Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan [Hardcover]

Lafcadio Hearn (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Ams Pr; Reprint edition (June 1970)
• ISBN-10: 9999522319
• ISBN-13: 978-9999522311
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Japan through an old window., July 12, 2001

By 

B. M. Chapman "bnio" (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (Lafcadio Hearn Collection) (Paperback)

I must admit that this review is tainted with bias. I read this book after staying in Izumo and Matsue on a week long trip to visit a good friend. In Matsue, Lafcadio is probably the most honored celebrity to have ever resided in the city. Statues, posters, honorary names of places abound with his image. I toured the house he lived in and describes in the book, and I became curious about this man I knew only in name.

So a week later I bought this book. It is a collection of his writings from 1891 and his first days in Japan to when he left Matsue just a few years later. The stories range from his personal favorite of telling ghost stories and fables of old, to his traveling adventures, which usually involve temples and festivals. Some stories are really edifying (especially when I had been to places he described), but I must admit that many times my attention was stretched thin and I grew bored.

Many moments in the book are enlightening and offer a glimpse of Japan and offer insights into the culture, but now after spending over a year here, I have to admit that most of these insights are a part of the past. Most of what is written is no longer around. Maybe it is because@I spend my time in Tokyo, but I feel somehow disconnected to the tales of festivals and people that filled Lafcadio's life over a hundred years ago.

But that is to be expected I guess. The true complaint I have is that after a few temples and shrines, every place seems the same in its confusing description, and it gets, if not redundant, old. The use of the Japanese language will prove confusing for people who have not studied the language. Even I, who is still slowly but surely learning, was stopped occasionally at a word thrown here and there. Also Lafcadio really does have a love for Japan. Sometimes it is easy to see why. Yet even though he never brings himself to admit it, he will often defend Japan at the expense of all things western. (The most foreboding was where he praises the loyalty of the common Japanese for their Emperor and how wonderful it is. Something that just 50 years later would be exploited and manipulated to horrific degrees.)

This is what half of the book is like. Other times there will be captivating stories that transcend time and bias and are completely absorbing. Lafcadio's prose are fluid and natural and I must admit make me jealous that I lack any such writing skill. It is captivating for exactly what the title says. It offers a glimpse into Japan that frankly does not exist anymore, at least that I know of.