I first fell in love with Banana Yoshimoto’s writing in CEGEP when we had to read Kitchen as an international component of a Literature class. Actually, thinking back, the entire literature program offered by the International Baccalaureate was just fabulous. We also read Cymbeline, King Lear, WWI poetry by Owen, Sassoon and Rosenberg, Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Wars. From this list are four of my favourite authors and one of my favourite Shakespeare plays as well as my favourite poem… And just this week i was thinking that the IB was a huge waste of time… I must rethink that.

Goodbye Tsugumi was exactly what i expected of Yoshimoto. I can’t really explain what that means though for her writing is … light, almost trite, yet profound and unexpected. Her characters approach the world from a perspective so radically different from my own i find it difficult to believe how caught up i get in their memories, feelings and relationships. The main character, Maria, returns to the seaside town where she grew up after a year living with in Tokyo and has to come to turns with her adulthood, her relationship with her frail yet passionate cousin Tsugumi and the nostalgia for things past. It’s just lovely… Tsugumi is a great character, unbelievable at times, but since the story isn’t told from her perspective it isn’t entirely a problem. I love how Yoshimoto always has at least one transgressional romantic relationship in her books… and this one was no exception.

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I know i have been neglecting the online world. I haven’t posted in over a week, am not checking my emails and just don’t feel like being caught up in my own head right now. I figure it will pass. Another chapter is due tomorrow… i am scared about being able to pull off what now looks like the impossible again. Eep. My time has pretty much been completely devoted to Latin and working lately… and if you need to contact me… try facebook.

“You’re the first person i’ve shared this with… but… because Old English poetry is alliterative there is a high chance, when looking up words in the dictionary for a given line, that they will all be on the same page.”

I feel special. Now another twenty-something people know this about Old English poetry. I am thrilled to be a hub of the information age.

This from the same person who told me last week that the Woody Allen line in Annie Hall about not signing up for a course that requires you reading Beowulf is true.

I met with my advisor this afternoon after some time well spent (but unfruitful) in the Rare Books Room. The first section of my dissertation is due in ONE WEEK. Gulp. Ok… no gulp… I’m sick and my throat hurts.

Penguin Books in the UK has embarked upon a foray into digital fiction. Unlike the highly unsatisfactory wikinovel project - We Tell Stories is not only highly entertaining but also pretty high quality. Six authors of repute have put together six stories that utilize digital media in a way that print cannot.

The sixth story, by Mohsin Hamid, is entitled The (Former) General and reads much like the Choose Your Own Adventure Tales of which i was so fond as a child.

The first installment was The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming, an innovative tale that maps out the settings of the story on Google Maps. Apparently, you need quite a good internet connection for this short story to be functional - i didn’t have any problems myself.

All of the tales, written by Toby Litt, Kevin Brooks, Nicci French, Matt Mason and the aforementioned, are inspired by Penguin Classics: 39 Steps by John Buchan, Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, Hard Times by Charles Dickens, The Haunted Dolls House by M R James, Therese Raquin by Emile Zola and The 1001 Nights.

I haven’t yet had a chance to sit and play with all the stories and all the features. Unfortunately, the only one of the inspiring classics i have any real exposure to is The 1001 Nights on which i wrote a paper very long ago about ideal feminine beauty.

Much thanks to Ilyusha for passing on this fascinating website to me earlier this month.

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My recollection of reading Milton what is now five years ago is a little hazy. I know i was sitting in a hairdresser’s waiting room for the last hundred-or-so pages of the assigned readings and that it gave me a new-found appreciation for the depth of research put into what was then one of my favourite videogames, Diablo.

Paradise Lost and Satan played more strongly into my reading of Melville’s Moby Dick; the descriptions of the white whale that reference the descriptions of Satan are just stunning. In a perfect world, i would have the time to reread Paradise Lost, but i shan’t complain for i get to re-read Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy this week.

This post was inspired by a recent article on The Guardian’s Book Blog that can and should be read.