Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude, 1870
We all know the story of Cinderella and how the shoe only fit her and thus she was recognized as the only legitimate love of the prince and was his chosen bride.
Since then the phrase "if the shoe fits" has come to mean something more derogatory as if a person might not recognize themselves unless it is pointed out to them that the shoe is fitting them. "If the shoe fits, put it on" is not a friendly comment.
But to change that connotation, I want to discuss how some books do seem to fit the reader more than others and how this might happen and how satisfying it is when it does happen.
Of course, we spend a great deal of time choosing a book to carry home from the library or the bookstore because we are going to invest a great deal of our inner selves in the story besides just time or money.
If we are tired and need a light or humorous book, we turn to that kind of story for relief. We may choose to re-read a comfort book in that frame of mind. We may go hunting for books that we loved as children or young adults. We may look for a book that challenges us or one that is a pleasure to read with beautiful writing and exciting characters.
I especially rejoice when I find a book that "fits me to a T". That can be hard to find sometimes so it is wonderful when it happens.
Last week, I mentioned that a friend of mine, moonivy, and I were reading Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay that has just come out after five years of research on his part. I finished it this week and I rejoiced. This book fit me in so many ways.
The first thing that my friend and I said is that we envision a re-read of the story. It was that rich.
The setting is the Ninth Dynasty of China with created characters and situations by Kay that ring true. I had recently written here about the Silk Road and that appears in the story. One of the themes of the story is that history is written later by people who maybe don’t find all the parts of the pattern. The people who will loom large in the historical record are not so large at first and so their activities are not written down to be gathered up by historians. That is where the story teller comes in. The storyteller recreates the story and finds the beginnings and makes a whole tapestry on the loom.
Shen Tai is a second son. He is not important in a world where many have completed their imperial examinations which he has not. He is voiceless. His father has taught all three of his children, "Who accepts the world only as it comes to them?" including Tai's sister, Shen Li-Mei. This makes all the difference in their lives as they choose to shape the world rather than remain voiceless.
Another theme is the idea that as we make choices or have choices made for us, the road of our life forks. That seems obvious, but when it involves several characters that we care about, it hits home more than having it just written down in one small phrase.
The story, based on the Tang Dynasty, includes the tribes north of The Great Wall where the term Under Heaven is more easily grasped. There the grasslands go on forever beneath the endless sky.
There is the capital city of two million souls, there is the palace of the Emperor, there are gardens and mountain passes. There are emperors and beggars, courtesans and first ministers. There is also a poet, the Banished Immortal. Kay says this man is based on Li Bai also known as Li Po. There are the men and women who seek to advance at any cost, generals and governors. There are Sardian horses from the West of great beauty that are desired at any cost. There are Kanlin guards who are trusted by all to protect and carry messages. There is a great sorrow and the song about it is written much later by a younger poet than Li Bai.
What makes a book one that fits me? I have been thinking why Under Heaven was such a perfect fit. First, it is a great adventure story. Second, I cared about the characters and could not lay the book down as I wanted to see what happened to them.
The story also was based on the giant, sprawling background setting of China’s Tang Dynasty which aroused my curiosity. I don’t know much about China so it was a pleasure to see it come alive on the pages of the book. I was taken to and through the Wall, I rode on the grasslands and saw the cave painting of horses. I watched the dangerous game played by the imperial men and women of the court. I wanted to learn more about the time and the people and the great poet.
There is lots of real danger and courage, a bit of romance, and a bit of fantasy with the Shamen of the grasslands and the man who walks with wolves. It is a wonderful book. It suited me. Thank you, Mr. Kay.
I had to find out more as I read so here are some sites of interest even if you do not wish to read the book.
wiki on the Ninth Dynasty
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The Tang Dynasty (June 18, 618–June 4, 907) was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire. The dynasty was interrupted briefly by the Second Zhou Dynasty (October 16, 690–March 3, 705) when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, becoming the first and only Chinese empress regnant, ruling in her own right.
The Tang Dynasty, with its capital at Chang'an (present-day Xi'an), the most populous city in the world at the time, is generally regarded as a high point in Chinese civilization—equal to, or surpassing that of, the earlier Han Dynasty—a golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Its territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, was greater than that of the Han period, and it rivaled that of the later Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty...
With its large population base, the dynasty was able to raise professional and conscripted armies of hundreds of thousands of troops to contend with nomadic powers in dominating Inner Asia and the lucrative trade routes along the Silk Road. Various kingdoms and states paid tribute to the Tang court, while the Tang also conquered or subdued several regions which it indirectly controlled through a protectorate system. Besides political hegemony, the Tang also exerted a powerful cultural influence over neighboring states such as those in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
The Tang Dynasty was largely a period of progress and stability, except during the An Shi Rebellion and the decline of central authority in the latter half of the dynasty. Like the previous Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty maintained a civil service system by drafting officials through standardized examinations and recommendations to office. This civil order was undermined by the rise of regional military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century. Chinese culture flourished and further matured during the Tang era; it is considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry.
Two of China's most famous poets, Du Fu and Li Bai, belonged to this age, as did many famous painters such as Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, and Zhou Fang. There was a rich variety of historical literature compiled by scholars, as well as encyclopedias and geographical works.
Imperial examinations
Following the Sui Dynasty's example, the Tang abandoned the nine-rank system in favor of a large civil service system. Students of Confucian studies were potential candidates for the imperial examinations, the graduates of which could be appointed as state bureaucrats in the local, provincial, and central government.
There were two types of exams that were given, mingjing ('illuminating the classics examination') and jinshi ('presented scholar examination'). The mingjing was based upon the Confucian classics, and tested the student's knowledge of a broad variety of texts. The jinshi tested a student's literary abilities in writing essay-style responses to questions on matters of governance and politics, as well as their skills in composing poetry.
This competitive procedure was designed to draw the best talent into government. But perhaps an even greater consideration for the Tang rulers, aware that imperial dependence on powerful aristocratic families and warlords would have destabilizing consequences, was to create a body of career officials having no autonomous territorial or functional power base...
Nevertheless, the Sui and Tang dynasties institutionalized and set the foundations for the civil service system and this new elite class of exam-drafted scholar-officials.
Rebellion from wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The Tang capital was the largest city in the world at its time, the population of the city wards and its suburban countryside reaching 2 million inhabitants. The Tang capital was very cosmopolitan, with ethnicities of Persia, Central Asia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, India, and many other places living within. Naturally, with this plethora of different ethnicities living in Chang'an, there were also many different practiced religions, such as Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Islam being practiced within.
With widely open access to China that the Silk Road to the west facilitated, many foreign settlers were able to move east to China, while the city of Chang'an itself had about 25,000 foreigners living within. Exotic green-eyed, blond-haired Tocharian ladies serving wine in agate and amber cups, singing, and dancing at taverns attracted customers. If a foreigner in China pursued a Chinese woman for marriage, he was required to stay in China and was unable to take his bride back to his homeland, as stated in a law passed in 628 to protect women from temporary marriages with foreign envoys...
Tang women
Women's social rights and social status during the Tang era were incredibly liberal-minded for the medieval period. However, this was largely reserved for urban women of elite status, as men and women in the rural countryside labored hard in their different set of tasks; with wives and daughters responsible for more domestic tasks of weaving textiles and rearing of silk worms, while men tended to farming in the fields. There were many women in the Tang era who gained access to religious authority by taking vows as Daoist priestesses.
The head mistresses of the bordellos in the North Hamlet of the capital Chang'an acquired large amounts of wealth and power. Their high-class courtesans, who likely influenced the Japanese geishas, were well respected. These courtesans were known as great singers and poets, supervised banquets and feasts, knew the rules to all the drinking games, and were trained to have the utmost respectable table manners.
Although they were renowned for their polite behavior, the courtesans were known to dominate the conversation amongst elite men, and were not afraid to openly castigate or criticize prominent male guests who talked too much or too loudly, boasted too much of their accomplishments, or had in some way ruined dinner for everyone by rude behavior (on one occasion a courtesan even beat up a drunken man who had insulted her). When singing to entertain guests, courtesans not only composed the lyrics to their own songs, but they popularized a new form of lyrical verse by singing lines written by various renowned and famous men in Chinese history...
The foreign horse-riding sport of polo from Persia became a wildly popular trend amongst the Chinese elite, and women often played the sport (as glazed earthenware figurines from the time period portray).
Li Po poems here:
http://www.poemhunter.com/...
More here:
Poems
http://www.chinese-poems.com/...
Hearing a Flute on a Spring Night in Luoyang
Li Bai
From whose home secretly flies the sound of a jade flute?
It's lost amid the spring wind which fills Luoyang city.
In the middle of this nocturne I remember the snapped willow,
What person would not start to think of home!
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Li Bai or Li Po or Li Bo (701 – 762) was a Chinese poet. He was part of the group of Chinese scholars called the "Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup" in a poem by fellow poet Du Fu. Li Bai is often regarded, along with Du Fu, as one of the two greatest poets in China's literary history. Approximately 1,100 of his poems remain today...
Li Bai is best known for the extravagant imagination and striking Taoist imagery in his poetry, as well as for his great love for liquor. Like Du Fu, he spent much of his life travelling, although in his case it was because his wealth allowed him to, rather than because his poverty forced him. He is said, famously but untruly, to have drowned in the Yangtze River, having fallen from his boat while drunkenly trying to embrace the reflection of the moon.
One of Li Bai's most famous poems is Drinking Alone by Moonlight (pinyin: Yuè Xià Dú Zhuó), which is a good example of some of the most famous aspects of his poetry -- a very spontaneous poem, full of natural imagery and anthropomorphism. Li Bai actually wrote several poems with the same title; Arthur Waley's version of the most famous reads:
A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For her, with my shadow, will make three people.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes their way.
May we long share our eternal friendship,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.
Books:
Li Po and Tu Fu by Li Po, Tu Fu, Arthur Cooper (Translator)
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Synopsis
Li Po, a legendary carouser, was an itinerant poet who is unsurpassed in the scope of his fanciful imagination and who soars to sublime heights in his descriptions of natural scenes and powerful emotions. He has been called 'the immortal of poets'. Tu Fu is a more popular poet. His experiences of civil war imbue his work with great compassion and earthy reality, shot through with humour and desolation, as he views everyday life with an artist's insight.
Together these two poets of the T'ang dynasty cover the whole spectrum of human life and feeling, and are often appropriately referred to as one poet, 'Li-Tu'. Arthur Cooper's excellent introduction chronicles the lives and times of Li Po and Tu Fu, and sets the spiritual, social and aesthetic background to the translations, which are works of poetry in their own right. The Chinese calligraphy in this volume is by Shui Chien-tung.
The selected poems of Li Po
By Bai Li, David Hinton
http://books.google.com/...
It is best not to ask me about books that don’t fit me right now as I am grinding my teeth over The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch at the moment. But if you would like to talk about it for yourself, that is fine. Tell us what kinds of books do fit you best, too.
As you have noticed, I am following the alphabet so you can plan ahead for your favorite authors and their books.
Wiki has lists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The Letter E
Umberto Eco (born 1932) Name of the Rose
David Eddings (born 1931) with his wife Leigh Eddings as co-author:
Belgariad series
Pawn of Prophecy
Queen of Sorcery
Magician’s Gambit
Castle of Wizardry
Enchanter’s End Game
The Malloreon series
Guardians of the West (1987)
King of the Murgos (1988)
Demon Lord of Karanda (1988)
Sorceress of Darshiva (1989)
The Seeress of Kell (1991)
Books related to The Belgariad and The Malloreon
Belgarath the Sorcerer (1995) (Prequel) with Leigh Eddings
Polgara the Sorceress (1997) (Prequel) with Leigh Eddings
The Rivan Codex (1998) with Leigh Eddings
E. R. Eddison (1882–1945) author of The Worm Ouroboros
Rosemary Edghill
Sword of Maiden’s Tears
Cup of Morning Shadows
Cloak of Night and Daggers
Walter D. Edmonds (1903 – 1998) Drums Along the Mohawk
Dave Eggers (born 1970) What Is the What, You Shall Know Our Velocity
Barbara Ehrenreich (born 1941) Nickel and Dimed
Loren Eiseley Night Country
George Eliot Middlemarch, Mill on the Floss
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Kate Elliott
Crown of Stars series
King’s Dragon
Prince of Dogs
Burning Stone, The
Child of Flame
Gathering Storm
In the Ruins
Crown of Stars
Spirit Gate
Shadow Gate
Traitor’s Gate
Ralph Ellison (1914 – 1994) Invisible Man
Richard Ellmann (1918-1987) James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats
James Ellroy (born 1948) L.A. Confidential
Michael Ende (1929-1995) The Neverending Story, Momo
Leif Enger Peace Like a River
Elizabeth Enright (1909-1968) The Melendy series, Thimble Summer, Gone-Away Lake
Nora Ephron (born 1941)
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Nora Ephron (born May 19, 1941) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, author and blogger.
She is best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay; for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally... and Sleepless in Seattle. She sometimes writes with her sister, Delia Ephron. Her newest film is Julie and Julia.
Louise Erdrich (born 1954) Love Medicine, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
Eleanor Estes (1908-1988) The Moffats, Rufus M., The Hundred Dresses, Ginger Pye
Loren D. Estleman (born 1952) Motor City Blue
Laura Esquivel (born 1950) Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate)
Clarissa Pinkola Estés (born 1945) Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
Jeffrey Eugenides (born 1960) The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex
Janet Evanovich (born 1943) One For the Money
Augusta Jane Evans (1835 – 1909) St. Elmo
Nicholas Evans (born 1950) The Horse Whisperer
I have read 21 of these authors.
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! she said.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Remembering The Greatest Storyteller In The World
by WarrenS
http://www.dailykos.com/...
SEGO The Gibbering Squamulous Slubberdegullion from Beyond
by Devilstower
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Mojo' Hikin' / A Yellowstone Photo Journal
by delmardougster
http://www.dailykos.com/...
From the Sea of Cortez
by exmearden
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Black Kos, Tuesday's Chile
by Black Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Let's read a book together: Ideas: A history of thought and invention from fire to Freud: Chap. 18
by plf515
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NOTE: plf515 has changed his book talk to Wednesday mornings early.
sarahnity’s list of DKos authors has grown so much that she has her own diary.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
sarahnity says:
It turns out that we have quite a few authors hanging out here who have published books in the real world. A while ago, I started keeping a list of books by Kossacks, former Kossacks and Kossacks-once-removed. I was posting it each week to the diary series What Are You Reading and Bookflurries, but the list has grown long enough, that I've decided to turn it into a diary and post it as a weekly series on Tuesday evenings.
Not all Kossack authors may wish to lose their anonymity, so I am only including the author's UID if he has outed herself here (gender confusion intended). If you'd like to be included on the list, or if you know of an author who is left off, please leave a comment or email me.
(sarahnity@gmail.com)