Ogawa Nana

I have to admit that I have not encountered a book so touching after 紅樓夢. It is such an honor and pleasure to live in the same time as the great masters, and fortunate enough to have come across their work. It is so elegantly written, yet it vividly captured and accurately described the little emotions and situations in our short lives (love and sex in particular). I am 2 chapters from done (which I expect to finish this week) and I have to say it is marvelous! I am so glad that I did not hesitate to bring it from home simply because I have seen the movie last year. It is a remarkable film (1988) as well, starring Daniel Day-Lewis (In the Name of My Father) as Thomas, Juliet Binoche as Tereza, Lena Olin (Ingmar Bergman's student; Alias) as Sabina. It is a very powerful cast, and the message of the book is delivered very well. (Though I would have the cliché add-on that the book is still better.)

this is actually one of the textbooks for a seminar i'm taking this semester (spring 2007) on 19th-century London. it is a really easy and enjoyable reading, and i like Rendell's feminist view of fashion and other things involving daily life. we see in movies like Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Oliver Twist of the 19th-century England, how people social, what sort of dress code they follow, especially among the upper-middle class, the gentry, etc. but it's interesting to read through a scholarly piece to build an understanding of the era, especially the Victorian period, when the Empire was dusking.

I've always admired Kasuo Ishiguro's work, especially after seeing The Remains of the Day, which he won a literary award for. The movie, starring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins, is so very touching and delicate. I am almost done with Never Let Me Go now, and it is such an honor to have read someone like Mr. Ishiguro, who uses the English languages so delicately, without any big words, to express very intense and very fine feelings that we can all very easily relate to. As a writer myself, I've always found it hard to depict, and to illustrate a character's sensations. Mr. Ishiguro definitely executed this one successfully.

i got this used copy at Harvard Bookstore. to be honest, the introduction and the articles are very intriguing and to the point, in that it reveals the truth about the fashion industry from the analytic point of view, which is what we need. i really hate it when people think about the world of fashion as something as glam as "Devil Wears Prada", because that is only one way of seeing fashion. this entire industry is purely for vanity and superficiality. there is no depth in it, no matter how designers claim things to be art. they are marvelous works, but it doesn't show much conern to the world we live in, not to mention that it creates an even larger gap between classes. i'm not a leftist, and i am somewhat involved in this industry, and i do love fashion. i just wish that the majority of fashion followers can really read into things and not just drop a couple brand names and feel suprerior to the ones who can't.