Bush Leagues

At a glance, Edward Herbert’s short book A Confucian Notebook looks promising. I’d never heard of it until I ran across it in a used bookstore, but it’s intended to serve as an introduction to Confucianism through a series of thirty-three “notes,” each of them two, sometimes three pages long. Each offers a few brief observations or explanations on a given theme, varying from the Confucian use of prehistorical figures, Confucius’ favourite disciple, Mencius and Yang Chu, Mo Ti’s doctrine of universal love, etc. Unfortunately, it only partially succeeds.

I consider myself an honest man, so by no means did I lie to you about publishing a post every week; it’s just that I wrote a cheque I couldn’t cash. I actually did have something last week that wasn’t posted, and that was because quality control stepped in - the post I had planned just wasn’t very good. As I said on twitter, my blogging policy is, “Do you want it done fast or do you want it done right?”

What? I said I’d read seventy-five books this year; I didn’t say how I’d get to seventy-five.

In the first Maynguh Memories post, I mentioned that I’ve long been more a comics than an anime fan, initially because I found graphic novels more affordable. Besides that, though, anime also consumed a lot more time, whether in finding a two-hour block of time for a film, or stringing together a series of times for a TV production. I could read a volume of a graphic novel, though, in about half an hour, and read it more discreetly than I could watch an anime. That was important because of a confession I have to make.