SUMMER READS
Dear Fellow Reader,
The Irk Bitig, illustrated above, was found in the Mogao caves of Dunhuang, itself a town over 2,000 years old, and one of great archeological and historic interest situated in Gansu Province, Western China. Along the Silk Road, it was bustling trade center and housed a mix of peoples and faiths, from Turkic nomads to Muslim Uyghurs to the Buddhist and Taoist Chinese and more. During the 10th century some early Sogdians dominated: these people spoke a middle Iranian language, were often bilingual in Chinese and when they wrote, used Chinese characters but arranged and read them from left to right. It appears that the above book was written in Old Turkic script with roots, some scholars suggest, in Uyghur writing.
Ah, the treasure of books!
For this issue, while we may make a few editors' suggestions, a few of our readers/ contributors have suggested book titles for your summer enjoyment: the long book you didn't have time to read in the hectic days of work and winter, that gem not on the top ten lists, that old favorite you think should be on everyone's bookshelf, etc.
Oh, we know, you read on a device. Where possible e-copies are available for you. However, though we ourselves are online, we strongly suggest supporting your local public library--go, check out that book—or buy a print version from a local bookshop if available. The experience of reading in print media is quite different. After all, what will post apocalyptic archaeologists find after we are long gone—various plastic rectangles with odd circuitry and dead batteries? What on earth, they might wonder, were these for?
The Irk Bitig, illustrated above, was found in the Mogao caves of Dunhuang, itself a town over 2,000 years old, and one of great archeological and historic interest situated in Gansu Province, Western China. Along the Silk Road, it was bustling trade center and housed a mix of peoples and faiths, from Turkic nomads to Muslim Uyghurs to the Buddhist and Taoist Chinese and more. During the 10th century some early Sogdians dominated: these people spoke a middle Iranian language, were often bilingual in Chinese and when they wrote, used Chinese characters but arranged and read them from left to right. It appears that the above book was written in Old Turkic script with roots, some scholars suggest, in Uyghur writing.
Ah, the treasure of books!
For this issue, while we may make a few editors' suggestions, a few of our readers/ contributors have suggested book titles for your summer enjoyment: the long book you didn't have time to read in the hectic days of work and winter, that gem not on the top ten lists, that old favorite you think should be on everyone's bookshelf, etc.
Oh, we know, you read on a device. Where possible e-copies are available for you. However, though we ourselves are online, we strongly suggest supporting your local public library--go, check out that book—or buy a print version from a local bookshop if available. The experience of reading in print media is quite different. After all, what will post apocalyptic archaeologists find after we are long gone—various plastic rectangles with odd circuitry and dead batteries? What on earth, they might wonder, were these for?
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From Editor, Bronwyn Mills:
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, trans. from Gikuyu by the author. A wild and raucous ride through the corrupt world of an African dictator's reign over a fictional African kingdom, Alburĩria. Ngugi both satirizes and lampoons this world using a tale-telling style derrived from his own tradition's rich orature. Should the smug non-African reader think to reassure him- or herself that such problems only pertain to Africa, think again. The ebook can also be borrowed, free, from the Open Library. Devil on the Cross, also by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, trans. by the author. Based on the Gikuyu traditional storytellers' contest, the book is more transparently aimed at the corrupt Kenyan government when Ngugi was incarcerated by then dictator Moi. In jail, he began to write Devil in his native Gikuyu, on toilet paper. The book's device is the competition, only here, rewarding the one who can brag most eloquently of how he or she achieved spectacular thievery. Clearly, there are many contemporary parallels. Esteemed Reader Tim Reiss, who is poised to publish, via Africa World Press, a collection of Ngugi's essays, Ngũgĩ in the American Imperium. suggests that if [indeed!] "...if there are any readers of detective novels among your public, you might want to recommend the entire Inspector Shan series on the horrors of China in Tibet by Eliot Pattison: it's a marvelous series." Indeed it is. Pattison was inspired to begin the series by an actual incident during a visit to China. From Editor Eric Darton: “What times! What deeds!" What reads! The former two, er, ejaculations, are made by a character in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Romance, in two volumes*, is China’s oldest novel and one of its classic works of fiction. Written by Lo Kuan-Chung, and loosely based on historical events in the fall of the Han dynasty in the 2nd century AD, it first appeared in print in 1522. Despite the sometimes comically bad translation by C.H. Brewitt-Taylor, it is a discursive, but compelling tale of times analogous to our own. Is there a message? it might distill to this: in degenerate times, don’t try to prop up the unsustainable. Preserve yourself and seek the next form. The Canticle of the Birds, in the Diane de Selliers edition of 2003, trans. Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis, is the most sumptuous and rewarding book I recall having read. The fulcrum of Farîd-od-Din' Attar’s 12th century epic in verse is the migration of birds toward the Divine, driven by a spiritual longing for annihilation in the One. An oversized volume in a slipcase replete with extraordinary full-page reproductions of contemporary masterpieces of Persian and Eastern Islamic art, it is too bulky for the road; however, Canticle is a staycation companion par excellence. From Editor Hardy Griffin: The Lonesome Bodybuilder is a unique and strange collection of stories from Japanese writer Yukiko Motoya, superbly translated by Asa Yoneda. The title piece, for instance, focuses on a woman bodybuilder, which is such a jarring idea for those around her that "kids would graffiti things like WARNING smiling muscle woman will strangle you to death on the wall of the parking lot" where she works. Also set in Japan is Go: A coming of age novel, about Sugihara, a high school boy whose parents are Korean so he has to choose whether he will have North- or South Korean citizenship as he can't be Japanese. The schism of identity this creates leads to a violent, painful journey towards adulthood, but one that feels shockingly real. From reader/contributor, Jan Schmidt: Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Mariner Books, 2018) The narrator, headed for a job interview, needs to dial down his blackness, “If he wore a tie, wing-tipped shoes, smiled constantly, used his indoor voice, and kept his hands strapped and calm at this sides, |
he could get this Blackness as low as 4.0.” This takes place in a dystopian future world, very much like the present, in which a white man has just been acquitted for using a chain saw “to hack off the heads of five black children.” Despair becomes hope in this haunting debut collection of short stories. For some time we have been a great fan of City Lights Books in San Francisco. In these days of dwindling opportunity to find good bookstores, we offer a link to their forthcoming books (English language) and their literature in translation. From reader/contributor, Chris Sawyer-Lauçanno: Meridian by Nancy Gaffield (Sheffield, England: Longbarrow Press, 2018) Librettist and poet Nancy Gaffield’s chronicle of her 270-mile walk along the Greenwich Meridian trail examines landscape, history, memory and acute observation. These poems go deep into the heart of how geography intersects with physical footsteps, meditative strides, insight, beauty and even terror in the mind of a highly-talented poet. Don Wellman, Essay Poems (Loveland, Ohio: Dos Madres, 2017) In Essay Poems Wellman welds narrative, reflection,reminiscence and poetic commentaries into a whole. These serial poems point the reader toward unexpected affinities between text and text, event and consequence, thought and being. His erudition does not call attention to itself, but penetrates into the essence of what matters, in life and in the mind processing life in all its complexity. Julian Nangle, Poppy and Other Poems of Grief and Celebration (Paris: Alyscamps Press**, 2019) Nangle joins the long list of poets who have meshed heart with style and grace. He produces a sequence of poems that celebrate love in the midst of grief, expressing sorrow over the loss of his daughter without sentimentality, clichés or trite phrasing. From reader and poet, Dana Delibovi: The Romantics, 2001, 2002; An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World. 2004. Both by Pankaj Mishra. The novel (2001) and the real life travels (2004) that inspired the novel. An exceptionally skilled writer who is neither light weight nor simplistic Selected Writings, by Lady Mary Shephard, 2018. ed D. Boyle. A treat for philosophy buffs. A woman philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment. From reader/contributor, Kelvin James: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, James describes Atwood, when meeting her at a conference where she was being commended, as "magnanimous." It's a timely book, given the current public misogyny in official circles. Death in Summer & other stories by Yukio Mishima introduced me, James says, to the idea of seppuku & foreign philosophy & culture in general. I admired his writing & when he killed himself I was sad (though amazed he actually did). Blow up and Other stories by Julio Cortazar. Cortazar had a profound influence on me. It validated my Trini culture re: obeah, La Diablesse, Soucouyant etc. And James notes, "Blow up led me on to check out most of his other works." Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende. James admires the poetic aspect to her words, and says that "It made me wish I spoke Spanish." Call of the Wild by Jack London is an early favorite of American action. Short Stories of Edgar Allen Poe is another. James adds, "Everything by Mark Twain makes him still my most favored American writer." On the other hand, James confesses, "one of my early favorites was P.G. Wodehouse." And this, Dear Reader, is an unabashed P.S.: Long an admirer of Calvino, and an intentional Natalia Ginzburg reader, I was struck by this reprint of Calvino's review of The Dry Heart, now out in a New Directions reissue. - Bronwyn Mills |
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* For another translation/and or more volumes, see options offered on Goodreads' site,
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/158770.Three_Kingdoms **Alyscamps does not maintain a website, but can be contacted at the following: In the UK: Julian Nangle [[email protected]] In France: Michael Neal Books, [michaelnealbooks.wordpress.com] In the U.S.: Karl Orend/Alyscamps Press: [[email protected]] ***
Please note that we have linked the books mentioned with various websites. We sometimes list Goodreads, as they offer the reader a choice between phsyical books at nearby bookstores, ebooks, and the inevitable Amazon. Failing a visit to your local library, however, bear in mind the Open Library, free and online, which lends ebooks, lists your nearest lending library source and/or offers a link to where the books can be bought. Apparently Gutenberg. org is still offering free downloads of certain ebooks.
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