Well, we finally finished our last world literature text. Thank the Lord above. These are some of the worst books I have ever read- but I don’t suppose they were completely useless. I did manage to whip out the poor excuse for a novel, The Stranger, in my SAT writing prompt. I hope they like that. Anyway, Mrs. Hilston called it from the beginning: they won’t be your favorite books, but you can certainly write about them. Yeah, I’ll admit, there’s a lot to write about, despite hating them.
Thousand Cranes, by Yasumari Kawabata, in general turned out to be my second favorite book. The order would have to be From Sleep Unbound >> Thousand Cranes > The Stranger > So Long a Letter. In any case, this book involves the man with the strange fantasies, Kikuji, the sexless wonder, Chikako, and the emotional wall, Fumiko. Kikuji hooks up with a woman twenty years his senior, and that’s definitely NOT expected. Chikako tries to control everyone’s life, and claims to defy gender herself. Awkward. Fumiko also attempts to hide all of her emotion until the resolution of the novel, where she breaks a jar and kills herself. There’s sort of a lot going on, but it’s just funny/ironic because the Japanese culture is supposed to be so relaxed at their tea ceremonies, but that’s when most of the commotion occurs. This is how most literature exists in my eyes- through irony. So there’s my blurb on the Thousand Cranes- yawn.
