Book Reviews

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052203455....

http://www.redroom.com/blog/belle-yang/beijing-coma

I just finished a book review of Ma Jian's masterpiece, Beijing Coma, for the Washington Post Book World. My illustration below is only available in the hard copy of the Book World. If you care about China, this book is not to be missed.

Speaking of China, I'm in the midst of Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler and enjoying it immensely.

But the reason I'm posting to this thread is that my review of Terese Svoboda's Black Glasses Like Clark Kent: A GI's Secret from Postwar Japan appeared in The Japan Times on Sunday, May 25. You can read it here:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20080525a1.html

Unfortunately I can't draw as well as belleyang—or, for that matter, at all.

Re: Message 2

Just as well you can't draw--even poorly. It would be a pretty grim picture, I'd think. Looks like an interesting book, but not lazy beach-reading...

-- Gerry

Re: Message 4 Sonshi

Dangerous turf for a literary discussion, but I'll try:

I don't find anything specifically Asian about the mindset that "the party" knows best. Whether "the party" is the Communist party in various periods of USSR's history, the Republican party in post-Reagan USA, "Born Again" Evangelical Christianism in the US, the guiding philosophy of "Biblical Literalism" and so forth. All of these require subjugating to the "greater good" of their society and away from individual "variation". Where genocide has happened in the world's history you'll usually find people who have subjugated their more universal values to those demanded by their leaders.

I agree it produces a certain "laziness" but I think of it as a comfort for those who believe they have entered a world too complicated for simple and direct choices. The machine is too big, the issues are too complicated, you eventually conclude that in order to address your real goals--feeding your family, keeping a roof over their heads, working a steady job and leading a consistent life, you have to bend to the will of a mightier power. And so folks do. Everybody can't stand in front of a tank every day of their lives, figuratively or otherwise.

I'm not sure our own mindsets are accurately reflected in the choices we are forced to make. Witness the results of mandatory voting in single-candidate governments. Like Saddaam Husseins last few "elections. It speaks not a word of truth to what people wanted.

When the choices we make are particularly onerous or require a radical change of our own values, like killing those from another nation, religion, race, and such, one has to truly embrace the idea or begin to loath oneself. Humans tend to accommodate that by acclimating to the idea, and eventually embracing it as "just". Sad, but true, I think.

And in no way reflective of a universal "Asian mindset.

-- Gerry

re: #4 dcozy:
Thanks for the great review (Black Glasses Like Clark Kent) in Japan Times. I've been trying to make up my mind about Svoboda's book, and your comments tipped me in favor of reading it. I'm also enjoying Oracle Bones; have you already read Hessler's River Town?

I haven't read River Town. Is it similar to Oracle Bones?

Hi, Thomas and Sonshi--I am fully bicultural, so I see the problems in China/the East and the West. I guess your question drives me crazy, not because it's not a good question--it's excellent--but because you'll start me on a rant about China. I get an ulcer thinking about the issues in China. So bear with me and I ask you to give a glance at these two posts with illustrations. I'll answer more questions after you look at this.

http://www.redroom.com/blog/belle-yang/becoming-chinese

http://www.redroom.com/blog/belle-yang/shame

>2 dcozy: dcozy--thank you for the review, which I've bookmarked. I lived in Japan as a child so Japanese is my second language. I just found my sensei after 42 years.

Hi, Sonshi/Thomas--
Your words echo mine and my papa's. So many of my dad's friends are rallying behind the Chinese flag because China is where they now do business. They do not care about human rights abuses, which go on every day. They forget about the Tiananmen Massacre, for which the regime has not begun to apologize. It sickens me that people's memories are shallow and blocked as soon as they see money.

I am very Chinese. I speak Chinese all day long and take care of my parents. I am reading The Romance of the Three Kingdoms in Chinese. I even read the Analects of Confucius and find that I am a born-again Confucian. I abhor the blind-following of authority and seniority, but the lack of respect for the elderly in America is not human, humane--only animals neglect the aged. I am so indebted to the wisdom of my father and mother.

AND I respect my ancestors. In fact, I take revenge against time and forgetting by writing about the life and death of my great granddad in "Forget Sorrow," a graphic novel in progress:

http://www.redroom.com/gallery/i-am-currently-working-ww-norton-company-a-adult-...

Funny you say I look American. Must be the hat ;)

I'm glad I met you here. It's interesting to hear your parallel views about Vietnam.

http://www.redroom.com/blog/belle-yang/life-and-death-beijing-a-photo-journal

Above is a link to an astounding photo journal of the Tiananmen Massacre my friend X shot during those harrowing days. Today is the 19th anniversary.

Here is an unpublished memory piece I wrote about those harrowing days in Beijing. I'd spend 3 years studying, working, traveling in China.

http://www.redroom.com/articlestory/life-and-death-beijing

re: River Townby Peter Hessler: River Town precedes Oracle Bones, and chronicles the author's 2 years (1996-98) as a Peace Corps volunteer English teacher in Fuling, at the convergence of the Yangtze and Wu rivers in Sichuan Province.

It is one of the best, most intelligently observed and well-written accounts of a foreigner's experience in China that I've read. Since many of the people he met would later be affected--and the local geography changed forever--by the "Three Gorges Dam" project, his book also serves as a historical snapshot. By the time I got around to reading it, there were already so many positive reviews that I didn't bother writing one, but this book is fantastic.

Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you.

sushidog1:

No need to apologize, and thanks for the information.

Best,

David

>15 nobooksnolife: it is wonderful, isn't it. The only travel book I've read that's close to it recently, is Bruce Fielden's Learning to Bow, about Japan

LyzzyBee:

Is Learning to Bow really that good? I got it used years ago, but somehow it made it's way to into a garage-box without snaring me. Can you compare it to Alan Booth's travel stuff at all?

Regarding River Town--it sounds like something my wife would be very excited with. Her earliest desires to see the world were all about Pearl Buck, which she devoured in her pre-teens.

-- Gerry

to LyzzyBee and Gerry. I hope it doesn't breech etiquette to jump into your conversation. I'm new to this type of social thing...but I get excited when people mention books I love. "Sumimasen".

re: Learning to Bow: yes, it really is that good. I’m so glad to see that this wonderful book still captures people’s interest, because I believe it has not been surpassed since its publication. It came out in 1991, and according to the Epilogue its genesis was about 1986 when author Bruce Feiler began his teaching stint as a “JET” (Japan Exchange and Teaching program) teacher in Sano, Japan. I’m not sure how his experiences would compare to the JET teachers' in Japan today, but his observations of the culture are still valid and on-target after nearly 20 years. There are some JET teachers on LT, so if any of them have read this book, maybe they can offer opinions--that would be interesting.

After reading your posts, I dug my copy out of the attic and skimmed through some parts, which confirm my earlier impressions of this insightful, humorous book. At the time, Feiler was fresh out of Yale. His descriptions of encounters with the Japanese people are also fresh, intelligent, and free of the condescension that colors so many “westerner-meets-Japan” accounts. I think it would be a very satisfying read even after all these years.

As for comparisons with Alan Booth, I haven’t read AB thoroughly, but thanks to your mention I’m starting The Roads to Sata. I know he always received the highest praise from authors like Donald Richie, and his untimely death left us with only 2 of his books on Japan. (Ironically, living in Japan, we can’t afford to travel in Japan, so his smart humor and keen eye are especially welcome). There is probably a difference in maturity between Feiler and Booth which shows in their writings. That’s the best I can do for the time being.

Happy reading!

Sushidog:

All discussions here are built for intrusion. Interlope!

Okay, then; I'll put on the hazmat suit and dredge the garage for Learning to Bow. You mention the book has a refreshing lack of condescension. Perhaps I haven't read the right vintage, it seems there is more "gee whiz" for Japan than there is Western condescension in such books.

While on the topic, there is a book that involves another gaijin in Japan that I've not been able to remember the title of for a long time. I just described it (now omitted) and finally came up with the title, Pictures from the Water Trade. However erratic, I found a number of passages interesting. But then I wearied a bit of the "genre" such as it is. So Learning to Bow, Thank you and Okay and even the last 3/4's of Alex Kerr's Dogs and Demons were were casually banished to the Box. Admittedly the later doesn't quite fit, though his previous book Lost Japan fits better. Good book too.

-- Gerry

Well I don't know Alan Booth at all, so I'm very glad you jumped in! And yes, Learning to Bow is that good. Both I and OH (hard to please) really loved it. Do let us know what you think of it when you've retrieved and read it!

20>

I actually disliked much of Lost Japan and the second half of Dogs and Demons (where Kerr moves from critiques of Japan's economy and environment to critiques of its culture). Both struck me as condescending in tone, in that Kerr's main complaint seems to be that Japanese culture has not obliged him by freezing itself in some sort of Muroyama-jidai to Edo-jidai relic.

That said, Chadwick's Thank You And Ok! is hands down my favorite gaijin-penned book on Japan. The first few chapters are a bit rough, both in terms of style and insight, but once it takes off, it's excellent. I haven't read the other books you've touchstoned, so I can't offer any comparisons there, but definitely do check out Chadwick at some point.

I got so tired of books by non-Japanese purporting to explain Japan that I more or less stopped reading them. Of those I have read (though they may be a bit dated now) I would say that the two best are Donald Richie's collection of essays, A Lateral View, and Alan Booth's memoir of walking the archipelago, The Roads to Sata. I think what appeals to me about both books is that neither author offers a global theory of Japan and Japaneseness (something that was very fashionable ten or twenty years ago). Instead, they both write—exquisitely—about what they have seen, and their observations ring true.

A Certain Woman - Arishima Takeo (1919)

A difficult book for me to get and maintain traction for most of the first half. The writing is very detailed, and this provides an amazing amount of focus. Also, as it represents the mindset of the narrator (the "certain" woman), the focus can be exhausting. She's hysterical, she has an amazing depth of analysis over the microscopic aspects of social interaction, of wrangling to meet her goals and all other universes of minutiae. This level of intensity has its paybacks of course, but it can be daunting early on.

The first half or more of the book was serialized in a newspaper between 1911 and 1913. Arishima made significant changes and added the last half concluding in 1919. This, after reading more modern westerg books on the psychology of women. The main character's psychology is a predominant consideration of the book.

I truly wearied of the process of reading it, I had problems staying so deeply inside someone's head for so long a period of time. This is usually true when, early on, you realize that you don't like the character and have little sympathy for her troubles. After all, her troubles are not only her own fault, she seeks them out selfishly and clutches them to her soul.

Frankly I think with machete-editing I could trim it to half it's length and give it a bit less mental weight. Despite the somewhat dated nature of the novel--and it was considered shockingly modern for it's time--I think it's one of the more outstanding examples of a man writing from a woman's mindset. Not so much that it's "accurate", who can say of such things? But I don't have these breaks in credibility that pop up from time to time, and are jarring.

As usual, this would be difficult to recommend to others. I wouldn't be surprised if others absolutely loved it or choked before page 30. Likely one is not going to encounter it in translation anyway. It took me about 3 years to run a copy of it down. I just checked Amazon for grins and they had no affiliated sellers that had a copy. Why was it so important to run a copy down? Lord Thomas J. Rimer recommended it.

-- Gerry

The Temple of the Wild Geese and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen - Tsutomu Mizukami (1961-1963)

I read each of these two novellas in successive afternoons. What great stories; relatively simple and direct, as is the prose that relates them. This I encounter after two books in which microscopic descriptions start with everything from fingertips and recede to the internal regions of the cuticle--not that there's anything WRONG with that!

I am charmed by the simplicity of the story-telling here. His descriptions are well selected to amply support the narrative rather than thrown willy-nilly at everything moving or otherwise. There is folk-tale quality about these two stories.

The first is about a young boy working as a acolyte for a priest in a Buddhist temple. He comes to the temple in Kyoto from a very poor village in the north, after living in poverty for his early life. All of this is right out of the writer's real-life.

Actually Mizukami's life is pretty interesting. He left the temple in his mid-teens (in the mid-1930's), struggled to pay for an education while working a job, eventually having to drop school to survive. He then worked lots of odd-jobs, clog maker, poultice peddler, and during the peak war years (40-45) he skulked from town to town avoiding conscription (shades of Grass for My Pillow!). After becoming ill he began writing while recuperating, and published his first book which was not a major success. Twelve years go by before he publishes another major work, this time successful financially and critically. Inspired by the tight detective fiction written by such as Matsumoto Seicho, he finds a niche for himself. Curiously my wife just finished Matsumoto's Inspector Imanishi Investigates, and loved it.

Outside this niche, really, fall these two novellas. Wild Geese won the Naoki Prize in '61. It has a mystery quality to it, but remains opaque and the mysteries don't demand to be unraveled, or resolved. The one I like best is Bamboo Dolls. Dennis Washburn, the translator calls it "part folk tale and part social realism". His translation is fabulous.

He apparently produced a boatload of mature works until his death in 2004. These two gems came out early in his career demonstrating a refined balance of abilities in the early 60's. Unfortunately there is very little of his later work that has been translated. Let's hope there's more around the corner. I would certainly read them.

Good stuff; easily procured, easily digested.

-- Gerry

Thanks, Gerry. Nice review; very helpful.
Julia

One of the nice things about reviewing books is that it sometimes pushes one to tackle books one wouldn't normally pick up. Often one is rewarded for doing so. On the other hand, every once in a while a book plunks into the mailbox which is so remarkably bad that reading it is a bit like watching a train-wreck. It's horrible, but you can't look away.

Beside a Burning Sea by John Shors is such a book. I made it through thirty-eight pages before emailing my editor to tell her I would only soldier on to the last page if I would be allowed, in print, to take a hatchet to it. My editor, quite sensibly, did not want to devote any of the ever-shrinking books page to something so unworthy of consideration, and I was relieved not to have to stare at the train-wreck until its gory conclusion.

As I didn't finish the book I have nothing to say about its overall structure. It is at the sentence level that the book appalls me. Hardly a paragraph goes by without a gem like: "Unconscious atop a bed of palm fronds was Akira," or "The nurses, who now wore the shirts of Joshua and Jake, had bound his wound with fabric they'd torn from Joshua's pants. (Those two examples actually occur in the same paragraph.)

And then there is the "profundity": "He was a stranger to this land, and though he felt no malice from it, he sensed its overwhelming indifference." (As opposed to what? Sincere interest?)

The sloppiness in language and thought sloshes over into the fact-checking department. If Shors had bothered to key in torpedo over at Wikipedia he would have learned, for example, that "from the First World War onwards 'torpedo' was only used for an underwater self-propelled missile," and that they are not, therefore, likely to be dropped from bombers (those things that bombers drop are called, surprisingly enough, "bombs"). Likewise, his notion that "In Japan, haikus have been told for centuries" suggests that he apparently doesn't understand that haiku are not, primarily, an oral form but a written one. Perhaps he subscribes to the hoary myth which has it that haiku are spontaneously blurted out by poets overcome by the wonders of nature. Or maybe (and given his infelicitous style, one suspects this is the case) the closest he's come to poetry is at a "slam" down at the local boho cafe where poems—in the loosest sense of the word—are, in fact, spontaneously blurted. In any case, the image of a poet laboring over his poems as long and hard as, say, Basho, has no place in a treacly romance such as this one.

Amy Tan was moved to write of this dreck: "A master storyteller . . . both lyrical and deeply imaginative, Beside a Burning Sea confirms again that Shors is an immense talent." Tan's remark confirms again my decision to avoid her work as assiduously as I will John Shors's.

CORRECTION: I realize now that Shors had it right: torpedoes can be dropped from planes. It's a bit embarrassing, when one is taking someone to task for getting his facts wrong, to get one's facts wrong. I leave my original error intact (above) to remind myself to take more care in the future. (This doesn't mean that I like Shors's book any better.)

>27 dcozy: Thanks. It's a jungle out there, and you have posted a little marker for us that says "Quicksand!" Please keep marking the trail for us.

I'm also glad to know someone else who is cautionary about Amy Tan. While I have enjoyed her earliest books, they came early in my learning curve and I might react differently if I went back to them today. I've also had serious doubts about some of her endorsements of new books on the jacket-flaps, but right now I can't remember which books they were. I just recall thinking that she was too enthusiastic about something very mediocre (in my opinion).

It's educational to observe how reviewers and writers can build confidence in their readership & how easily it can be lost...

I've read several of your archived reviews which have built my confidence. Thanks again.
Julia

I have to issue a correction to my review of John Shors's book (message # 27). Someone has pointed out to me that torpedoes were, in fact, dropped from airplanes, so Shors had it right. It's a bit embarrassing, when berating someone for not checking his facts, to get one's facts wrong, but I managed to do it.

Sorry for the misinformation, and apologies to Mr. Shors. (This doesn't mean I like his book any better.)

Mon (The Gate) - Soseki Natsume, 1909

The book is quietly mournful, about a childless man and woman wose relationship was initiated some 10 years before as the result of a "shameful" incident that is never related. It was the kind of incident that would demand he leave college mid-term and pursue other interests. Apparently they had a sexual tryst which is described as impulsive and seemingly a single event. Nevertheless their lives were crushed. His father refused to speak to him. Her brother also leaves school and pursues a life in Mongolia. They have been together since, had three children lost in pregnancy or in one case, after only a few weeks of life. But neither the "event", nor the difficult attempts at parenting is the story. These matters, discussed quite late in the book, are more an explanation for their quiet unassuming, grateful-to-be-alive, under-achieving lives.

The book is amazingly quiet and patient. The matters that arise for interaction with the characters are relatively slight and non-dramatic. Still, the book beckons. As always, I don't know what it is that I love about these Meiji writers, that early group of "modern" writers from around the turn of the century.

The book ends with a whimper, not a bang. There are a few things that could be resolved that aren't so much resolved as put-off till later with some relief, or given enough of a coat of paint to get them through another year. But it seems a book about a few real people going through a very real life.

Again, I can't recommend the book directly, unless somebody has already acquired a taste or affection for Soseki, Kafu or Mori Ogai. I assume most folks would be anguished about the lack of a plot you could set a watch by. Still I liked it quite a bit, though mostly after it was done. Then, I have a sense of satiation of a curious kind. But while I'm reading the book it's important not to address questions like "Do you like it?" or "Is it good?" as my wife sometimes asks. I must certainly look confused when I say, "Like it...? Hmm, I hadn't thought about it in those terms. Maybe. I guess."

Perhaps these works give me just enough time and place and a healthy dollop of a somewhat real personality. That seem to be good enough. So despite the no-show of a bona-fide villain or even the somewhat requisite life-changing moment, you still feel comfortable forging ahead.

My basic way of gauging "good" in books is by asking myself "Do I give a damn what happens next". If I really don't care, I begin to lose my steam. I feel that at the end of a book a character has to undergo something like a change in themselves, in their approach, in their quest, in the weather--something! But I'm not sure that most of this Meiji stuff really passes either of these tests. it's not that I don't give a damn what's on the next page, it's more like I'm waiting for a bus. Until the bus arrives, what's to be evaluated? And though the characters may not change much, they are older, right? So obviously, I'm changing my criteria for "good" in order to accommodate books that I inexplicably care for despite their failure of these tests.

-- Gerry

Thank You and Okay - David Chadwick, 1994

I had my ups and downs with this book. I started it a 4 or 5 years ago and after only 40 pages decided to moved on. I've forgotten what I found problematic then. But perhaps it's what I find problematic now: I only have so much interest in the mechanical operations of a Buddhist temple in Japan. Admittedly I have more interest now that I did then, and this is due to Chadwick's observations alone.

it's too long at 450 pages. The last 50 or more drag endlessly. His description and eye for (or mind for) detail is most exacting and can be entertaining in lieu of more interesting material. But it frequently sits quite still and the only significant activity is me, turning pages.

I really didn't like the structure of the book. Chadwick, 23 years a zen enthusiast has a 2-year stay in Japan. He begins it at one temple, Hogoji in Kyushu, and a year later migrates to another in Maruyama near Tokyo. Each section of the book is loosely categorized by activity: Coming, Settling, Walking, etc. And within each section, with no relevance to chronology, we bounce back and forth between these two settings. Chronology is not relevant to Chadwick and so serves organizing utility. We conclude the last part of the book by his leaving both settings, Hogoji for Maruyama and Maruyama for the States.

There are many delightful fragments that are most illuminating about Chadwick and his confreres in the temples. Curious low-code grindings between Japanese and American sensibilities. And many other interesting stories regarding the difficulties of Chadwick navigating the Japanese bureaucracy, getting married, shifting visas from one kind to another. He relates interesting chatter from the Monday morning English class he teaches. In the process we get a great snapshot of how (some) Japanese minds work in via of otherwise mundane topics; how they feel about elections, the communities they live in and so forth.

I'll admit they guy can write a charming short story, and he can throw them all in a big pile too. This isn't so much a long-work as it is a loose basket of very short works.

In the end I have a lot more interest in Zen Buddhism too, though I'm not sure I would balk at a similarly fashioned book should I encounter it.

Upstream in this thread, the book was given praise, as a favorite "gaijin-penned book on Japan". It was compared loosely to books by Alex Kerr on Japan. I find both author's ventures flawed but quite readable. Chadwick is telling is own personal story, while Kerr pivots from his own world to a larger view of Japan, where he spends most of the book. Both efforts don't intend to tow you along in a straight line, and both find a number of finger-drumming cul-de-sacs. Just discussing their approach underscores again the charm and momentum that Alan Booth brings to the table in both his efforts.

Another participant above considered Learning to Bow a good travel book. I'm not sure if it is to be compared to Kerr and Chadwick, since neither of them really travel much, per se. They are ex-pats at least for the course of the book. I had it in mind to dispatch "Learning" as well since it too has been laying in the pile for a few years, and logically would be about ripe by now. But two of these things back-to-back seems a bit much.

-- Gerry

Just finished a review of
The Four Immigrants Manga. Fantastic collection of auto-biographical comic strips drawn by a Japanese immigrant in the early 20th century.

My review of For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut by Takashi Hiraide begins:

When a fan of the neglected American genius Guy Davenport wrote to tell him that she admired his ability to express himself, his response was: "Yick!" Davenport's reaction — somewhere between bemusement and horror — upon learning that anyone could so misunderstand his art, and, indeed, art in general, seems apposite in considering the work of Takashi Hiraide whose "For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut" has more in common with the cool integrity of the best work of poets such as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and Guillaume Apollinaire — modernists, one and all — than it does with versifiers who appear to believe that writing is a way for them to work through the emotions that wash over them when, say, the sun sets behind bare trees, the seasons change, or a dog dies. Readers willing to leave all that warm fuzziness behind will enjoy the linguistic and conceptual fireworks, the wit, and the mystery that make Hiraide's Walnut a poetic page-turner.

Read the whole thing at: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20080907a1.html.

My review of Donald Richie's Botandoro is here:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20090215a1.html

I've written a few reviews on Japanese novels lately (and one book about China by the Belgian, Amelie Nothomb).

Feel free to go to my reviews page to read them.
Out of them I highly suggest reading Fires on the Plain by Shohei Ooka. Truly spectacular read.

My review of The Edogawa Rampo Reader is here:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20090412a1.html

My most recent review:

Review of Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
http://bookslovejessicamarie.blogspot.com/2009/05/review-snow-country.html

I also have other reviews of Asian literature on my blog, that can be found under the tab "2009 Books & Reviews"

My review of Love Hotel City is here:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20090531a2.html

I just today posted my review of Tongue by South Korean Kyung-Ran Jo, one of the books from June's Early Reviewer list.