Tag - biographies

 
 

BIOGRAPHIES

Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 12, 2013
Capturing Olivier in his contradictory essence
Laurence Olivier was the greatest British actor of his time, primus inter pares of the trio who dominated our theater from the early 1930s to the 1980s. His superiority to his chief rivals, Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, resides in the role he played in the creation of the National Theatre and in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 28, 2013
Biography of Masaoka Shiki excels in the expanded details
Haiku, the short Japanese poem now proliferating overseas, scarcely needs an introduction anymore. Its three great pillars, widely read even in translation, are the poets Matsuo Basho (1641-1694), its first creator, then Yosa Buson (1716-1784) and Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), who renewed it.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 27, 2013
The violent, thuggish world of the young Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach is arguably the greatest of all composers, with the "St. Matthew Passion" and the "Mass in B Minor" among the most sublime masterpieces in classical music. But biographers over the past half century have "sanitised" his life, in the belief that only a saintly man could have written...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 7, 2013
The murky past of Pope Francis: Is he really so humble?
I don't remember hearing the name of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who became Pope Francis in March, or any of his fellow Argentinian Jesuits when I was in Buenos Aires in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. They seemed strangely silent in such harrowing times when the fundaments of decent civilization were being set...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2013
Masterful ode to Liverpool's Shankly
'Red Or Dead" is a masterpiece. David Peace already has a considerable reputation but this massive, painstaking account of the career of Bill Shankly towers above his previous work. It's usual when praising a sports novel for critics to claim that "it's not really about baseball/running/beach volleyball...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2013
Remarkable story of the independence, dedication of Isamu Noguchi's mother
Like many people, I like soft light and use lampshades of Japanese paper from the successful Akari series designed by the American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), certainly the artist's greatest influence on individual lives, especially at home. Some of his own upbringing is described in this book,...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 16, 2013
Historical biography captures the spirit of early feminist Japan
Time distorts, concealing the individual drops of humanity within the great tide of history. "Beauty in Disarray" attempts to reveal one such individual threatened to be lost in time, a woman named Noe Ito. In telling Ito's tragic story, biographer Harumi Setouchi (now known by her Buddhist name Jakucho)...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 12, 2013
Allowing Nijinsky's ballet to tell his life
How can we separate the dancer from the dance? Vaslav Nijinsky's art was a vanishing act, and his mystique depended on gestures that lasted only a second, like his leap through a window in "The Spectre of a Rose," or the slight but scandalous quivering of his thighs that mimed ejaculation when, performing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 5, 2013
Revealing the many masks of Mishima
This is a whale of a book — both unusually massive and extremely informative and stimulating. The title means "mask" in Latin and is probably an allusion to Yukio Mishima's first full-length novel, "Confessions of a Mask," published in Japan in 1949 and translated into English by Meredith Weatherby...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji