koxinga; editing

posts/shimeji_book_club_1_3.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 The prussianbluehedgehog group has recently finished translating chapters 1, 2, and 3 of Shimeji Simulation into [Toki Pona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona). You can read their translation [here](https://manga.prussiafan.club/manga/shimeji-simulation). For those of you who can't read Toki Pona^\[0\]^, there is an excellent (also fan) translation on Mangadex in English (not made by prussianbluehedgehog).
 
-You'll notice that Tsukumizu (the author and artist) makes a large amount of literary references. Certainly enough to have a... book club! Yay! Read with us, it'll be fun!!!
+Anyways, reading the manga, you'll notice that Tsukumizu (the author and artist) makes a large amount of literary references. Certainly enough to have a... book club! Yay! Read with us, it'll be fun!!!
 
 Here, I'll write some brief reflections on the referenced books in the first 3 chapters, followed by thoughts about how it relates to the manga. If you read any of these books and would like to share your own feelings, please email us^\[1\]^.
 
@@ -9,20 +9,20 @@ Here, I'll write some brief reflections on the referenced books in the first 3 c
 
 This novella by Ernest Hemingway was read by Shimeji, and can be prominently seen in the second-to-last panel of the 4th page of the chapter 1. In the subsequent panel, Shimeji thinks sadly about the marlin getting eaten.
 
-"The Old Man and the Sea" is fundamentally about the universal human experience of giving it your all and being in a worse position than before; of getting beaten down for no good reason at all. The titular old man, Santiago, hasn't caught any fish in a long time. This is bad, because he is a fisherman. He goes far out to sea, and snares a ridiculously large marlin on his hook. He fights it for several days and nights. When he finally reels it in, some blood in the water alerts swarms of sharks, which despite the best efforts of the old man (he kills several), bite off all the flesh. When he returns to shore with the skeleton, tourists don't even know what creature the skeleton is from.
+The Old Man and the Sea is fundamentally about the universal human experience of giving it your all and being in a worse position than before; of getting beaten down for no good reason at all. The titular old man, Santiago, hasn't caught any fish in a long time. This is bad, because he is a fisherman. He goes far out to sea, and snares a ridiculously large marlin on his hook. He fights it for several days and nights. When he finally reels it in, some blood in the water alerts swarms of sharks, which despite the best efforts of the old man (he kills several), bite off all the flesh. When he returns to shore with the skeleton, tourists don't even know what creature the skeleton is from.
 
-On the book itself, is it good? The prose is simple, and maybe a little tiresome to read. But somehow, Hemingway uses this to make you feel exactly what the old man is feeling. I felt the pain the old man felt when the line cut into his hands, or his hands cramped. I felt his fatigue every night, and his despair when the sharks ate his catch. It became my favourite book the second I finished it^\[2\]^. It still is. So yeah, it is good, Very Good.
+On the book itself, is it good? The prose is simple, and maybe a little tiresome to read. But somehow, Hemingway uses this to make you feel exactly what the old man is feeling. I felt the pain the old man felt when the line cut into his hands, or his hands cramped. I felt his fatigue every night, and his despair when the sharks ate his catch. It became my favourite book the second I finished it^\[2\]^. It still is. So yeah, it is good, Very Good. You will be convinced of Hemingway's exceptional talent. He's a fucking genius.
 
-The book and Shimeji Simulation share many thematic similarities. Both explore how we should respond to adverse situations. Hemingway, through his book, clearly has an opinion: "A man can be destroyed but not defeated", or in other words, don't give up! Your efforts justify itself, regardless of the results. You cannot be miserable if you refuse to consent to be miserable. A semi-stoic philosophy. Shimeji Simulation, on the other hand, (imo) is more open ended, and explores many responses, including nihilism (most obvious in Mogawa) and the milder apathy (Shimeji), though both are ultimately rejected by the characters. Both brilliantly stir an emotional reaction, and both convey the feeling that we are not alone in feeling the way we do.
+The book and Shimeji Simulation share many thematic similarities. Both explore how we should respond to adverse situations. Hemingway, through his book, clearly has an opinion: "A man can be destroyed but not defeated", or in other words, don't give up! Your efforts justify itself, regardless of the results. You cannot be miserable if you refuse to consent to be miserable. A stoic-seeming philosophy, though it could be seen as a Catholic/Nietzsche-like view of "suffering builds character". Well, stoic views might not disagree with that either. I guess the key difference is that the Catholic/Nietzsche perspective glorifies suffering in a way that stoicism does not. Catholics might compare suffering to that of the Christ, or martyrs. Nietzsche also seems to embrace suffering as a path to greatness. Seeking out suffering and bearing it almost becomes a proof of virtue. Stoicism appears to agree that reactions to suffering are important, but disagrees in that suffering itself is not desirable, just inevitable. Shimeji Simulation, on the other hand, (imo) is more open ended, and explores many responses, including nihilism (most obvious in Mogawa) and the milder apathy (Shimeji), though both are ultimately rejected by the characters. It seems closer to stoicism than any Catholic of Nietzschean attitude, but it isn't quite that either. Regardless of the underlying philosophy, both Shimeji Simulation and The Old Man and the Sea brilliantly stir an emotional reaction, and both convey the feeling that we are not alone in feeling the way we do.
 
 Both (but especially Shimeji Simulation, with the hole digging machine and Shimeji's older sister's inventions) are now especially important to read and reflect on, with the rise of "AI" and the general trend of ownership turning into rentership. With these worries already posing an existential threat to human livelihoods, creativity, and meaning, how do we manage?
 
-That is obviously a complicated question, and one for another time^\[3\]^. I personally found both the old man's grit, and Shimeji's indifference to death admirable.
+That is obviously a complicated question, and one for another time^\[3\]^. I personally found both the old man's grit, and Shimeji's indifference to death admirable, though I'd have to think about "why".
 
 ## Chapter 2: The Catcher in the Rye
 ### Cynicism vs. Apathy
 
-"The Catcher in the Rye", by J.D. Salinger, can be seen very faintly as a book Shimeji is reading in the last panel of chapter 2.
+The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, can be seen very faintly as a book Shimeji is reading in the last panel of chapter 2.
 
 This book is alright. It seemed to me like the protagonist, Holden, an angsty American teenage boy, was supposed to be at least somewhat sympathetic, but I did not think so. I found him and his narration mildly annoying. To the book's credit, it covers themes that for whatever reason, don't seem to be present in other similar coming-of-age genre books, such as alienation, uncertainty, and confusion. I guess since the book is written from the perspective of Holden, the annoying style shows his emotions and frame of mind well.
 
@@ -41,12 +41,14 @@ It is a children's book, it did popularise surreal fiction, and it does have imm
 
 I took most of it at face value, though clearly the author put in some critiques (for example, the Duchess' obsession with everything neededing to have a moral, is probably a jab at childrens' education at the time).
 
-What stood out to me most was Alice's reactions to the strange situations she found herself in. While she wasn't a stoic^\[6\]^ (she cries a small lake of tears), she seems to adjust surprisingly well. As children, the world defies our idea of how it ought to be, or how we are told it is; so maybe this is not much different for her. When reading Shimeji Simulation, I noticed the characters seemed similarly nonchalant and adaptive, at least relative to their situation of the fabric of reality changing completely. Shimeji may have been apathetic from the start, and never had that firm an attachment to the previous reality, but the nonchalantness is true for everyone. The world of Shimeji Simulation seems to be one much more laid-back and less stubborn than ours.
+What stood out to me most was Alice's reactions to the strange situations she found herself in. While she wasn't a stoic^\[6\]^ (she cries a small lake of tears), she seems to adjust surprisingly well. As children, the world defies our idea of how it ought to be, or how we are told it is; so maybe this is not much different for her. When reading Shimeji Simulation, I noticed the characters seemed similarly nonchalant and adaptive, at least relative to their situation of the fabric of reality changing completely. Shimeji may have been apathetic from the start, and never had that firm an attachment to the previous reality, but the nonchalantness is true for everyone. The world of Shimeji Simulation may be one much more laid-back and less stubborn than ours.
+
+Then again, is the world of Alice or Shimeji so different to ours? Yes, obviously on a mundane level our world doesn't have talking rabbits, or perpetual motion machines. But absurd, surreal things happen all the time in our world. By and large, most people don't seem to be too freaked about it.
 
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 \[0\]: Why not? How unusual. [wasona](wasona.com) is a great way to learn
 \[1\]: xrussianfanclub \[at\] xrotonmail \[dot\] com, xrussia \[at\] xrussia \[dot\] dev, except change all x's to p's
-\[2\]: Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" must too, be recommended
+\[2\]: Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" must too, be recommended. Thematically, it feels quite similar. "The Sun Also Rises", also by Hemingway, is quite different, but also good. That book almost seems like an earlier stage of an evolution into the themes of other two books. By that, I mean that the themes of emptiness and disillusionment with the hedonistic life ("The Sun Also Rises") seem as if they could naturally progress to the acceptance of struggle (in the other two books). Curiously, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Old Man and the Sea" were in fact written decades after "The Sun Also Rises".
 \[3\]: Hemingway ended up killing himself after suffering from injuries and sickness. I fear this may be insensitive, but I wonder if he would have considered this contrary to the values expressed in "The Old Man and the Sea". I don't know, but I don't fault him for doing what he did
 \[4\]: There are many instances, but the title of the book being Holden's mishearing of a poem proves to me Holden's childlike nature
 \[5\]: I normally like puns and wordplay (Shimeji Simulation has tons!), but I only found one or two funny...