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A Continent for the Taking

Africa first captivated New York Times journalist Howard W. French more than twenty-five years ago, but his knowledge of and passion for the continent has the depth of a lifetime association. His experiences there awakened him as nothing before to… read more

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I finished this slim little delight on a short flight recently. It’s the story of a neurotic, alcoholic Japanese woman and a neurotic, gay Japanese man who get married for the sake of their families, and for the betterment of his career.

These are real live characters, surprisingly deep for such a thin volume, and Ekuni is both a subtle and brilliant in the ways she plumbs the fault lines of her society’s disfunction. It’s all here: the quirky obsessiveness that permeates so much behavior, from Japanese tidiness to gift giving to keeping up appearances. The role of women. The quiet revolt of men — some men — to escape the straightjackets the culture places them in. Highly recommended.

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I had been trying to avoid the slew of Bush/Iraq books that have been flooding the market, but broke down and bought this on my last trip to the States, and found it a surprisingly quick read, despite Woodward’s dry, stenographic style. The Watergate scribe is famously non-judgmental, and therefore I believe somewhat irresponsible. Nuanced or blunt, authors should take a stance, shouldn’t they?

Some passages jump out nonetheless, like this account of a conversation with Bush about the President’s meetings with Colin Powell, excerpt from page 152:

Andy Card called Powell and asked him to come over and go through the whole case, notes and all.

Powell felt he had hit a home run. But he was also not sure that the president had fully taken aboard the meaning, the consequences of going to war. Sixteen months later in the office where Powell had made his case, I asked the president about Powell’s argument that military solution would mean he would own Iraq.

“He sure did,” Bush replied. “He did say that.”

“And my reaction to that is, is that my job is to secure America,” the president said…

I sat there somewhat nonplussed as the president discussed the issues of freedom and security, which were very much besides the points Powell had made….

“That’s his job,” Bush answered, “to be tactical. My job is to be strategic. Basically what he was saying was, was that if in fact Saddam is toppled by military [invasion], we better have a strong understanding about what it’s going to take to rebuild Iraq.”

That was certainly true, and it was part of Powell’s message, but as I listened I glimpsed what Powell had apparently seen — uncertainty that the president fully grasped the potential consequences…

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I’ve just received this book, but Cumings is a reliably good read; great for debunking mass-think on East Asian matters, and Korea in particular….

Addendum: I’ve read it now. It is provocative now and then and interesting but uneven. Bettter, is Cumings’ previous work: North Korea: Another Country, which is a powerful antidote, even if he goes over the top here and there, to the prevailing drivel about North Korea, which focuses on the hairdos and high heels of the country’s leader, and forgoes any serious reckoning with history, or attempt at analyzing Pyongyang’s moves in terms of conventional defense strategy and game theory.

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Redhill does for the short story what Brad Mehldau (see the music section) does for the piano. These are fresh, lively stories that breathe humanity and speak in real voices.

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Africa is supposedly without history. Soundiata not only shoes how ludicrious this idea is, he relates Africa’s history, particularly but not exclusively Liberia’s, with the history of the United States in ways that will surprise you. There is so much good scholarship here, and the writing keeps moving along the whole way through.

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A very thorough and readable account of the struggle of ordinary Chinese for protection under the law. Johnson’s examples aren’t necessarily the most original, but his portraits are compelling, and the the stories are deeply reported.

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Donald Keene, Japanese history and culture supremo has produced a slim and elegant volume that drips with wisdom about Japan’s cultural development, and most especially, the fitful way the country has digested its immense borrowings from China.
It is also, unsurprisingly since this is Keene, an unusually lucid treatment of Japanese aesthetics down to this day.

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Comments to come.

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This is some of the best historical fantasy cum East Asian martial arts and warfare writing ever written. It covers the Muromachi period and the run up to the seizure of power of Hideoyshi in Japan, and involves warfare there and in China versus the Mongols.
This is an absolutely enchanting book that rises above its genre. If you know a little bit of the real history of the period it only becomes more fascinating. And if not, you’ll want to learn more.
The book is sadly out of print, and Robert Shea is now dead.

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Smartly coarse, brief and exhilarating. Abani has made waves with this novel, a hard coming of age tale about Elvis Oke, an “area boy” from a fetid Lagos slum in the 1970s raised in a poor and troubled home who idolizes Western rock musicians.

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Comments to come.

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One of the best books I have read in the last 2-3 years. An uncommonly wise and illuminating meditation on age and decay, not to mention a thoroughly convincing depiction of an era. Yourcenar’s writing is so subtle and so effective that the reader very soon begins to read this as autobiography, rather than as a historical novel.

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Mehldau’s attack is smooth as butter. He makes the piano sound new again, and his interpretations of familiar songs bubble with fresh ideas.

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Miles has often been derided for his electric-band’s “deviationism.” These are fantastically grounded jam sessions, though, with groves that won’t quit. Rediscovering this music again after hardly listening to it for 20 years is to be amazed by Miles’ protean creativity and boldness (and John McLaughlin on guitar is an absolute monster).

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It is a compilation and suffers the weaknesses of this format, but pulls together some of this genius’s best stuff.

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I was turned onto this at an Araki photo shoot in Tokyo last year. It was the choice of his dancer. This is spooky classical music. Like nothing else you’ve heard.

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Uncompromisingly outrageous. The black Frank Zappa? Too wild and free to be rich and famous.

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Ditto on compilation drawbacks. Attention Na Sida, though, is the most effective “message” song I’ve ever heard, though, and this band never sounded bad. “On Entre OK, on sort KO!”

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The problem with Monk is picking. Who has ever been more original? Like no other, he meditates on a tightrope enlightening listeners on time, rhythm, geometry, architecture.

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