Bluebear, 3 Kingdoms, Out

In the middle of too many books!

I'm about halfway through Captain Bluebear. The book is so episodic that it almost necessitates reading in smallish chunks. Read too much at one sitting, and the lists which seemed hilariously inventive half an hour ago seem very thin. Take a break for a couple of days, and all of a sudden the book feels very fresh. Moers does tie his episodes together somewhat -- characters in one episode will make a cameo in another, but it's not very organic. To some extent, you could jumble the chapters of the book into some other random order without really changing the impact of the story as a whole. (That may, of course, change as I get further along)

I've re-started The Three Kingdoms with a new translation, this one by Robert Moss. It's much clearer than the Brewitt translation (although less poetic). For one thing, Moss picks one name out of the 3 or 4 that each major character has, and sticks with it. The old translation switches back and forth all the time -- as a result, I suddenly realize that characters whom I thought showed up in chapter 4 or 5 have been in from the beginning. What a revelation. Moss also has footnotes, some of which are just annoying, but some are very helpful to understanding the motivations of characters.

Lastly, I'm struggling along with Out. Kirino just can't seem to maintain the tension that she builds up. Part of this comes from knowing how much of the novel is left -- I'm not even halfway through, so when she implies that the detective is on the trail of the 4 women, we know he's not actually about to catch them, because there's still a whole volume to go.