Richie has made a career writing about Japan, and this is without doubt a masterful travel book filled with germaine research. But it is also a 70's recreation of a trip the author had taken as a younger man.

Since years had passed between the actual travel and the book writing, Richie brings a great deal of his reflections on Japan overall.

Richie is a sensualist and is unabashedly honest about his humanity. He has an affair and finds himself falling into lust for an island girl. But his frankness is redemptive - he's probably telling the story that many authors would skirt around.

And whatever shortcomings the author may have in his life, he makes up for them with his compassion. He visits a leper colony and has empathy for a girl who has been cured but can never return to Japanese society.

The writing, like the photography, is impressionistic. Sometimes Richie will go into a ponderous tangent - such as the time he spends a couple pages talking about the beauty of Japanese skin -but the result overall is moving and somehow heartening.

And unlike the deluded Japan travel book (the Lady and the Monk) by the author of this book's introduction, this book seems real.

In fact, the cover of the original text from the 70s was the following text spread diagonally across the cover: "An intimate view of the "real" Japan by Donald Richie who reflects upon the total Japan experience while sailing the inland sea."

That's the best description possible of this worthwhile book.

10 of 11 found the following review helpful:


Beautiful and Real Description of Japan  May 03, 2004 By Jerry Sanchez
One of the great values of this book is that it was written at the beginning of the 1970s, and thus shows a rural Japan even less influenced by the west than now. Richie travels from island to island within the Inland Sea of Japan. His insights and comments on the country are intriguing and entertaining. The reader is able to view this truly remarkable region of Japan through the eyes of a foreigner. Richie's language ability in Japanese allows him to become one with the Japanese in conversation (or at least as much as is possible for a foreigner in Japan to become one with the people), and his English writing ability keeps the reader full of emotions - from laughing to feeling lonely, to (perhaps for some) lusting after Japanese schoolgirls. This book really is beautifully written, once the reader gets used to Richie's sometimes abrupt style. This book is different from other travelougues about Japan because the author is not afraid to be honest with his feelings towards the country (though Alan Booth's works are worth reading). Anyone interested in the Japan of today or yesterday should read this book, because life in the Inland Sea is and was definitely distinct (if not better in many ways) from life in Tokyo or Osaka, today or yesterday.

9 of 10 found the following review helpful:


Brilliant Travelogue Capturing a Picture of a Departed Japan  Jan 01, 2005 By A. Silverstone
Without a doubt, Donald Richie is the foremost Western interpreter of Japanese culture and society. In this reprinting, updated with an afterword, of Richie's travel around the Inland Sea more than 30 years ago, he has captured a world that was then disappearing and now almost gone. This reviewer is, admittedly, not a huge fan of travelogues. However, Richie's prose flows beautifully. The reader is able to see through his eyes and experience the isolated islands of the Inland Sea. Although there are some photographs, one does yearn for more. The map of Richie's journey is printed across 2 pages, and there is a bit lost in the middle. Nevertheless, these are minor problems. This book provides a glimpse and an insight to a part of Japan that was rarely viewed by Western eyes and it is almost too late to see the remnants.

11 of 13 found the following review helpful:


A 10 star book but...  Aug 25, 2006 By Willie D
I really could not praise this book enough. It is one of my favorite books of all time and a truly astounding piece of "travel writing". However, this edition is a bit wanting.

The new afterward is very good but a bit sobering, confirming that, yes, to a large extent the place you have just read about is now dead as the dodo, all too effectively ending your "fever dream". Also, the new pictures are junk. They look as though they came from a Lonely Planet guide, whilst the original edition had beautiful, mysterious, haunting, high contrast photos that came across more like paintings.

Most puzzling is the page layout which consists of 2 columns per page, like a magazine article. Why? So it looks like something from "Outside" or GQ? Needless to say I preferred the musty tome from the library that read like some brilliant forgotten diary.

4 of 4 found the following review helpful:


Donald Richie is one of the best Japan Travelogue writer  Sep 22, 2007 By Ryan M. Parr "Estranged Erudite"
Donald Richie wrote a journal in 1962 which formed the ground work for everything in the book. In the 9 years until he decided to publish his journal/book, he reprised the journal with additional insertions, in which he sometimes took pieces of his experiences within Japan, that although they did not occur in the Inland Sea of Japan and during the time the journal was written, he nevertheless recognized them as very much a part of what he considers to represent Japan before modernization. Although it is unknown what exactly didn't occur within Japan's Inland Sea, it is undeniable that the book is a masterpiece of a travelogue that very much captures the essence of everything he specifically mentions. He may well have written the journal with the expectation of it being published eventually, once he was ready.

In many ways it is hard to think of it as a travelogue due to the fact that Donald Richie has already experienced half of his life within Japan, and what appears to be an individual reflecting much of his personal life into the narration. It comes across more as an journal written by an individual whom by this point into the published version has become established within Japanese culture and integrated his life within Japan, and is so able to absorb himself into his encounter, that a deeper visual presence of this world and his psyche emerges integrated into this work, that not even a well developed visual experience within cinema could do it justice.

Donald Richie has written many books on Japanese Cinema, namely Kurosawa and Ozu. His visual thinking style is very evident in this book, and I must mention he has a gift for visualization. Compared to Alan Booth, he appears to be far better at writing, and is a far more reflective an individual. Able to decipher the meaning to things, he doesn't simply note down the illogical peculiarities of the individuals he encounters. A note of warning though is that Richie has some definite vices, namely he acts upon sexual gratification with young women, and almost gets taken away with a high-school girl. He doesn't do anything illegal in the story (at least, not that I'm totally familiar with, given the time and place, and nothing with which you couldn't do, and get away with, in the US.) Although he does so during a marriage, and his actions would well be chastised by many readers, he is who he is. The end notes of his book (in the first edition, published 1971) do tell the reader of his decision to keep much of the journal writings intact without any changes made to the events. By doing so, some may find his encounters reason enough to steer clear of the book; however I must let you know you will be missing out on a very memorable experience.

The man is a brilliant writer, and one you will not find too common-place. It is also an incredibly rare experience, even more so that time has passed since then. Not to mention, the book does not come across as a book written from memory, as the writing takes a very concerted effort to engage the reader as though the reader were Donald Richie, living scene by scene in real-time. And more importantly is that the book is even better with some of the hilarious aspects of his adventure, and is much more believable with accuracy than Alan Booth. Not to mention, is Donald Richies noticeable appreciation for the Japanese people, despite clear impression to avert from some of the fine nuances that are presented in their culture, and which one might believe that he is seeking to escape his own cultural background, as if a vagabond in search of his soul. In this way he seems to have a sad and endearing appreciation for something that doesn't entirely isolate itself to Japan, although in many ways unique to it. In part because he gets caught into the moment of his experience, he sometimes steps back and picks at nuances, sometimes disrespectfully callow; though this is rare for him in this instance. Read it and maybe what I said will make sense, as I didn't write this too well.

RMP

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