The 1,001 Winters of Meaningless Asian Stories by David Mitchell

I’m sorry.  ---  For ten years, I’ve prided myself for reading to completion even the worst of library selections.  However, I found this book ssoooooo boring, that I struggled, reading only a few pages a day, to complete all the odd-chapters, the last half of which, I skim-read.  Most times, with a goal of finishing a single 6-page chapter, I fell asleep after two pages.  So, why did I find this book so boring.??

Of course there are the usual quota of reasons we all hate: (-) too much untranslated foreign language.  This book had two: Japanese and Dutch. (-) historical period cultural quirks and culture-clash between nation-state Europe and Empire Asia.  These and other prescriptions from our elite East-coast “betters”, are for our own good: we should know more about foreign cultures and history.

The “300-page” rule that we talked about not more than two months ago, was tortuously violated, causing me, at least, to skip the even chapters.  There is the reason (for hating it) that we don’t talk much about; to wit, what was the point of these 15,000 words.?  The above few points are dictated by our “superiors” because, in their eyes, it’s a good elixir for us, a potion that will make us better people.  But there has to be an explanation of why it is good for us.  Usually we will learn something (like the Korea book or The Wind-Up Girl) or gain an appreciation of an aspect of life we are unfamiliar with (like What is the What or The Lace Reader).  But this book was too scattered (like Cara Black or Eric Weiner) or that Canadian saga.  This book lost focus, broadly covered too much territory, and when this is compounded by foreign names and too many long descriptive scenes, then my feeble, Alzheimer-prone brain just cuts out and says to me, “Take a nap, Peter. You brain is going to overheat.”

Now maybe I’ve seen too many movies or plays, and read too many books, and in my dotage, I think there is nothing new under the sun; but when I sat down to force myself to write something about this book (and was only 2/3 through it [although I sped-read to the end in the subsequent 90 minutes] ), I actually paid attention to what was happening for a brief two minutes.  Lo and behold, I ran into Hamlet (“Oh, but for twenty feet of rope”) and Dickens’ language (“…an’ number the stones proper, too, an’ write down the guests’ names if they said one, an’ if it’s a man or woman, an’ guess their age, an’ whatnot.”); Yorick (Uzaemon in the graveyard) and Henry V on the eve of battle on Crispian’s Day visiting the firesides; Uma Thurman in Kill Bill II (Orito escaping the tunnel by kicking her way out.)

So, I’m thinking, “I guess coming up with original scenes, in a totally fictional book about events 200 years ago in an obscure place, sufficient to last across 500 pages is quite a stretch.  This could take real genius (Dickens and Shakespeare did it); or it could take twenty years, a life’s work; or with a modern publisher and editor breathing down your back, you could pull in a few proven scenes.  And when most characters live happily ever after and all the “good” guys do OK and not too many people are hurt, and even the monkey finds true love, then the book will be published, but booooring.