flemmings: (Default)
flemmings ([personal profile] flemmings) wrote2020-08-26 09:08 pm
Entry tags:

(no subject)

How very 1993 it's being just now. Grey, washy, cool but humid, with cicadas.

Reading Wednesday has actually finished a book. Two, in fact.

F. C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo
-- which, aside from having lotsa fun with the Journey to the West, is (I am told) an impeccably accurate account of what it's like being American-born Chinese. Being ABC sounds nearly as bad as being Singaporean.

Katherine Govier, The Ghost Brush
-- life of Hokusai's daughter Oei, who was also an artist under the name Katsushika Ooi. Her art is like nothing I've ever seen. These are paintings on silk, which would explain the strong colours, but it's startling after the usual faded out quality of woodblock prints: 
https://blog.britishmuseum.org/hokusai-and-oi-keeping-it-in-the-family/

I may have to reconsider Hokusai himself. I've always said that Hiroshige's my man, because he does people-less landscape while Hokusai does people in a landscape.  But I have to admit that a *lot* of Hiroshige is deadly dull, and what saves dull landscape is, in fact, people.

Forget where I got this book. A wee free library, I think. It was a gift to  'Michel and Lynn' and contains the author's signature as well as  a note, on Japanese notepaper, from the original giver,  a Japanese with a  unisex name. Passing on finished books is one thing, but I suspect Michel and Lynn of never having having read the book at all. Hmph.

Currently rereading Going Postal, fun, fast, and refreshing. Beaver along happily through Hamabe no Kafuka and doggedly through Jean de Florette, and have The Red Queen Dies waiting for me next.
kore: (Default)

[personal profile] kore 2020-08-27 03:15 am (UTC)(link)
Aw that's a shame. Clearly Katsushika Ooi was looking for a better home than Michel and Lynn and found you!
kore: (Anatomy of Melancholy)

[personal profile] kore 2020-08-27 03:24 am (UTC)(link)
Ooh, Red Queen Dies looks neat! $8 on Kindle, impulse buy! /o\
incandescens: (Default)

[personal profile] incandescens 2020-08-27 08:58 am (UTC)(link)
I’ve read the Genie Lo book and its sequel. As you say, fun.
cerberusia: (Default)

[personal profile] cerberusia 2020-08-28 09:16 pm (UTC)(link)
I love Katsushika Oei's work. Her Night Scene In The Yoshiwara is absolutely exquisite. I'm sure that if any of her woodblock print works appear at auction they'll be far too expensive for me, but I do dream for one to keep company with my little Hokusai of a monk sitting by the water - originally a book illustration, I'm told.

More affordable female ukiyo-e artists include Uemura Shoen, whose work does very occasionally turn up on the sites I frequent. She did some lovely work with light and texture.