Showing posts with label rural life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rural life. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Barakamon, v. 1 by Satsuki Yoshino

Barakamon, v. 1 by Satsuki Yoshino - 208 pages

Seishuu Handa is a young calligrapher who moves himself to an isolated, rural island to focus on his work.  Unfortunately, the local residents are not letting him do that.  The head chief constantly interrupts him to talk as does the school headmaster.  But the worst is the young girl Naru who believes his house is her base of play.

I didn't care for this manga that much.  The characters did not interest me or draw me into the story.  It was also distracting to have the manga written in "dialect".  Supposedly the original manga had the the older resident speak in a rural dialect.  In the English translation, it is supposed to be a Southern dialect.  However, I found it to be very distracting -- taking me out of the story with all of the "ah"s instead of "I"s.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

Hillbilly Elegy : A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance, 272 pages

This biography tells how a Kentucky hillbilly, raised in Ohio (yet still a Kentucky hillbilly) went against the odds of both his upbringing and his environment to become a military veteran and a Yale Law graduate. Raised by many a father, a physically and mentally absent addict mother, and an always steady grandmother and sister, J.D. could have taken the track many have in his position. But seeing the hard-working example of his hillbilly grandfather, he knew he had to work to get out of his situation that wasn't of his making. His trials along the way helped him form his opinions on rural living and politics. A fascinating read.