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I finished rereading Disappearing Moon Café by Sky Lee and it's never going to be my favorite book but I'm glad I gave it another shot because it was much better the second time around (aside from the houseboy/Janet Smith stuff, that still bored me to death although I understand why it needed to be there). I like the poliphonic mode that in fact is only one person pretending to be all her ancestors and also herself, that's actually quite interesting and I think it's strange that there seems to be so little scholarship about that. But DMC will do just fine for my paper on race and identity, so I shouldn't complain all that much and get started on it instead. Still, if you want to read a great rather obscure Asian Canadian novel, I recommend Chorus of Mushrooms by Hiromi Goto.
On the more scholarly front, I read Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler, which was... unexpected. Culler says he has "chosen to introduce theory by presenting issues and debates rather than "schools," on page 135 of his 146 page-long book. After that, he gives a very short overview of some of the most common theories and while he made me very happy by mentioning two of Konstanz' most important literary scholars, Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauß, he has still not managed to explain deconstruction and post-structuralism to me. Granted, that might be a difficult task to begin with, but he didn't even make an effort which greatly disappoints me. There were some interesting things in there, but not what I wanted to read about.
And finally, I've been reading A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel García Márquez to Matze in Portuguese (Um senhor muito velho com asas enormes) because my mom and I found them when we were looking for children's books for him to read to improve his Portuguese. Initially, I thought he might understand some of it before we realized that even I struggled with some of the words. He did end up understanding about five words (crab, kitchen, supper, onion and another one I forget now) and I had to keep going back and telling him what had just happened and I could see him grow more and more horrified. I'm still trying to digest it. It's not at all what I expected. It had beautiful drawings by Carmen Solé Vendrell though.
The only book I have lined up for this week so far is Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway. My best friend is in Canada researching her BA thesis about Natives and residential schools right now and I promised to read all the books she wants to write about. There are two others in addition to that but she recommended that I start with this one. Once I'm done with that, we'll see what I'm in the mood for. Probably something a little more cheerful.
On the more scholarly front, I read Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler, which was... unexpected. Culler says he has "chosen to introduce theory by presenting issues and debates rather than "schools," on page 135 of his 146 page-long book. After that, he gives a very short overview of some of the most common theories and while he made me very happy by mentioning two of Konstanz' most important literary scholars, Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauß, he has still not managed to explain deconstruction and post-structuralism to me. Granted, that might be a difficult task to begin with, but he didn't even make an effort which greatly disappoints me. There were some interesting things in there, but not what I wanted to read about.
And finally, I've been reading A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel García Márquez to Matze in Portuguese (Um senhor muito velho com asas enormes) because my mom and I found them when we were looking for children's books for him to read to improve his Portuguese. Initially, I thought he might understand some of it before we realized that even I struggled with some of the words. He did end up understanding about five words (crab, kitchen, supper, onion and another one I forget now) and I had to keep going back and telling him what had just happened and I could see him grow more and more horrified. I'm still trying to digest it. It's not at all what I expected. It had beautiful drawings by Carmen Solé Vendrell though.
The only book I have lined up for this week so far is Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway. My best friend is in Canada researching her BA thesis about Natives and residential schools right now and I promised to read all the books she wants to write about. There are two others in addition to that but she recommended that I start with this one. Once I'm done with that, we'll see what I'm in the mood for. Probably something a little more cheerful.
