Review: Lost Japan, by Alex Kerr
4/5 stars
The author is one of those irritatingly lucky people who stumbles through life being in the right place at the right time, meeting the right people. Deep envy.
Some small oddnesses and cultural misunderstandings, though – such as a passage describing the interpretation of a painted scene. He reads the image from left to right (making it about the moment before glory) rather than right to left, as Japanese people would read it (making it about the transient nature of life and success, a much more Japanese concept). Small things like that make me wonder whether, despite the author’s long years living in Japan, and his close familiarity with many aspects of its culture and history, he really does understand the place.
But then, as he says, that’s the beauty of Japan – it can’t really be explained in words, it mostly has to be experienced. And, to be fair, he has a good stab of explaining it.
The book itself is an engaging overview of the crisis of cultural identity Japan’s still going through, though mostly from the boom years of the 60s to 80s. Makes a lot of the oddness of modern Japan make a lot more sense than most other books I’ve read on the place, and so well worth a read for anyone interested in trying to understand the place.