I haven't posted much today despite some interesting headlines floating around because I had decided to spend the entire day vigorously working on my dissertation. The decision was not effectively carried out, as I found myself doing everything from a bit of net-surfing to playing Yahoo Literati to watching random bits of television. I basically just read about 70 pages of Jan Vansina's Oral Tradition As History, half of that while waiting for my laundry.

At the moment, I'm reading Fumio Niwa's The Buddha Tree, which appears to be the first clunker for the summer, though I'm in to the point where I'll try to finish it. I can't really explain - I just don't care for it. The second half might get better, though. I've decided that soon I want to read more Latin American literature, because I've somehow managed to overlook it when I make my library visits, yet what little I have read is excellent. Earlier this summer I was impressed with Carlos Fuentes's The Death of Artemio Cruz, and in earlier days I remember really enjoying Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude while finding Chronicle of a Death Foretold rather interesting. The only other thing I've tried was Love in the Time of Cholera, which I started just before an overseas trip and never got back to. Of the works of Paz, Asturias, Borges, and all the others I have only quiz bowl knowledge. Recommendations welcome...