A manuscript containinga missing portion ofclassic Japanese work

of literature ‘The Tale ofGenji’, written by MurasakiShikibu in the earlyyears of the 11thcentury, has beenfound.

The manuscriptwas located in theTokyo home of thedescendant of a for-mer feudal lord, ac-cording to ‘AsahiShimbun’, a nationalnewspaper in Japan.

WORLD’S FIRST NOVELShikibu’s ‘The Tale of Genji’was written in the 11th cen-tury while the author was alady-in-waiting at the Japan-ese court.

It tells the story of aprince named Genji, whomeets and eventually marriesa woman named Murasaki,

like the author.

AUTHENTICITY Experts have confirmed theauthenticity of the new-

found manuscript, ac-cording to Japanesemedia. The manu-script is 21.9-cm longand 14.3-cm wide.

No original ver-sion of ‘The Tale ofGenji’ is believed tohave survived, butother writers havetranscribed thestory. The newly-

uncovered manu-script was transcribed byJapanese poet Fujiwara noTeika, according to experts.Teika’s transcriptions arebelieved to be the oldestavailable versions of thenovel. Four other chapters,also transcribed by Teika,have previously been re-covered. AGENCIES

S ome of the world’s mostinnovative ideas and cre-ations have started out

in a rejection pile. One of this year’s Nobel

Prize winners for medicinepreviously saw his findings (onhow cells respond to changesin oxygen levels) turned downfor publication. In 1992, thejournal ‘Nature’ rejected Pe-ter J Ratcliffe’s article, tellinghim that “we have sadly con-cluded, on balance, that yourpaper would be better placedin a more specialised journal,particularly given the compe-tition for space.” Twenty-sev-en years later, judges praisedRatcliffe and fellow winnersWilliam Kaelin Jr and GreggSemenza for discoveries thatcould lead to ‘promising newstrategies to fight anaemia,cancer and many other dis-eases.’

Ratcliffe’s vindication isan old Nobel tradition, and notjust for medicine. In literature,some of the most celebratedwriters were once consideredtoo strange, too limited or justtoo boring.

Several publishers turneddown Toni Morrison’s firstnovel, ‘The Bluest Eye,’ andshe was chastised for years bywhite critics for focusing toomuch on black characters.

The novelist Reynolds Pricewould cite her for “the under-standable but weakening omis-sion of active white charac-ters,” an opinion he later with-drew about the 1993 laureate.

Ernest Hemingway was atthe centre of American letterswhen he won the Nobel, in1954, but at the start, he wascriticised for his minimaliststyle and libertine characters.In turning down ‘The Sun AlsoRises,’ Hemingway’s landmarknovel about the 1920s ‘lost gen-eration,’ Moberley Luger ofpublisher Peacock & Peacockcalled Hemingway’s work

‘both tedious and of-fensive.’ AP

HAVE YOU READ THESE BOOKS?

Books! Books! Books! There is no end to knowledge. All youneed to do is flip through the pages to get that extra dose ofinfotainment. So simply read on...

■ QUEEN OF THE HUNT, NAT GEO WILDHD, 3.00 PM: A spotted feline strug-gles to feed, raise and protect hercubs in the open plains of the

1795: John Keats, English Romantic poet wasborn in London.

1860: Founder of the Girl Scouts, Juliette Lowwas born.

1875: Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s firsthome minister and a founding fatherof the Indian Republic, was born.

1914: The Ottoman Empire (Turkey)joined the Central Powers (Germany,Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria).

1926: Magician Harry Houdini died of gan-grene and peritonitis resulting from a rupturedappendix.

1941: Mount Rushmore was declared completeafter 14 years of work.

1952: The US detonated its first hydrogen bomb.

1984: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhiwas assassinated near her residence by

two security guards. Her son, Rajiv,was sworn in as PM.

1992: Roman Catholic church rein-stated Galileo Galilei (astronomer

and physicist) after 359 years.

2018: Worlds biggest statue, the Statue ofUnity was unveiled of Indian independence leaderSardar Vallabhbhai Patel at 182 m in Gujarat.

Serengeti, where peaceful familymoments are scarce.

■ ROBSON GREEN GRAND SLAM FISH-ING, SONY BBC EARTH HD, 5.00 PM:Actor Robson Green takes on chal-lenges in catching different fishspecies to claim the Offshore GrandSlam title.

■ FOOD TECH, HISTORY TV18, 7.00 PM:Bobby explores the secret behindpopular treats in lunchboxes, in-cluding apple juice, goldfish crack-ers, peanut butter and jelly sand-wiches, twinkies, baby carrots andWonder Bread.

■ THE BOSS BABY, STAR MOVIES, 3.32PM: Seven-year-old Tim gets jeal-ous when his parents give all theirattention to his little brother. Timsoon learns that the baby can talkand the two team up to foil theplans of the CEO of Puppy Co.

■ IP MAN, WB, 5.14 PM: During thewar between China and Japan, aJapanese official notices Ip Man,a Wing Chun expert, and his skills.He asks him to train the Japanese

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in the art of Wing Chun for self-de-fence.

■ BREXIT: THE UNCIVIL WAR, &FLIX,7.05 PM: With an intention to con-vince the British voters to leave theEuropean Union, political strate-gist Dominic Cummings decides tostart a controversial campaign.

ANSWERS1. Pirrip, Philip2. Alice Walker3. Gulliver’s Travels4. Crunchem Hall5. The zoo6. ‘To fetch a pail of water’.7. Kirrin Island

1. What is the first name of themain character in CharlesDickens’s ‘Great Expectations’?2. Who wrote the book ‘TheColour Purple’?3. Can you name Jonathan Swift’sfamous book – one that featuresthe Lilliputians?4. What is the name of Matilda’sschool?5. Where do Harry and theDursleys go for Dudley’s birth-day?6. In the nursery rhyme why did‘Jack and Jill go up the hill’?7. In the ‘Famous Five’ series,what is the name of George’sfamily island?

BOOKS

QUEEN ELIZABETH HONOURS BOOKERPRIZE WINNER MARGARET ATWOODShortly after winning her second BookerPrize, Margaret Atwood has received arare honour from Queen Elizabeth II forher services to literature. The Canadiannovelist and poet was presented with anOrder of the Companions of Honour in aceremony at Windsor Castle. She said theexperience made her ‘a bit emotional.’Atwood and British author BernardineEvaristo split the Booker Prize recently,after judges flouted the rule that thereshould be a single winner. AFP

THE BOOKSHITTING

IN THE NEWS

1

WHITBY ABBEYTRANSFORMED INTOA HAUNTING WONDERLAND:The historic WhitbyAbbey (England) willbe illuminated dur-ing the Halloween

Week from October 25 to November 2.Visitors will be able to experience thesite after dark and wander through thedramatic ruins of the abbey famouslynoted for being the inspiration behindBram Stokers ‘Dracula’. AGENCIES

2A book for every reader, age notwithstanding

A TALE OF MAGIC...: by Chris Colfer Fourteen-year-old BrystalEvergreen loves readingbooks but is unable to do soas her country, the oppres-sive SouthernKingdom, for-bids women toread, and hasoutlawedmagic. ButwhenEvergreen dis-covers a book on magic,she starts practising...

HOCUS POCUS ANDTHE ALL-NEWSEQUELby A W JanthaDiving once more into theworld of witches, this two-part youngadult seriesbegins whenthe protago-nist, MaxDennison,accidentallyreleases a coven of witch-es, the Sanderson sisters,from the afterlife. AGENCIES

DIARY OF AN AWE-SOME FRIENDLY KIDby Jeff KinneyRememberGreg Heffley?Turns out hisbest friendRowleyJefferson hasbeen writinghis own diary, chroniclinghis school adventures.

TRISTAN STRONGPUNCHES A HOLE INTHE SKY by KwameMbalia After acciden-tally tearing ahole betweenEarth and Alke,Tristan mustseek the trickster god Anansiin order to mend the rift.

WAYWARD SON by Rainbow Rowell The protago-nists, Simon,Penny andBaz, head toAmericawhere theyfind trouble,read dragons,vampires and skunk-head-ed things!

03

Intrepidly attending the dissection of acorpse, Bryson quotes the surgeon whopulled back a minute layer of skin andsaid: “That’s all that race is – a sliver ofepidermis.” As we spread across theworld, some people are thought to haveevolved lighter skin in order to gleanvitamin D from weaker sunlight.Throughout human history, people have‘de-pigmented’ and ‘re-pigmented’ tosuit their environment. Biologically,skin colour is just ‘a reaction to sun-light’, Bryson quotes the anthropologistNina Jablonski as saying. She adds:“And yet look how many people havebeen enslaved or hated or lynched ordeprived of fundamental rights throughhistory because of the colour of theirskin.” THE INDEPENDENT

RACE IS ONE MILLIMETREDEEP

NOT SO EASY:

Many Nobel winners endured initial rejections

INSPIRATION

William Golding’sdystopian classic‘Lord of the Flies’ wasrejected numeroustimes. Faber & Fabereditor CharlesMonteith describedthe book as an“Absurd &uninterestingfantasy” and calledit “Rubbish & dull.Pointless.”

Missing chapter of theworld’s first novel found

Ernest Hemingway

In this book, the best-selling author JamesClear draws on the

most proven ideas frombiology, psychology, andneuroscience, to create

a guide to help youmake good habits anatural part ofyour routine.

According tothe author bad

habits repeatthemselves not

because you areincapable of

change, but becauseyou have the wrongsystem for change. Tocounter this, Clearhas developed atechnique called ‘the2-minute method.’

JUST GET STARTEDFor any new habit you aretrying to adopt, do it for twominutes. As a result, thelarger goal you want to ac-complish becomes a simpletask that takes two minutesor less to perform.

In what Clear calls‘gateway habits’, hewrites: “The idea is tomake your habits aseasy as possible to start.Anyone can meditatefor one minute, read onepage, or put one item ofclothing away.”

He says that theidea is that once youstart doing the rightthing, it is much easierto continue doing it. AGENCIES

HOW TO STOP PUTTING THINGS OFFAND GET THEM DONE TODAY

No matter what your goals are, James Clear’s ‘AtomicHabits’ offers an interesting structure to achieving them

SELF IMPROVEMENT

When our ape-like ancestors came down fromthe trees, there was an evolutionary advan-tage to walking upright: we could cover moreground and see further. But our skeleton isstill largely engineered to cope with life onfour feet, not two. As Bryson writes:“Becoming upright put extra pressure on thecartilage discs that support and cushion thespine, in consequence of which they some-times become displaced or herniated in whatis popularly known as a slipped disc.”

YOU JUST ARE NOT BUILT TOWALK ON TWO LEGS

The human body is so unique that thebrainest scientists in the world cannotmake two of you, or BenedictCumberbatch. To know why, read author Bill Bryson’s ‘The Body’ that says

You cost `88,23,818 to build......Or at least a human of the same dimen-sions as Benedict Cumberbatch does,according to a Royal Society of Chemistrycalculation that Bryson cites in his newbook. As ‘The Body’ makes vividly clear,we are both mundane and miraculous:composed of a bunch of mostly every-day elements, pieced together inastonishingly complex systems, thatscientists today are still a long wayfrom understanding.

CANNOT BE CLONED!BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

You could call together all the brainiest people who are alive now or have ever lived and endowthem with the complete sum of human knowledge, and they could not between them make asingle living cell, never mind a replicant Benedict Cumberbatch, writes Bryson.

Bad habitsrepeat them-selves notbecause youare incapableof change, butyou have thewrong systemfor change

UNFORTUNATELY

Photo: Getty images

Photo: Getty images

Photo: Getty images