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Loading... Behind the Mask (edition 1985)by Ian Buruma
Work InformationA Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture by Ian Buruma
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Buruma writes an interesting book about Japanese culture and its heroes. I'm not sure I always accept where he wants to take me, but it is still fascinating. ( ) Ian Buruma’s older but still fascinating look into Japanese popular culture is just the right kind of book for its purpose. At about 225 pages or so, it’s long enough to develop several related themes, e.g. the roles of women in Japanese culture as mothers and whores (and often both), the appeal of androgynous teen ‘stars’, the plight of the pitiable salaryman, and so on. But although erudite and sophisticated, it’s free from the dreary ‘theorizing’ and ‘problematizing’ and other ‘cultural studies’ cant that bloats and usually makes unreadable most ‘scholarly’ works. The conclusion Buruma reaches, though, is quite negative: he sees Japanese culture as ultimately torn between a lack of overarching moral standards (i.e. it’s historically, deeply relativistic) and a gross surplus of socially-constructed taboos and mores governing individual behavior. It’s not a happy mix, and it goes a long way to explaining much of what is so enigmatic about Japan and the Japanese: they feel compelled to be normal rather than good. Recommended. no reviews | add a review
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The received myth is that the Japanese are a race so different from the rest of us that no outsider can understand them - a myth they seem rather to enjoy. But one that Ian Buruma explodes in this fascinating study of the Japanese character through a studied analysis of the way they perceive and, more importantly, portray, themselves in their popular culture. Anyone who has ever been intrigued by the images of kamikaze pilots, geisha girls or the intricate arts of Japan should find this book appealing. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)306.0952Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Culture and Institutions Biography And History Asia JapanLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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