On the premise that speed blunts the mind, New Zealander Bruce Roscoe decided to make his journey on foot, following a route across the waist of Japan, from the port city of Niigata to Yokohama. By walking, he would discover that "Time isn't lost but found."
Where the late Alan Booth's "Japan walks," collected in "Looking for the Lost," describe the writer's disillusionment at the sight of beauty and quintessence evaporating into industrial ether, Roscoe's inquiries, though not uncritical, generally conclude with a resigned, even grudging acceptance of the way things are.
Many of the towns and rural areas he passes through are little short of blighted. Roscoe discovers a country where "subordination, not coexistence" with nature is the depressing norm. Approaching the city of Takasaki, he comes across the base of a stream, "concreted and strewn with rubbish — plastic drink bottles, vinyl bags — and a white cat lay dead on the footpath. Old futons, tins, and household waste smothered a house at roadside. Other garbage half-buried a car." Crossing a bridge north of Kogetsu, he admonishes that "it's best not to look underneath." Roscoe may not offer much to the prospective tourist, but a great deal for those interested in a journey of inquiry.