13 Stories, 13 Epitaphs is the second book by William Vollmann that I've read and I still am not quite sure what to make of him. The first was Butterfly Stories, a sordid tale of a journalist and photographer in Thailand chasing hookers, looking for the one with a heart of gold. 13 Stories is somewhat similar, homeless, jobless, addicted drugs, and several whores. It's hard to judge his writing without considering the content he writes about, which is usually derelicts and people on the fringes of society. It makes me feel uneasy and uncomfortable, I can't relate with the characters and don't find much redeeming about his stories, it doesn't seem like he has an overall plan, it's not necessarily a morality tale. Has anyone else read him and what do they think? I think I've had enough of his novels.
I also read a book of essays called Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress edited by Samuel Huntington and Lawrence E. Harrison. It is basically an interesting discussion about how cultural values affect the progress of societies. I can't say that there were a lot of answers why some societies are able to develop easier than others, ant here seems to be plenty of disagreements between the various essayists as to why this is. Furthermore, most of these essays are written from a pro-free market perspective. That is the preferred model of a developed state is the US versus say Sweden. A lot of food for thought though.
I have finally finished reading Junichiro Tanizaki?s masterpiece, The Makioka Sisters. It has been hailed as Japan?s greatest postwar novel, and it is epic in the same size and scope as Tolstoy?s War and Peace. It gives an intricate portrait of a family in transition, a sort of upper-middle class family from Osaka coming face to face with the changing world. The two sisters Yukiko, represents the past, and Koi-san the future, which are in contrast to one another. It is also a great character study of four very different sisters and the people in their lives, all the while revealing in great details the attitudes and mores of society. In this sense it also reads like a Jane Austen novel with it?s obsessions of making a good match for the family and keeping the family name in good light not matter what.
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