rfmcdonald | Some Things I'm Reading (Reply)

I find it difficult to get into Kenzobure Oe's Somersault. There's a flatness in Oe's language that alienates me. Perhaps it's a matter of translation, or of Japanese literary styles--I've noticed similar flatness in other translated Japanese stories. I don't think I'll bother finishing it.

I didn't have the same problem with Günter Grass' The Call of the Toad. I've been aware of Grass' reputation as an author devoted to his native Danzig. Danzig--since 1945 the Polish city of Gdansk--had an interesting history as a city located on the cutting edge of German/Polish relations, a bellwether of sorts and a place for interaction. His story of the German art historian Alexander, the Polish art restorer Alexandra, their love, and their efforts to build in Gdansk a cemetery where German dead can be reburied on their native soil works at numerous levels--the literary, the sociological, the historical. I recommend it.

The same goes for Nadine Gordimer's Loot and Other Stories. I'm a fan of Gordimer's novels and short stories; her The Late Bourgeois World is one of the finest novels I've read. Her stories in this volume won't disappoint.

Jason Lutes' graphic novel Berlin: City of Stones compares well with V FGor Vengeance. I read some comics in the early 1990s--Star Trek, issued under the DC label--but by the mid-1990s I stopped. I've begun again, thanks to Allan's association with the Comic Hunter and the library's recent purchase of some comics. Beautifully drawn in ink and well-written, Berlin: City of Stones traces a broad cast over ten months in Berlin's history, from September 1928 to May 1929. We know what will happen to Berlin soon enough, but that only heightens the effect.