I was baffled to read some of the criticisms readers at Amazon gave this book. I found the accusations that Iyer is condescending to be the most perplexing. I've read lots of travel writing, and have found that many travel writers spend most of their time analyzing their chosen destination with a God-like impersonal analysis of the place's foibles that certainly does often come across as arrogant or ignorant.

What struck me about this book was how much Iyer does *not* do this. He certainly spends a lot of time analyzing and trying to figure out both Japan and the people he encounters there, but he is no more critical of others than he is of himself, no more critical of Japan than of his own culture(s). He does not watch from a distance, but participates in what he writes about, from interacting with 'The Lady' to dipping his foot into the waters of a monk's life, and exposes his own floundering. He criticizes not only that which he participates in, but also his own foibles and inability to realize the rigor and discipline of Zen, his own inability to understand Sachiko and give her what she needs and wants.

I came away from the book seeing Sachiko *not* as someone who is helpless or hapless, but rather, as someone who, like all of us, struggles between dreams and duties. Yet unlike most of us, Sachiko taps into a well of deep inner strength and vision and breaks through the restrictions of her cultural conditioning to realize her dreams. I thought Sachiko came across as much stronger, with more grace and understanding, than Iyer, who often is reduced to clumsy assurances as he tries to fathom her rich inner world. Yet this is not to say that Iyer comes across poorly, but rather that he comes across as an honest and likable narrator unafraid to expose the personal hues and struggles of his journey.

The analysis of Japan and the people he meets in which Pico engages is a usual feature of travel writing, and as always, his analysis may or may not be accurate. But unlike many travel writers, he exposes his own biases and inaccurate perceptions often by comparing his idealized visions of Japan to the idealized visions of others about other cultures. He clearly shows how his preferences shape his experience, instead of presenting snippets of literature or cultural observation as if they were gleaned from an impersonal textbook about Japan. This is a very personal experience, and I find Pico to be a very warm, likable, and human narrator, whose personal sense of magic and wonder fills this book and transports the reader.

26 of 29 found the following review helpful:


An Englishman's exploration of what it is to be Japanese  Sep 21, 2002 By Linda Linguvic
Subtitled "Four Seasons in Kyoto", this 1992 book by the British travel writer, Pico Iyer, is more than just a book about a place. Mr. Iyer spent a year in Kyoto to learn about Zen as well as Japan. Along the way he met a very special woman, Sachiko, and learned more about the essence of being Japanese than he ever expected. I was particularly interested in this book because I have a wonderful Japanese daughter-in-law and have been to Japan myself. I remember the few days we spent in Kyoto with fond recollections and smiled at the author's vivid descriptions. I also found myself nodding in agreement at some of the discoveries he made about Sachiko and her way of thinking as I, too, have had my eyes opened in similar ways.

Mr. Iyer has the ability to paint a complex portrait in words. I found myself sharing his discoveries, from his experiences in the temples to the very modern music clubs. The center of the book, however, is Sachiko. She's 30 years old, the mother of two children and married to a Japanese businessman who spends 18 or more hours a day at work. She speaks English with difficulty but has read a lot of classic literature and is also an aficionado of a wide variety of pop music icons. In spite of her traditional upbringing, she yearns for a larger life, beyond the confines of her home.

Mr. Iyer becomes her friend and they do a lot of sightseeing together. She's free all day and so is he, which makes their friendship easy. Some of the most interesting scenes are when he tries to speak Japanese and she tries to speak English and misunderstandings follow, both because of the language itself and also because of different ways of thinking.

I'm a romantic and fully expected their relationship to blossom into an intimate one, but Mr. Iyer is so evasive that even though they do become very close, he avoids those kinds of topics. Instead, he focuses on what he perceives to be her feelings and his growing understanding of her. It seems a little strange to me that only in the later part of the book did he drop a gentle hint that their relationship was a bit more than that of just friends. But even then, I never was sure.

This is a great travelogue. I not only learned a lot but also recognized things I have come to understand about the Japanese character. There are long sections about literature, both Japanese and Western, which I found to be boring. And the relationship between Iyer and Sachiko left me annoyed. But for a unique picture of Kyoto and a deeper understanding of the cross-cultural differences between Japanese and Westerners, I do give it a definite recommendation.

15 of 16 found the following review helpful:


Gender wars!  Jul 16, 2004 By Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer"
The title of this book is a bit misleading. Yes, Pico Iyer does live in a monastery for a few days but his main emphasis is an exploration of Kyoto, one of the holiest cities in Japan.

The title comes from a Buddhist story about a beautiful woman who tempted a monk, much as Buddha was tempted by an evil god as he sat under the Bodhi tree searching for enlightenment.

Pico is an essayist for Time magazine and he is far more interested in the somewhat schizophrenic nature of the Japanese people than he is in Buddhism. His main subject is a housewife named Sachiko who is married to a Japanese "salary man," who works from six in the morning until eleven at night. His family life is an afterthought. Sachiko loves everything foreign from the Beatles to Mickey Mouse. She calls Pico a "bird" because he is free to wander all over the globe while she is a slave to her husband and two young children.

According to Iyer, Japan is close to a utopian society and Kyoto is the cleanest city he's ever seen. Sachiko is a fascinating character. When she introduces Pico to her children she apologizes for their misbehavior although they are much more well-behaved than western children Pico has known.

Pico and Sachiko's relationship is perplexing at first. She hints that she might want something more than a platonic relationship. He's wise enough to know that it's the dream of a romance, the romance she's seen in the movies, that she's after.

There are some wonderful moments in THE LADY AND THE MONK: Sachiko's mangled English with the occasional Japanese word thrown in and the lack of articles; Iyer's description of cherry blossom time; the albino monk Pico meets when he stays at the temple; the Hanchu Tigers last game of the year when Randy Bass, their American homerun hitter, bows to the fans fifteen times. The fans are just as enthusiastic as they would be if this were a World Series team and not a team thirty-some games out of first.

The main emphasis of the book, though, is Sachiko's story arc; we see her beginning to grow away from her salaryman husband, we see her trying to make her dreams become a reality, despite the censure of her mother and friends. We get the impression that the more Japanese women are exposed to the West the more Sachikos there will be.

12 of 13 found the following review helpful:


The Lady and the Foreigner: 2 Reactions  Jul 08, 2009 By M. Feldman
I have two responses to this well-written travel narrative. First, I greatly enjoyed Iyer's observations and thoughts about contemporary Japan. Even though the book was published in 1991, much of it still seems accurate to me, someone who has traveled to Japan three times. Iyer, is a very good travel writer, one who is neither acerbic in the manner of, say, Paul Theroux, nor prone to the gauzy romanticism one sometimes encounters in western responses to Japan (like Cathy Davidson's "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji"). He is alert to subtleties of culture and behavior that most travelers would never notice. So that's what I liked about "The Lady and the Monk."

On the other hand, the account of his relationship with Sachiko, the Japanese woman who longs to break free from her constrained life by cultivating relationships with foreigners, does not wear as well over the almost two decades that divide his experiences from the present. It seems dated and (since it is interwoven throughout the text) ultimately a little tiresome. Iyer's decision to render Sachiko's awkward English as he heard it (as opposed to conveying what she was saying in standard English) works at first, but eventually has the effect of making her seem much less thoughtful than she probably was. Iyer's graceful prose and Sachiko's stumbles as she tries to express herself in English are set side by side, even though he probably, to her ear, sounded even worse in Japanese. This flaw makes it hard to see their relationship as one of equals; there is a teacher-student quality to their conversations that becomes irksome. (I think it is this rendering of language inequality that makes some readers see Iyer as condescending, even though I don't think he means to be.) Do read this book for its many good parts, which almost make up for too much Sachiko.

14 of 16 found the following review helpful:


Beautiful but aggravating  Mar 25, 2008 By AHE
There is no doubt that Pico Iyer is a masterful writer: his descriptions of Kyoto and Japan are breathtakingly gorgeous. He does have a tendency to ramble at times, but the passages that are good are worth slogging through the ones that drag.

However, there are parts of this book that do not seem plausible. Never once does he get frustrated by the language barrier or long for a cheeseburger. (I lived in Japan for three years and can attest its only natural to feel homesick or lonely.) He spends his year in Japan in perfect harmony with everything around him, has no troubles with the shabby guesthouse he lives in or the woman that (he admits) uses him to fulfill her warped idea of romance. He is guilty of his own criticism of how the Japanese seem so innocent, so willing to look at the bright side all of the time.

Furthermore his relationship with "Sachiko" seems almost unbelievable. (PS - why does he even bother to change the name when he dedicated the book to Hiroko on the first page?) How does this Eton, Oxford, and Harvard-educated world traveller (who loves dropping names about all the great authors he reads) manage to fall in love with a woman who hardly speaks his language and who's never been outside of Kyoto? He goes on and on about all the deep conversations they had, when really I don't see how it's possible. He paints Sachiko like the kind of girl people go to Japan for all the time: always agreeing, never arguing, always dressing up and buying presents. He looks down on all the guys who come to Japan to find a girl and yet never admits he did the same thing. Furthermore, their relationship is so painfully selfish and childish that I can't help but hate the guy at times; he talks about his "great" romance but never discusses the subsequent divorce, financial difficulty, toll on the children, etc. As far as I remember, he only played with the kids a handful of times, instead stealing away with his "lady" at all hours of the night. I'm asking myself the whole time I read this book, "Who's watching the children?!" I'm sure these two love each other and all (as they are still living together. Are they married?) but I just think his recollection of their relationship is a bit too melodramatic, too "magical" to be believed. It's too innocent, too, by Iyer's definition, "Japanese".

As a work of fiction this book is stunning, but as a memoir, I feel it's a bit too farfetched. But regardless his prose really is a work of art.

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