Lost In Translation

RIP: Naguib Mahfouez

Egyptian novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1988 recently died, here's a bit from his obituary in Slate:

His own first novel was published in 1939, and he went on to write 40 novels and short-story collections, dozens of screenplays and literary criticism. Among his best-known books are Thief and the Dog, Miramar, and The Cairo Trilogy, a multigenerational family epic that begins with the 1919 Egyptian revolution—arguably the only popular revolution in the modern Arab world—and extends through the 1952 coup that brought Nasser to power. Mahfouz was not merely a scribe; he also participated in modern Egyptian history, albeit unwillingly, for the Islamists came for him, too, more than a decade ago to repay him for a book.

The novels mentioned in the blurb are the five I have read. The Cairo Triology (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street) is a monumental achievement and tells you more about Arab culture than an academic study ever could. It is on par with the great realistic novels of the 19th century. his later novels, like, The Thief and the Dog, are more modern in experimentalism and stream-of-cosnciousness narrative style. He was truly one of the world's great artists.

Japanese Girls Style

Neomarxism (the image above is from here) has another interesting discussion on marketing trends as they relate to women in Japan and the influence of the media, magazines in particualr, on personal style and presentation:

As part of some professional research I am engaged in, I talked with two female fashion marketing experts last night about contemporary Japanese women in their 20s. For a majority of the post-war, a Japanese woman's lifestyle - fashion, makeup, hair, hobbies, general dispositions - could be almost perfectly deduced from her primary magazine of choice. The instruction and guidance are so precise that even the most individual extrapolation of the ingredients would still result in an extremely manifest membership to a certain style.

Knowing this, I have been interested in the grand meaning behind the giant octopus Can Cam currently sitting on top of Japanese society. The magazine has a circulation estimated between 600,000 and 750,000 - quite possibly the best selling title in Japan outside of the phonebook weekly manga. According to my sources, even women who consider themselves non•no readers may also be glancing at Can Cam to skim tips. CC's popularity has been attributed to the three exclusive models (専属モデル) in their pages - Ebihara Yuri, Yamada Yu, and Oshikiri Moe - but these women (all in the same K-Dash jimusho keiretsu) have only broken into pop culture over the last year, whereas the magazine started quickly increasing readership after 2001.

Click here to read the entire post.

Withnail & I

Withnail & I is a British cult film that I've heard a lot about, but haven't come across very often since it was released in 1987. It is a very English film in many ways, but I think the comedy and pathos that it inspires are universal. Two out of work and out of luck actors Withnail (Richard E. Grant) and Marwood (Paul McGann) are living an unhealthy and dreary existence in london as they try to break into show business. The live in a filthy decrepit flat and consume prodigious amounts of alcohol and other substances, did I forget to mention it is the 1969 and the soundtrack boasts Jimi Hendrix among others. They extract a dinner invitation form Withnail's wealthy and latently homosexual uncle "Uncle Monty" (Richard Griffiths). During the dinner Uncle Monty gives them permission to use his country house. After frightening interactions with the locals, horrible wether, and lack of provisions. Uncle Monty appears and hilariously tries to seduce Marwood. The trip comes to grinding halt when he receives a telegram telling him that he has won an acting role. it is apparent at he end of the film that "I" has moved on while Withnail will carrie on in his squalor and self-destructive ways. He delivers a poetic Shakespearean speech to the wolves in Regent Gardens to end the film, which ends the film on a note of resignation. It is a well-acted and funny look at the life of modern bohemians.

Bangkok Tattoo

I was really looking forward to John Burdett's follow up to the entertaining Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo, and while I enjoyed it, it had some serious flaws. I guess I was pretty satisfied until 3/4 of the way through, when his plots started to wear thin. This might also be where the sneering anti-west/American attitude of Sonchai Jitleecheep started to grate on me. I don't remember this condescending tone in the first novel, which seems somewhat self-hating since Sonchai is half "farang" himself, which in most Asian societies makes you a sort of outsider as well. The American CIA agents seem to reflect the perceived attitudes of an intellectual Englishman. For example, the main murder victim Mitch Turner is a neurotic, muscle bound, religiously misguided lost soul. Of the other three CIA agents, one, described as a jaw-grinder, succumbs to the flesh trade falls in love with a whore and is murdered, while the female boss is a lesbian, who hires a girl out as well. There are some British drug dealers and an eccentric Japanese tattoo artist, and not to mention the corrupt police Colonel Vikorn and army General Zinna don't necessarily exhibit the best aspect of the Thai people either. However, all the customer sat the Old Man's bar are rough American ex-hippies. You certainly see more Europeans and rough working class Brits in Bangkok. The British, in particular, have a reputation to act like barbarian Anglo-Saxons sacking a city when they travel abroad. So in a sense there are few redeeming characters, however among the few are the Muslims. Hmmm imagine this, coming from a liberal Brit. Sonchai is devoutly Buddhist, but exhibits his own moral relativism as he helps run his mother's brothel The Old Man's Club, and succumbs to the charms of the beautiful and successful working girl Chanya. There seems to be a sort of apologetic attitude to the oldest profession in the world, as Burdett feels the need to offer a note at the end of the book saying that per capita the skin trade is much larger elsewhere. If you want a more balanced look into Thai people I recommend Rattawut Lapcharoensap's excellent book of short stories, Sightseeing. That being said, I like how he ties in post 9/11 concerns as well as current affairs by citing the Muslim sectarian violence in the south of Thailand, and most of the plots are compelling, but I would like to have seen more about the war between Vikorn and Zinna, which was one of the more compelling aspects of the book. As usual, there's plenty of local color and history. I think both of his Thailand mysteries have flaws, but are basically entertaining read. He has set the stage for a third, as some unresolved plot points are kept open.

Entourage-Generating A Buzz

There's an article in the NY Times about the popularity of Entourage, which will return with even more episodes next year as this season just ended:

The signs of the “Entourage” phenomenon are growing. The cast members are recognized everywhere. Emmanuelle Chriqui, who plays Sloan, a supporting character, was instantly mobbed when she went to a bar in North Carolina this summer. Joe Kernan, the morning anchorman of the business cable channel CNBC, confused many in the news media when he jokingly reported that first weekend grosses for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel had broken the record set by “Aquaman,” a fictional film starring Vincent Chase.

Mr. Ellin noted that references to Johnny Drama, Vince’s brother (played by Kevin Dillon), and his catchphrase, “Victory!,” had become all but standard fare on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”

“They’re always saying: ‘Victory!’ ” Mr. Ellin said of the sports anchors. “Or when Johnny Damon hits one for the Yankees: ‘Johnny Drama: Victory!’ ”

Still, audience totals, the tangible evidence of a show’s success, are not quite there yet. This season “Entourage” has averaged about 2.6 million viewers for its Sunday premiere showing at 10 p.m., up from about 1.9 million last year. Significantly, it is a bump up from what “Deadwood” scores at 9, about 2.1 million viewers.

But placed next to HBO’s ratings monsters, like “Sex and the City,” which reached more than 10 million viewers for its finale, and “The Sopranos,” which has gone as high as 13 million, “Entourage” still seems to be playing in a lower league.

Mr. Ellin says the comparisons are not completely valid. “I think the numbers tend to be silly for this show,” he said. “I know they say ‘The Sopranos’ gets 10 million or whatever. And listen, ‘The Sopranos’ is the greatest show in the history of television. But I still think most people watch that show by themselves. I think people gather to watch our show. They watch at parties. They also steal it. They get it online.”

I know I am one those who find this bit of escapist entertainment indispenseable and look forward to the next season.

Seattle: Elliot Bay Books

Gridskipper has a post about the excellent independent Seattle book store, Elliot Bay Books-a great place to browse. If you look at the links to previous stories there were posts on the legendary Blue Moon Tavern, Seattle Donuts, and Shakespeare in the park in Seattle as well.

Destination Japan

Salon has started a feature called the Salon Literary guide to the World, which has been pretty interesting.  But I have to say that I am disappointed with the entry on Japan.  It omits the big three of Japanese literature (Mishima, Tanizaki, and Kawabata), Nobel Prize recipient, Kenzaburo Oe, and the most popular Japanese writer today, Haruki Murakami.  There's only passing mention of the notorious Osamu Dazai, instead the author, Kyoko Mori, focuses on his daughter, Yuko Tsushima, whom I've never even heard of.  She also includes Japanese-British writer, Kazuo Ishiguro, who despite being a fine writer does not write in Japanese, but in English of his adopted country England..  A missed opportunity for sure.  Other authors who were omitted include Endo, Atagawa, Ryu Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto-just to mention a few.  I would also go so far as to say that more Japanese writers, even writers of popular fiction are having their books translated into English than ever before, and that could have been the angle of the article as well. Another choice could have been a discussion of novels set in Japan: Shogun, Barry Eisler detective novels, Jay McInerney's Ransom, etc...

Veronica Mars Season 1

I had heard a lot of good things about Veronica Mars, so I decided to check it out, and recently finished watching the first season and really enjoyed it. It is another smartly written TV series that encompasses two genres, the gumshoe detective with high school intrigue-aptly described by The Village Voice as Heathers meets Chinatown. I was intrigued to see that the creator, Rob Thomas, is a former Washington state resident and a former writer for Dawson's Creek. Kirsten Bell is great as the former popular girl turned outsider, Veronica Mars, as is Enrico Colontoni (who I remember best as a former cast member of Just Shoot Me) as her detective father and former sheriff, Keith Mars. The first season had a season long mystery as to who killed Lilly Kane, daughter of the resident computer millionaire and Veronica's former best friend and boyfriend Duncan's sister. Lily was living a sort of Laura Palmer secret life. Along the way various another opportunities for detective work surface and are dealt with along the way, as well as the mystery of why her mother abandoned the family in their moment of crisis. The plot arcs are well-thought out and provide cliff hangers throughout the season. The theme song, "We Used To Be Friends" is by the Portland based band, The Dandy Warhols. They had a minor hit with "Bohemian Like You" a few years back, On the excellent 13 Tales of urban Bohemia (which I was inspired to pick up after hearing the theme song), which was also a minor hit in a commercial for Vodafone in Japan and the UK.

Shopping In Tokyo

There's an article in Time Out on shopping in Tokyo with some good info for travelers:

With state-of-the-art gadgetry, cult fashion and mind-blowing department stores – plus ‘Lost in Translation’ moments along the way – Tokyo is the place to go for thoroughly modern retail kicks. The pavements are thronged with people, all of them extremely well behaved: they won’t even think of crossing the road until the traffic lights say they can. The roads are crammed with slow-moving, strangely unfamiliar cars, so retro you’d think they were ancient but for the fact that they gleam. Electronic advertising hoardings sing quaint tum-ti-tum tunes for even the most sober and serious of sales messages. Welcome to Tokyo.

Ask The Dust

've heard a lot of good things about John Fante's Ask The Dust, and finally got around to reading it. He was a favorite of a friend of mine, and not to mention, a favorite of Charles Bukowski, who worte the introduction to the Harper Perennial edition I read. It has that sort of unbridled emotion of a Russian novel, but the context is more like that of a 30's gumshoe detective novel from Chandler or Hammett, which exposes the seedy underbelly of LA. It is a bildungstrom of sorts as it chronicles the early development of a struggling Italian-American writer Arturo Bandini, as well as his tumultuous love affair with the unstable Mexican waitress Camilia Lopez. It is certainly no traditional love story, there is no happy ending. It was recently made into a not so well-received movie starring Colin Ferrell. I can appreciate the fact that he exposes a world that often goes undocumented in literature, but I can't help but find it a bit depressing at times: the junkies, losers, and desperate. Perhaps, I need to read some of his other works before making a final judgement on Fante. I think there's enough that I like in this novel to justify reading another.