'The Diving Pool' by Yoko Ogawa (Review)

Today's review is a special one as it's a post on the first of the January in Japan readalongs :)  I'll be collecting the thoughts of all participants over at the JiJ blog, but first I'm posting my review here.  The book?  Well...

*****
The Diving Pool (translated by Stephen Snyder) was the first of Yoko Ogawa's works to appear in English, although the word 'work' is a bit of a misnomer.  The book is a collection of three of Ogawa's novellas and is a great introduction to her dark, twisted world...

First up is the title story, 'The Diving Pool', in which we meet, Aya, the daughter of a pastor and his wife who run an orphanage called Light House.  Life isn't so sunny for Aya, who is bitter that she is growing up along with the abandoned kids in the orphanage.  Her main pleasure lies in secretly watching Jun, a fellow resident, as he practises his dives at the school pool, and she cherishes her secret crush...

However, increasingly bitter and neglected, Aya has developed an evil streak, and Ogawa slowly reveals Aya's true nature.  In her treatment of Rie, an eighteen-month-old orphan, she shows unthinking, ruthless cruelty.  It's not only when she's bad that Aya seems a little off though; even the most commonplace discussions can seem not quite right:

"I hurt my wrist today," he said.  "I must have hit the water at a funny angle."
 "Which one?"
 He shook his left wrist to show me.  Because his body was so important to me, I lived in fear that he would injure it.  The flash in his eyes as he was about to dive, the glint of light on his chest, the shapes of his muscles - it all aroused in me a pleasant feeling that usually lay dormant.
'The Diving Pool', p.15 (Harvill Secker, 2008)

We're never quite sure how events will play out in this tale, and there is a great twist to finish the story off...

*****
The middle story, 'Pregnancy Diary', is Ogawa's Akutagawa-prize-winning piece.  A pregnant woman's sister keeps a diary, which as well as documenting the progress of the pregnancy sets the sister's feelings down on paper.  Once again, our narrator is a twisted soul, and the further we get into the pregnancy, the darker the story becomes.

Initially, the focus is on the description of the pregnancy's progress.  We get detailed accounts of the woman's morning sickness and her visits to the psychiatrist.  The writer has little sympathy though, for her sister or her brother-in-law:

"My brother-in-law seems particularly pitiful to me, since he has no reason to feel sick, and I find myself getting angry over his little sighs and whimpers.  It occurs to me that I'd fall in love with a man who could put away a three-course French dinner even when he knew I was paralyzed by morning sickness."
'Pregnancy Diary', p.73

She's really not a very nice person...

Eventually, we see this passive distaste turn into more active anger.  After her sister recovers her appetite, the narrator begins to make jam on a daily basis - but with an ulterior motive.  It's another dark twist to what could be a very straight-forward story, and the word which comes to mind is 'bitter'...

*****
The final story, 'Dormitory', is a little different to the first two.  In this one, a married woman helps her cousin to find a room at her old university dormitory.  Although she enjoyed her time there, it's a strange place - deserted and run-down:

"...and that place was my old college dormitory, a simple, three-story building of reinforced concrete.  The cloudy glass in the windows, the yellowed curtains, and the cracks in the walls all hinted at its advanced age, and though it was meant to house students, there was no sign of student life - no motorbikes, tennis rackets, sneakers, or anything of the kind.  It was, in short, the mere shell of a building."
'Dormitory', p.110

It's run by a man with his own distinguishing features, one prosthetic leg and no arms, and as the narrator comes to visit the dormitory more and more, matters spiral into the surreal.  The dormitory is almost empty, and it's only a matter of time before we find out why.  Why are there so many bees?  What's up with the tulips?  And what is that strange stain on the wall...

'Dormitory' is a little different from the first two stories as the protagonist is not bitter, but lost.  With her husband overseas, she feels detached from daily life and is unable to concentrate on anything.  She's very reminiscent of the style of Haruki Murakami or Banana Yoshimoto (the dormitory especially reminded me of Dolphin Hotel in A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance).  Rather than following a dark character here, the darkness is provided by the eerie setting and the fear of the unknown...

*****
The Diving Pool is a great book, one I enjoyed immensely.  The publishers have chosen three superb stories, all with great writing and a dark undertone, and Snyder's translation is excellent.  The narrative flows smoothly and never jars - it's clear, elegant and simple.  I'm very happy I chose this for the readalong (and Ogawa as our first female J-Lit giant) - I wonder if everyone else agrees ;)

'Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids' by Kenzaburo Oe (Review)

Kenzaburo Oe is a writer I haven't read much by for one reason or another, so January in Japan is the perfect time to remedy that.  I recently acquired three of his works second-hand from Abe Books, and I'm starting today with his first real novel - a book concerning youthful misdemeanours and something far more sinister...

*****
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (translated by Paul St John Mackintosh and Maki Sugiyama) is a story of reformatory kids during wartime Japan.  A group of sullen boys are in the process of being evacuated to a rural village when the narrator is joined by his younger brother.  The young boy isn't a juvenile delinquent though; his dad is just taking advantage of the evacuation...

When the kids arrive at their destination, they soon find that the villagers despise them (and that there is no chance of escape from the isolated location).  However, when an illness breaks out in the village, the kids are abandoned by the villagers, left stranded in the middle of nowhere with no hope of rescue.  It's time to fend for themselves...

It's a superb story, very easy to read, but with a deeper meaning.  We see the young delinquents as the dregs of society, at the mercy of the heartless villagers.  After being forced to bury the animals that have died from the sickness, they are left to their fate:

"The primitive Japanese, so terrified of the resurrection of their dead, had folded the legs of the corpses and piled their graves with massively heavy slabs of stone.  We too stamped the earth with legs strengthened by fear of our friend, once a comrade of ours, rising up from out of the earth and rampaging in the village where children had been left behind alone and cut off."
p.102 (Picador, 1996)

Is it all too late though? The germs are spreading...

Nip the Buds,... is a very Lord of The Flies-like novel in the way the young protagonists are left to sort out their own affairs.  After the initial confusion, they are forced to concentrate on organisation, including a choice of leader, allocating accommodation and working out how to get food.  As they start to hunt and gather, the reader is cheering them on in their quest for survival in the harsh mountainous terrain. 

One of the best parts of the book is its depiction of the children, and it's important to remember that despite their 'crimes', that's just what they are, kids.  Initially locked up overnight without water, then abandoned without food, the kids talk big but don't really understand the big picture.  There are several examples of the children exposing themselves, or sitting around, masturbating, time out from idly killing time in the sun.  For children who have never experienced freedom, the question of how to live without a rigid structure is a weighty one.

Another interesting theme is the relationship between the narrator and his younger brother (Oe doesn't provide us with many names here...).  The central figure is the tough one, the delinquent, and the leader of the group.  He becomes increasingly torn between his roles as elder brother and leader, and his growing affection for a girl left behind by the villagers.  Despite his best efforts, he can't keep everyone happy, no matter how much he wants to, and eventually he is going to have to make some painful choices...

There's a lot more to Nip the Buds,... than this though.  It can also be read as an allegory of the atrocities of war and the failure of Japanese society:

"Through our experience of escape and failure as we shifted from village to village, we had learned that we were surrounded by gigantic walls.  In the farming villages, we were like splinters stuck in skin.  In an instant we would be pressed in on from all sides by coagulating flesh, extruded and suffocated.  These farmers, wearing the hard armour of their clannishness, refused to allow others to pass through, let alone settle in.  It was we, a small group, who were just drifting on a sea which never took in people from outside but threw them back." (p.25)

In fact, this is true for all Japanese of the time - you can shut up and fall in line or else.  This attitude, Oe argues, got Japan into this mess in the first place - the horrors of the war were a consequence of ordinary Japanese following the lead of the insane military.  Woe betide anyone who thinks of standing up against this system...

At the end of the novel, we see order reasserted, with cruel, savage consequences.  It would be nice if we ended on a bright note with hope for the future - instead we are back in the dark, primeval forests, cold and scared.  While Oe believes that the results for society of people blindly following their leaders is tragic, the consequences for individuals who stand up for their beliefs are horrific...

'Modern Japanese Stories - An Anthology' by Ivan Morris (Ed.) (Review)

It's time for another January in Japan post, and today we're looking at short stories.  I've already tried two J-Lit collections (The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories and Donald Keene's Modern Japanese Literature), and I had my eye on another collection for quite a while.  Eventually, I managed to get an old first edition cheap on Abe Books - and I'm very glad I did :)

*****
Modern Japanese Stories - An Anthology does exactly what it says on the cover - well, almost.  Ivan Morris brought together twenty-five great stories by some of the best modern Japanese writers, translated by himself along with Edward Seidensticker, George Saitō and Geoffrey Sargent.  There is one thing which you need to know before we begin; while the book says modern, it was first released in 1962.  At the time Yasunari Kawabata was the president of Japanese PEN (with his Nobel Prize in the distant future), and Yukio Mishima was merely a promising new talent.  If you're looking for something by the likes of Murakami, Ogawa or Yoshimoto, you'll be sorely disappointed ;)

Several of the stories are by very familiar names.  Kawabata contributes a typically elegant tale called 'The Moon on the Water', a story where a woman looks back to her time with her first husband, regretting the choice she made to remarry after his death.  Kafu Nagai's 'Hydrangea' is also instantly recognisable in its telling of an incident in old Tokyo's pleasure quarters, and as for Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's 'Tattoo'... well, anyone who has read any of his novels will be at home with this short, erotically-charged piece...

As always though, the real strength of the collection is in the great stories it showcases from less famous writers.  Even though the anthology barely reaches the post-war years, there are some great stories from a wide variety of styles and eras; anyone with a fair knowledge of J-Lit wanting to expand their horizons could do a lot worse than trying this collection to get some ideas for their next book.

Some of my favourite stories were among the longer pieces, and most were by writers I'd never encountered before.  One of these was Fumio Niwa's 'The Hateful Age', a superb story about a very contemporary issue, the burden of caring for elderly relatives in an ageing society.  There's no false respect for the aged here - it's a very bitter, selfish tale:

"As Ruriko trudged toward the station, she soon realized that though Granny weighed no more than a child, her body with its long legs and relatively short trunk was very much harder to carry.  The thin lanky legs were clamped like a painful brace around Ruriko's waist, and by the time they approached the station, walking had become an agony.  The ordeal was not only physical.  In carrying someone eighty-six years old, one is supporting not just a body, but all the weight of a personal history that has accumulated ponderously over the decades."
'The Hateful Age', p.326 (Tuttle, 1987)

There's little Confucian respect for the elderly here, but when you see how the old lady of the piece behaves, you may just sympathise with the long-suffering relatives.

A slightly more historical perspective is provided by Kan Kikuchi's story 'On the Conduct of Lord Tadano', set in the early seventeenth century.  Taking place at the end of the Warring States era, the story begins with the fall of Osaka castle, where Lord Tadano distinguishes himself in the battle.  Praised by Tokugawa Ieyasu himself, the young nobleman is at the height of his powers - until he discovers that his belief in his supremacy in all areas of life is based on a huge lie, sending him into a dangerous downward spiral...

'Nightingale', by Einosuke Ito, provides a comforting change of pace.  The story begins with an old woman hobbling into a police station... and that's where we stay for the next forty-something pages.  The longest story in the collection, 'Nightingale' shows us how the police station of a small town is the true focal point of the community, a bustling centre of government with people dropping in at all hours.  In the twenty-four hours we spend in the company of the law, we meet midwives, peddlers, thieves and philanderers, yet they are all treated fairly and kindly by the hard-worked public officials :)

The last of my selections is Ango Sakaguchi's contribution, 'The Idiot'.  Set during the Second World War air raids on Tokyo, it's the story of a journalist who takes up with a simple-minded woman when he finds her hiding in his room.  It's a bitter, spiteful tale, one which lashes out at the stupidity of war and the people who expect everyone to take part in it.  I haven't read a lot from this period of Japanese history, so this is a fascinating look at what was happening in Japan towards the end of the war.  Be warned though - it is a little gruesome at times:

"Among the ruins of the great air raid of March tenth, Izawa had also wandered aimlessly through the still rising smoke.  On all sides people lay dead like so many roast fowl.  They lay dead in great clusters.  Yes, they were exactly like roast fowl.  They were neither gruesome nor dirty.  Some of the corpses lay next to the bodies of dogs and were burned in exactly the same manner, as if to emphasize how utterly useless their deaths had been."
'The Idiot', p.403

As Sakaguchi's 'In the Forest, under Cherries in Full Bloom' was also one of my selections from the Oxford collection, perhaps it's time I looked for more of his work :)

Apart from the stories themselves, there's a lot to like about this collection.  Morris' thirty-page introduction discusses the origins of modern Japanese literature, explaining why there was such a break in tradition after the Meiji restoration, and it gives a great overview of the major names, styles and schools.  Each story also has a brief biography of the writer before the main feature begins and a full-page woodcut painting of a scene from the story (all by artist Masakazu Kuwata) - now that's what I call added extras :)

Of course, it's not perfect.  There a couple of omissions (Natsume Soseki for one), and with only two female writers in the whole collection, it is definitely the choice of a very different time.  However, I enjoyed this book greatly and would recommend it to anyone interested in expanding their J-Lit horizons.  Of course, you've got to get hold of a copy first - the best of luck to you with that...

'The Frontier Within' by Kobo Abe (Review)

After a short novel to kick off my January in Japan reading, it's time for something slightly different today.  I'm not a big one for non-fiction, but when Columbia University Press told me about the book you can see in the photo, I was very keen to give it a whirl.  Let's see what we can learn about a famous Japanese novelist when he steps outside his fictional comfort zone...

*****
The Frontier Within (edited, translated and with an introduction by Richard F. Calichman, review copy courtesy of the Australian distributor Footprint Books) is a collection of essays by Kōbō Abe, the author of such novels as The Face of Another and The Woman in the Dunes.  While Abe is mostly known in the West for his bizarre novels, Calichman argues that we need to read his non-fiction to fully understand his ideas.  The essays collected here cover a range of topics from philosophy to literary theory, politics to education, the military to the role of the state - and he has some very strong views too...

The first essay, 'Poetry and Poets (Consciousness and the Unconscious)', is not exactly the best start to the collection.  After Calichman's clear introduction, Abe's confusing, meandering style had me wondering who was responsible for my not really getting anything - me or Abe.  The next few essays, where he talks about what he understands by Literary Theory (quoting Stalin and Mao along the way...), didn't really make things any better...

For anyone used to a clear, logical Anglophone style of exposition, Abe's circular argumentative style might cause some headaches.  His writings appear to be more a set of connected musings, at times arranged in a loose question and answer format, and the effect is often clunky to my western ears (I'd certainly be down on my students if they came up with a similar style).  Occasionally, he comes out with sweeping claims, with no evidence to support it:

"It is well-known throughout the world that Japanese reportage writers are not very observant..."
'Possibilities for Education Today', p.86 (Columbia University Press, 2013)

Hmm.  I can't say that was a fact I'd come across before...

Thankfully, after reaching a nadir in his ramblings on education, a topic I know a little too much about to fall for his unfounded claims, the writing, and the ideas improve.  In 'Beyond the Neighbor', Abe sets out some of his views on writing and tradition, and after a brief discussion about the importance of military uniforms in fascist (and democratic...) states, he moves on to a final trio of essays about society in general, probably the most interesting ones in the collection.

In 'Passport of Heresy', the writer takes us on a journey into the far past, discussing the habits of early humans, before explaining how the split between nomadic hunters and sedentary agriculturalists is still evident today in our urban structure.  While this short piece initially seems like a pleasant diversion, it actually serves to introduce the final two essays of the collection, 'The Frontier Within', in which Abe, as an outsider, ponders the trials and tribulations of the Jewish race.  Abe declares that most societies regard the farming community as the 'real' natives, treating urban dwellers with suspicion; this means that the Jews, bound to cities both by mediaeval laws and their own statelessness became natural scapegoats for unscrupulous politicians.

It's an intriguing idea (even if you constantly feel that Abe is carefully treading the line between dispassionate observer and prejudice), and in his follow-up talks, entitled 'The Frontier Within, Part II', he pretty much goes over the same ground.  It's a shame this isn't another essay as it would have been interesting to see him expand on the ideas outlined in the first part.

Overall, though, I'd have to say that this book just didn't do it for me.  The writing is fairly clunky, with several repeated formulaic expressions, and I was expecting something a little tighter and much more logically arranged.  I remember reading some non-fiction by Virginia Woolf a few years back, and I loved the way she laid out her arguments with sparkling prose.  On the evidence of this, Abe is no Woolf - and this is certainly not A Room of One's Own.

Abe himself perhaps explains my feelings in a pithy one liner:

"It is difficult to convey one's intentions, but it is easy to be misunderstood."
'Does the Visual Image Destroy the Walls of Language?' (p.61)

It's very possible that there's more to this book than I got out of it, but I suspect that it would take someone a lot more versed in Japanese literature than myself to find it.  If you're a die-hard Abe fan, or a PhD candidate in modern Japanese literature, this might be one for you.  However, I suspect that the casual J-Lit fan might not enjoy it quite so much...

*****
***Footprint Books say that this book is available in good Australian bookshops and directly through their website :)

December 2013 Wrap-Up

December has been a month of catching up and looking ahead.  I managed to get through a few review copies and library books I had lying around, before moving on to the next big project, more J-Lit for my January in January event :)  Still, before we get onto 2014, let's close off 2013 first...

*****
Total Books Read: 12
Year-to-Date: 130

New: 12

Rereads: 0

From the Shelves: 6
Review Copies: 5

From the Library: 1

On the Kindle: 1 (Review Copy)

Novels: 8

Short Stories: 3
Non-Fiction: 1

Non-English Language: 12 (7 Japanese, 2 French, Spanish, Czech, Romanian)

In Original Language: 0

Aussie Author Challenge: 0 (5/3)
Japanese Literature Challenge 7: 7 (20/1)

*****
Books reviewed in December were:

1) The Inflatable Buddha by András Kepes
2) Uppsala Woods by Álvaro Colomer
3) Beauty on Earth by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz
4) Brief Loves that Last Forever by Andreï Makine
5) Blinding: The Left Wing by Mircea Cărtărescu
6) The Seamstress and the Wind by César Aira
7) The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira by César Aira
8) The Devil's Workshop by Jáchym Topol
9) The American Senator by Anthony Trollope

Tony's Turkey for December is: Nothing

With four turkeys already for the year, my job is done :)

Tony's Recommendation for December is:

Mircea Cărtărescu's Blinding

I reviewed some great books to round off the year, several of which may have taken out the prize in a weaker month.  Special mentions go to Álvaro Colomer, Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz and Andreï Makine; however, Blinding was simply too good to ignore, a worthy recipient of the final book of the month award for 2013 :)

*****
That's it then for 2013, but (as you may have seen) 2014 has already kicked off with January in Japan.  Here's hoping you can join us to kick-start the new year with some great J-Lit!

'Shipwrecks' by Akira Yoshimura (Review)

Welcome, one and all, to the first of my reviews for January in Japan 2014!  The event kicked off yesterday over at the JiJ blog, with the induction of our first female J-Lit Giant, and there'll be a lot more going on over there throughout the next month.  Back here though, it'll be the usual fare of reviews (with a J-Lit flavour), so let's get going with the first of many Japanese posts for January :)

*****
Akira Yoshimura's Shipwrecks (translated by Mark Ealey) is a piece of historical fiction set on an isolated part of a remote Japanese island in mediaeval times.  Our guide through the story is Isaku, a nine-year-old boy forced into the position of the man of the household after the departure of his father.  In a village perpetually on the brink of starvation, the only way to stay alive at times is to sell yourself as a bonded worker, and Isaku's father is in the middle of a three-year stint at a fishing port.

With a mother and three brothers and sisters to support, the young boy quickly learns how to master the skills needed to keep the family in food, soon becoming a valued member of the community.  However, crossing the threshold of adulthood also means becoming aware of the village's traditions and secrets, including that of o-fune-sama.  With food in short supply, the villagers pray for ships to founder off the treacherous coast - but Isaku learns that there's more to these shipwrecks than he might have thought...

Shipwrecks is a fairly short novel, clocking in at 154 pages, and it's typically, recognisably Japanese with its emphasis on description over action and depth over surface, with nature playing a prominent role.  However, it also evokes other fringe cultures; the isolated coastal settlement is reminiscent of the Faroe Islands setting for The Old Man and his Sons, and the hardship is similar to that faced by the villagers in Jón Kalman Stefánsson's Heaven and Hell and Sjón's From the Mouth of the Whale.

The key to the story is the phenomenon of O-fune-sama, the hope that a ship carrying cargo will wash up on the shore, and the lengths the villagers go to in order to give the gods a helping hand with the task.  Rites and prayers (such as a pregnant woman kicking over a bowl of food) are all well and good, but sometimes God helps those who help themselves:

"Rare though it might be, the coming of O-fune-sama was looked upon in the same light as unexpected schools of fish appearing near the shore, or unusually large quantities of mushrooms or mountain vegetables being found in the forest.  O-fune-sama was part of the bounty offered by the sea, and its deliverance barely saved the people in the village from starvation."
p.94 (Canongate Books, 2002)

It takes a while, but the reader eventually becomes aware that the villagers are actually luring these ships in.  Later, like Isaku, we find out more about what actually happens when their ship comes in...

At first, the story is fairly pedestrian, albeit extremely descriptive.  We are treated to descriptions of daily life, and the writer skillfully portrays the changing of the seasons, both on land (with plum blossoms and autumn leaves) and sea (the coming of octopus, saury and sardines).  In truth, the first half could almost be mistaken for non-fiction, such is the lack of plot development.  Later though, Yoshimura slowly ratchets up the tension, to the extent that we can tell there's a tragedy in the offing.  We're just not sure where it'll come from (although there's a fair chance that it'll be brought by the sea...)

While the fate of the village is the major concern, Shipwrecks is also an individual story, describing Isaku's path to manhood.  At the start of the story, he's only nine (and in Japanese years, that's probably eight), but these are different times where the children need to mature early.  Near the start of the novel, he is summoned for an interview with the village chief, receiving confirmation of the responsibility to be placed on his scrawny shoulders:

"His face flushed with excitement as the tension disappeared.  The order to work through the night on the salt cauldrons meant that he was recognised as an adult.  Ever since he had been allowed to help with the cremation he had felt that this might happen, but knowing that it was actually about to come to pass filled him with irrepressible joy." (p.20)

Having long left childhood behind, it's time for Isaku to grow up even more.  He has to go out and fish for his family, gather bark in the woods to be made into cloth - oh, and there's the small matter of a developing love interest too.

Overall, it's an interesting story, simple, stark, but with powerful messages and a sobering conclusion.  Many reviews I've seen use the word 'bleak' although I don't quite agree (having read a lot of J-Lit, perhaps I have higher standards for that adjective!).  It's not perfect though; the writing is a little too plain at times, and the first half was very slow.  There was also a lot of unnecessary repetition, and several other reviews pointed out some inconsistencies in vocabulary use which I agree with.

While these points may put some off, I suspect most people would enjoy Shipwrecks.  It's an interesting story with a nice, easy style of writing, and the history and traditions of an isolated village (hundreds of years behind the times) are fascinating.  I doubt it'll be my best read this month, but it's definitely got January in Japan off to a good start :)

2014 Challenges

Here's how I'm faring with the challenges I've signed up for this year :)

Aussie Author Challenge - January 1st, 2014 - December 31st, 2014
- Wallaby Level (read three books by Australian writers, one male, one female, one new)
1) The Plains by Gerald Murnane


Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2014 Longlist
1) The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke
2) Strange Weather in Tokyo (The Briefcase) by Hiromi Kawakami
3) A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard
4) The Infatuations by Javier Marías
5) Brief Loves that Live Forever by Andeï Makine
6) The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson
7) The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim
8) Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
9) The Dark Road by Ma Jian
10) The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon
11) Exposure by Sayed Kashua
12) Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
13) Rücken an Rücken (Back to Back) by Julia Franck
14) Ten by Andrej Longo
15) A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli

Japanese Literature Challenge 8 - June 1st, 2014 - January 31st, 2015
- Read a work of Japanese Literature!
1) Granta 127: Japan by Yuka Igarashi (ed.)
2) The Tilted Cup: Noh Stories by Paul Griffiths
3) The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon
4) Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
5) I am a Cat by Natsume Soseki (link is to 2010 review)
6) Rivers by Teru Miyamoto
7) Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami
8) The Kojiki by Ō no Yasumaro
9) Manazuru by Hiromi Kawakami
10) The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue
11) Masks by Fumiko Enchi
12) Grass on the Wayside by Natsume Soseki
13) The Tale of the Heike, translated by Royall Tyler
14) The Whale that Fell in Love with a Submarine by Akiyuki Nosaka
15) The Silent Cry by Kenzaburo Oe (link is to 2011 review)
16) N.P. by Banana Yoshimoto
17) The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

Women in Translation Month - August 2014
- Read a work in translation written by a woman!
1) Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli
2) My Son's Girlfriend by Jung Mi-kyung
3) The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon
4) The Life of Rebecca Jones by Angharad Price
5) The Blue Room by Hanne Ørstavik
6) Spirit on the Wind (and other Stories) by O Chong-hui
7) Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones
8) Numéro Six by Véronique Olmi
9) There a Petal Silently Falls by Ch'oe Yun
10) Aller Tage Abend (The End of Days) by Jenny Erpenbeck
11) Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
12) Sidewalks by Valeria Luiselli

German Literature Month IV - November 2014
- Read works of German-language literature!
1) Agnes by Peter Stamm
2) Transit by Anna Seghers
3) The Parent Trap by Erich Kästner
4) Eine Halligfahrt (Journey to a Hallig) by Theodor Storm
5) Alte Meister (The Old Masters) by Thomas Bernhard
6) Blumenberg by Sibylle Lewitscharoff
7) Mario und der Zauberer (Mario and the Magician) by Thomas Mann
8) Blood Brothers by Ernst Haffner
9) Irrungen, Wirrungen (Trials and Tribulations) by Theodor Fontane
10) Die Ausgewanderten (The Emigrants) by W.G. Sebald 

2014 Reading List

Click on the link to read the review :) 

131) Grass on the Wayside by Natsume Soseki
130) Masks by Fumiko Enchi
129) The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue
128) Manazuru by Hiromi Kawakami
127) The Kojiki by Ō no Yasumaro
126) Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami
125) Rivers by Teru Miyamoto
124) I am a Cat by Natsume Soseki (link is to 2011 review)
123) Arpan by Park Hyoung-su
122) The Bird by O Chong-hui
121) Zone by Mathias Énard
120) The Republic of Užupis by Haïlji
119) Rain Over Madrid by Andrés Barba
118) Texas: The Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa 
117) The Adventures of Shola by Bernardo Atxaga (Emily's Review)
116) Wayfarer - New Fiction by Korean Women, edited by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
115) Die Ausgewanderten (The Emigrants) by W.G. Sebald
114) Mujong: The Heartless by Yi Kwang-su
113) Irrungen, Wirrungen (Trials and Tribulations) by Theodor Fontane
112) Blood Brothers by Ernst Haffner
111) Mario und der Zauberer (Mario and the Magician) by Thomas Mann
110) Dinner with Buffett by Park Min-gyu
109) Blumenberg by Sibylle Lewitscharoff
108) River of Fire and Other Stories by O Chong-hui
107) Alte Meister (The Old Masters) by Thomas Bernhard
106) Eine Halligfahrt (Journey to a Hallig) by Theodor Storm
105) Pavane for a Dead Princess by Park Min-gyu
104) The Parent Trap by Erich Kästner (Emily's Review)
103) Transit by Anna Seghers
102) I Refuse by Per Petterson
101) Agnes by Peter Stamm
100) Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector
99) Seiobo There Below by László Krasznahorkai
98) The Road to Sampo by Hwang Sok-yong
97) Mr. Darwin's Gardener by Kristina Carlson
96) Twentieth-Century Stories from LTI Korea 
95) Lady Anna by Anthony Trollope
94) Family Heirlooms by Zulmira Ribeiro Tavares
93) The Foundling Boy by Michel Déon
92) I Live in Bongcheon-dong by Jo Kyung-ran
91) They Were Found Wanting by Miklós Bánffy
90) Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb
89) Ich nannte ihn Krawatte (I Called Him Necktie) by Milena Michiko Flašar
88) One Spoon on this Earth by Hyun Ki-young
87) The Things We Don't Do by Andrés Neuman
86) A Distant Father by Antonio Skármeta
85) Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
84) Antón Mallick Wants to Be Happy by Nicolás Casariego
83) The Plains by Gerald Murnane
82) Sidewalks by Valeria Luiselli
81) Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
80) Aller Tage Abend by Jenny Erpenbeck
79) Boyhood Island by Karl Ove Knausgaard
78) Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones
77) There a Petal Silently Falls by Ch'oe Yun
76) Numéro Six (Number Six) by Véronique Olmi
75) My Son's Girlfriend by Jung Mi-kyung
74) The Blue Room by Hanne Ørstavik
73) The Life of Rebecca Jones by Angharad Price
72) The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon
71) The Book of Gaza by Atef Abu Saif (ed.)
70) Spirit on the Wind and Other Stories by O Chong-hui
69) Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli
68) The Mahé Circle by Georges Simenon
67) The Shadow of Arms by Hwang Sok-yong
66) Dead Stars by Álvaro Bisama
65) The Tilted Cup: Noh Stories by Paul Griffiths
64) The Book of Rio by Toni Marques and Katie Slade (eds.)
63) Paris by Marcos Giralt Torrente
62) Paradises by Iosi Havilio
61) The Beautiful Team by Garry Jenkins
60) All Played Out by Pete Davies
59) Modern Korean Fiction by Bruce Fulton and Youngmin Kwon (eds.)
58) Stingray by Kim Joo-young
57) The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
56) The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim (link is to 2013 review)
55) Black Flower by Kim Young-ha
54) Granta 127: Japan, edited by Yuka Igarashi
53) Our Twisted Hero by Yi Mun-yol
52) Tirza by Arnon Grunberg
51) The House with a Sunken Courtyard by Kim Won-il
50) Papers in the Wind by Eduardo Sacheri
49) The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (link is to 2013 review)
48) The Dwarf by Cho Se-hui 
47) I'll Be Right There by Kyung-Sook Shin
46) They Were Counted by Miklós Bánffy
45) The Guest by Hwang Sok-yong
44) Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman
43) A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli
42) Running through Beijing by Xu Zechen
41) Dispute over a very Italian Piglet by Amara Lakhous
40) Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (link is to 2013 review)
39) Ten by Andrej Longo
38) Rücken an Rücken (Back to Back) by Julia Franck
37) An Appointment with his Brother and Other Stories by Yi Mun-yol
36) Where Tigers are at Home by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès
35) Lonesome You by Park Wan-suh
34) Photo Shop Murder (and Other Stories) by Kim Young-ha
33) At Least We Can Apologize by Lee Ki-ho
32) Liveforever by Andrés Caicedo
31) Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami (link is to 2009 review)
30) Nagasaki by Éric Faye
29) Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami (link is to 2009 review)
28) Oh, Tama! by Mieko Kanai
27) Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
26) The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization and World Literature by Michael Emmerich
25) Exposure by Sayed Kashua
24) The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon
23) The Dark Road by Ma Jian
22) Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Olafsdóttir
21) Art in Nature by Tove Jansson (link is to 2013 review)
20) An Equal Music by Vikram Seth (link is to 2010 review)
19) Sanshiro by Natsume Soseki (link is to 2010 review)
18) Captain of the Steppe by Oleg Pavlov
17) Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
16) Alice by Judith Hermann (link is to 2012 review)
15) No One Writes Back by Jang Eun-jin
14) The Good Life Elsewhere by Vladimir Lorchenkov
13) The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki (link is to 2010 review)
12) Ekaterini by Marija Knežević
11) Romola by George Eliot
10) Calling All Heroes by Paco Ignacio Taibo II
9) Bound in Venice by Alessandro Marzo Magno
8) Talking to Ourselves by Andrés Neuman
7) A Treatise on Shelling Beans by Wiesław Myśliwski
6) The Soil by Yi Kwang-su
5) Anatomie einer Nacht (Anatomy of a Night) by Anna Kim
4) The Happy City by Elvira Navarro
3) Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
2) Light and Dark by Natsume Soseki
1) A True Novel by Minae Mizumura