Back in the Saddle Again

Thanks go to guest writer Richard LeDue. I appreciate the breather and time to sort things in my writing life that his guest articles provided. The loss of my sister torpedoed me, my family and I have new and worrisome health issues that might well be dealt with, but they might be more serious than just an inconvenience. While I have finished most of the writing on my poetry blog, and I have a written a couple articles here, I don't have a long piece ready yet, considering any subject in depths. However, I do offer here a look at some fabulous writers who were and are interesting and thoughtful.

A number of people who have read my works, both online and in print, know that I love Japan, and Japanese culture. I am not necessarily an expert, I think that would require speaking the language and reading primary documents, but I have been privileged to study and know about Japan.

AUTHORS TO READ

However, an aspect of my work online has been celebrating all of the good things I read, watch, listen to, and play. One of those areas of popular culture media has been wonderful reading material. And those great books were found in the literature of Japan, translated from Japanese or written in English.
Ivan Morris wrote, translated and edited some amazing works regarding Japan and subject matter written by Japanese authors. His three most important books, edited, written or translated, are The World of the Shining Prince, The Nobility of Failure and The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. The first considers the life of a prince in the Imperial court. The Nobility of Failure is highly useful consideration of some of the life and death ethos that surround the Japanese character. The Pillow Book was written concurrent to Lady Mirasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, for my money it's better in every respect. It is simultaneously funny, lovely, naughty and fulfilling. I don't think it is an accident, Morris chose to edit and translate it for a reason.  He obvious saw it for the excellence it possessed.

Kobo Abe wrote about the human experience by way of isolating certain universal experiences,  and drawing a bead upon what makes us human.  For me The Woman in the Dunes was especially powerful because love and need do not always work together, and attraction and connection sometimes would not happen without circumstance.  His works are powerful for the raw emotions he creates and as an author displayed, but to be most accurate, he tells stories that investigate the reader's emotions.  I confess, I came to his work AFTER watching the movie The Woman in the Dunes, but the book is far better, and the movie was great.  Abe isn't a name you hear often, but I consider him an equal to Ishiguro and Mishima.

Kazuo Ishiguro is brilliant. There is a reason for his Nobel prize award, and other awards. His work is without current equal. It might be harder to name one book that was best, but for me Never Let Me Go worked most powerfully. I've avoided telling people the general plot, but it involves a very important question and a set of answers. How do you decide what is the human experience, who gets to be thought worthy of life and experience, and what is the future of humanity, when A.I., Cloning, In Vitro Fertilization, and Abortion on demand become the common place?  Love isn't reserved for the perfect,
or shouldn't be.  I love this author's work.

Yukio Mishima will not be an easy read for some, he writes about a variety of concepts that challenge notions of sexual attraction, personal identity, nationalism, beauty, perfection and more. And while those sound interesting, he doesn't offer the reader easy to accept truisms, he offers fictional characters who do not think and act like most people might desire. What I most love about Mishima is his devotion as an author to following his character's path, whether the reader will follow, or whether it is the case that a reader will be horrified by the choices made. Mishima is amazing, and for a person who knows Japan's history, and appreciates its culture, Mishima is a great author.

FINAL WORDS

First off, I can be found on Facebook, Twitter or through email at Alexanderness63@gmail.com. I accept hard copies, so when you inquire at any of these places, I'll follow through by telling you my street address. I no longer have a post box, although I regret that.  It was a crushing defeat to no longer have a p.o. box, when I came to realize I was getting so little product it made no sense to pay for the privilege to not receive mail at both my home and at the post office. If you send hard copies for review I will always review them, but if you prefer to send pdf or ebooks to my email, I will review these at my discretion. I don't share my pdf/ebooks, so you can avoid worry that I'd dispense them for free to others.

MY LINKS:
My Poetry Blog AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com
My Published Work  AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com/2007/01/My-Work.html
My Amazon Page Amazon.com/author/AlexNess
Lovecraft Styled Horror CthulhuDarkness.Blogspot.Com
Atlantis and other Lost Worlds AlexNessLostWorlds.Blogspot.Com

I have an email list for my blog AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com If you are interested please send me an email asking to join the list. Send an email toAlexanderness63@gmail.com to join the list.  I promise never to sell the list or share it.

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