Review: The Maid

The Maid

by
Yasutaka Tsutsui

Translated by Adam Kabat

Published by Alma Books
(2010)

Original Japanese edition published
by Shinchosha Publishing
(1972)

It’s the picture of a happy household. The Jimbas are gathered around the table, all thirteen of them, smiling and talking cheer­fully over dinner. The maid enters the scene and the mother promptly offers compli­ments for her hard day’s work. The children give her approving glances, their expres­sions marked with appre­ci­ation, their faces free of the hostility that a live-in helper might fear from her little masters.

But the maid knows it’s just appear­ances. She knows that beneath the amiable guise is a bitterness as acrid as the stench she had painfully scrubbed off their dwelling. They resent her. She is an outsider who had entered their lives and discovered all the dirt they had to hide. She made them see their filthy exis­tence and now they curse her with vile contempt. The eldest son thinks of violating the virgin just to make her feel unclean.

And the maid knows it all, for she hears their every thought . . .

Review: The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried

by
Tim O’Brien

Published by Broadway Books
(1998)

First published in hard­cover by
Houghton Mifflin
(1990)

“No one else has written so beau­ti­fully about human remains hanging from tree branches.”

—Esquire

For many months, ever since I finished reading it, I’ve been trying to figure out what I want others to know about The Things They Carried. A cousin of mine sent me a copy after reading a post I wrote that made her think about this book. Since then, I have scribbled several pages of notes. I have pondered a countless times why to me it has been so affecting. But it was only this morning, while listening to Tim O’Brien read a letter sent to him by the daughter of a fellow veteran, that I finally mustered the will to write about a book whose writing felt too perfect to write about.

Review: Rue de la Nuit

Rue de la Nuit

by
Misuzu Oyama

Published by PublishingWorks, Inc.
(2010)

It just occurred to me that when I said I became a reader just two years ago, it was only partly true. As a little kid, I loved reading picture books. I remember how excited I got each time I saw my dad coming home with several purchases in his hand, and one of them happens to be book for me. The sight of those tall, red plastic bags with the words “National Bookstore” printed on both sides always sent me running towards him. Dad always knew exactly what to get me, and I cher­ished my Big Book of Nature as much as I did my Autobots and my Lego. Books with big drawings and colorful artwork always put a priceless smile on my face.

Earlier this year, I received in the mail an adorable gift that brought back those moments of childhood excitement. The book is Rue de la Nuit by Japanese artist Misuzu Oyama.

Notes on Craft: The Critical Review

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The Story
About the Story

Edited by J. C. Hallman

Published by Tin House Books
(2009)

In this post, I talk about “An Essay in Criticism” by Virginia Woolf, as published in the anthology The Story About the Story.

The essay, which orig­i­nally appeared in the New York Herald Tribune in 1927, is an exam­i­nation of Ernest Hemingway’s short story collection Men Without Women.

There must have been a time when getting featured in the Sunday Book Review trans­lated into instant sales sensation. A review contributor for The New York Times only has to say some­thing smart, put in a good word or two, and make a compelling point before the final end mark, and soon people would come pouring down the stores in search of that capti­vating, inspiring, mesmer­izing, breath­tak­ingly bril­liant book.

But these days, with less people reading in print, it’s more about online presence. With thou­sands of people sharing their thoughts in the blogos­phere and enjoying immense worldwide read­ership, there simply is no faster way to give a book the wide­spread attention it needs in order to be a best­seller. The Internet, it seems, has given everyone a chance to be a critic.