Now we are one. Hope you had a Happy Birthday, R&BLers!
I’m in over my head this week. Some of you may know from my earlier comments that I’m reading Umberto Eco’s Baudolino. Surprisingly, Eco’s novel isn’t incomprehensible at all; on the contrary, it’s accessible, enjoyable, and informative even while being an intellectual read. No, the novel I’m struggling with is one you can purchase as an e-book on Amazon for $200. Yes, you read that right, and yes, that has to be a misprint. $2 is closer to what it’s worth. There's another book by the same author in what should be the correct price range.
The book is Harajuku Sunday by S. Michael Choi. The hero is a young American IT named Ritchie who lives in the Roppongi Hills section of Tokyo where he shares the apartment of another ex-pat and son of a wealthy American real estate tycoon, Soren Soutern. Part I is about Ritchie’s rise in the Tokyo social scene, his dissipated lifestyle, his dissolute friends, particularly a Chinese student, Shen, charged with assault against an African American woman, Dominique, and his obsession with dominating cool and with never being an English teacher monkey. By the end of Part I, which culminates in an extraordinary ski excursion that he’s arranged and made money from, Ritchie has lost his job due to a power struggle with his older Japanese foreman.
Part II (which I’ve only read about a quarter of) seems to be about the same Ritchie but he’s younger and has a Japanese girlfriend, Hisako, who the author first indicates is around 14 then later claims is 18, after earlier telling us she’s 8 years younger than Ritchie, who started out in the novel at 24, became 23, and then 26. All within a year of “novel time.” Got all that? Ritchie’s strong desire is to get out of Tokyo, go north and take any job he can in the rustic village of Kitakata, where he ends up teaching and developing a sort of fantasy life based on his girlfriend’s immature appearance and some pre-war photos he finds in a dusty corner of their unprestigious apartment. Where Part II is going I have no idea.
And why it's purported to have enjoyed "bestseller" status is also incomprehensible to me!
And I don't believe I should confuse him with this Michael Choi who does comics, I can't comprehend if they're one and the same, although I feel they aren't.
Please turn the page.
Nor do I have any idea what the book is about. Choi reminds me of that pretentious navel-gazing pair of American writers (who I will not name – one male, one female) who cashed in on drugged out youth glamorized in the 90s by writing novels with titles like Less Than Zero. Choi seems to have added a wrinkle to the formula by setting his novel in Japan.
At times his tone is racist, certainly disdainful of Japanese people and disrespectful of Japanese culture. At other times his hero proclaims his love for Japan and his fascination for the Japanese landscape and its peoples’ customs. Which is it? I don’t know whether to be shocked along with confused, so I’m settling on appalled.
Where this book is going, what it’s about, are lost on me. I’m along for the ride and looking on horrified on the one hand and fascinated on the other. Reading the book is like being in a dream, trapped aboard a run-away roller-coaster, petrified in anticipation of the wreck that will inevitably come, but aware in the recesses of sleep that you can wake up and escape the unreality of certain doom. Perhaps that’s an indication that Choi is a better writer than I give him credit for. Or it could be an indication that I’m easily seduced by the lurid spectacle of this wreck of a book that I can always put down.
There are other reads that I’ve attempted in my life that have also gone over my head. Books in which I have floundered and thrashed, wrestled and fought to understand. To no avail. Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulm is one. I found after attempting to soldier through it that History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon is another. Most of the Bible is beyond my reach. Metamagical Themas by Douglas R. Hofstadter extends where I cannot follow. Believe me, my list of incomprehensibles is well populated!
Yet, I’m convinced I’m not alone. I feel the vibrations of frustrated company radiating through the universe; I am buffeted by the echoes of blows delivered to the head; my ears ring with the background noise of multitudinous facepalms. I’m sure you have your own tough cookies between leather covers that you can’t crack. Why not tell us about them in the comments below – and about your struggles to read those incomprehensible books?
Announcements
The party’s over. After living in your dwelling for a year, it’s probably due for a bit of a clean-up. R&BLers has some nooks and crannies where the dust is gathering and the ghosts are haunting. In order to help keep the Group sleek and efficiently managed, it’s time to open our closets and let light and air in. Beginning next week, the names of R&BLer “ghosts” are going to be removed from the membership roles. That is, ghosts are folks who do not rec, rate, comment, nor write diaries.
DON’T PANIC!
You may remember back when DK4 first went into operation, few of us thoroughly got the hang of this membership thing. Certainly, not I. Then we had fewer than 100 Followers. Our current number exceeds 800. Then there were 3 Admins. Today we are 7. Members once numbered around 25. Currently the figure is not quite ten times that. It didn’t take long for it to become clear that membership in a Group is not necessary for Kossacks to read, rate, and recommend along with comment in diaries. Kossacks didn't have to join in order to join in. Membership is really the state of being a Contributor beyond the state of being a user. Here on R&BLers, a Contributor writes and queues diaries on a fairly regular basis.
For some, membership is a feel good proposition but applicants aren't sure what to do. To help people decide, I respond to their requests for membership with this message that I have been sending the last several months to new applicants.
R&BLers Participation Options
Dear [User Name]
In no way do I wish to discourage you from joining R&BLers, but I tell everyone who asks to join to consider how you intend to participate.
If you think you'll mostly just read, rate, rec, and comment, then all you need do is click the HEART symbol next to our Group Name. That makes you a Follower. All the R&BLers content will automatically funnel to your stream, and you won't miss a thing.
If you believe you'll be writing posts (diaries) on a fairly regular basis -- +/- once a month or so -- then that's the reason to join. Membership automatically confers Contributor status which allows you to queue diaries for publication.
If you have an idea for a regular R&BLers series with installments appearing weekly, then, after you join, I can change your participation status to Editor after we determine and schedule your series. Then you can queue and schedule your own diaries and all installments to your series.
Those are your three level of participation options. You need do nothing (other than click the HEART) if you choose the first participation level. If either of the other two participation levels better match your intentions, then please msg. me, and I'll "make it so."
Look forward to hearing from you and seeing you around R&BLers!
Oddly enough, this message has stimulated more people to join with a commitment to creating new series and with the inspiration to write diaries. Look around you -- the latest series and newest diaries are the product of applicants who got the message above. I never forget that
what R&BLers is is due to what you do.
If you are a Follower of R&BLers who joined but has never participated in any way for the past year, your name will be removed from the membership, which will do nothing to affect your interaction here, but will help reduce our burgeoning list of members, making it easier for the Admins to perform certain operation tasks.
If you are a Follower/Member who wants to retain your Contributor status because you intend to write a diary in the next 30 days but have never contributed before, please leave your request to be retained in a comment below.
I have asked all the Admins and now I ask all the Editors to submit names of Kossacks who have written posts for their series so that they will not be removed from the roles just because they haven’t been heard from in a while. Once a Contributor, always a Contributor. In addition, some names will be retained at Admins’ requests, based on their personal reasons.
That's it. Please feel free to ask any question you may have regarding this announcement, and I or another Admin will do our best to answer it.
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule
DAY |
TIME (EST/EDT) |
Series Name |
Editor(s) |
SUN |
3:00 PM |
The Magic Theater |
ArkDem14 |
SUN |
6:00 PM |
Young Reader's Pavilion |
The Book Bear |
SUN |
9:30 PM |
SciFi/Fantasy Book Club |
quarkstomper |
MON |
8:00 PM |
Monday Murder Mystery |
Susan from 29 |
Mon |
11:00 PM |
My Favorite Books/Authors |
edrie, MichiganChet |
TUE |
8:00 PM |
Readers & Book Lovers Newsletter |
Limelite |
WED |
7:30 AM |
WAYR? |
plf515 |
WED |
8:00 PM |
Bookflurries: Bookchat |
cfk |
THU |
8:00 PM |
Write On! |
SensibleShoes |
FRI |
8:00 AM |
Books That Changed My Life |
etbnc, aravir |
FRI |
10:00 PM (first of month) |
Monthly Bookposts |
AdmiralNaismith |
SAT |
11:00 AM (fourth of month) |
Windy City Bookworm |
Chitown Kev |
Sat |
9:00 PM |
Books So Bad They're Good |
Ellid |
Other than that, nothing's happening.