academic zombie

Terrible headache and I didn't even drink last night, it's just that people were too loud in the pub. Amazing how you can get symptoms identical to a hangover without alcohol just from being around people yelling for hours.

Recently read: The Woman Dies by Aoka Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton - I picked this up partly because I enjoyed Barton's translation of Butter, and partly because the cover art is so cool. Collection of stories, much of it flash fiction, tacking sexism, gender, technology, the media, etc. A lot funnier than I expected. The titular story, which is my favourite, is incisive about sexist cliches in the movies, but also has a very funny conversation about vaginas. I feel like this is best read all at once, because so many threads are picked up repeatedly in multiple stories (the Japanese national anthem jokes, for example), and it has a great rhythm that way, so I'm glad I read it all at once. I had a great time with this.

Currently reading: Lord of Mysteries: The Clown, Part 1 by Cuttlefish that Loves Diving - I'm 44 chapters in and really enjoying myself. There's some things the animated series glossed over but that the novel goes into more depth on, so the world feels even more textured. I'm most delighted by how sneaky Klein is, and how awkward all his interactions with Leonard are, but there's a lot to enjoy. I like that this has more on the tarot club, and I'm amused by Audrey and her large dog.

Yen Press doesn't seem to list a translator anywhere in the book, but I can believe there is a human translator because there are so many clunky adverbs. When did adverbs stop being considered bad writing, my guys? Maybe I'm out of touch on this, because I see them so often in published fiction these days (especially in translated fiction), and they always annoy me.

DNF: The Moon Glow Bookshop by Dongwon Seo, translated by Shanna Tan - the idea of a bar that sells drinks that tell stories is fun, but the prose in the translation is so clunky and surface, with no real subtext or interesting description, no depth or texture, that I just can't push myself forward.