World Literature

Just Finished Reading: All She Was Worth By Miyuki Miyabe

One of the major drawbacks of having a degree in English is the HUGE number of books you read while getting the degree. Unless you opt for one of those odd variations of the degree like poetry or creative writing, you're going to be fed a great big dose of the classics. On the one hand, it's fabulous to be able to read AND comprehend the classics. On the other though, you end up find modern literature REALLY easy to predict and you start to wonder if anyone these days has an original idea for a novel.

Obviously that's a bit over-blown. There are plenty of original ideas out there, it's just a lot harder to find them. For example, if you like to read fantasy fiction, knights in shining armor, Lord of the Rings type stuff, do NOT read the original source material: Le Morte D'Arthur. It's the one by Sir Thomas Malory which pulled together the primary legends of King Arthur and his knights. Once you've read that you realize just how much of the new fiction is simply a variation on the old fiction.

It's true with every genre though. If you're a big fan of detective stories, you'll want to save Ray Chandler's books for later. Today's detectives have different names but you'd be surprised how many of them sound like Phillip Marlowe.

I understand that some fiction is meant to stick with the successful formula. Romance novels are that way, so are a good number of westerns and, of course, the serial sci-fi books. But general fiction? It's not a healthy trend.

So what's the solution? Give up reading? Oh good lord no :-) First off, there are plenty of original books out there provided you're willing to read more than one type of story. If you stick with just one section of the book store, you're going to end up getting bored with it. For me though, it's not quite enough to just jump around from author to author. I tend to jump around from country to country.

You may have noticed, the previous book I read was The Man in the Iron Mask. French, historical. And after that? All She Was Worth. Japan, modern. Next? I'm not sure, possibly back to sci-fi, maybe another Japanese novel. There's one HUGE plus about reading works by foreign authors. They're much harder to predict and thus the plot twists come as more of a surprise. They don't hold to the same conventions that American authors do because they've grown up with an entirely different culture. Makes for a hell of a good read especially when it comes to mysteries.

In the past, it was VERY hard to find the more modern books in translation but it's not as bad now. The big chain book stores often stock fiction in translation, especially if the book won an award. Gao Xingjian won a Nobel Prize for Soul Mountain and as a result you can find a few of his books in stores. Haruki Murakami is very good as well but if you're looking for something more classical (samurai stories for example) you can't go wrong with Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi and Taiko.

If you can't find them in the book stores, head online to amazon.com or borders.com and run a search. You'll find a whole new world filled with FABULOUS stories that you never would have imagined. So many great works. Give it a shot. You'll enjoy it :-)