I have no idea if this is progress

[owlectomy]

Reading "After the Banquet," I've discovered that the period kana usage does not panic me or even slow me down more than a little. Have no idea whether it's because

(a) Mishima is so desperately clinging to the roots of tradition that he used period kana usage for a novel published in 1960, but even so, changes in the language make it that much more intelligible than a book written half a century earlier;

(b) I actually am getting better at this;

(c) In comparison to Mishima's vocabulary, everything other aspect of his writing seems easy.

I'm unwilling to call it progress because I'm still on page three.

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

(c) for the win. Even Seidensticker snarled at Mishima's vocabulary, or rather his choice of kanji, complaining that Murasaki Shikibu was the easier read of the two.