on japanese literature and other things
J KEITH VINCENT
The End of The Fugitive
We reached the end of The Fugitive. The same stories and desires repeat, but now in a pale, world-weary register. My friend Janine said it reminded her of the end of the Tale of Genji,
Je suis extremement malade
I just read the most delightful letter from Marcel Proust.
Le monde est fait
Thoughts on French literature in Japan after a visit to the Suzuki Shintarō Memorial Museum in Tokyo.
Cities of the Plain
It’s a straight shot north from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Lawrence, Kansas on Highway 169. The drive takes just under four hours. I know it well, having driven it many times going to and from school when I was an undergraduate at the University of Kansas in the late 1980s.
Kokoro and the Cat
I saw an incredible production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” last night at the Tennessee Williams Festival in Provincetown.
A Sable Figure
In my Proust reading group we are reading the translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and I’m so glad.
Why Read Anything Else?
I saw the Argentinian director Maria Alvarez’s film “Le Temps Perdu,” about a Proust reading group in Buenos Aires, at Film Forum in New York. It was wonderful, although I napped a little.
Proust’s Haiku
Lydia Davis says that while translating the first volume of Proust she began to notice "how he was incorporating alexandrines into his sentences or building parallel structures, with liberal use of assonance and alliteration..." As a result, "...a single sentence...
The End of the Budding Grove
We finished Proust Volume Two. We all laughed out loud when Marcel tried to kiss Albertine, his head swelled to contain the whole universe and then some. We loved the faces changing over time, successions of selves, faces viewed by other selves, how the girls are the...
Grains of Sand
I went for a long walk yesterday and when I got back a very heavy box was sitting at the foot of our mailbox. I assumed it must be for Anthony. Some new rocks for his aquarium? But then I saw the label from Yaguchi Shoten, a used bookstore in Tokyo’s Jinbochō district, and realized it was the gorgeous new encyclopedia of haiku seasonal words, called a “saijiki” in Japanese, that I had ordered and was anxiously awaiting.