The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 [Paperback]

Donald Richie (Author), Leza Lowitz (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2005

“Richie should be designated a living national treasure.”—Library Journal

"Wonderfully evocative and full of humor... honest, introspective, and often poignant."—New York Times

"No one has written with more concentration about the peculiar quality of exile enjoyed by the gaijin, the foreigner in Japan."—London Review of Books

"To read [The Donald Richie Reader and The Japan Journals] is like diving for pearls. Dip into any part of them and you will surely find treasures about the cinema, literature, traveling, writing. The passages are evocative, erotic, playful, and often profound."—Japanese Language and Literature

Donald Richie has been observing and writing about Japan from the moment he arrived on New Year’s Eve, 1946. Detailing his life, his lovers, and his ideas on matters high and low, The Japan Journals is a record of both a nation and an evolving expatriate sensibility. As Japan modernizes and as the author ages, the tone grows elegiac, and The Japan Journals—now in paperback after the critically acclaimed hardcover edition—becomes a bittersweet chronicle of a complicated life well lived and captivatingly told.

Donald Richie, the eminent film historian, novelist, and essayist, still lives in Tokyo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Since moving to Japan in 1947, Richie has written hundreds of books, directed several films and befriended dozens of Japanese celebrities, including composer Taru Takemitsu, novelist-icon Yukio Mishima and filmmaker Akira Kurasawa. Richie has also been the point of contact for non-Japanese artists such as Francis Ford Coppola, Truman Capote and Igor Stravinsky. But what will interest most readers are not so much Richie’s erudite observations on Japanese cultural life as his rather saucy descriptions of his experiences in the country. A self-confessed "sexaholic," Richie declares that he’s slept with "thousands" of people, and sex and sexual relationships are themes that dominate the journals. Richie does give some sense of how Japan has changed in the 50-odd years that he has lived there, but this perspective is constrained because Richie’s context rarely transcends his immediate surroundings. As such, the entries sometimes read like a series of cryptic pieces. There are moments where Richie shines, such as when he describes his divorce and his experiences with Mishima. His views on the intersections of xenophobia, racism "and all the rest" are both poignant and disturbing. For example, after being solicited by a couple of schoolgirls, Ritchie wonders how anyone could think prostitution is wrong, except "if the person does not want to sell, well maybe." But the journals live up to his reputation as a charming wit, and if the erratic narrative sometimes seems surreal, enough bits and pieces come together to inform readers of the Japan Richie experienced as an American insider. 75 b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Donald Richie has been writing about Japan for over 50 years from his base in Tokyo and is the author of over 40 books and hundreds of essays and reviews. He is widely admired for his incisive film studies on Ozu and Kurosawa, and for his stylish and incisive observations on Japanese culture. Leza Lowitz is an award-winning writer and translator, and Director of Sun and Moon Yoga Studio in Tokyo.

Product Details

• Paperback: 510 pages
• Publisher: Stone Bridge Press (September 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880656973
• ISBN-13: 978-1880656976
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #880,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Long View - of Japan, and of Life., June 16, 2005

By 

Philip Suh "filsa" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 (Hardcover)

Donald Richie is someone who always floated on the periphery of my awareness. When I went to Japan for the first time, my first feelings and observations were already captured in Richie's writings 40 years before. He recorded for the first time what we all fell for the first time. He was Gaijin Prime, the one who came, and stayed, and made a life.

Leafing through this book, and encountering Richie's acquaintances a couple hundred pages apart, as he experienced them a few decades apart, you get the benefit of this long view, the way experiences echo back and forth across the years. The value of writing down things you want to remember becomes oh so clear. Richie has had an extraordinarily rich life, but perhaps that is because he has taken time to pen his thoughts. He had a remarkable range of acquaintances, and the book is filled with mundane glimpses into the lives of fame and accomplishment. But more than those glimpses of celebrity, I love Richie's eye for the changes and subtleties of daily life: the homeless, the protitutes, the policemen in the park, and the rude youth on their cell phones.

Perhaps we all enjoy similar riches, and would know it, if we stopped to capture them.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars humble and honest obervation of life, April 6, 2007

By 

D. Takeuchi (St. Cloud, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 (Paperback)

I have only known Donal Richie as a film scholar having admired his commentaries on Bresson and Ozu DVDs. Naturally, I bacame interested in the man himself who continues to live in Japan. In this journal, he meets such notables as Kawabata, Kurosawa, Takemitsu, but what is more interesting is his interaction and friendship with regular people. Mr. Richie goes to a park in Tokyo (his usual hang out) and talks to a homeless, gives him his hamburger. He also befriends local prostitutes while he is also a guest of honor at emperors's palace. What is unique about this journal is that he tells as it is. Unlike some autobiography, Mr. Richie does not try to convince readers, does not explain, does not try to defend his actions, or does not offer advice. He simply dscribes his observation both his own personal life and what he sees and happens to him living in Japan as it moves from war destruction to economic bubble, and to decay.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative, fascinating, and moving, October 31, 2006

By 

David Bonesteel (Fresno, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 (Paperback)

Writer Donald Ritchie, an expert on Japanese film and a keen observer of that interesting country, has distilled nearly sixty years of life as an expatriate into these fascinating journals. Ritchie emerges as a deep thinker and lover of high culture who derives equal satisfaction from indulging his "taste for the mud" (it sounds much more poetic in French), which takes him to sex clubs, prostitutes, and other similarly disreputable places for which he holds a healthy admiration. His endless curiosity about matters and people both high and low is a strong point of this book, providing a well-rounded portrait of both a society and a man's life.

I enjoyed seeing Japan through Ritchie's eyes from his first days in the country during the American occupation up through the years of reconstruction, the boom years of the 80s, and the bursting of the bubble. He notes the many changes in the people and is quite honest about his own feelings concerning his privileged position as a foreigner, never fully accepted but also not subject to the same severe social strictures to which Japanese hold each other. Among the many highlights of this fine book are the long train trip across the country that Ritchie takes during the days of the occupation, his friendship with Yukio Mishima as well as many other distinguished people, and his closely observed opinions on the evolution of Japan's stance toward the foreigner. A fine read, particularly recommended to those with an interest in Japan.