(no subject)

[owlectomy]

I am attracted to shiny things, and then, perversely, compelled to study, and examine, and poke around in them. I guess that this is a pretty normal thing given the large number of academic papers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it's not such a bad thing, anyway; if you're going to spend a great deal of time learning about something, why not make it something that actually fascinates you? And there's something to be said for engaging with your fandom instead of observing it passively, no matter how much stigma is placed on the ability to speak Klingon.

But Heian Japan? I couldn't pick my interests according to the things I could read about without so much difficulty? And it all comes of dragging myself out of bed one Saturday morning soon after I came to Japan, high on cold medicine, to see that historical movie I'd seen a clip of on TV. Now I find myself getting all my pretty illusions shattered by my Abe no Seimei biography, even as I'm not actually learning much of the stuff I would like to learn on account of all the obscure religion-related words. Luckily, the Onmyouji fad in Japan led to the publication of enough books on the subject that I can hope one of them will explain things for me in little words.

(Incidentally I wonder if I will ever be done with people being mean to me on account of my review of Twilight. This is what you have to expect when you badmouth a really popular book, but I didn't so much badmouth it, I thought. I had a conflicted reaction to it, which I attempted to explain. I maintain that "If a guy is creepy, violent, obsessive, and also a vampire, date him! True love, yeah!" is not so much with the good message, whatever other redeeming qualities the book may have had.)

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

People being mean to you who spell the word 'definately'? Never, probably. They're fourteen years old and you said something unkind about the bestest book in the world, you cow.

OTOH bringing RL gender political concerns to a reading of Twilight *is* like bringing them to Watase Yuu. (Well, and romance novels.) Oil and water; and if gender politics prevent you from enjoying the work, as I know better than to even *try* reading Watase Yuu, you're probably not the work's intended audience.

[meaghanchan.livejournal.com]

I understand that you're defending your opinion, but it's very hard to defend something like that without coming off as a little defensive. Just sayin'. This is an old review that a bunch of fans who probably all know each other jumped on and said "OMG CAN YOU BELIEVE SOMEONE DIDN"T LIKE THE BESTEST BOOK EVER???!!!". You don't have to defend yourself to them, or to the people who will be reading your review in the future.

[franzeska]

I have a stack of about ten books from bookoff that purport to explain Onmyouji stuff in little words... we shall see if the words are short enough. It was bad enough pestering my exchange partner about 魂魄, and that's not especially obscure.