1 post tagged “feb 1-9”
2 Books - 466 pages (1 re-read)
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson21 Graphic Novels - 4039 pages (20 re-read, 1 magazine)
Rurouni Kenshin 7 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 8 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 9 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 10 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 11 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 12 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 13 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 14 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 15 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 16 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 17 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 18 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 19 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 20 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 21 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 22 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 23 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 24 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 25 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Rurouni Kenshin 26 by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Shojo Beat v3 i3 by VariousScanlations - 520 pages (38 pages not previously read)
Bleach Chapter 261. 'Left Arm of the Devil' scanlated by M7
Bleach Chapter 262. 'Unblendable' scanlated by M7
Kimi wa Pet Volume 1 scanlated by Ushi
Kimi wa Pet Volume 2 scanlated by Ushi
Kimi wa Pet Volume 3 scanlated by UshiTotal, Year to Date:
Books: 8 - 2484 pages
Graphic Novels: 52 - 9839 pages
Fanfiction: 5 - 21950 words / 44 pages (no change)
Scanlations: 3 volumes, 7 chapters - 614 pages
Once again, there are a large number of graphic novels listed. This is partly because I've taken to reading 2-3 manga before bed each night and partly due to a sudden resurgence in interest in the details of the Rurouni Kenshin story on my part. That is entirely the fault of Anaphalis and the conversation she and I had about my crack-addled AU fanfic idea. I won't be starting on it any time soon, but I kind of wanted to refresh myself on how the storylines go and see whether or not the idea I have would really work. (I think it will.)
Those who are familiar with the series will note that I specifically started with the beginning of the Kyoto Arc and then simply continued reading through the Jinchuu Arc. I've never made any bones about the fact that I think the Kyoto Arc was the highlight of the series in both anime form and the manga, despite the amount of love I have for Tomoe and Kenshin's angstacular backstory. Plain and simple, it's in the Kyoto Arc that the storytelling is the strongest. To my mind, this is primarily because the character motivations make a fair amount of sense and go a long way towards driving the action in the story. It is still clearly an action-based tale, but there's a certain amount of depth to the story, at least enough to hold my attention. The middle of the Jinchuu Arc drags a bit as he loses this momentum going through Enishi's 'cannon fodder', most of whom don't really have sufficient motivation for their revenge to keep things interesting, but the end of the story salvages this and the series ends on a decent note.
One thing that struck me was a note in one of the 'Free Talks' Watsuki includes in the collected editions (Vol 22 to be specific). In it, he says that Rurouni Kenshin is "a masterpiece of a lifetime." I wish I didn't agree with him, but the bits and pieces I've seen of his later work, including Buso Renkin, haven't convinced me otherwise. I would love to see another series from him where the characters show the same kind of depth and motivation but it hasn't happened and I'm more than a little disappointed. But that could also be because I've been thinking I'd like to find another high quality shonen series to get into and thus far I haven't found one I really like. Finding one from a mangaka I already like would just be gravy at this point.
I did also manage to finish two books in the past week and a half. The first was Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days which may seem a little out of place on my 'reading list'. As it happens, I was in Borders a couple of weeks ago and found a decent hardcover edition of it for $3. As I was looking at it, I realized that the copy I own is somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 years old and maybe I should pick up a different edition to actually read and leave the other one on the shelf.
Once I had the book at home, I picked it up to thumb through and somehow ended up reading the entire thing. It had been a while since I'd actually read Around the World in Eighty Days and I think I came to it this time with a bit of a different perspective. I enjoyed it, but that was despite aspects of the narrative that I would probably find grating in a different book. I'm left wondering whether in 130 years time someone's going to be reading our popular literature and thinking to themself 'how quaint'. I suspect that if this weren't a beloved book from my youth I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as well. However, since I not only did enjoy it, but am now thinking about reading some additional Verne and possibly revisiting Stevenson and Defoe as well (knowing the story of Alexander Selkirk makes that last almost irresistable), I'd have to say that this goes squarely in the 'plus' column for books read and enjoyed.
Continuing on with the Victorian theme, I ended up moving on to The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson which I read in pretty much a single sitting last Saturday afternoon. The Ghost Map is a look at the events surrounding an outbreak of cholera that took place in London in 1854 and how the multi-disciplinary approach used to study this outbreak became the foundation for the science of epidemiology. I found the book to be interesting, though not as 'engaging' as some of the other books I have read that match the history of science with social history and biography. However, I thought that the author's shifts between the small scale and 'human' aspects of the story and the larger forces were very well done and kept the tale balanced and narrative rather than a recitation of facts.
Unfortunately, though, I did not enjoy the epilogue and afterword which take the events of the nineteenth century and extrapolate them to our modern society. It was well done, but line of thinking is not one I find particularly interesting these days. If I were still a student of history, I'd probably have appreciated it more, but as a 'layman' I just found it boring. This narrow focus on the historical elements rather than the modern applications is probably a failing on my part rather than a fault in the book, which is very well done. Overall, I did enjoy the book quite a bit, but that end portion really did just lose me.
Anyway, that's all I've got to say this time around. I don't think I said it nearly as well as the first time I wrote this earlier today, but such is life. Since I'm pretty sure nobody but me reads these anyway, I guess it's not that big an issue.
