Really, are there any books you *do* like?

[flemmings]

Having been negative all over the FL lately on the subject, I got to thinking.

There are indeed books I liked, but I don't know if I still do because I don't reread things any more. That was for earlier decades; now I have TWCS (Time's Winged Chariot Syndrome) and a bit of hurry-up involved on account of my life's in danger (my how old films come back to one) my eyes are disintegrating even as I type. The sure-fire favourites- Judge Dee and Mary Renault (except Fire From Heaven, because once again I can't see what other people saw in that book; I thought it the weakest of her historical works except for Funeral Games) and childhood loves like Narnia and Antonia Forest and The Gentle Falcon and The Ship that Flew and Mara Daughter of the Nile- well, those I have memorized, so I know I like them.

However last year when I started rereading a book from twenty years ago that I remembered as absolutely stunning- Brothers Karamazov FWIW- it uhh wasn't. At all. Boy was it bad. (Translations. They always make other cultures look idiotic.) So I don't reread; and the following *may* be books I like.

The short list of books I think I like:

Pride and Prejudice
Emma
Our Mutual Friend
Dream of Red Chambers (which I reread in bits cause it's necessary for talking to the Chinese a classic)
Heike Monogatari (Tuttle edition, I have to keep saying. The other scholarly annotated one was done by-- a scholar who is very much not a writer.)
No Longer Human- Dazai Osamu
Claudine at School, Claudine in Paris- Colette (but not the other two)
Tristram Shandy
The Flatearth Books- Tanith Lee
Terra Nostra- Carlos Fuentes (remembered as a brilliantly coloured nightmare)
Titus Groan- Mervyn Peake (remembered as a claustrophobic nightmare)
The Three Imposters- Arthur Machen
The Father Brown stories (which I have reread), and The Man who was Thursday (which I haven't)
The Rebel Angels- Robertson Davies (because it's about a Toronto I recognize even if the characters are impossible)
Sanshirou- Natsume Souseki (most Souseki, come to that; *the* Meiji writer: who can resist?)

And Dick Francis, but him I reread occasionally just for fun.

Comments

[incandescens]

The version I have of the Heike is the one translated by McCullough, which is readable -- but is the Tuttle that much better?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I thought so. Maybe a bit quaint, but it captured all that understated romance and sadness. It may be abridged, which would help with the narrative. Granted I read it in... '88, I believe, so don't trust my memory of it.

But that same year I was studying classical Japanese and read some sections of Heike Monogatari, and it seemed to me that the Tuttle translation got the feel of the Japanese (in my very bad understanding of it at the time) more than the dry-reading McCullough.

[incandescens]

Hm. Right. I agree that the McCullough is very definitely dry. (Christmas a couple of years ago, requested translations of Tales of Genji and Heike from parents. Got current ones.) May well invest in the Tuttle as well, then, since I see it's on amazon. Thank you very much.