I think that no introductions are needed for these types of posts, but I do have something to say. Because I am a slowreader, I try to borrow a couple library books at a time. However, I don't know what exactly happened the last time that I went to the library and I came home with 5 books, which is the maximum number of books that I could borrow. They just all seemed so great that I couldn't risk forgetting about them or not finding them there at my next visit. Thus, let me present the books that I borrowed this time.
1. Realm of the Dead by Uchida Hyakken (1922)
With a series of disconnected dreams and images that fade into one another without logic, these stories describe the worlds of both the living and the dead.
Realm of the Dead is set in a dark and mysterious world where logic and reality are subject to constant change and where ideas about identity and self are continually questioned. In one story, the narrator watches footage from the Russo-Japanese War, but then, moving across the screen, finds himself fighting in the war. In another, the narrator goes to a freak show with a woman, only to find the woman herself has become a freak.
Considered one of the foremost innovators of Japanese modernism, Hyakken incorporates a distinctly non-Western set of myths and folklore to create dreamscapes that open doors into another world.
2. The Absolution by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (2016)
The police find out about the crime the way everyone does: on Snapchat. The video shows a terrified young woman begging for forgiveness. When her body is found, it is marked with a number "2". Detective Huldar joins the investigation, bringing child psychologist Freyja on board to help question the murdered teenager's friends. Soon, they uncover that Stella was far from the angel people claim, but who could have hated her enough to kill her?
Then, another teenager goes missing, more clips are sent to social media, and the body with a "3" is found. Freyja and Huldar can agree on two things at least: the truth is far from simple. The killer is not done yet. And is there an undiscovered body carrying the number "1" out there?
The Absolution is the third installment in Yrsa Sigurdardottir's series about the psychologist Freyja and the police officer Huldar.
💭 I have already read this one, so you can read my thoughts about it on my March 2023 wrap up!
3. Strong in the Rain by Kenji Miyazawa (2007)
Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) is now widely viewed as Japan's greatest poet of the 20th century. Little known in his lifetime, he died at 37 from tuberculosis, but has since become a much loved children's author whose magical tales have been translated into many languages, adapted for the stage and turned into films and animations. Recognition for his poetry came much later. Strong in the Rain - the title-poem of this selection - is now arguably the most memorised and quoted modern poem in Japan.
Both intensely lyrical and permeated with a sophisticated scientific understanding of the universe, Kenji Miyazawa's poems testify to his deep love of humanity and nature. From a young age he was fascinated by plants, insects, and especially minerals, which he collected. At school his interest in nature deepened, and he began poring through books on philosophy and Buddhism, which were to strongly influence his later writing.
Miyazawa drew on nature in a way that no modern Japanese author had before him. Where other writers tended to use it as a spring-board for their own meditations, he saw himself not just as nature's faithful chronicler and recorder but as its medium: light, wind and rain are processed through him before being recreated on the page.
His mode of active engagement with nature set him apart from virtually all other Japanese poets, and led to his work being largely ignored by the Bundan (the literary establishment) and misunderstood for half a century. But in the 1990s he received unprecedented attention in Japanese media. The compassion, empathy and closeness to nature expressed in Kenji Miyazawa's poems and tales appealed strongly to a new generation of readers.
4. The Procedure by Harry Mulisch (1998)
Internationally renowned novelist Harry Mulisch's The Procedure is a haunting and fascinating novel about two men who try to create life. In the late 16th century, Rabbi Jehudah Low, in order to guarantee the safety of the Jews in Prague, creates a golem by following the procedure outlined in a third-century cabalist text. Four hundred years later, Victor Werker, a Dutch biologist, causes an international uproar when he creates a complex organic clay crystal that can reproduce and has a metabolism. But his unsettling discovery takes its toll as his inner and outer demons pursue him around the world.
5. The Melting by Lize Spit (2016)
Eva was one of three children born in her small Flemish town in 1988. Growing up alongside the boys Laurens and Pim, Eva sought refuge from her loveless family life in the company of her two friends. But with adolescence came a growing awareness of their burgeoning sexuality. Driven by their newly found desires, the children begin a game that will have serious and violent consequences for them all.
Thirteen years after the summer she's tried for so long to forget, Eva is returning to her village. Everything fell apart that summer, but this time she'll be prepared. She has a large block of ice in her car boot and she's ready to settle the score...
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