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Kanji woes and reading Wednesday
There's a down side to the kanji study, which is that I start to review them in my head as I'm falling asleep, and then get wound up because I can't remember the radical of one I reviewed today, or the reading or the meaning. I can look them up on my phone in the dark but the wp is like molasses, and if- as is invariably the case- I misremember any of the foregoing it's an exercise in extreme frustration. Mogi no gi 擬, not benshou no shou 償. And so on.
Finished?
A Hazel Holt mystery. Somehow felt I needed the next one, and because the library didn't have it I ordered it from Indigo. I now have my credit card number memorized and must seriously stop using it.
El Cid from Medieval Epics. Tells me no more than the recap in Medieval Myths but is a lot bloodier. Have put ME back on the shelf because I'm not in the mood to do this all over again with Roland and Siegfrid. Though reading the introduction to Roland I find there's a bit of a mystery to Roncevaux. Roland died, not in a battle against 400,000 Sarcens, but in an attack on Charlemagne's rearguard by Basque warriors as he returned from a Spanish campaign against the caliph of Cordoba. On the way back he sacked and burned Basque cities, and the Basques attacked in retaliation. It was a skirmish rather than a pitched battle, that still cost the lives of many nobles and all Charlemagne's booty from his campaign. But why was the baggage train in the rear of the army when it should have been in the middle as was usual? Wikipedia has nothing to say on the subject. Overconfidence, military SNAFU, or simply not knowing the terrain through the mountains, maybe?
Pratchett, Making Money
-- been so long since I read this that I'd totally forgotten the plot. A nice palate cleanser.
Reading now?
The perennial standbys: Muromachi poetry, Claudine, and Kafka. Claudine wears on me. Want to swap her for someone else. Wonder if I still have that French translation of Tanizaki's Manji (Buddhist swastika)? OTOH Tanizaki is as likely to wear on me as Claudine. Oogey writer, that.
Next up?
I have Piranesi but I'm not sure I want to start it in my current scratchy state. Am having a rare attack of missing People, which I will deal with in the usual way, but that takes time.
Finished?
A Hazel Holt mystery. Somehow felt I needed the next one, and because the library didn't have it I ordered it from Indigo. I now have my credit card number memorized and must seriously stop using it.
El Cid from Medieval Epics. Tells me no more than the recap in Medieval Myths but is a lot bloodier. Have put ME back on the shelf because I'm not in the mood to do this all over again with Roland and Siegfrid. Though reading the introduction to Roland I find there's a bit of a mystery to Roncevaux. Roland died, not in a battle against 400,000 Sarcens, but in an attack on Charlemagne's rearguard by Basque warriors as he returned from a Spanish campaign against the caliph of Cordoba. On the way back he sacked and burned Basque cities, and the Basques attacked in retaliation. It was a skirmish rather than a pitched battle, that still cost the lives of many nobles and all Charlemagne's booty from his campaign. But why was the baggage train in the rear of the army when it should have been in the middle as was usual? Wikipedia has nothing to say on the subject. Overconfidence, military SNAFU, or simply not knowing the terrain through the mountains, maybe?
Pratchett, Making Money
-- been so long since I read this that I'd totally forgotten the plot. A nice palate cleanser.
Reading now?
The perennial standbys: Muromachi poetry, Claudine, and Kafka. Claudine wears on me. Want to swap her for someone else. Wonder if I still have that French translation of Tanizaki's Manji (Buddhist swastika)? OTOH Tanizaki is as likely to wear on me as Claudine. Oogey writer, that.
Next up?
I have Piranesi but I'm not sure I want to start it in my current scratchy state. Am having a rare attack of missing People, which I will deal with in the usual way, but that takes time.
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