UNESCO list

I read two issues of Eclectic Reading and an issue of The Economist.

I've also read five longer reads from my list. The first, Land by Park Kyong-ni, is an epic set at the turn of the century. I thought that this novel was ill-served by its translator, because it came across as colorless and uni-dimensional, and the author is probably the most famous in Korea today. the next book I cannot claim to have read, I only skimmed it: it is Mahdhara's Mantramahodadhi. This book explains the rituals and mantras for every occasion, with commentary. The rituals are elaborate, with explanations on food offerings, incense, type of imagery to be used in a lot of detail. This is what all those hippies in Haight-Ashbury must have read, but of course it was used in India for religious purposes. I read an anonymous epic translated from the Catalan, Curial and Guelfa. It is primarily a chivalrous novel in the tradition of Tristan und Isolde and La chanson de Roland. It is deadly serious, utterly without the leavening of humour. Galvan's Cross and the Sword is a rebellion story set in Santo Domingo. Shiga's Dark Night's Passing is a naturalist novel translated from the Japanese, and despite its limitations (it substitutes unadorned language for any sort of character development) it is the most popular in Japanese literature today. I liked it but found it stark, and I like spare prose.