The story for this week is one of the best from my
roster, the rest of my reading was also good stuff. (well
almost all of it was good.)
Story:
The Song the Owl God Himself Sang, “
Silver Droplets Fall Fall All Around,” An Ainu Tale .
Transliterated in Romaji and translated from Ainu into Japanese by Chiri Yukie; Translated from Japanese into English and introduced by Kyoko Selden
This is wonderful. The introduction is quite detailed on the interesting history of the work. The preface to the work, A
inu Shin’yōshū (Ainu Songs of Gods), in which this song was originally published is also included. The song itself tells a story of how the Owl God takes pity on a pauper family.
From the Preface:
Long ago, this spacious Hokkaido was our ancestors’ space of freedom.
Like innocent children, as they led their happy, leisurely lives
embraced by beautiful, great nature. Truly, they were the beloved of
nature; how blissful it must have been.
On land in winter, kicking the deep snow that covers forests and
fields, stepping over mountain after mountain, unafraid of the cold that
freezes heaven and earth, they hunt bear; at sea in summer, on the
green waves where a cool breeze swims, accompanied by the songs of white
seagulls, they float small boats like tree leaves on the water to fish
all day; in flowering spring, while basking in the soft sun, they spend
long days singing with perpetually warbling birds, collecting butterbur
and sagebrush; in autumn of red leaves, through the stormy wind they
divide the pampas grass with its budding ears, catch salmon till
evening, and as fishing torches go out they dream beneath the full moon
while deer call their companions in the valley. What a happy life this
must have been. That realm of peace has passed; the dream shattered tens
of years since, this land rapidly changing with mountains and fields
transformed one by one into villages, villages into towns.
From The Song:
“Silver droplets fall fall all around me
golden droplets fall fall all around me.” So singing
I went down along the river’s flow, above the human village.
As I looked down below
paupers of old have now become rich, while rich men of old
have now become paupers, it seems.
By the shore, human children are at play
with little toy bows with little toy arrows.
Card: 7 Clubs, Owl deck from
Scout Playing cards at Zazzle
This finishes the club suit for this year. This suit was defined for
my roster as "Clubs--different format (narrative poem, short play or skit, graphic, clever title, narrative essay, etc.)." It was fun to set up and fun to do so if I participate again next year I may use it this way again.
from my shelves...
Chocky by John Wyndham, Afterword by Margaret Atwood
My kind of sci-fi. A classic.
And I like the cover too...
Dazzling the Gods: Stories by Tom Vowler
Wonderful collection. This is one I helped crowd fund through
Unbound
Glad I did that.
Another great cover...
Not One Day by Anne Garréta, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan
Memories of loves past. Garréta is a member of
Oulipo, but this work is not exactly Oulipo. She does set a rigid form--write at computer for five hours every day, with no revisions, for thirty days chronicling memories of women she has desired or has been desired by--but she doesn't stick to the program. So there are not thirty entries (she abandons the schedule early on) but what there is has wonderful insights, poetic writing and, at times, amusing encounters.
Old Demons, New Deities by
Tenzin Dickie (Editor)
An anthology of contemporary Tibetan fiction. Some of these stories were written in English, others have been translated from the Tibetan or, in one case, from the Chinese. I enjoyed this look into the lives of Tibetan exiles.
I must have been picking books from my to read shelves by cover this week.
Post Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven by Antoine Volodine, translated from the French by J.T. Mahany
The most difficult of this week's reads. A complicated fantasy world of experimental authors who are dying off in some sort of prison. When the last man dies there is no one left to tell the story but the story gets told. A book (and an author) to read and read again.
Not a dazzling cover but one that fits the material.
The Octopus: A Story of California (The Epic of the Wheat #1) by Frank Norris (Kindle ed)
I've been reading this off and on for several months--partly because it's on Kindle and I forget about it, but mostly because I found it a bit tedious. I would have appreciated it more if I had read it a long time ago when I was studying California history. Almost a bucket list read. Glad I read it, but also glad to scratch it off the list.
Image Googling will bring up some really fine covers for this, but I have used the generic, forgettable one from the Kindle edition to highlight my problem with remembering to read what is on my kindle.
Saving Tarboo Creek: One Family’s Quest to Heal the Land
by Scott Freeman, Susan Leopold Freeman (Illustrations)
A worthwhile book about an ecology project on a small piece of land in Washington state. This is a salmon breeding area so Freeman gives some background on what salmon need. The book covers the broader picture of how this small property fits into the wider ecology of the creek and the surrounding area and also why this small project matters in the world-wide ecological picture. One message here is: do what you can, every little bit counts.
A nice companion to
Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees which I read in August.
free advance review copy from publisher.
