Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere

Japanologist, translator, and documentary filmmaker John Nathan offers a memoir packed with engaging stories from his years in Japan and elsewhere. There’s a noticeable ebb and flow as he reflects on the paths his life has taken, at times humbly patting himself on the back, at others chastising himself for what he sees as wrong turns.

He’s a bold writer, and Living Carelessly is compelling for its honesty, sharp insights, and wry tone. Nathan has lived a large life, though he would have us believe it was done carelessly. In the 1960s, he translated Yukio Mishima’s The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea and Kenzaburo Oe’s A Personal Matter, and regularly spent time with both authors. In the 1970s, he made three documentary films in Japan (Full Moon Lunch is currently on YouTube; I couldn’t track down The Blind Swordsman or Farm Song). He also recounts his later struggles in Hollywood, and elsewhere.

A dry, wry humor runs throughout. Whether he’s lamenting salaries and royalties, describing the quirks of well-known artists, or recounting episodes involving his two families, there’s a consistent lightness of touch.

I especially enjoyed his anecdotes and small details about Mishima and Oe.

"Mishima had no sense of rhythm; his dancing looked like death throes."

And his recollections of nights out in his younger days:

"...[they] kept your highball glass full without waiting to be asked, a Japanese custom that made moderation impossible, like drinking from a magically replenishing glass."

There are also moments of regret and self-reproach:

"Striving, and failing, to feel superior, I tumble into despair about myself, which blinds me to what I have achieved and prevents me from finding any pleasure in it."

The blend of humor and introspection, and the balance between inward reflection and outward observation, generally works well. Some sections did drag. The thirty or so pages devoted to his work making TV commercials for AT&T and other companies, for example, felt overly long. Still, it’s an engaging read, filled with appearances by well-known figures in Japan and beyond, including Donald Richie, Donald Keene, Peter Coyote, Akira Kurosawa, John Updike, Shintaro the “crude, misogynist scoundrel” Katsu, Saul Bellow, Robert Duvall, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Michelangelo Antonioni, Shintaro Ishihara, and even New Kids on the Block.

Shelved between Ian Buruma’s A Tokyo Romance (2018) and Robert Whiting’s Tokyo Junkie (2021).