Category: Reading Baca
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Nancy Florida, “Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future”
To read with care and diligence, to study with utmost loving care, to feel the meaning and intent. Writing The Past, Inscribing The Future by Nancy Florida is one such book. Engaging with one text reserved in Kraton Surakarta, Babad Jaka Tingkir, Florida presents an illuminating work about the text and the history of Javanese…
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Meghan K. Roberts, “Sentimental Savants”
What family and married life could do for Enlightenment thinkers? The persisting myth says the family had little to do with philosophy. The story of Jean-Jacques Rousseau abandoning his children has allowed this myth to persist. But an extensive feminist and gender literature on domestic works and social reproduction have given us so many insights…
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Naoki Sakai, “Translation and Subjectivity”
What is translation? What happens in an effort of translation? These are the main questions Naoki Sakai answers in his book Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism (1997). His dense argument covers the limits of construing language as unity or objects of disciplines imbued with nationalist fervor. Through a practical approach, he treats…
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Siapa Tahu Kamu Mau Baca, Ep. 40
These days are strange. Time moves forward but we are not. We are grappling with intensified crisis and somehow it feels hopeless. Many of us try to cope with whatever we can. Some are privileged to still have stable income, many are not. And here we are mourning to death and angry to the government…
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Hiro Arikawa, “The Travelling Cat Chronicles”
This review is part of the Cat Series. “Well, shall we go?” And the book starts with Satoru and his cat Nana travelled to places. They both visited Satoru’s friends in different cities of Japan. Nana, the pompous cat with a better fortune than the cat in Soseki’s, observed things around his owner. Adopted by…
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Takashi Hiraide, “The Guest Cat”
This review is part of the Cat Series. When the life goes with the common, somehow idle, everydayness, how do we respond to a quiet, uninvited guest? The question is mundane but when you think of it, a guest is like a “disruption” for your day-to-day activities. You would stop doing whatever things you’re doing;…
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Shimura Takako, “Wandering Son” Vol. 3
Friendship and siblings are hard indeed. Shu and Yoshino got into “silent” mode, because some boys read their shared diary, and now they were objects of bullying. Maho, Shu’s sister, forced Shu to have a date with her classmate, Seya because that boy apparently liked Shu (because they were cute). Their relationship was getting more…
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Kawamura Genki, “If Cats Disappeared from the World”
This review is part of the Cat Series. I bought the novella because of the cover: shades of blue, a man, and a cat. The original book in Japanese was published in 2012, with its movie adaptation in 2016. The English version was owned by Flatiron Books and translated by Eric Selland. This review is…
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Shimura Takako, “Wandering Son” Vol. 2
In this volume, both Shu and Yoshino have shared each other’s secret and embraced it together. Shu bought wig and dress, and went together with Yoshino in public place. There are a lot of things goin on in this volume, but I will just mention two main things. First, more appearance of Yuki, a woman…
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Shimura Takako,”Wandering Son” Vol. 1
I have no idea about this manga until I browsed in Evanston Public Library. I was attracted with the art cover, and the title. From the cover, I imagined a coming-of-age, slice-of-life story like Goodnight Punpun which I genuinely love. (I’m a fan of slice-of-life genre, really–and it needs different post on why). The English…
Nik Setiadarma 