So why, with a plethora of enticing books to choose from, must I decide to devote my day off to another stab at Soseki's Sorekara? Especially when I disliked the (plump, smooth, valetudinarian, 'oh my poor high-pitched nerves and subtle sensibilities') protagonist so much when I first met him in translation a quarter of a century ago (sob)? I can hack my way through Sanshiro well enough, to judge by the first thirty pages I read of *that* before being distracted by the Oooh shiny! elsewhere. But Soseki's Meiji vocabulary here makes me cry. Have had recourse to the translation more than once, to find out what it was Meiji called postcards and so on, and half the time the weird Japanese sentence becomes an equally weird English sentence. Oh well. This, I am told, is how one passes ikkyuu. And if I keep on, I'm told I shall find myself in Kagurazaka again. (Note- buy flat map of Tokyo so I can see how various parts of the city relate.)
But I've done my couple of hours for today and succeeded in finishing precisely one chapter; now for English.
