Facing the Bridge

Yoko Tawada, 1993-2000 
[Margaret Mitsutani, 2007]

(January 2018)

After my first experience reading Tawada was something of a qualified success, I decided to try again with this older collection of three longish short stories. In summary, it confirms what I think I already knew—she’s an intriguing writer, and one worth engaging with, but not one I’ll ever really love. There’s just a little too much distance in her work, too much detachment to engage on that more emotional level. To be fair though, that’s probably deliberate.

Unlike Memoirs of a Polar Bear, the stories here have been translated into English straight from their original Japanese, rather than passing through German on the way. Germany still features prominently in the first tale, though, as it splices the life of (the real-life) Anton Wilhelm Amo with the experiences of (the fictional) Tamao, a Japanese exchange student studying in Leipzig.

The Book of Dust

Volume 1: La Belle Sauvage

Phillip Pullman, 2017

(December 2017)

His Dark Materials will forever hold a very special place in my heart. I read the first two instalments in paperback just before The Amber Spyglass was released, so was able to take in the whole sweep of the trilogy in pretty much a single dose. More poignantly, I read that final volume just after I'd decided to come to Japan for the first time, and to try to make my relationship with my then girlfriend work long distance.* You'll understand why the dénouement to Will and Lyra's story hit particularly hard. I love the books with a passion, and have recommended them to countless people since, but will probably never reread them.

So The Book of Dust is all very exciting, finally giving me a full length opportunity to get back into Lyra's world.** And what a world. Biblical floods, Homeric journeys, and a notable episode in Wallingford, a small town in Oxfordshire I know fairly well because my grandparents used to live nearby. When I lived in London I visited them fairly regularly, and the journey that makes up the second part of The Book of Dust reads like my old rail itinerary in reverse. Nostalgia smacking me in the face every which way. Is it possible to separate that out from my experience of reading this book? Or even necessary or desirable? Clearly not. I therefore have nothing witty or insightful to say about this book except that, while you can't cross the same river twice, it's good to be home.

The Moor’s Account

Laila Lalami, 2014

(March 2017)

  

A tale of imperial hubris gone awry, as it inevitably will. Reminds me in many ways of Dan Simmons’s The Terror, if that book had been written without the supernatural elements.

The Wolf Border

Sarah Hall, 2015

(February 2017)

A wonderfully written book, this, but one that took me far too long to read.

City of the Iron Fish

Simon Ings, 1994

(June 2016)

Gothic New Weird with a healthy dollop of bildungsroman and one of the most gratingly pretentious protagonists I’ve encountered since Catcher in the Rye. In fact, I’m not even sure it is a bildungsroman, but there’s such a strong connection in my mind between the annoyance I feel for both Holden Caulfield and Thomas Kemp, the narrator of this book, that maybe I’m just collapsing them both in to each other.

A Different City

Tanith Lee, 2015

(March 2016)

This was my first encounter with the extensive works of Tanith Lee, and was a slightly contradictory experience. There was a lot to like about the three slices of gothic horror in this slim volume, but by many of the metrics I’d usually apply when deciding if a book’s ‘good’ or not it comes up short. Of course, this also begs the question as to how reliable those metrics are.

Memory of Water

Emmi Itäranta, 2014

(June 2015)

  

I guess I’ve only got myself to blame for this one. I’ve a limited tolerance for dystopia anyway, so going for a third in the space of a couple of weeks was probably pushing it. But look, this one’s been racking up the award nominations in a fairly spectacular style, and Random Acts of Senseless Violence was excellent, so strike while the iron is hot, eh?

At the Mouth of the River of Bees

Kij Johnson, 2012

(September 2014)

In the tiny lifeboat, she and the alien fuck endlessly, relentlessly.

Spirits Abroad

Zen Cho, 2014

(September 2014)

  

It’s been a while since I read a book with a manifesto printed inside the front cover. Spirits Abroad is published by a Malaysian imprint that stakes its ground out very explicitly on page one, and it’s so tempting to get all academic and unpack that through the sociolinguistic frames of World Englishes, ELF, the Expanding Circle and so on. For now though we’ll just focus on one point: Fixi Novo’s deliberate and specific repudiation of italicized loanwords, as “italics are a form of apology.”

Lyra’s Oxford / Once Upon a Time in the North

Philip Pullman, 2003/2008

(March 2014)

  

I read His Dark Materials about 13 years ago now, and I absolutely adored them, and I will never read them again.

So This Is Christmas

 Fried Chicken!

Illuminations!

Santa on a Cross!

Tacky Commercialization!

Irreligion!

Heathens!

Barely Concealed Racism!

I think that’s everything. Please let me know if I’ve missed any of the traditional expat tropes. It is frightfully difficult to keep track.

  

The Boys Vol. 7 and 8

Vol. 7: The Innocents, Vol. 8: Highland Laddie

Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson 2010-2011

(August 2013)

More obvious references to stuff I clearly don’t get. Anyone know what’s going on with the priest in Highland Laddie? He’s blatantly a parody of something or other, but I’ve no idea what.

  

Crossing the Same River

Day One

Incheon Airport – Starbucks refusing to either give or sell us hot water for the baby’s milk because, “Environmental,” despite my observation that it’s just an Americano coffee without the coffee, and thus less work for them. This does nothing to improve my general mood. Shortly after this Son #1 pisses on the play area floor, to similar effect.

Day Two

Heathrow Airport Arrivals Hall – standing in the queue to buy the necessary sugar and caffeine loaded beverage, observe magazine promising “Exclusive: Kate’s Post-Baby Weight Loss Regime” This adds a piquant dash of novelty to the standard post-flight loathing for all humanity. (That’s right, Fucknuts, close as you can. The nearer you stand to the conveyer, the quicker your bags will arrive. It’s magic like that).

Narcopolis

Jeet Thayil, 2012

(February 2013)

I’ve previously expressed my dislike of the Wall of Text – massive paragraphs over a page in length which make you feel that you’re trying to parse meaning from a wordsearch grid, not a story. The opening sentence to Narcopolis is almost 7 (seven) pages long.

The Islanders

Christopher Priest, 2011

(January 2013)

Cheeky motherfucker.

Channel SK1N

Jeff Noon, 2012

(January 2013)

I loved Jeff Noon’s books when I was younger. Late teens, early twenties: Vurt, Pollen, Automated Alice. In all honesty I can’t remember much about the actual stories themselves; just the realization of how weird stuff could be if someone really let their imaginations go was startling enough, added to the cracked distortions possible in making the Manchester I kind of half knew as a hum-drum Northern city into this shifted, liminal zone where the future really was possible. And not just possible, but cool.

A Visit From The Goon Squad

Jennifer Egan, 2010

(August 2012)

A nice book, that’s all I want. Not always, just once in a while. A nice book about nice people having a nice time because nice things are happening to them. But no. Literature has decided that all people in all books ever must be irrevocably damaged and irritating, because that’s art.