Damian Flanagan - The Japan Times

LIFE / Travel

Sep 24, 2016

Shizuoka: Where writers go to hide from the world

Ask a Japanese person which part of Japan they most associate with writer Lafcadio Hearn and they are likely to instantly respond: Matsue, a seaside town in Shimane Prefecture.

CULTURE / Books

Aug 13, 2016

Writing Technology in Meiji Japan

The industrial and social revolution that Japan underwent in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) was accompanied by an equally tumultuous revolution in the Japanese language. It's perhaps hard to fathom today that throughout the latter half of the 19th century, an almost unbridgeable gulf existed between written and spoken Japanese.

CULTURE / Books

Jul 30, 2016

Bushido: Soseki, 'Star Wars' and the samurai

In September 1912, Gen. Maresuke Nogi — a hero of the Russo-Japanese War — committed ritual suicide. His sensational death took place on the day of Emperor Meiji's funeral, making it an act of junshi (following one's lord in death) and a high-water mark for the samurai code in the modern era.

CULTURE / Books

Jul 30, 2016

'Inventing the Way of the Samurai': Debunking the myths surrounding Bushido

Oleg Benesch's "Inventing the way of the Samurai" is a seminal, scrupulously researched work that teems with ideas. Its content is profoundly relevant to current political developments in Japan, as questions about the Constitution and the nation's identity come to the fore.

LIFE / Travel

Jul 23, 2016

Wandering the 'real Japan': Following the far-north footsteps of Alan Booth

Renowned travel writer Bruce Chatwin believed passionately in the importance of walking in the wild. The problems of humanity, he contended, were borne out of people being settled and static.

CULTURE / Books

Jul 23, 2016

Bushido: The samurai code goes to war

In a scene from the 1957 film "The Bridge on the River Kwai," a haughty British Col. in a prisoner-of-war camp confronts the camp's Japanese commandant. Citing the Geneva Convention as justification, he argues that his officers should not be forced into manual labor, which makes the commandant furious — he declares that he does not abide by Western laws; he adheres only to "Bushido," the samurai code.

CULTURE / Books

Jul 23, 2016

'The Maid': A mind reader probes the intimate thoughts of her employers

In Japan, true feelings (known as honne) are often hidden behind the mask of a false front (tatemae). So the comic potential of a mind-reading maid working in private family homes — encountering sexual frustrations, jealousy and the mutual resentment of parents and their children — sounds rich indeed.

CULTURE / Books

Jul 16, 2016

Bushido: The awakening of Japan's modern identity

Opinions are divided when it comes to Japan's current Constitution, issued during the U.S. Occupation of 1945 -52: Is it an American imposition that unfairly refuses to recognize the nation as a "normal country" or a precious war-renouncing document that reflects Japan's unique status as the only country to have experienced the horrors of a nuclear bomb?

CULTURE / Books

Jun 18, 2016

Why are Japanese women still bewitched by the Brontes?

Some years ago a sassy Osaka lady asked me to introduce her to the pleasures of Western literature. I duly handed her a variety of classic books, including "The Turn of the Screw," "Heart of Darkness," "Lolita" and "A Study in Scarlet." They were all methodically if unenthusiastically read, but when I presented her with a copy of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre," she devoured the book, raved about it, rereading it again and again.

CULTURE / Books

May 14, 2016

'Spectacular Accumulation' explains three warlords' obsession with objects

In "Spectacular Accumulation" Morgan Pitelka relates the thrilling interactions between three "unifiers" of Japan in the tumultuous decades of the late 16th century and early 17th century. This trio of warlords includes the bloodthirsty Oda Nobunaga, the vainglorious Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu who triumphed at the blood-soaked 1615 siege of Osaka Castle.

CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES

Apr 30, 2016

'Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories' is feminist fiction at its most disturbing

"Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories" is a superb collection of short stories written in the 1960s by one of the most significant feminist writers of postwar Japan.

CULTURE / Books

Apr 23, 2016

In search of Japan's own Shakespeare

April 23 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the greatest dramatist of the English speaking world. The anniversary has a particular resonance here: Few countries in the world have embraced Shakespeare with Japan's sustained passion.

CULTURE / Books

Mar 5, 2016

Ryu Murakami turns on another light in Tokyo's lurid basement

This collection of short stories arrived with a warning from the publisher: "Graphic sexual content." Perhaps it was worried that reviewers would blush to the tips of their toes upon reading it. However, anyone who has encountered Murakami's excruciating 1992 sadomasochistic film "Topazu" ("Tokyo Decadence") — depicting the comings and goings of call girls and their depraved businessmen clients in suites of Tokyo's Hotel New Otani — might fear for another yawn-inducing marathon of kinky sex.

CULTURE / Books

Jan 30, 2016

The Whale That Fell in Love with a Submarine

Akiyuki Nosaka (1930-2015), was a man of many parts, variously a singer, lyricist, comedian and politician as well as a novelist and short story writer. His diverse successes in later life however betrayed an extraordinarily traumatic youth that saw his mother die soon after birth, his adoptive father killed in a wartime air raid and a sister starve to death in an evacuation camp.

CULTURE / Books

Jan 23, 2016

Insect Literature

The Berlin-based author Yoko Tawada recently remarked that one of the difficulties she faced when translating Kafka's short story "Metamorphosis" into Japanese was that the associations Japanese people had with insects — even presumably giant beetles — were different to those of Europeans. Tawada was alluding to the idea that Japanese appreciation of insects is one marker of Japanese cultural uniqueness.

CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES

Jan 16, 2016

Lost Japan

Originally published in Japanese in 1993 (with the English translation following in 1996), "Lost Japan," the first book by Alex Kerr, has recently been re-released by Penguin. A fascinating chronicle of Kerr's diverse interactions with the country, the book spans such subjects as restoring a traditional Japanese house in the Iya Valley in Shikoku to collecting Japanese antiques often found languishing unloved in the kura (storehouses) of family homes.

CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES

Jan 2, 2016

A Fantastic Journey: The Life and Literature of Lafcadio Hearn

Paul Murray, biographer of both Lafcadio Hearn and his close contemporary Bram Stoker, has combined working as a writer with a distinguished career in the Irish Foreign Service, including a stint in Tokyo in the 1970s before eventually becoming Irish ambassador to South Korea.

CULTURE / Books

Dec 26, 2015

Flipping back through the good reads of 2015

Before we turn the page on the year, here's a selection of our reviewers' favorite books.

CULTURE / Books

Dec 26, 2015

Partners in Print: Artistic Collaboration and the Ukiyo-e Market

The purported thesis of this book — that the art of publishing is a collaborative process involving the cooperation of writer, illustrator, patron, publisher and (shock) even consumer — seems obvious. Yet the four academic essays on ukiyo-e art contained within are both stimulating and beautifully illustrated.

CULTURE

Nov 21, 2015

Yukio Mishima's enduring, unexpected influence

Forty-five years ago this week — at just after 10 a.m. on the bright, cold morning of Nov. 25, 1970 — a telephone rang at the Tokyo home of popular enka singer Hideo Murata. On the line was author Yukio Mishima, a man who in the short space of his 45 years had lived life more fully than perhaps seemed possible for one human being.

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