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The plot unfolds in a ferver of murder and twists. It surely keeps you guessing and wondering. Keeps you on the edge of your seat until the climactic end.
Could not put the book down. A must read!
I really enjoyed reading this book. I found it to be engaging and it really held my attention. There's a lot going on but it's easy to follow. It all comes together in the end. I liked the dialouge and the fact that Mr. Diaz was able to give even the peripheral characters fully realized personalities.
The other cool thing about Full Blue is that Mr. Diaz manages to work in cool pieces of reference and information in his work. It's not obvious or heavy handed but in the end you just might walk away with a desire to read more about the issues he deals with or the numerous philosophical issues or writers he cites and addresses.
I think Full Blue is a cool little package. If you just want drama, action, intrigue and suspense, it's got it. Plus with a little hidden bonus or two.
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The book begins with a very detailed introduction by the translator Ivan Morris, author of the world of the shining prince. Dr. Morris gives the reader a quick and easy to read background of the period of time in which Saikaku lived and wrote. He follows this with a brief history of Saikaku himself, sadly very little is known about the writer. next comes a small portion about the style of Saikaku's writing and his impact on Japan's literature.
The writings themselves are broken up into four sections beginning with Five Women who Chose Love. Three of the stories are reported in this book,and mainly deal with illicit affairs. The next is the title work which is basically the story of a nymphomaniac. The next two sections deal with the merchant class, and their ways of life.
A very nice book that gives good detail of the lives of the merchant class of Edo.
Let me describe who I, as the reader, am. I am a 30 year old, black female born in Los Angeles, CA. Some people would ask why or how I could have ever found Saikaku's writings to begin with, but I am a person who appreciates the universals that exist between human beings. And as I get older, I still believe in fairytales and I am fascinated by fairytales with adult themes.
The Life of An Amorous Woman and other writings, provides us a snapshot of human nature, and what's even better, it provides some of the timeliest as well as most humorous observations of human nature we as readers are going to find. And unlike Shakespeare, there are no hidden euphemisms here: Many of the encounters, be they erotic, sexual,heterosexual, homosexual, or auto-sexual are direct and free of any "family values" or "hide this one from the church" type of encryption.
The characters' identities are not as deeply sculptured to the demands or standards of the modern novel--like Holden Caufield is in Catcher in the Rye, but they aren't caricatures of the modern novel either. Saikaku's characters, from story to story might seem familiar, but their paths are different, and I felt like Alice in Wonderland on a lazy day on a dreamy riverbank, listening to friend or a fascinating stranger tell me fables about many people's lives. Maybe they existed but even if they did not some sense of them exists inside of me. And I learned, and I compared our situations.
The Cons?: Saikaku's writing does rely heavily on a symetry of style carried from one story to the next, and sometimes you might wonder how one segment of the story relates to the next. Sometimes, it might not.
Be that as it may Saikaku still fills his short stories and his longer work, The Life of An Amorous Woman, with some great details, and definitely unexpected twists of plot (because it's human nature--not the nature of the Formula movie--sorry I'm preaching I know) which I expect from a non-American work. It is actually quite alright to stray to an isolated moment and take it in for what it is.
By the way, you won't find the stereotypically submissive Japanese women that stupid men at stupid bars talk about. But they aren't the iconoclastic type of Japanese female Ling portrays on Ally McBeal either. These are simply women who are existing, surviving, falling in and out of love, or just falling. The men treat women with respect and the fact that a man created this story really does impress me about his insightfulness and love for human beings. One is especially fortunate to have this particular edition, translated by Ivan Morris. There is a line by line glossary of notes at the end of the book, explaining many of the details that we may not understand from styles of dress (Fashion Do's and Dont's) to currency exchange to Saikaku's symbolism and development of imagery. Some of the more fascinating details I discovered was that women who conquered men in Houses of Pleasures could become as famous as men who conquered territories on the battlefield. But you can take the extra explanations or leave them because the writing and the translation stands on it's own without much clarification.
I highly recommend it for those who yearn to be transported to a time period that really did exist before authors knew the significance of "Hollywood Rights".
If anyone is going to Pakistan, I would highly suggest getting this book. There are so many things that I have never known even though I was there for several months.