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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Wikipedia Articles :
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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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Wikipedia Articles :
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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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Author Information :
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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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Wikipedia Articles :
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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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Saturday, February 15, 2025

Inoue, The Counterfeiter and Other Stories (2000)

Yasushi Inoue.
The Counterfeiter and Other Stories.
Translated by Leon Picon.
Boston, Rutland Vermont, Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing (Periplus Editions), 1965, 2000.

Book Information : Google Books; Amazon.com; Internet Archive.

Note: "The Counterfeiter" was recently published in a new English translation:
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Author Information :
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Translator Information :
  • Leon Picon Obituary (1917-1994), The Washington Post, 23 August 1994.
  • Lew Schmidt, "Interview with Leon Picon" (transcript), The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training: Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Information Series; Library of Congress, 30 October 1989.
    Another, better formatted, version of the transcript, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.
    • Unfortunately, Picon did not discuss his Japanese literary translation work in this interview; the interviewer mainly asked about his work as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. It's not only about the details of State Department bureaucracy: the interview contains interesting biographical information about Picon, amusing anecdotes about William Faulkner's visit to Japan, and a few, too few, other accounts about his time in Japan. Picon was in Japan from 1955 to 1965.
    • United States Information Agency (USIA), Wikipedia.
    • "Impressions of Japan," U.S.I.S., 1955.
      (A film about William Faulkner's visit to Japan, discussed on pages 16-24 of the LoC interview transcript, pages 12-18 in the ADST version.)
    • Charles Frankel. The Neglected Aspect of Foreign Affairs: American Educational and Cultural Policy Abroad. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1966.
      [Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Charles Frankel. High on Foggy Bottom: An Outsider's Inside View of the Government. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.
      [Google Books; Amazon.com.]
    • Charles Frankel. "paper title unknown." In: Prologue to the Future: the United States and Japan in the Post-industrial Age. Edited by James William Morley. Published for The Japan Society by Lexington Books, 1974.
      [Google Books; Amazon.com.]

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Contents of The Counterfeiter and Other Stories :
  1. "The Counterfeiter" [1951].
  2. "Obasute" [1956].
    • Ubasute, Wikipedia English.
      This article has an image of the ukiyo-e woodblock print "Ubasute no tsuki" (The Moon of Ubasute) from the series One Hundred Aspects of the Moon (number 97), 1885-1892, by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.
      Seeing this image after reading the story, I wonder if it was one of Inoue's inspirations for his story (or perhaps an inspiration for the cover art on the book of stories mentioned by the narrator in the story).
    • うばすてやま [Ubasuteyama], Wikipedia Japan.
  3. "The Full Moon" [1958].
    • The president of a corporation initiates a series of annual company retreats scheduled to coincide with the harvest moon.

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Thursday, February 13, 2025

Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books (2023)

Sosuke Natsukawa.
The Cat Who Saved Books.
Translated by Louise Heal Kawai.
London: Picador (Pan Macmillan), 2021.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2023.
(Originally published in Japan by Shogakukan, 2017.)

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

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Author Information :
  • 夏川草介 [Sosuke Natsukawa, a pen name / psuedonym] (b. 1978), Wikipedia Japan.
  • Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books, 2017, English translation 2021; Wikipedia English.

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Translator Information :
  • Louise Heal Kawai, @quietmoonwave17, Twitter / X.
  • Louise Heal Kawai, Words Without Borders [has a translation by Louise Heal Kawai].
  • Louise Heal Kawai, Granta [has a couple translations by Louise Heal Kawai].
  • Some other books translated by Louise Heal Kawai :
    • Masateru Konishi, 小西マサテル (b. 1965), My Grandfather, the Master Detective [20##], English translation 2025.
    • Sosuke Natsukawa, 夏川草介 (b. 1978), The Cat Who Saved the Library [20##], English translation 2025.
    • Seicho Matsumoto (1909–1992), Point Zero [1959], English translation 2024.
    • Rio Shimamoto (b. 1983), First Love [2018], English translation 2024.
    • Hideo Yokoyama (b. 1957), The North Light [2019], English translation 2023.
    • Seishi Yokomizo (1902–1981), Death on Gokumon Island [1948], English translation 2022.
    • Seishi Yokomizo (1902–1981), The Honjin Murders [1946], English translation 2019.
    • Soji Shimada (b. 1948), Murder in the Crooked House [1982], English translation 2019.
    • Mieko Kawakami (b. 1976), Ms Ice Sandwich [2013], English translation 2018.
    • Hideo Yokoyama (b. 1957), Seventeen [2003], English translation 2018.
    • Ito Ogawa, 小川糸, (b. 1973), The Island of Expectation [Japanese title: つるかめ助産院, Tsurukame Midwifery Clinic, 2010], English translation 2017.
    • Seicho Matsumoto (1909–1992), A Quiet Place [1975], English translation 2016.
    • Taeko Tomioka, 富岡多恵子 (1935–2023), Building Waves [Japanese title: 波うつ土地, The Land of Waves or Wavy Land, 1983], English translation 2012.
    • Shoko Tendo, Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter [2004], English translation 2007.

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Wikipedia Articles :
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Comments :

The Cat Who Saved Books is not adult literature. The main characters are two high school students; the simple story uses fantasy adventures to make pious points about the value of books. A cat plays a secondary role as a messenger ... from the the spirit world? ... from the main character's recently deceased grandfather? The book is not about people's relationships with their cats as is the case with Hiraide's The Guest Cat or Inaba's Mornings With My Cat Mii. Given the age of the main characters, the use of fantasy elements (which seem intended for an Anime production), and the pious lessons imparted, I categorize this book as Young Adult literature that's safe (i.e., non-controversial) for the middle school or high school classroom (but which might cause an unfortunate degeneration of the curriculum since its use might displace an older more sophisticated classic work of greater literary merit).

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