BGM: Happy End - 風をあつめて
I had a day off today. TBH I have to update my driver's license, so I need to make new glasses. This morning I went to a shop called "Paris Miki" to make the ones (As I have written in these journals, I have been suffering from aged eyes). After that, I went to the library to borrow a book. I started looking for interesting books I had never read such as Lydia Davis or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, they were already borrowed by someone. Then, I found an attractive one, Mia Kankimäki's "Asioita jotka saavat sydämen lyömään nopeammin (the Japanese title says 'Looking for Sei Shonagon, From Finland To Kyoto [ミア・カンキマキ『清少納言を求めて、フィンランドから京都へ』]')" Therefore I borrowed that.
Of course, I have heard of Sei Shonagon... Writing like this, I have to stop my fingers to keep on writing because (although it's embarrassing to say) I have never read Sei Shonagon's famous classic "The Pillow Book". I have never had any interest in that. Mia's this book contains how she had found "The Pillow Book", and started the adventure of reading it diligently. She even came to Japan, and enjoyed Kyoto life with her inner serial conversations with "Sei".
As a Japanese reader, even though I have some disagreements with her attitude (for example, has she looked at the "modern", or "current" Japanese scenery as directly as Sei Shonagon's and Virginia Wolf's texts she has tried to? Even though I have read this one, I can barely see the "real" Japanese people's figures...), I say I have been attracted by Mia's truly "pure" passion toward "Sei", therefore I swear I will try to read "The Pillow Book".
At today's dinner time, I enjoyed having a Japanese meal "Oden". Then, I noticed that the staff who had cooked it showed enjoying reading that Marquez's book I had looked for at the library... C'est La Vie (what a strange, "miracle" connection of bookworms!). After that, I enjoyed reading a collection of book reviews by Keijiro Suga (a Japanese translator and author) which has the title "Books and Seashells [管啓次郎『本と貝殻』]".
