The Inland Sea

This is probably the pinnacle of all Japan travel memoirs by non-Japanese writers. Donald Richie, well known for his books and essays on Japanese cinema and a former film critic for The Japan Times, first came to Japan in the late 1940s, then returned in the 1950s and stayed until his death in 2013 in Tokyo, at the age of 88.

I'd recently read his A View from the Chuo Line and Other Stories (2004) and The Image Factory (2003), both interesting but not anywhere near as substantial, romantic, or insightful as The Inland Sea, first published in 1971.

In this travelogue-slash-memoir, Richie seeks out the “real” Japanese people, as he calls them. Those he envisions were around long before, who he hopes to find still on the "backward" islands of Setonaikai. Island hopping he meets a medley of locals, whose way of life was then fast changing in the rapid current of Japan's modernization. His descriptions of these people, the landscapes and nature, architecture, lodgings, family and customs are rich and delivered gently and often beautifully. There is humor and sadness as well, a sort of mixture of amusing bumps or collisions between cultures and a lament for the passing of old ways and of time itself. He decides that “only in appearances lies the true reality” and contemplates the "mask" of the Japanese, worn by each and all, which he as well as Ian Buruma and others have written about to a great extent. Richie tells us, “I would never find them, the real Japanese, because they were always around me, and they were always real.” He tells us, too, in the note to the first edition, that "for the Westerner Japan is a great mirror. In it we can see the land and the people clearly—but we can also see ourselves." And this, he also tells us, is what the book is truly about, making it not only a fascinating account of the Setonaikai people but also a narrative of self-discovery.

In addition, the book includes twenty black-and-white, rather abstract, photos by Yoichi Midorikawa, which adds to the already abundant imagery in Richie's prose and the atmosphere and moods within.

Exotics and Retrospectives

Exotics and Retrospectives (1898) is among Lafcadio Hearn's earlier works on Japan. It starts off with the author's account of his arduous climb up Japan's Mount Fuji (3,776 meters). Because it's more personal in nature, I preferred it to the dozen or so other essays in the collection, which, in Hearn's oftentimes meandering yet lucid style, cover a heap of subject matter, from Japan's singing insects, frogs, and thoughts on death and Buddhism, to his notions and flights of fancy on such topics as memory, evolution, the nauseating orange-red of sunsets, beauty in sadness, and even azure, the color.

More so than this collection, I've enjoyed Hearn's later works on things Japanese, particularly his telling of ghost stories and a mishmash of other fantastic tales. His passion for writing about insects, which he does in this and later books, is also unique. I find interesting not just the ways he describes or documents these tiny beings but also how he personifies them, sometimes matching their characteristics with elements of Japanese culture as well.

Hearn was born in Greece in 1850 and raised in Ireland, he emigrated at a young age to the U.S. and became a successful writer for newspapers, living in and writing about Cincinnati and New Orleans. Defying a law against interracial marriage, he married an African American woman in his early 20s (1874), later divorced her, then headed to Japan, where he had a family and is well known to this day as Koizumi Yakumo. The Paris Review published an excellent article about Hearn in July of last year, which gives a much broader picture of his life, interests, and achievements.

Also, something I didn't know until recently, Hearn's grave was only a few blocks north of the building where I lived in Bunkyō-ku in the 1990s, and where I first read his work. I took a lot of walks in that area but somehow overlooked Zōshigaya Cemetery, the location of his grave in Minami-Ikebukuro.

Exotics and Retrospectives can be downloaded here free and legally thanks to Project Gutenberg.

Encounters with Kyoto

Encounters with Kyoto: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 3 (2019) is an absorbing, at times amusing collection of twenty-two storytellers' personal essays, poems, and fiction centered on Kyoto as a wellspring of inspiration and creativity. From Writers in Kyoto, the book lights up countless facets of the city's history, culture, and people as well as its transformations, all examined and interpreted, in some cases briefly or fleetingly, through the eyes and pens of writers who share with us their experiences in and enduring connections to a city which has long captured the hearts of so many artists.

What I particularly liked about this anthology was the diversity among its voices. I learned a lot, about Kyoto's past and present, and the imagery in several pieces left impressions and stirred my imagination. But since each work stands out on its own in terms of voice, the collection can be enjoyed especially for its freshness throughout. So what the reader gets are very different angles to view and understand Kyoto, and a rich picture of its temples, tourists, gardens, ponds, residents, and lots more.