An Honest Review of Han Kang’s new book, A Day in the Life of a Manga Creator, Maya Angelou’s Notes, and more…
Fortnightly Footnotes: Links and Commentary
Happy Friday everyone,
It’s the first Friday of the new school year here in South Korea, so in the spirit of academia I’ve been trying to improve my Korean reading comprehension by reading manga (Japanese comics) that have been translated to Korean. I’m working through Volume 1 of Delicious in Dungeon and understanding next to nothing, which is what I deserve for being such a poor student of the Korean language. Luckily it’s been adapted into an anime on Netflix, so I can cheat and watch it in English (also in the spirit of academia).
Speaking of comics, I wrote about The Wolf Among Us earlier this week, the adventure game developed by Telltale games that is arguably better written than the graphic novels it’s adapted from. Just don’t tell Bill Willingham that I said that.
Most of the links I have worth sharing today are the work of other Substackers:
, , , , and , which is a testament to the quality of writing I get in my inbox throughout the week.Enjoy.
1. An honest review of Han Kang’s newest book, We Do Not Part
I’ve read three novels by Han Kang, the South Korean writer who recently scooped up the Nobel Prize in Literature: The Vegetarian, Human Acts, and Greek Lessons. The Vegetarian was decent—the other two didn’t do much for me. I wanted to like Human Acts—it’s about the Gwangju Uprising against South Korea’s military dictatorship that left somewhere between 600 and 2,300 people dead—but Kang’s dreamlike narrative left me so far removed from what was going on that I felt nothing while reading it. Based on
’s review in , I can only assume that I’d feel the same reading We Do Not Part. But we’ll see—I’ll probably still read it somewhere down the road.2. The twenty best English poets, according to The Common Reader
is a Substack newsletter that readers of should probably be subscribed to. It also doubles as a podcast. In its most recent episode and of discuss their top 20 best English poets. To no one’s surprise, Shakespeare tops the list, but the discussion about who is placed in the lower tiers is a fun conversation.3. Richard Dawkins challenges ChatGPT to write a sonnet extolling biology
On his Substack newsletter
, the renowned evolutionary biologist challenges AI to write four iterations of a sonnet about biology. What’s fascinating (and disturbing) about this technology is not how great the poetry is, but how quickly different versions of the same poem can be churned out within seconds of each other. More disturbing still is that although the poetry is bad, it’s not that bad.4. Maya Angelou’s actual draft notes
of carved out an interesting niche for anyone interested in seeing the writing behind the writing of accomplished artists. Recently she shared some fascinating photos and commentary on the draft notes for Maya Angelou’s fiction and poetry. It’s incredible to see how many of her notes have been preserved.5. A Day in the Life of a Japanese Manga Creator
I mentioned at the top of this post that I’ve started reading some manga. Needless to say, I’ve been doing research on good ol’ YouTube for recommendations. During my travels on the interweb, I found several videos documenting the daily life of a mangaka (manga creator). But the video below was the most insightful of the videos I found. Incredible how some of the most prolific mangaka have full-time assistants helping fill out the pages.
6. Instagram kills poetry—and painting
A few weeks ago I wrote how Instagram is the place where poetry goes to die. Well, it turns out poets aren’t the only artists disgruntled by the way Instagram selects for attention-grabbing visuals rather than artistic quality. Painter and writer
laments the way Instagram is changing contemporary painting for the worse in a recent post.7. Speaking of…a video essay about Instagram poetry
I don’t know how this video evaded me for so long but after watching it I wished I was the one who made it: it’s better written, better produced, and paints a better picture of the situation that poets find themselves in now that the bulk of poetry sales goes to writers of the most vapid, meaningless couplets you can possibly imagine.
8. Cast your vote! What do you want to read next?
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Just noticed that I forgot to add the link to "The Twenty Best English Poets". Whoops.
Well, here it is, in case you were racing to the comments to chide me: https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/the-twenty-best-english-poets?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true