![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
What I Just Finished Reading
In Search of Buddha’s Daughters – Christine Toomey
To write In Search of Buddha’s Daughers, Toomey traveled toBurma, India, Japan, the United States, Britain, Denmark, and France to interview nuns from various Buddhist denominations. The resulting book is the narrative equivalent of a water strider: it reaches broadly but never dips beneath the surface. Toomey’s nunnery visits and interviews raise a myriad interesting topics-entrenched sexism, conflict between monastic and lay practitioner and between tradition and relevance, sexual predation by Buddhist clergy—but rarely go further than acknowledging their existence. The narrative is an awkward mix of brief travel journal-style impressions (Today I went to X. It looked like Y. I saw Z.) and more in-depth newspaper column treatments of a site Toomey visited or individual she interviewed. Tellingly, some of the most detailed passages in the volume are those in which Toomey summarizes other authors’ work on an individual or institution. Toomey’s emphasis on Tibetan, Theravadan, and Soto Zen nuns to the exclusion of others is not really explained; nor is her use of diacritics for Vietnamese but not Sanskrit, Pali, or Japanese. End verdict: it’s a quick read that provides a nice overview of the breadth of women’s practice of Buddhism throughout the world and the issues they face, but its treatment of any given topic rarely moves beyond the superficial.
Interior Chinatown – Charles Yu
Written in a screenplay format, Interior Chinatown examines its protagonist’s struggles with external racism and internalized cultural expectations of male Asians in America. (Emphasis on male here; this is the book’s major regrettable blind spot.) There won’t be many revelations for the sort of reader who’d naturally gravitate to the book, but Yu’s presentation of this content is fresh and effective, and the novel’s treatment of love, in its later chapters, is one of the most transcendent I’ve encountered in fiction.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Will and the Wilds – Charlie Holmberg
Holmberg’s last several books haven’t done much for me, but so far the worldbuilding and plot in this one are hitting all of my narrative kinks.
The Starless Sea – Erin Morgenstern
This is very much a novel-length literary fairytale as opposed to a fantasy novel: told, not shown, but I’m still enjoying it far more than The Night Circus.
おまけのこ – 畠中 恵 (Omake no Ko – Hatakenaka Megumi)
I have wrapped up “Kowai,” the first short story in the collection, which ended on a surprising twist that was much more satisfying than what I thought was going to be the story’s inevitable resolution. The second, “Tamaugami” features Ohina and her daughter, who will be familiar to anyone who’s read the earlier books in the series.
What I'm Reading Next
This week I acquired Holmberg’s The Will and the Wilds, Martin Millar’s The Curse of Werewolf Girl, and Kate Corkery's Cork Folk Tales.
これで以上です。
In Search of Buddha’s Daughters – Christine Toomey
To write In Search of Buddha’s Daughers, Toomey traveled toBurma, India, Japan, the United States, Britain, Denmark, and France to interview nuns from various Buddhist denominations. The resulting book is the narrative equivalent of a water strider: it reaches broadly but never dips beneath the surface. Toomey’s nunnery visits and interviews raise a myriad interesting topics-entrenched sexism, conflict between monastic and lay practitioner and between tradition and relevance, sexual predation by Buddhist clergy—but rarely go further than acknowledging their existence. The narrative is an awkward mix of brief travel journal-style impressions (Today I went to X. It looked like Y. I saw Z.) and more in-depth newspaper column treatments of a site Toomey visited or individual she interviewed. Tellingly, some of the most detailed passages in the volume are those in which Toomey summarizes other authors’ work on an individual or institution. Toomey’s emphasis on Tibetan, Theravadan, and Soto Zen nuns to the exclusion of others is not really explained; nor is her use of diacritics for Vietnamese but not Sanskrit, Pali, or Japanese. End verdict: it’s a quick read that provides a nice overview of the breadth of women’s practice of Buddhism throughout the world and the issues they face, but its treatment of any given topic rarely moves beyond the superficial.
Interior Chinatown – Charles Yu
Written in a screenplay format, Interior Chinatown examines its protagonist’s struggles with external racism and internalized cultural expectations of male Asians in America. (Emphasis on male here; this is the book’s major regrettable blind spot.) There won’t be many revelations for the sort of reader who’d naturally gravitate to the book, but Yu’s presentation of this content is fresh and effective, and the novel’s treatment of love, in its later chapters, is one of the most transcendent I’ve encountered in fiction.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Will and the Wilds – Charlie Holmberg
Holmberg’s last several books haven’t done much for me, but so far the worldbuilding and plot in this one are hitting all of my narrative kinks.
The Starless Sea – Erin Morgenstern
This is very much a novel-length literary fairytale as opposed to a fantasy novel: told, not shown, but I’m still enjoying it far more than The Night Circus.
おまけのこ – 畠中 恵 (Omake no Ko – Hatakenaka Megumi)
I have wrapped up “Kowai,” the first short story in the collection, which ended on a surprising twist that was much more satisfying than what I thought was going to be the story’s inevitable resolution. The second, “Tamaugami” features Ohina and her daughter, who will be familiar to anyone who’s read the earlier books in the series.
What I'm Reading Next
This week I acquired Holmberg’s The Will and the Wilds, Martin Millar’s The Curse of Werewolf Girl, and Kate Corkery's Cork Folk Tales.
これで以上です。
Tags: