Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Watching one thing leads to reading another thing

I've been busy with too many projects. Currently I'm trying to reduce the number down to one major one which I expect will take up a great deal of my time for the next year.

In the meanwhile I am of course still watching anime reading manga.

Just started watching Princess Jellyfish, I know I'm going to like this one.

The Mayaya character's obsession inspired me to dig out a book I have not read in over 25 years. In fact I bought it in Cartesian Books, a store that had just opened in Berkeley, and since that time the owner aged and eventually retired. The book? The Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the C. H. Brewitt Taylor translation. Cartesian Books had just opened a few days before I discovered it, I walked in, the owner said "are you looking for anything in particular?" I replied "yes a complete translation of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms", he then reached over his shoulder and pulled the two volumes off the shelf behind him and handed them to me. I became a regular customer.

I now know what I'll be (re)reading on my morning commute.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to see you back in action, Gilles!

We started reading Romance after seeing the Chinese adaptation Red Wall, but couldn't really get into it. The fact we were using an older translation may also have hindered us.

DSWBT

Gilles Poitras said...

That would be the same translation I have. And yes it does creak with old age.

I highly recommend the 2 volume translation from University of California Press. It has annotations and maps to help.