Though most ebooks are simply conversions of paper books, "The eNotated Madame Plum's Third Youth" is a completely new approach that takes advantage of ebook technology by providing eNotations (electronic annotations), essays, and background information conveniently accessible through links and a comprehensive table of con-tents.
Pierre Loti (1850-1923) was a French naval officer turned writer best known for his sto-ries set in exotic locales. Many of his stories are fictionalized accounts based on his experiences that evoke the essence of each country through vivid and poetic descriptions.
In the summer of 1885, while stationed in Nagasaki, Loti lived on shore with a paid consort known as "Okiku-san," and later recounted his experiences in the novel "Madame Chrysanthème," likely one of the inspirations for Puccini's opera, "Madame Butterfly." Loti would go on to write two additional texts set in Japan--"Japoneries d'Automne" (1889) ("Japan in the Fall") and "La Troisième Jeunesse de Madame Prune" (1905) ("Madame Plum's Third Youth"). All three of these texts contain detailed descriptions of Japan and Japanese culture at the turn of the century, evoked in the poetic and artistic manner characteristic of Loti's writing.
Although Madame Plum is one of the rarest of Loti's novels, it is one of the richest in terms of its vivid images of Japan and its descriptions of Japanese culture. Its pages are filled with keen observations of Japanese cultural practices, the Japanese character and the numerous changes taking place in Japan at the turn of the century. Madame Plum offers a powerful portrait of a country struggling to move forward with modernity, while at the same time holding on to a tradition-laden culture dating back hundreds of years. Loti's works gave the West its first in-depth view of Japan, a land that continues to mystify and fascinate Westerners to this day. His books are, at once, travel guides, travelogues, historical documents and novels, written in an inimitable, trademark style that serves as a verbal snapshot of the lands he visited.
In addition to an up-to-date English translation of Loti's text by Catherine Miskow, "The eNotated Madame Plum's Third Youth" contains more than 200 eNotations, an introduction, eight essays (Animals, History, Japan Trilogy, Japanese Culture, Nagasaki, Names, and the Russo-Japanese War), a Loti chronology, an extensive bibliography, and more than 40 illustrations.
Catherine Miskow holds a Ph.D. in French from UC Davis and an advanced degree in Japanese from San Francisco State. She is a lecturer in the Department of Modern Languages and LIteratures at Santa Clara University where she currently teaches both languages. An inveterate traveler, Miskow recently visited Japan, retracing Loti's steps over a century later.
Madame Plum provides a rich portrait of life in late 19th Century Japan, now long gone, and is rewarding for that reason alone, but it is also important as both a cause of and a paradigmatic expression of the West's view of the mysterious East ubiquitous through the mid 20th Century. You will better understand and more thoroughly enjoy both Loti and the Japan he saw reading "The eNotated Madame Plum's Third Youth," a uniquely useful edition of this now rare but fascinating and important text.
