Another month that has felt endless: there was so much going on, just not quite so much in terms of my reading. Other than that, it went swimmingly… perhaps even drowningly, as I engaged in far too many things. I had guests, birthdays, booking my China trip, started Korean classes at the Cultural Centre, attended London Book Fair and Leipzig Book Fair, visited older son in Cambridge, started my part-time job and attended a Florence + the Machine concert in Berlin. I’d better slow down a little in April, right?
Reading
You can see that this month has been largely dedicated to the International Booker Prize. Eight of my books were from the longlist, but even so I failed to read two which made the shortlist. Of the ones I read, I was particularly struck by The Remembered Soldier and The Wax Child, neither of which made the shortlist. I was on board with, but not wowed by, The Witch (although this was probably my favourite of the second tier), The Director, Women Without Men and The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran. And Ia Genberg does not seem to be the author for me.
In addition to my dutiful Shadow Panel reading, I also enjoyed another selection of Bora Chung’s short stories (although my favourites are still in the volume Cursed Bunny). I tried to persevere with the book about a district of Berlin that has a bit of a reputation, but I found the author disparaging rather than humorous, so abandoned it.
I suppose in April I’ll have to read the two shortlisted International Booker titles if I can get hold of them (they are around £7 on Kindle, which I find a bit outrageous). However, I also want to take a step back and focus on books I want to translate and reread Genji at a chapter by chapter pace together with Tony on his blog.
Watching
I’ve decided to include exhibitions, theatre and concerts in the Watching tab alongside films. But there have been quite a few films this month as well. My love for East Asian films continues unabated, with two particularly memorable ones: Korean film Joint Security Area JSA (Park Chan-Wook’s first major film) and Japanese film about Kabuki theatre Kokuho. But I can also highly recommend Thai film A Useful Ghost, which starts out as a farce and then gets highly political. Marty Supreme was also well made, entertaining and well acted, although I wasn’t quite convinced by all the motivation and the ending. But I also gave my first half star review, sadly, for a Tamil film that simply jumped on the bandwagon of popular Korean culture and was full of cliches.
I attended two very different concerts in March: one of my favourite performers Florence Welch at the beginning of the month (and her opening act Paris Paloma was new to me but highly enjoyable also). And then two choirs singing mainly church music in the St Matthew’s Church towards the end of the month – equally stunning.
I saw two exhibitions in London: the Samurai exhibition at the British Museum (and even I, who thought I knew most things about samurai, had new things to discover there) and an exhibition about traditional Japanese crafts (pottery and glass) at the Japan House. Delightful!
April is going to be about Brancusi at the Neue Nationalgalerie, cherry blossoms, Franz Ferdinand in concert (tonight!) and opera. So… taking it easy but not too much!
findingtimetowrite 