesy of Pinterest hudasameh204

Happy Sunday! What is kunstlerroman and what is a Bildungsroman? A bildungsroman is a coming of age story, whilst a kunstlerroman is a sub genre of bildungsroman and follows a character's development as an artist. 

Harry Potter, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Where the Crawdads sing are all examples of bildungsroman. Whereas, A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, The Unknown Masterpiece, or In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower are all examples of kunstlerroman.  






Happy Reading! 




Sunday, October 6, 2024

BW41: October Author of the Month: Nora Roberts

 


Happy Sunday! Our Author of the Month is Nora Roberts and this week, October 10th,  just so happens to be her birthday.  Roberts is the diva of romance, romantic suspense, action and adventure, and supernatural thrillers.  I discovered her books back in 2007 and fell in lurve.  I have one very full bookcase dedicated to all her books. She is a prolific writer and has written 242 novels which include multiple trilogies and stand alone books. All of which are unique and interesting.  She writes stories that are full of world building, settings, and characters I have fallen in love with and makes me want to reread them over and over again. She also has written a unique futuristic police procedural under the pseudonym of J.D. Robb and recently published the 55th book in the ongoing series. I've reread them a number of times as well. 

Roberts and her husband also own a bookstore in Maine called Turn the Page and a historic inn called Inn Boonsboro with rooms named after literary characters including Eve and Roark from the In Death series.  

Interesting tidbits from her website:

Nora Roberts’ books are published in over 34 countries.

There are enough Nora Roberts books in print to fill the seats of Wrigley Field over 9,900 times (selling out Cubs’ home games for more than 124 seasons).

If you place all Nora’s books top to bottom, they would stretch across the United States from New York to Los Angeles 18 times.

Her official blog, Fall Into The Story, contains updates on books, conversations with readers and insights into Nora’s home life.


Although romance is an element of most of her stories, she has written a number of books that are spooky, thrilling, chilling, and include ghosts or are post apocalyptic such as The Sign of Seven Trilogy or Chronicles of The One.  All good choices for our October Spooktacular. 


Big L, Little L, what begins with L? Why Love, of course. As well as literary, library, letters, and lullaby.

Happy Reading!