Decided to join the Summer of Genji reading challenge. So far, it's intriguing and very readable, but there's a major snag: The Tale of Genji is a great, fat, 1000-page paperback that's more than two inches thick and weighs a ton - not good for hauling around in my bag and reading on the bus!
5 comments:
Haven't heard of that translator. I haven't read the Genji in 25 years -- maybe I'm due for a re-read. I seem to remember Genji's pedophilia making me twitchy.
Well, back in '63, I found myself in a similar situation, with Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".
I tore the paperback book in half.
Pedophilia, yikes! Of course, this was an age where child-brides were the norm. But we bring our own moral norms as readers, just as the writer brings hers. To bridge the ages through a text cannot mean to ignore such issues, or the reader/writer relationship has no meaning beyond a dry academic exercise, I think. Well, we shall see.
Tyler, hello! Yes, that would be a solution, but it's a very lovely book and the price was commensurate with the size - more than twice the usual price of a paperback :-(
This is one instance where ebooks are tempting. Usually there's nothing like the sensation of a solid book in your hand...but if I traveled a lot, I'd be tempted to get a Kindle or other ebook device in order to carry a whole pile of "books" in my purse.
It sounds like this one book is itself quite a pile.
Yes, this would certainly the perfect thing to read on an e-reader!
I haven't yet had any covetous feelings towards such a thing. But clearly they will become increasingly useful for some kinds of reading, while I don't see how they could ever rival printed books for other kinds.
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