Customer Reviews

Angry White Pyjamas

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An interesting story to be sure, but the author is often condescending about Japanese culture in areas where he completely misunderstands it. As I moved through the book I got increasingly frustrated with his characterizations of the Japanese people and the motivations for their actions. If you can get over Twigger's need to feel superior to the Japanese and a healthy smattering of details that he clearly made up to fill in the story (Japanese people calling someone who kisses to much Kissama doesn't make sense given Japanese pronunciation), I suppose the book is ok. It moves along fairly well, though the narrative is a bit choppy at times. I couldn't get over the skewed portrayal of Japan and that ruined the book for me.

I thought this was an interesting enough book, I finished it quickly, but I found the story a bit confusing. The names of the different students muddled together as I read it. By the end I was left with a bit of a 'so what' feeling. So, the author went through some stupidly harsh training in an organization that seemed rather sad. OK. So what? What did he get out of it? What did he learn?

His description of the Aikido organization he was involved with was pretty sad too. All the senior teachers sounded rather pathetic. Like (pathologically sadistic) businessmen putting in time until retirement. As someone with an interest in Aikido, it kind of turned me off the whole thing.

I think a bit less reporting and a bit more introspection, as well as a more careful control of the narrative to avoid confusion in the reader, would have made it a better book. It's a bit dated now too, being from the mid 90's.

I can't speak for Twigger's references to Japanese culture, but this is a really interesting book about some extremely tough aikido training and his life while going through the training. I recommend it for all aikido students in particular.