Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Hagen, Buddhism Plain and Simple (2018)

Steve Hagen.
Buddhism Plain and Simple: The Practice of Being Aware Right Now, Every Day, Revised Edition.
Tokyo; Vermont; Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 1997, 2013, 2018.

Book Information : Publisher; Google Books; GoodReads.com; Amazon.com.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy :
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Sunday, May 11, 2025

Brown, editor, Classic Cat Stories (2020)

Becky Brown, Editor.
Classic Cat Stories.
Book Series: Macmillan Collector's Library.
London: Pan Macmillan, 2020.

Book Information : Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

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Contents of Classic Cat Stories :

[# indicates stories also included in Tesdell, ed., Cat Stories, 2011.]
  1. # Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), "The Cat That Walked by Himself", from Just So Stories, 1902.
    Also reprinted in: Rudyard Kipling, Stories and Poems, edited by Daniel Karlin, Oxford World's Classics, 2015.
  2. Mark Twain (1835–1910), "Dick Baker's Cat".
  3. Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), "The Afflictions of an English Cat", translated by Carl Van Vechten.
  4. # Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930), "The Cat", first collected in Understudies: Short Stories, 1901 [Archive.org].
    Some of Freeman's other works are currently in-print in these editions:
  5. E. Nesbit (1858–1924), "The Dragon Tamers" from The Book of Dragons, 1901.
  6. # Edgar Allen Poe (1809–1849), "The Black Cat", 1843.
    Also reprinted in: Edgar Allen Poe, Poetry and Tales, edited by Patrick F. Quinn, Library of America, 1984.
  7. Saki [Hector Hugh Munro] (1870–1916), "The Philanthropist and the Happy Cat".
    Also reprinted in: Saki/Munro, The Complete Saki, Penguin Twentieth Century Classics, 1982, 1997.
    Also reprinted in: Saki/Munro, The Complete Short Stories, Penguin Books, 2000.
  8. Ethel Colburn Mayne (1865–1941), "The Man of the House".
  9. E. F. Benson (1867–1940), "There Arose a King" from The Countess of Lowndes Square, and Other Stories, 1920.
  10. Compton Mackenzie (1883–1972), "No. 25 to be Let or Sold".
    (Comment: Mackenzie's story about an old man living in an empty house is echoed in Doris Lessing's story "An Old Woman and Her Cat" reprinted in Tesdell's Cat Stories.)
  11. Charles Perrault (1628–1703), "Puss in Boots", 1697, translated by G. M. Gent.
  12. Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927), "Dick Dunkerman's Cat".
  13. M. R. James (1862–1936), "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral".
  14. E. Nesbit (1858–1924), "The White Cat".
  15. # Damon Runyon (1880–1946), "Lillian", from Guys and Dolls, 1932.
  16. # Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943), "The King of the Cats", first published in 1929.
    Also reprinted in: Stephen Vincent Benét, Twenty-Five Short Stories, Garden City, New York: The Sun Dial Press, 1943.
    Also reprinted in: American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps, edited by Peter Straub, Library of America, 2009.
  17. L. M. Montgomery (1874–1942), "Abel and His Great Adventure".
  18. E. F. Benson (1867–1940), "Puss-Cat", 1911, first collected in The Countess of Lowndes Square, and Other Stories, 1920.
  19. H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), "The Cats of Ulthar", 1920.
  20. St. John Lucas (1879–1934), "The Pale Cat".
  21. # Walter de la Mare (1873–1956), "Broomsticks", from Broomsticks and Other Tales, 1925 [Archive.org].
    Collections of works by Walter de la Mare:
  22. W. L. Alden (1837–1908), "The Yellow Terror".
  23. # Saki [Hector Hugh Munro] (1870–1916), "Tobermory", first published in 1909, first collected in The Chronicles of Clovis, 1911 [Archive.org].
    Also reprinted in: Saki/Munro, The Complete Saki, Penguin Twentieth Century Classics, 1982, 1997.
    Also reprinted in: Saki/Munro, The Complete Short Stories, Penguin Books, 2000.
[# indicates stories also included in Tesdell, ed., Cat Stories, 2011.]

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Comments :

Last year I read a similar collection of cat stories: Seven stories in Brown's Classic Cat Stories also appear in Tesdell's Cat Stories. So there are 16 stories in Brown's Classic Cat Stories that don't appear in Tesdell's Cat Stories which tends to have more stories originally published more recently (since 1950). The 7 stories in both collections are those by: Kipling, Freeman, Poe, Runyon, Benet, de la Mare, and Saki's "Tobomory".

Note the countries of origin of the authors in Brown's Classic Cat Stories :
  • British Isles (England, Scotland, Ireland) : Kipling, Saki, de la Mare, Mackenzie, Mayne, Benson, Jerome, James, Lucas.
  • United States : Poe, Freeman, Twain, Benet, Runyon, Lovecraft, Alden.
  • Canada : Montgomery.
  • France : Balzac, Perrault.
In my earlier post for Tesdell's Cat Stories I observed that these collections were selected from a relatively narrow range of world literature: mostly works originally written in English, plus a very few from French and Italian; nothing from Germany, Russia, Latin America, China, Japan, or elsewhere. Granted, the works originally written in German or Japanese that I am aware of are not short stories but instead longer novels and memoirs. I can't understand the heavy British Isles and North American orientation of these collections other than as monolingual provincialism.

I recommend these works from Japan: I have't read any of Haruki Murakami's novels yet, some of which include a cat character; I've only read some of his short stories so far, none of which involved a cat (except perhaps for one story where the protagonist goes looking for a cat but doesn't find it; is the absent cat also a metaphor for something else? maybe?).

I look forward to reading E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr.

Another cat story collection that recently came to my attention:
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Thursday, May 01, 2025

Apollonius of Rhodes, Jason and the Golden Fleece: The Argonautica (2009)

Apollonius of Rhodes.
Jason and the Golden Fleece: (The Argonautica).
Translated by Richard Hunter.
Book Series: Oxford World's Classics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, 2009.

Book Information : Publisher; Google Books; GoodReads.com; Amazon.com.

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Wikipedia Articles :
  • Apollonius of Rhodes (Third Century B.C.).
  • Argonautica, "a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC."
  • Jason, "ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts."
  • Argonauts, "group of heroes in Greek mythology."
  • Golden Fleece.
  • Medea, "is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis. In the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, she aids Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece. Medea later marries him, but eventually kills their children and his other bride according to some versions of her story. Medea is known in most stories as a sorceress, an accomplished "pharmakeía" (medicinal magic), and is often depicted as a high-priestess of the goddess, Hecate. She first appears in Hesiod's Theogony around 700 BCE, but is best known from Euripides's tragedy Medea and Apollonius of Rhodes's epic Argonautica.
    As a daughter of King Aeëtes, she is a mythical granddaughter of the sun god Helios and a niece of Circe, an enchantress goddess. Her mother might have been Idyia."
  • ~~~~~~~~~~
  • Hellenistic period, 323 – 30 BC.
  • Hellenistic period: Literature.
  • Ptolemaic Kingdom, 305 – 30 BC.

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Other Translations and Commentary :
  • Apollonius of Rhodes. Jason and the Argonauts. Translated by Aaron Poochigian. Penguin Classics. New York: Penguin Books, 2014.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • Apollonios Rhodios. The Argonautika. Translated by Peter Green. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997; Expanded edition 2008.
    (Includes abundant commentary.)
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica. Translated and edited by William H. Race. Loeb Classical Library (LCL 1). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
    [Publisher; Loeb Classical Library; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • A Companion to Apollonius of Rhodes.. Edited by Ruth Scodel. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2025.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]

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Saturday, April 26, 2025

Mérimée, Carmen and Other Stories (2008)

Prosper Mérimée.
Carmen and Other Stories.
Translated by Nicholas Jotcham.
Book Series: Oxford World's Classics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, 1998, 2008.

Book Information : Publisher; Google Books; GoodReads.com; Amazon.com.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Nathan, Japan Unbound (2004)

John Nathan.
Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004.

Book Information : Google Books; GoodReads.com; Amazon.com.

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Comments :

Japan Unbound is a collection of essays on various public, social, and cultural issues prominent in Japan during the early 2000s; the manuscript was completed in 2003. It is based on interviews the author conducted from May 2001 through December 2002 (not to mention the author's experience with Japan beginning in the autumn of 1961).

At the conclusion of the book Nathan describes his experience of encountering Kenzaburō Ōe and Shintaro Ishihara separately within a couple hours on the same evening : "I felt that I had traveled between the poles of the ambivalence that continues to be a troubling condition of contemporary Japanese life" (page 253). This is the general theme of the book: various manifestations of a people in transition from the past to the future (like everybody else in every other society, but this seems heightened in Japan with its distinctive and ancient cultural traditions, its vigorous but then traumatic modernization, followed by its spectacular post-war economic recovery and prosperity). A little more vaguely, Nathan ponders the Japanese cultural identity (however that may be defined) and how that cultural identity informs and vitalizes the Japanese people as individuals and more broadly socially.

Contents of Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose :
  1. "Monsters in the House: Japan's Bewildered Children"
    • A deliberate policy during the 1990s of reducing discipline in schools was followed by an explosion of disruptive behavior by students, especially at the lower secondary level. Various seemingly new forms of abnormal behavior in adolescents are also discussed.
    • Education in Japan.
    • Secondary education in Japan.
  2. "The Family Crisis"
  3. "The Culture of Arithmetic"
    • In the wake of low economic growth after the collapse of the 1980s bubble economy, large corporations struggle with maintaining profitability and their other social imperatives (the stability promoted by lifetime employment and the seniority system).
    • Carlos Ghosn (b. 1954).
    • Nissan: Alliance with Renault.
    • William Tsutsui, Japan's Economic Bubble and the Lost Decade, The University of Chicago, 24 June 2009, YouTube.
      (This 1.5 hour talk is a very good survey of Japan's macroeconomic problems.)
  4. "The Entrepreneurs"
  5. "In Search of a Phantom"
  6. "The New Nationalism II: Institutionalizing Trandition"
  7. "Shintaro Ishihara: The Sun King"
  8. "Yasuo Tanaka: The Trickster"
  9. "Epilogue: Outgrowing Adolescence"

RT, "What's missing?," 9 August 2004 : an interesting review of the book on Amazon.com.

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Monday, March 24, 2025

Murakami, after the quake: stories (2002)

Haruki Murakami.
after the quake: stories.
Translated by Jay Rubin.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
New York: Vintage International, 2003.
Originally published: 神の子どもたちはみな踊る, Kami no Kodomo-tachi wa Mina Odoru [literal translation: "All God's Children Dance"], Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2000.

Book Information : Publisher USA; Publisher UK; Wikipedia; Google Books; Amazon.com; GoodReads.com.

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Translator Information :
  • Jay Rubin (b. 1941), Wikipedia.
  • Jay Rubin, "The Other World of Murakami Haruki," Japan Quarterly, volume 39, number 4, 1991.
  • Jay Rubin. Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words. London: Random House UK, 2002; Vintage UK, 2005.
    [Publisher; Wikipedia; Google Books; Amazon.com.]

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Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Ōe, Teach us to Outgrow Our Madness (1977)

Kenzaburō Ōe.
Teach us to Outgrow Our Madness: Four Short Novels.
Translated by John Nathan.
New York: Grove Press, 1977, 1994.

Book Information : Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com; GoodReads.com.

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Contents of Teach us to Outgrow Our Madness: Four Short Novels :
  1. "The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away," 1974.
  2. "Prize Stock," 1958.
    • 飼育 (小説), "Shiiku" (Breeding / Cultivation / Care), English translation title "Prize Stock," 1958.
      (The 1957 date given by English Wikipedia differs from Wikipedia Japan's 1958 which I consider more authoritative on the topic of Japanese authors.)
    • Won the Akutagawa Prize [芥川龍之介賞] for the first half of 1958.
    • The translation of "Prize Stock" by John Nathan was reprinted in :
      The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, Edited by Theodore W. Goossen, Oxford University Press, 1997, 2010.
      [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com, 1997; Amazon.com, 2010.]
      My post for the Oxford anthology is here.
  3. "Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness," 1969.
  4. "Aghwee the Sky Monster," 1964.

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Sunday, March 09, 2025

Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes: Stories (1994)

Haruki Murakami.
The Elephant Vanishes: Stories.
Translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Jay Rubin.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993; New York: Vintage International, 1994.

Book Information : Publisher; Wikipedia; Google Books; Amazon.com; GoodReads.com.

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Thursday, March 06, 2025

Sansom, Japan: A Short Cultural History (1978)

G. B. Sansom.
Japan: A Short Cultural History.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978.

(Publication history: First edition 1931; Second edition 1943; Second edition revised 1952.
The 1978 Stanford reprint is of the 1952 revised second edition.)

Book Information : Publisher; Amazon.com; Archive.org.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy :
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More Recently Published Books :
    Some recently published books that cover the same topics as Sansom's Japan: A Short Cultural History.
  • Mikiso Hane and Louis G. Perez. Premodern Japan: A Historical Survey, second edition. Westview Press, 2015; New York: Routledge, 2018.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • Nancy K. Stalker. Japan: History and Culture from Classical to Cool. Oakland: University of California Press, 2018.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]

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Saturday, March 01, 2025

Kaga, Marshland (2024)

Otohiko Kaga.
Marshland.
Translated by Albert Novick.
Dallas, Texas: Dalkey Archive Press / Deep Vellum Publishing, 2024.
Originally published: 湿原, Shitsugen, Asahi Shimbun, 1985.

Book Information : Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com; GoodReads.com.

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