Books

Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler

Steve Bekes — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:48:00 +0000

Oracle Bones is Peter Hessler's second book and is even better than the first one (called River Town). What I like about the book is that it connects distant lands and time periods, from Western China to Canton and to America, from the neolithic oracle bones to modern teachers. Big leaps in time and space, but somehow still connected into a single narrative. At the same time, this is not a single narrative but a collection of individual stories, sometimes seemingly unconnected, yet still flowing in the same direction.

Another fun thing is that Hessler steps out of the realm of stereotypes. Almost anything he writes about is atypical, the people, the circumstances, the times. So anything you look at, if you look close enough, is quite different from the general category it is in.

The term "oracle bones" refers to the tortoise plastrons used by the ancient diviners of the Shang dynasty. They cracked the bones and divined on the basis of the cracks. In the process, they also scratched short sentences onto the surface of the bones, and these are today the earliest examples of Chinese writing.

Hessler's Oracle Bones is a book about how China's present mirrors its past, and vice versa. If you were to read a book about China, read this one.

Maki Horikita in Hanazakari No Kimitachie

Steve Bekes — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:32:00 +0000

Maki Horikita is an actress who is extremely popular in Japan right now but there is not a lot of English language material where she can be seen. Hanazakari No Kimitachie is still in Japanese but at least with English subtitles.

So this is for all those Maki Horikita fans who cannot speak Japanese. It is based on a popular manga also called Hanazakari No Kimitachie. Maki is playing the role of a girl called Ashiya Mizuki.

Other actors include Oguri Shun, Ikuta Toma and Konno Mahiru.

A book on book collecting: A pound of paper

Steve Bekes — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:11:00 +0000

John Baxter, A pound of paper.

This was a great book, I enjoyed every page of it. John Baxter knows how to write and, at the same time, has extensive first-hand experience in collecting books. Collecting books is a passion, quite similar to gambling and the collector often spares no effort or money to get what he is after.

I really hate books that tell you how to collect something. They are like those getting rich manuals or guides to sell your junk on eBay. So A pound of paper was a nice surprise because it is as much about books as about the psychology of the collector. I could really relate to the entire experience of collecting Graham Greene editions, even though Greene is not someone I do collect myself.

Collecting books is not an investment. I guess that true art collectors are similar in this way, even though lately people started buying art as a form of investment. But there is usually not a lot of sense in buying books for the sake of reselling them years later for twice as much. So if you are trying to find something invest in, avoid books. Get some Google shares or an apartment is Beijing.

The Life and Adventures of Arminius Vambery

Steve Bekes — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Vambery's story of himself. This is the same Arminius Vambery who sneaked into Bokhara disguised as a travelling dervish. His ability for learning foreign languages was so exceptional that he could fool the locals by pretending to be a Turk or even a Persian. A Hungarian Jew of German origin, born on the territory of modern-day Slovakia, he could speak Hungarian, Slovakian and German since early childhood. Then he learnt other European languages, including Danish and Swedish, etc. Eventually, he travelled to Constantinople and learnt Turkish so well that a number of people he interacted with on a daily basis were not aware of him not being a Turk.

After having lived in Turkey for years, he went back to Budapest and suggested to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences a trip to Central Asia. He got modest financial support and off he went.

Eventually, when he returned home, Hungary was busy with its internal politics and Vambery went on to London where he became an instant celebrity. Friend of the crown prince and a guest to the Buckingham Palace, he felt that he was light years from where he had originally came from.

He was a prolific writer and published hundreds of articles on Central Asia. He is also known to have had a strong influence on Bram Stoker's book Dracula with his intimate knowledge of Transylvanian folklore.

James Meek: The people's act of love

Steve Bekes — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:46:00 +0000

A great book about an escaped convict in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. For me its main power comes from the description of Siberia at the time. There are lots of details and episodes which are not generally known to a foreigner regarding this period. There is, for example, the sect of angels who are people trying to live a holy life by castrating themselves. Or there are the Czeckoslovakian army that owns a thin strip along the Transsiberian Railway, thousands of miles from their home.

Having said this, The people's act of love is also an emotionally charged novel, and not in a bad sense. It deals with issues of humanity in an inhuman place at some very difficult times.

Foreign devils on the Silk Road

Steve Bekes — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:10:00 +0000

By Peter Hopkirk.

Foreign devils on the Silk Road is one of the very few good books on the subject of the exploration of the Silk Road. This one is about foreigners exploring Chinese Turkestan (or Xinjiang, Sinkiang, Hsinkiang, High Tartary, Chinese Tartary, etc). Whichever region has so many names is bound to have had a busy history.

This is a wonderful book, with lots of vivid stories of the foreigners exploring China's westernmost province. This was a truly multinational project, to map out the Tarim basin and to clear it out of its archaeological treasures. There were the British, the French, the German, the Russians and the Japanese. By the time the Chinese woke up from their daze of domestic disturbances, the best pieces were already out of the country. Today they claim this to be their national treasure and resent the fact that it had been stolen from them. Well, it was not, all of these people were acting in full support of the local government, with passports and whatever permissions needed at the time. This was simply something that was OK at the time but was not afterwards. You cannot sell me your grandma's antique vase and then start badmouthing me for having stolen it from you, can you? But this is what I think, Hopkirk is actually quite sympathetic with the Chinese side of the story.

Foreign devils is very well written, Hopkirk used to be a journalist. This is why I find his malicious treatment of the Japanese Otani expeditions surprising because although admitting that it is mostly based on hearsay, he still goes on to depict Otani and his followers as but a bunch of spies. Especially Tachibana is described in unfavorable colors, as ever being "up to his old an unpriestly tricks."

Aurel Stein on the Silk Road

Steve Bekes — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:16:00 +0000

By Susan Whitfield.

Although the title says it is about Aurel Stein on the Silk Road, it is also a very nice and convenient resource about Stein's life in general. The narrative is arranged around contemporary photographs which make reading a whole lot easier than it would be in a strictly academic book.

Aurel Stein was a Hungarian-born explorer who became a naturalized British citizen and was even knighted for his accomplishments. His four expeditions to China were a major enterprise the consequences of which are still felt both in China and Britain. The Stein collection the bunk of which is now housed at the British Library, the British Museum, and the National Museum of India in Delhi is still bitterly missed by the Chinese who see these as stolen goods. Thus although Stein has been a major celebrity in his lifetime not only in Britain and the rest of Europe but also in the US and even Japan, he gradually grew to represent an evil of mythical proportion in the eyes of the Chinese.

But Susan Whitfield's Aurel Stein on the Silk Road is not so political and she does well to avoid these touchy issues. This nice book contains a wealth of information about Stein's life, his work as an explorer, and the exploration of the Silk Road in general. Definitely worth reading.

Out by Natsuo Kirino

Steve Bekes — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:55:00 +0000

The English translation of a bestseller Japanese novel by a bestselling female novelist Natsuo Kirino. Out.

Out is a weird novel. It is about a group of Japanese women who work the graveyard shift at a bento factory and end up chopping up people. This is not connected to the food industry in any way, although you would almost expect them to recycle human parts as food. But instead, they chop up the bodies, bag them in plastic bags and then have this guy who use to be a loan shark ship them to a different city.

The first murder happens with one of the women choking her husband, kind of by accident, not really meaning to do. She asks her friend for help and they end up chopping up the body in the bathroom.

All in all, the story is pretty twisted. All those difficulties with bagging human bodies is kind of obscene and disturbing at the same time. I don't want to spoil the end but the story escalates further towards the end of the novel.

But I found the description of these women really vivid. Their work at the bento factory, their dull and meaningless shift that keeps them sleepy and knocked out for the rest of the day, is very nicely done. You kind of feel glad that you are not part of the book.

Tokyo Underworld

Steve Bekes — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:15:00 +0000

By Robert Whiting. On the life of Nick Zapetti who stayed in Japan after the occupation and tried to make something of a life there. The title is ironic, although he is referred to as an "American gangster," it turns out that he actually was just trying to build his business, while there were plenty of real mafiosos among the Japanese political and economic elite. Whiting paints a vivid picture of the unavoidable connections between the Yakuza and Japanese politics.

This is a thoroughly fun book to read. Zapetti's life is not an ordinary story, he really comes through as a person who does not know the meaning of neither giving up nor giving in. And this is precisely what makes him easy to relate to. Especially if you have lived in Japan for any length of time beyond a two-week tourist tour of Kyoto and Tokyo. Japan is not an easy place to live, unless you behave exactly the way you are expected to behave. Even if you have lived in Japan for many years, you will still be a gaijin, that is, an outsider. Even if you get Japanese citizenship, as Nick Zapetti did. Even if you change you get a real Japanese name, as Nick Zapetti did.

But Tokyo Underworld is not about Nick Zapetti's issues as an eternal gaijin amidst a homogeneous mass of faces. It is about business, politics, and organized crime in a society that pretends to be immune from all such things. It is about someone who is let down because he does not conform, while actual criminals live and die as honored citizens.

Anyway, the books is definitely worth reading.