The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, translated by Dennis Washburn and short version translated by Sumatsu Kencho
The short translation was one of the first, made over a century ago. The Washburn translation was more recent and much longer. I finished the short one and started the Washburn one, but never finished. Washburn had a lot of "about this text" at the start. The story is of a woman that hangs out with the rulers. It did not keep my interest.
The Rainbow: A Novel by Yasunari Kawabata, translated by Haydn Trowell
People are living in post-war Japan. A family comes to terms with different relationships and a father with multiple mothers. A train and rainbow play an important role. The book p=pretty much happens, with out much to draw me in.
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Richard Pevear
Dead Souls pokes fun of Russian culture and bureaucracy. The protagonist goes about the country attempting to purchase "dead souls" from landowners. These are people that have died, yet are still on the tax roles. He believes that owing a great number can help him to get loans and be rich. He also has a scheme to create a fake will to inherit the lands of a rich lady. Alas, that scheme falls apart because he forgot to cancel previous wills. This second part is a bit fragmentary, with sections missing and the end cutting off in mid-sentence. The tone is much less serious than other historic Russian novels.
How Finland Survived Stalin: From Winter War to Cold War, 1939-1950 by Kimmo Rentola translated by Richard Robinson
Finland had an odd position during World War II. They were aligned with Germany, but never part of the Axis powers. They fought the Winter War against Russia. German alignment was seen as a necessary defensive measure. Stalin had underestimated the ability of Finnish army and suffered significantly during the hostilities. The Finns paid were willing to pay reparations and cede territory. However, they were not pushovers. They refused to become a Soviet satellite. They maintained their culture and political system. They were one of the few European capitals that was never occupied during the war. Stalin seems to have some respect for the Finns and was willing to let them be. The book was original written in Finnish and relied on many Russian sources that are now locked away again due to the Ukraine war.
The Unworthy: A Novel by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses
The novel gradually unfolds a post-apocalyptic pseudo-religious convent. The women aspire for various positions there and must adhere to strict rules in the process. We learn of the background of the narrator and the rules of the strict rules of the "convent". The world has fallen apart with places like Great Britain under water. The narrator lost most everything, including her pet. Later, she has a romantic relationship with another woman. After an upper-level woman dies, the narrator learns more negative secrets of the society. The story is short, with a dark, pessimistic view of the future world.
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih
Somebody goes back to their home in Sudan. There things happen. He encounters people from other places like England. There are conflicts as well as intersection between east and west. It is rather short, not really bad, but not really great either.
Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo
The novel is framed as a memoir written by a man undergoing psychiatric treatment. His psychiatrist sees it as a way to help the process. It starts with him talking about his failures to quit smoking. He later delves into his family life as well as other love experiences. He has challenges with his life and doing what is best. The novel was good at first, but I gradually got lost as he rambled more.
The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett
Somebody is trapped in an odd existence and wonders what is going on with him and the outside world. It is a weird rambling experience. I found this one more accessible than the others in the trilogy. Trying to find a plot is next to impossible, but the rambling is interesting.
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith
The book is structured as the random thoughts of a Portuguese bookkeeper and aspiring writer. Though the author died in 1935, this book was not published until 1982. He muses on the culture and the life, providing armchair discussions of history and philosophy. He explores the concepts of joy and culture. The religion that served as the base of society was cut down, leaving nothing much in its place. Postmodernism is seen as just "anti" without any strong coherence to itself. Are dreams or reality better? The book has little organization, but is filled with interesting thoughts.
Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
I wanted to like this book, but could not understand what was going on. Malone was dying. He was also going crazy. It was hard to follow with the accented reader.
Children of the Alley: A Novel by Naguib Mahfouz translated by Peter Theroux
Also known as Children of Gebelawi. The novel uses a Cairo slum to provide an allegory of the history of humanity, with stand ins for various religious figures (Adam, Moses, Jesus, Mohamad) and science. I missed the whole allegory part and just saw it as a good story. People are tied to the alley, but struggle to grow out of it. They often see being a gangster as a good outcome. Some people do rise out of it, but it is tough for them to return. There is also a distant overseer that manages the inheritance. The people struggle to grow, but have a tendency to return to the base behavior they are used to.
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert translated by Robert Baldick
This felt like a lite version of Les Miserables. There are some people with intertwined lives. There is a another revolution going on in France. The people are revolting, but having a hard time deciding what they really want to do. Those remaining are interested in affairs and the like. The central character is attracted to a woman. It was tough to the characters. The audiobook didn't mention the translator at all. Hopefully AI got it right.
A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen
This play was a lot better than I remember it in high school. Nora is a ditzy materialistic housewife. She seems very excited about the promotion to bank manager her husband Torvald is about to receive. He chastises her for plotting to spend it before he has started to receive it. She has three kids, but likes to have the hired-help take care of them. She likes to buy presents for others, but just presents for herself. An old friend comes to town. She has been divorced and needs a job. Nora pulls some strings with her husband to secure a job at the bank. However, this ends up causing things to unwind for her. To give a job to her friend, her husband is letting Krogstad go. Nora had received a loan from Krogstad with a forged signature from her dying father. Krogstad holds this against her. (Nora had taken out the loan to help her husband convalesce in the south.) Nora doesn't want her husband to find out. However, he reads the letter from Krogstad and flips out. He is more concerned for himself than for Nora. Then when he receives the paid off note, he is happy again. It is Nora's turn to flip out and decide she will leave them to be independent.
Nora is quite unreliable and is prone to take things to extreme. I wasn't sure that she had really taken out the loan. Was she just exaggerating to feel better with her friends? When it appeared she did take out hte loan, she went to extremes to hide it from her husband and prevent it Krogstad from doing negative things. There was a lot of toeing around issues to try to get what was needed. Then when it came to that she did it, she flipped out and decided to drop her life and not live in a "Doll House". They both seem to delight in controlling each other. There seemed to be some love in the relationship, but also some mutual manipulation. They both were most interested in caring for themselves. Nora also came from a family with some not-so-good characters. Is the rash behavior and familial abandonment just another case of this behavior? The L.A. Theater Works production was well done with some great actors. This helps the play come alive.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnett
The early part of the book was heavy on religious discussion. The end was a murder trial. In between it was quite slow moving. The early writing was good, but it went on for too long. The trial was fast paced and tied in some of the moral discussions of the early part.
Two Women Living Together: The Bestselling Korean Memoir by Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo
The title describes it well. This is the story of two adult women who live together. They are not romantic partners. They are just friends that care for each other. They also advocate for better legal protections. Why are rights tied to marriage whether heterosexual or homosexual? What about people that have mutual caring without the romance? There is not a lot of substance to the book, but it does have some interesting thoughts to explore on the different styles of human relationships.
Tokyo Express: A Novel by Seicho Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
An official and a woman appeared dead in an apparent love suicide. There were witnesses that saw them boarding a train and they later showed up dead. It seemed fairly straightforward. However, the man was involved in a scandal. Could there be something else involved? The detective looked at the clues and everything seemed to stack up. However, things seemed to be just a little too good. There was also little evidence of the man and the woman in a relationship before they were seen at the train station. The detective was persistent and continue to investigate. The coincidences were just too much. Eventually he discovered that it was an elaborately set up murder organized in part by a dying woman who was obsessed with train scheduled. (They did happen to get the couple seen from a platform away in a rare time when there would be no train in between.) The perpetrator (a high ranking official and his wife) almost got away with it. Once they saw they would be caught they took their lives. It was a well done whodunit.
Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder by Asako Yuzuki
A fat woman criminal has captivated interest in Japan. She has been jailed for the deaths of rich men she dated. She has affairs with them and then they later die in a way that could seem to be suicide. She is jailed. A woman who works for a magazine wants to get her story. She meets with her regularly in the prison. At first she has trouble getting to her. However, she realizes that the criminal loves food. She works to follow the criminal's food suggestions and recipes - even enrolling in the same cooking school. She gains weight and learns to appreciate the criminal. She also gets closer to her and gets some stories out of her and her family. After the story is published, the criminal talks smack about the magazine girl and how she tried to be like her by copying her cooking and seemed to be attracted to her. This set magazine girl in a downward spiral and almost caused her death in traffic. She realizes that the criminal has strong narcissistic traits that has led to other's deaths. She manages to break out of it and calls her friends. The book has a number of other sub-plots with characters and their lives. It does show the power that somebody can have by suggestion. It fits in with the "Japanese obsession with food" sub-genre.
If You Live To 100, You Might As Well Be Happy: Lessons for a Long and Joyful Life by Rhee Kun Hoo, translated by Suphil Lee Park
People are living to be older and older. What should they do with the lives? The author has had a positive experience doing things that bring joy. You wont make the olympics in old age, but you can still find joy in working out. Other pursuits can continue to carried out late in life. It is also important to build up relationships and act on needs to maintain the relationships. things will change. Younger generations will do things differently. Getting caught up in changes can make it difficult to appreciate the positives of the moment. Forgiving others can help you live a positive life. The advice here seems very similar to what is given in Christian work. Maybe the secular approach is easier to sell.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, translated by Arthur Goldhammer
I found this book much better than Piketty's Equality. Here he provides much more convincing analysis and thought on the concept of capital and his proposed fixes to the existing system. He is quite observant of the flaws in the current system as well as challenges of implementing changes. The communist system failed because the elimination of capitalism resulted in the loss of signals in the market. His proposal is to still allow wealth and accumulation, but to tax it in order to prevent excess. There is some detailed analysis of capital's use and flows. Those with little or no capital have difficulty accumulating more, while those with greater amounts can expect greater returns. Most places have a "wealth tax" that only applies to owned property. He would like to expand it to all types of capital. He wants this to global in order to reduce the incidence of scofflaws. There will be other challenges. What if wealth is entirely tied up in illiquid assets with inflated values? Will this further retard the accumulation of wealth, as only those with the means can manage the overhead of the tax and ways to avoid it?
The wealth tax is the conclusion to the book. However, there is plenty of discussion of experience with capital historically. War and inflation has wiped out savings many times in history. Governments have also come in and taken it away. The levels of accumulation now are some the greatest of all time. Will it last? The description and arguments are well thought out. He continually points out that many of the proposals should be made politically rather than by economists. The discussions are good, even if the final proposal has some flaws. His experience as a Frenchman who had some training in the United States provides a unique perspective.
The Convenience Store by the Sea by Sonoko Machida, translated by Bruno Navasky
The book is a simple heartwarming tale of the lives of many people whose lives are connected via a local convenience store, "Tenderness". The store manager is charismatic and cares for others. He really seeks the best and love to help others. He has his own fan club of older women. A woman pursues her passion of manga and helps others. (Her son thinks she is having an affair in a later episode.) There is a schoolgirl who sneaks treats and befriends another girl who is bullied for being different. (The later finds out she was caring for her dying father.) A retiree finds the joy of being a substitute grandfather and is helped in the process. He shunned convenience stores at first but found they can be helpful. The many episodes are all fairly independent, but tie together. In the end there is a classic mixup where the manager sister comes to the store while the manager goes to the family home (and they don't have cell signal.) It all works out after the everyone in the community rallies together to help. The characters are universal, though it is strongly placed in Japan with many subtle bits of Japanese culture.
