Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Oh boy...a fresh start. Let's see what happens next...
One of my self-improvement projects right now is working my way through Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major's The New Lifetime Reading Plan, so part of this blog will be me dealing with these books as I finish them off, and also what else crosses my path in a day.
BOOKS I JUST FINISHED: Monkey, Arthur Waley's translation and condensation of Wu Ch'eng-en's Chinese folk novel (Journey to the West). It was a fun trip, the story of a Buddhist monk's trip to India to retrieve some rare scriptures and bring the "true faith" to China. They say that the story was inspired by historical fact, but only in the sense that The Devil and Daniel Webster had a real person as the main character. The real star of the show, of course, is Monkey (of course he's the star; that's why his name is in the title), a hard-swinging, rough-living, fun-loving ape made of stone. The first third of Waley's version is his backstory, and it goes toe-to-toe with his Dragon Ball descendent (at least until a good way into DBZ, where the cartoon loses me).
My big yap is that by putting in the setup chapters basically complete, and then picking and choosing what's left in from there (the unedited version runs three volumes), they spend more time on the setup for the journey than they actually spend journeying. Still, the book did it's job by whetting my appetite for the full work.
WELL, HERE'S SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEE EVERY DAY: A snippet of Hillary Clinton's memoirs...gee, I wonder which part they read first.
I JUST WANT TO CONCENTRATE ON MY SALAD! OR..."Coming up next on 'Martha Stewart Living', using hand-woven area rugs to liven up prison cells, and using applique to personalize orange jump suits. It's a good thing, I'm told."
One of my self-improvement projects right now is working my way through Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major's The New Lifetime Reading Plan, so part of this blog will be me dealing with these books as I finish them off, and also what else crosses my path in a day.
BOOKS I JUST FINISHED: Monkey, Arthur Waley's translation and condensation of Wu Ch'eng-en's Chinese folk novel (Journey to the West). It was a fun trip, the story of a Buddhist monk's trip to India to retrieve some rare scriptures and bring the "true faith" to China. They say that the story was inspired by historical fact, but only in the sense that The Devil and Daniel Webster had a real person as the main character. The real star of the show, of course, is Monkey (of course he's the star; that's why his name is in the title), a hard-swinging, rough-living, fun-loving ape made of stone. The first third of Waley's version is his backstory, and it goes toe-to-toe with his Dragon Ball descendent (at least until a good way into DBZ, where the cartoon loses me).
My big yap is that by putting in the setup chapters basically complete, and then picking and choosing what's left in from there (the unedited version runs three volumes), they spend more time on the setup for the journey than they actually spend journeying. Still, the book did it's job by whetting my appetite for the full work.
WELL, HERE'S SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEE EVERY DAY: A snippet of Hillary Clinton's memoirs...gee, I wonder which part they read first.
I JUST WANT TO CONCENTRATE ON MY SALAD! OR..."Coming up next on 'Martha Stewart Living', using hand-woven area rugs to liven up prison cells, and using applique to personalize orange jump suits. It's a good thing, I'm told."
|| Eric 8:57 PM#
