Chapter 4 Chart of works read, in progress

Well, I didn't quite write a full 1,000 words, unless you count my review of Kramer vs. Kramer, which I tend to do, but only self-indulgently. Still, I did get through the story "Romanesque" all in one sitting and wrote a brief response to it, which definitely counts for something. Before taking off for the day I also put in place the chart of works I'll be looking at from three different volumes of essays.

The point of this chart (just an annotated table of contents, really) will be to have a large-scale view of the primary texts I might consider, and slowly prune away those that can be omitted, mentioned only in a different part of my dissertation, or else mentioned as part of my exposition but not focused on.

The story "Romanesque," for example, was well worth reading, and probably goes into my future chapter on Yang Jiang's novel. And the essay on translation, "The Experience of Failure" may get a brief mention in this chapter by way of contrast with Yang Jiang's biographical essays. "The Experience of Failure" is written in a highly structured format, but it is still quite short, with a very modest scope. I'd like this fact to help color the idea that Yang Jiang's biographical essays are similarly short for a certain modesty of scope but also quite crafted -- in some cases such as "Sent Down for the First Time," I really have to convince myself that there is a structure there.