Books in My Life

I played this game last year with some friends on Weibo and it’s time to write the lists down, as my friend Niels reminded me…

Mine: Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution

G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit: my comfort, being a true nerd…

MU Xin (木心), various: the best modern Chinese writer who understood suffering and beauty truly… (MU was the first Chinese artist whose works were collected by the British Museum)

W.C. Smith, Meaning and the End of Religion together with William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience and Fiona Bowie, Anthropology of Religion: books that I read during undergrad years which inspired me to continue Religious Studies. Especially William James, in the preface he spoke of how nervous he was to talk in front of the “British gentlemen” – that book was originally given as a Gifford Lecture in Edinburgh. So I went to Edinburgh…

Pierre Loti, Madame Chrysanthème (菊子夫人): a novel upon which Puccini’s Madam Butterfly was based, the first book of deep colonial colour that really disturbed me and in a strange way, inspired me learn how such colonial thinking came to be and in what ways we could possibly change it

Kenjiro Haitani, The Rabbit’s Eyes (灰谷健次郎，小古老師和蒼蠅博士): read it when I was a kid. From this book I first encountered “social movements”, ordinary people’s memories of the violence of WWII (a Korean perspective, ironically, which makes this book special), amazing cuisine (“grandpa” was a sailor during the war so he makes a great stroganoff 第一次看到蘑菇牛肉醬的做法，為日後做貪喫鬼奠定基礎), Zen, loneliness of being, microbiology

Victor Hugo, Ninety-Three （雨果，93年）: humanity beyond differences, Lantenac was my hero

Stefan Zweig: Antoinette (茨威格，斷頭艷后)：dad gave it to me when i was… 12? he said, “time to have some historical perspetive”… and i fell in love with Zweig and started to wonder how history is shaped. plus he’s very juicy

Edogawa Rampo: various (江戶川亂步的偵探小説). I’ve always been a detective fan, Edogama is the master of psychology of the intrinsic violence within our nature..

沒有提到的還有《小婦人》，讀此書時已先讀過《飄》，對南北戰爭有了先入爲主的印象。《小婦人》讓我意識到歷史的不同敍述方式，那時才10嵗左右，因此格外震顫。《飃》也一樣, 衛希禮在戰場上寫給枚蘭的信：我們爲何而戰？是為保護一種生活方式，但我們心裏深知哪怕戰爭勝利，這種生活方式也永遠回不來了… 許多年後看奧森威爾斯的電影《了不起的安伯遜家族》，又想到這段話。10嵗之前看的書，對思維方式的形成有幾乎是決定性的影響。當然也和翻譯有關，當時有幸讀到最出色的兩位翻譯家的作品：傅東華譯的《飄》和劉春英譯的《小婦人》，文字洗練有古典之美。 小時一目十行，過目不忘，因為心無旁騖吧。獨生女雖然孤單，幸好這些終生摯友。記得也是小學時剛看了哈代的《苔絲》，最後一章的巨石陣意象讓人血倒流，深不可測的儀式感讓小孩驚恐而好奇。很可能是這些小地方引發我之後對宗教學的選擇。

Niels的書目： Vincent Baker – Apocalypse World Iain Banks – Transition China Mieville – The city and the city Francois Hartog – The mirror of Herodotus Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere Aristophanes – Lysistrate Iain Banks – Walking on glass Jørn Riel – Sangen for livet Troels Kløvedal – Bidevind og Blåhvaler Frans G. Bengtsson – Røde Orm Also in competition, no particular order: Isaac Asimov – The Bicentennial Man, J.R.R. Tolkien – The Hobbit, Iain M. Banks -The use of weapons, James Ellroy: My Dark Places – Philip K. Dick: A Scanner Darkly, Plato – Symposium, Herodotus – The Histories, Jonathan M. Hall – Ethnic identity in Greek antiquity, Ole Peder Giæver & Martin Bull Gudmundsen – Itras By, Moebius – The Incal, Neil Gaiman – Sandman, Warren Ellis – Transmetropolitan, Bryan Talbot – The Adventures of Luther Arkwright my friend Dai: I Love You From Miffy Ulysses The Card Sunset Song (etc) Finnegans Wake A la Recherche du Temps Perdu Anna Karenina Catch-22 Moby-Dick Tristram Shandy

去年其他朋友的書目： 1. The Songlines 2.resilient thinking 3.the revenge of Gaia by Lovelock 4.卡尔维诺所有 5。王小波三部曲 6。建筑十书 7.The road by Colmac McCathy Ayn Rand 的 The Virtue of Selfishness 蒋廷黻中国近代史 树上的男爵／洛麗塔／安娜卡列尼娜／蔣廷黻的中国近代史／nancy f. Cott : Public Vows/ elements of style/ Maira Kalman所有／王小波所有／gay new York／Dangerous Pleasures(上海妓女史）／以及，初中时候看的第一本林达的总统是靠不住的 What are the books in your life?