November 11, 2007 - Sunday afternoon

Reading Kanō Eitoku, by Tsuneo Takeda, about the eponymous Japanese painter of the 1500s. He has just returned from Japan where he saw an exhibit by the artist.

His favorite author--Marcel Proust, for the slowness. A comparable Japanese author, for the same experience, is Lady Murasaki Shikibu and a favorite work--Tale of Genji. Both authors, he said, should be read aloud.

He is an author of seven books himself and is an art historian. You can find his books at the library! Check out, by John M. MacGregor, The Discovery of the Art of the Insane and Henry Darger in the Realms of the Unreal, which, at 800 pages, is dwarfed by the work of the book's star: Henry Darger. Darger was an eccentric who by day worked as a janitor and by night wrote (and illustrated) a manuscript consisting of 15, 145 pages about a fantastical world where little girls fight evil.