The Japan Journals: 1947-2004

by Donald Richie

Book Overview

"Richie should be designated a living national treasure."-- Library Journal "Wonderfully evocative and full of humor... honest, introspective, and often poignant."-- New York Times "No one has written... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1880656914
• ISBN13: 9781880656914
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
• Length: 494 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

humble and honest obervation of life

I have only known Donal Richie as a film scholar having admired his commentaries on Bresson and Ozu DVDs. Naturally, I bacame interested in the man himself who continues to live in Japan. In this journal, he meets such notables as Kawabata, Kurosawa, Takemitsu, but what is more interesting is his interaction and friendship with regular people. Mr. Richie goes to a park in Tokyo (his usual hang out) and talks to a homeless, gives him his hamburger. He also befriends local prostitutes while he is also a guest of honor at emperors's palace. What is unique about this journal is that he tells as it is. Unlike some autobiography, Mr. Richie does not try to convince readers, does not explain, does not try to defend his actions, or does not offer advice. He simply dscribes his observation both his own personal life and what he sees and happens to him living in Japan as it moves from war destruction to economic bubble, and to decay.

Informative, fascinating, and moving

Writer Donald Ritchie, an expert on Japanese film and a keen observer of that interesting country, has distilled nearly sixty years of life as an expatriate into these fascinating journals. Ritchie emerges as a deep thinker and lover of high culture who derives equal satisfaction from indulging his "taste for the mud" (it sounds much more poetic in French), which takes him to sex clubs, prostitutes, and other similarly disreputable places for which he holds a healthy admiration. His endless curiosity about matters and people both high and low is a strong point of this book, providing a well-rounded portrait of both a society and a man's life. I enjoyed seeing Japan through Ritchie's eyes from his first days in the country during the American occupation up through the years of reconstruction, the boom years of the 80s, and the bursting of the bubble. He notes the many changes in the people and is quite honest about his own feelings concerning his privileged position as a foreigner, never fully accepted but also not subject to the same severe social strictures to which Japanese hold each other. Among the many highlights of this fine book are the long train trip across the country that Ritchie takes during the days of the occupation, his friendship with Yukio Mishima as well as many other distinguished people, and his closely observed opinions on the evolution of Japan's stance toward the foreigner. A fine read, particularly recommended to those with an interest in Japan.

Eloquently written - striking reminder

Reviewed by Rhiannon Kelly Fionn for Reader Views (4/06) Who doesn't love the idea of reading someone's personal journal? When reading "The Japan Journals," it is important to keep in mind that is what you are doing. Although pulled together expertly by editor Leza Lowitz's commentary, choppy moments and wide gaps remain. It is a journal; they work that way. This fact does not, however, reduce the quality or readability of this brilliant title. Sure, this book can be taken as the history of a changing Japan during an integral fifty years. More, it should be taken as the history of a changing man who happens to live in Japan while history marches on. Deeply personal and eloquently written, Richie allows the reader to be escorted through his life as an expatriate, journalist, lover, and spectator. A life that includes brushes with fame, travel to wonder-filled locale, and honest observations on a society that was never fully his; he remains an American, despite the semblance of indoctrination. Through his words you will experience the tide of times in a world that has passed into the ether and as the author ends, "... look into the future which is already here." "The Japan Journals: 1947-2004" is a striking reminder that change is constant and our journey is what we make of it.

Record of a Foreign Gentleman or "Gaikokujin Monogatari"

Ah, Donald Richie, you certainly lived an interesting life. Fleeing your small-town prison, arriving during the war as an occupier, you found in Japan the freedom of an outsider, one for whom the usual rules of society do not apply, one where your appetites could be satisfied. Friend to the famous and infamous, there is a "Forrest Gump" quality to your life story. If there was some mover-and-shaker in the Japanese art world, then you where there. (Mishima Yukio, Kurosawa Akira, Susan Sontag, Ozu Yasojiro, Kawabata Yasunari, Francis Ford Coppola...these are but a few of Richie's extensive network of friends and acquaintances.) Familiar with both the high and low, you are equally at home in the brothels (often) and the Emperor's palace (once). Beginning in 1947, "Japan Journals" is Richie's intermittent diary of his life, thoughts and the events around him. It paints an effective portrait of war-torn and devastated Tokyo, of the rift between the occupying US forces and the local Japanese with whom they were forbidden to talk. Here, Richie discovered the things that were to be his passion and his life's work. Japanese film was the foundation of his career, beginning as a reviewer for the occupier's newspaper "The Pacific Stars and Stripes." From there, a journalist, chronicler and observer for the island nation of Japan. Richie's writing is reserved and intelligent, commanding an intimacy with the reader, bringing you in like a confidant. He is usually considered a writer on Japan, but he is really a writer on himself. He observes himself observing Japan, and this is the wisdom that he imparts. An admirer of diarist Andre Gide, his journals attempt to emulate his achievements and become a work of literature in and of themselves. It a marked contrast to Joseph Campbell's "Sake & Satori: Asian Journals, Japan" which is largely a collection of daily data, meals and such. Knowing that they were being written for publication, the "Japan Journals" have been self-edited and combed through, removing the chaff and leaving the wheat. Some of this has been collected into not-included appendixes, such as "The Persian Journals," "Excluded Pages" and the tantalizing "Vitas Sexualis." Yes, the much anticipated "naughty bits" have been almost fully removed, on the advice of a friend. However, these is enough of a glimmer to give you an idea of what he has been up to, in the late night Ueno Park. But like any good erotica, the forbidden nature of the "Vitas Sexualis" has one longing for its publication. Unfortunately, like many of his generation, such as Edward Seidensticker and Alex Kerr, Donald Richie does not like the changes that he has seen in Japan over the years, and the book ends on a bitter note. However, Richie alone acknowledges that this bitterness is of his own making, as his beloved third world country, full of innocence and naive, open sexuality, transformed into a first world country with accompanying cynicism and coldness. A

The Long View - of Japan, and of Life.

Donald Richie is someone who always floated on the periphery of my awareness. When I went to Japan for the first time, my first feelings and observations were already captured in Richie's writings 40 years before. He recorded for the first time what we all fell for the first time. He was Gaijin Prime, the one who came, and stayed, and made a life. Leafing through this book, and encountering Richie's acquaintances a couple hundred pages apart, as he experienced them a few decades apart, you get the benefit of this long view, the way experiences echo back and forth across the years. The value of writing down things you want to remember becomes oh so clear. Richie has had an extraordinarily rich life, but perhaps that is because he has taken time to pen his thoughts. He had a remarkable range of acquaintances, and the book is filled with mundane glimpses into the lives of fame and accomplishment. But more than those glimpses of celebrity, I love Richie's eye for the changes and subtleties of daily life: the homeless, the protitutes, the policemen in the park, and the rude youth on their cell phones. Perhaps we all enjoy similar riches, and would know it, if we stopped to capture them.