I had a day off today. Even though it was too hot to do anything this morning, I went to AEON to do some homework of mine, which was an English study circle one. At that circle, now we are trying to read the original English version of Roald Dahl's novel "Matilda" step by step. Before this reading, we have read various articles and books such as Tenshin Okakura's English book about tea culture in Japan. Even though the circle's discussions and readings are not so easy, they have been really interesting for me. I had to take the whole morning time to read about 10 pages of that "Matilda".
After that, I went to the library in this town to borrow Nabokov's novel "Bend Sinister", and returned to my group home to have lunch and take a nap. This afternoon, I started reading that "Bend Sinister", which seems to be one about so-called dystopia such as George Orwell's "1984". TBH, I don't agree with Nabokov's opinion about Orwell, because even now "1984" is very critical for me to think about this modern society and culture (even though I guess we need to read this novel from any critical viewpoint, not adoring too much).
About that sort of dystopia, when I was a teenager (and had already disappointed in the whole world), I could enjoy some anime and novels about dystopia, which seemed to me to describe absolutely a parallel world far from this one. However, when I read "1984" for the first time (in my 40s), I was surprised from the bottom of my heart honestly because that Orwell's novel seems to write "this" Japanese society I am actually living in (even though everybody could have this kind of the idea). I need to read "1984" once again, in comparison with "Bend Sinister".
On Discord, I read someone's post about this country Japan. The person said that it seemed to them very desperate with various serious problems this Japan must have within it. Probably if I were in my 30s, I would answer them some "critical" answers by trying to pretend as a pro critic. However, whether it seems to them cool or uncool, it is simply impossible to me at all. So, I have to think about this post as an ordinary person in this country.
