Customer Reviews

The Lady And The Monk - Four Seasons In Kyoto

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I bought this book used last summer and filed it away on a bookshelf, and finally picked it up two days ago. Even though these days, I read through most books slowly, I was sucked into Iyer's Kyoto world, and plowed through the book in two very enjoyable sessions.

I was baffled to read some of the criticisms readers at Amazon gave this book. I found the accusations that Iyer is condescending to be the most perplexing. I've read lots of travel writing, and have found that many travel writers spend most of their time analyzing their chosen destination with a God-like impersonal analysis of the place's foibles that certainly does often come across as arrogant or ignorant.

What struck me about this book was how much Iyer does *not* do this. He certainly spends a lot of time analyzing and trying to figure out both Japan and the people he encounters there, but he is no more critical of others than he is of himself, no more critical of Japan than of his own culture(s). He does not watch from a distance, but participates in what he writes about, from interacting with 'The Lady' to dipping his foot into the waters of a monk's life, and exposes his own floundering. He criticizes not only that which he participates in, but also his own foibles and inability to realize the rigor and discipline of Zen, his own inability to understand Sachiko and give her what she needs and wants.

I came away from the book seeing Sachiko *not* as someone who is helpless or hapless, but rather, as someone who, like all of us, struggles between dreams and duties. Yet unlike most of us, Sachiko taps into a well of deep inner strength and vision and breaks through the restrictions of her cultural conditioning to realize her dreams. I thought Sachiko came across as much stronger, with more grace and understanding, than Iyer, who often is reduced to clumsy assurances as he tries to fathom her rich inner world. Yet this is not to say that Iyer comes across poorly, but rather that he comes across as an honest and likable narrator unafraid to expose the personal hues and struggles of his journey.

The analysis of Japan and the people he meets in which Pico engages is a usual feature of travel writing, and as always, his analysis may or may not be accurate. But unlike many travel writers, he exposes his own biases and inaccurate perceptions often by comparing his idealized visions of Japan to the idealized visions of others about other cultures. He clearly shows how his preferences shape his experience, instead of presenting snippets of literature or cultural observation as if they were gleaned from an impersonal textbook about Japan. This is a very personal experience, and I find Pico to be a very warm, likable, and human narrator, whose personal sense of magic and wonder fills this book and transports the reader.

Subtitled "Four Seasons in Kyoto", this 1992 book by the British travel writer, Pico Iyer, is more than just a book about a place. Mr. Iyer spent a year in Kyoto to learn about Zen as well as Japan. Along the way he met a very special woman, Sachiko, and learned more about the essence of being Japanese than he ever expected. I was particularly interested in this book because I have a wonderful Japanese daughter-in-law and have been to Japan myself. I remember the few days we spent in Kyoto with fond recollections and smiled at the author's vivid descriptions. I also found myself nodding in agreement at some of the discoveries he made about Sachiko and her way of thinking as I, too, have had my eyes opened in similar ways.

Mr. Iyer has the ability to paint a complex portrait in words. I found myself sharing his discoveries, from his experiences in the temples to the very modern music clubs. The center of the book, however, is Sachiko. She's 30 years old, the mother of two children and married to a Japanese businessman who spends 18 or more hours a day at work. She speaks English with difficulty but has read a lot of classic literature and is also an aficionado of a wide variety of pop music icons. In spite of her traditional upbringing, she yearns for a larger life, beyond the confines of her home.

Mr. Iyer becomes her friend and they do a lot of sightseeing together. She's free all day and so is he, which makes their friendship easy. Some of the most interesting scenes are when he tries to speak Japanese and she tries to speak English and misunderstandings follow, both because of the language itself and also because of different ways of thinking.

I'm a romantic and fully expected their relationship to blossom into an intimate one, but Mr. Iyer is so evasive that even though they do become very close, he avoids those kinds of topics. Instead, he focuses on what he perceives to be her feelings and his growing understanding of her. It seems a little strange to me that only in the later part of the book did he drop a gentle hint that their relationship was a bit more than that of just friends. But even then, I never was sure.

This is a great travelogue. I not only learned a lot but also recognized things I have come to understand about the Japanese character. There are long sections about literature, both Japanese and Western, which I found to be boring. And the relationship between Iyer and Sachiko left me annoyed. But for a unique picture of Kyoto and a deeper understanding of the cross-cultural differences between Japanese and Westerners, I do give it a definite recommendation.

I have two responses to this well-written travel narrative. First, I greatly enjoyed Iyer's observations and thoughts about contemporary Japan. Even though the book was published in 1991, much of it still seems accurate to me, someone who has traveled to Japan three times. Iyer, is a very good travel writer, one who is neither acerbic in the manner of, say, Paul Theroux, nor prone to the gauzy romanticism one sometimes encounters in western responses to Japan (like Cathy Davidson's "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji"). He is alert to subtleties of culture and behavior that most travelers would never notice. So that's what I liked about "The Lady and the Monk."

On the other hand, the account of his relationship with Sachiko, the Japanese woman who longs to break free from her constrained life by cultivating relationships with foreigners, does not wear as well over the almost two decades that divide his experiences from the present. It seems dated and (since it is interwoven throughout the text) ultimately a little tiresome. Iyer's decision to render Sachiko's awkward English as he heard it (as opposed to conveying what she was saying in standard English) works at first, but eventually has the effect of making her seem much less thoughtful than she probably was. Iyer's graceful prose and Sachiko's stumbles as she tries to express herself in English are set side by side, even though he probably, to her ear, sounded even worse in Japanese. This flaw makes it hard to see their relationship as one of equals; there is a teacher-student quality to their conversations that becomes irksome. (I think it is this rendering of language inequality that makes some readers see Iyer as condescending, even though I don't think he means to be.) Do read this book for its many good parts, which almost make up for too much Sachiko.

There is no doubt that Pico Iyer is a masterful writer: his descriptions of Kyoto and Japan are breathtakingly gorgeous. He does have a tendency to ramble at times, but the passages that are good are worth slogging through the ones that drag.

However, there are parts of this book that do not seem plausible. Never once does he get frustrated by the language barrier or long for a cheeseburger. (I lived in Japan for three years and can attest its only natural to feel homesick or lonely.) He spends his year in Japan in perfect harmony with everything around him, has no troubles with the shabby guesthouse he lives in or the woman that (he admits) uses him to fulfill her warped idea of romance. He is guilty of his own criticism of how the Japanese seem so innocent, so willing to look at the bright side all of the time.

Furthermore his relationship with "Sachiko" seems almost unbelievable. (PS - why does he even bother to change the name when he dedicated the book to Hiroko on the first page?) How does this Eton, Oxford, and Harvard-educated world traveller (who loves dropping names about all the great authors he reads) manage to fall in love with a woman who hardly speaks his language and who's never been outside of Kyoto? He goes on and on about all the deep conversations they had, when really I don't see how it's possible. He paints Sachiko like the kind of girl people go to Japan for all the time: always agreeing, never arguing, always dressing up and buying presents. He looks down on all the guys who come to Japan to find a girl and yet never admits he did the same thing. Furthermore, their relationship is so painfully selfish and childish that I can't help but hate the guy at times; he talks about his "great" romance but never discusses the subsequent divorce, financial difficulty, toll on the children, etc. As far as I remember, he only played with the kids a handful of times, instead stealing away with his "lady" at all hours of the night. I'm asking myself the whole time I read this book, "Who's watching the children?!" I'm sure these two love each other and all (as they are still living together. Are they married?) but I just think his recollection of their relationship is a bit too melodramatic, too "magical" to be believed. It's too innocent, too, by Iyer's definition, "Japanese".

As a work of fiction this book is stunning, but as a memoir, I feel it's a bit too farfetched. But regardless his prose really is a work of art.

The title of this book is a bit misleading. Yes, Pico Iyer does live in a monastery for a few days but his main emphasis is an exploration of Kyoto, one of the holiest cities in Japan.

The title comes from a Buddhist story about a beautiful woman who tempted a monk, much as Buddha was tempted by an evil god as he sat under the Bodhi tree searching for enlightenment.

Pico is an essayist for Time magazine and he is far more interested in the somewhat schizophrenic nature of the Japanese people than he is in Buddhism. His main subject is a housewife named Sachiko who is married to a Japanese "salary man," who works from six in the morning until eleven at night. His family life is an afterthought. Sachiko loves everything foreign from the Beatles to Mickey Mouse. She calls Pico a "bird" because he is free to wander all over the globe while she is a slave to her husband and two young children.

According to Iyer, Japan is close to a utopian society and Kyoto is the cleanest city he's ever seen. Sachiko is a fascinating character. When she introduces Pico to her children she apologizes for their misbehavior although they are much more well-behaved than western children Pico has known.

Pico and Sachiko's relationship is perplexing at first. She hints that she might want something more than a platonic relationship. He's wise enough to know that it's the dream of a romance, the romance she's seen in the movies, that she's after.

There are some wonderful moments in THE LADY AND THE MONK: Sachiko's mangled English with the occasional Japanese word thrown in and the lack of articles; Iyer's description of cherry blossom time; the albino monk Pico meets when he stays at the temple; the Hanchu Tigers last game of the year when Randy Bass, their American homerun hitter, bows to the fans fifteen times. The fans are just as enthusiastic as they would be if this were a World Series team and not a team thirty-some games out of first.

The main emphasis of the book, though, is Sachiko's story arc; we see her beginning to grow away from her salaryman husband, we see her trying to make her dreams become a reality, despite the censure of her mother and friends. We get the impression that the more Japanese women are exposed to the West the more Sachikos there will be.

I just finished reading "The Lady and the Monk" for the second time. While I enjoyed the book, especially the accounts of his romance with Sachiko, I do agree to some of the criticisms leveled by reviewers her.

First, there are parts that get really tedious, sometimes redundant. Sometimes I end up skimming pages because he goes into some long rant about a Zen poet or about the way Japanese are.

Secondly, it kind of bothers me that he can pretend to know the "way the Japanese are" by knowing one Japanese lady very deeply, and knowing a handful of Japanese acquaintances on a surface level. I wish he had made the effort to befriend more Japanese people - he spends most of his time either with Sachiko or with other foreigners. He talked to one Japanese businessman the whole time, and the only reason for that was because the businessman was trying to recruit him to come to his Zen retreat. Because of these facts, I tend to distrust that he can truly pretend to understand how the Japanese are, as he seems to overgeneralize about the Japanese by stretching the experiences of a few people, mostly foreigners, over the whole country.

For a "travel book" he does not do a lot of travelling, even within Kyoto, it seems. In fact, he never seems to wonder very far from one section of town. It should more accurately be categorized as a memoir, not a travel book - just because it is set in a foreign country does not necessarily make it travel literature. In fact, the book has trouble finding a center - once the romance with Sachiko evolves, the Zen and cultural soulseeking almost become distractions - sometimes I would find myself skipping parts that I felt were extraneous so I could continue the story of their romance.

Regarding Iyer's attitude, I definitely feel that the condescension others have noted is present, mainly in the perpetual referencing of how well read and well educated he is, and how surprised he was that he could actually hold intellegent conversations about things that interest him with the "average" people of Japan. Although I have read many of the books and heard most of the music he constantly talks about, I felt like there was an unfair expectation that the reader can always follow whatever books or ideas he's talking about. Naturally, many won't be able to - perhaps he was pushing the reader to be more literarily knowledgeable or perhaps he didn't even think about this fact, but at times it comes off as condescension.

I can relate to Iyer's criticism of many of the "gaijin" (foreigners) however - although I don't know if that too is an overgeneralization (I'm going to live in Japan in the fall, so I'll find out). What distinguishes Iyer's approach (at least, literarily) to women and Sachiko from many of the other foreign men in his book is that Iyer does not expect to be treated like a god and does not seem desperate to find a Japanese girlfriend (his relationship with Sachiko develops over time). It does seem incredibly pathetic that lonely, lost foreigners go there, desperately seeking either an exotic Japanese woman or an exotic foray into Buddhism. Iyer's accounts of Southeast Asia in "Video Night in Kathmandu" demonstrate the same there. While Iyer himself sometimes lapses into exoticism, he successfully avoids falling into the out-and-out crudeness of other foreigners (according to his account).

These criticisms aside, if you take the book for what it is - a story of a romance across cultural and linguistic barriers (with sometimes distracting, sometimes enlightening forays into Japanese religion and arts), it's enjoyable, at times touching and definitely memorable. One reviewer noted that in helping Sachiko break free from her cultural bindings, Iyer assisted in the collapse of her family and, thus, the shunning of her by the Japanese. I definitely sympathize with Sachiko's husband, and Iyer seems to, as well (although there is a mention of "another woman" at one point). The problem was that Sachiko felt constrained and was never able to live her dreams, even before taking on the duties as wife and mother. If Iyer had not come along, perhaps she never would have, and, while the children certainly seem like they have the most to lose by this decision, realistically Iyer probably would make a better dad that her Japanese husband, as he actually would be around to see them and spend time with them sometimes. I heard that Iyer and Sachiko are still together, but I have been unable to confirm it. I would be interested in finding out what happened afterwards. All in all, I enjoyed it, but pay attention when you read it to some of the assumptions he makes.

Having lived in Japan for seventeen years and visited Kyoto in all seasons, I think that Iyer glosses over much that is representative of Japan today. And too, he portrays Sachiko as a hapless housewife, one who cannot function on her own or who is an emotionally challenged adult. How well could Iyer really understand her or the culture since he had such a poor compre- hension of Nihongo? And too, if this is a true account of his life in Kyoto, then he has done a terrible wrong to Sachiko's children. Divorce in Japan still leaves a deep stain on the honor and social position of those involved. And children from a broken marriage face ostracism in later life when seeking employment or even a marriage partner of their own. Iyer ignores much reality as he plods along with his romantic notions and fascination with Gion beauties. The book reads like something gleaned from a reading list of publications about Japan. And all that stuff about 'Zen'! The average Japanese salaryman or housewife would scoff at all of his 'insight'. They devote most of their waking lives to being good corporate citizens and pay only lip service to temples and Buddhist tradition. And children can be brats in Japan, like everywhere else, watching hours of tv, playing video games, and reading manga. Iyer is a bit 'chotto' coy and sentimental.

I first flipped through _The Lady and the Monk_ ten years ago in a bookstore, well before the era of Amazon and online reviews. I liked Iyer. The book made its way onto my list of books that I might someday buy. I finally bought it last week and read it, groaning all the way. My initial attraction to the book and his particular brand of travel writing seems to have had more to do with my status ten years ago as a study-abroad, graduate-student returnee than his skill as a travel writer. Iyer presents a wide-eyed, Byronic pastiche of his year in Kyoto, trotting out cultural stereotypes of the Japanese and everyone else. Yes, he goes briefly to some hostess bars, wangles his way into a teahouse with geisha, and views the cherry blossoms. But these are experiences that once could have in a much shorter trip.

It was apparent almost from the start that a romantic relationship was evolving between him and Sachiko, but he remains coy about it in the narrative, and continuously comments on Sachiko's pathos-filled attempts to express herself in English. Sachiko makes many late-night booty calls to him at his guesthouse asking to see him and crying on his shoulder in the street in the moonlight and he still "cannot fathom what it all means"?! (He "cannot fathom" quite a bit during his year in Kyoto.) Representing Sachiko as he has does a disservice to her as a person. Now that I've finished the whole overwrought story, I "cannot fathom" that Iyer returned from a year abroad, fresh off an international tryst, to capitalize on his former lover's personality in such an analytical way, mocking her English and judging her choices as dictated by her culture, finally ending up with her in foreign hotels where "bodies speak without language." I fail to see how Iyer is any different from the other Western men whom he mocks for traveling to Japan to find Japanese girlfriends.

As the book went on (I hesitate to say "progressed"), I felt myself becoming as judgmental of him as he was with the people who entered and left his life. Iyer is introspective at the expense of seeing the culture around him. The book becomes more about his feelings about being in a relationship with Sachiko than about Kyoto, Japan, or Japanese culture. I prefer my travel writing more honest, insightful and engaging, along the lines of Bruce Chatwin, Patricia Storace, or, yes, Paul Theroux. Liza Dalby's _Geisha_ is a far better book about traditional Kyoto culture by someone with a steadier hand and a more studied eye. I almost - almost - want to go back and read _Falling Off the Map_ again to see if it too strikes me as myopically introspective. Really, save your time and money. Check your library before buying this. I should have, and saved myself from the feeling of obligation to finish it.

Travel narrative writing is built upon one big theme: the intersection between fantasy and reality in unfamiliar cultural settings, and for whatever reason, it seems that the battle between one side or another of that thematic divide rages most intensely in the writings on Japan coming from non-Japanese.

It strikes me that it's always about the dream of Japan (and clutching that dream very tightly, lest it slip away permanently), or the desire to explode myths, or a need to explain business strategies to Western CEO's afraid of competition on the other side of the Pacific, or a guide to picking up Asian women, or something equally self-absorbed.

In the case of Pico Iyer's rich THE LADY AND THE MONK, it's all about the dream, and perhaps the women as well. The book is non-fiction, but very stylized in the fashion of a novel, so any sort of journalistic "this is how it is" conceits are tossed out quickly, and Iyer builds from a simple premise that is - nonetheless - laden with potential: move to some mythic place (in his case, Kyoto) knowing none of the language and little of the culture, and see if you can get by for a year.

Quickly it becomes apparent that Iyer is infatuated with the "dream" of Japan - the Japan mythologized by Roland Barthes in his inscrutable EMPIRE OF SIGNS, and Iyer's writing is similarly woozy and ethereal, which I suppose is inspired by his own conceptions of classical Japanese culture, or literature at least. It works, because Iyer's writing does have a certain rhythm, and the compressed time frame lends the book a structure, and though Iyer gains precious few serious insights about the place, he does write beautifully.

The book as a whole does propose an indirect, intriguing question that will hang around long after you finish the book: if you are an outsider (in any culture), what's the value of the myths and dreams you might hold about a place? Erroneous though they may be, how might they also represent ways of easing into the flow of a place both real and imagined, filtering the unfamiliar through the somewhat familiar? What are the risks in not just seeing a place as it is and diving in? In this fascinating book, Japan becomes Iyer's tabula rasa, a thing upon which he projects any number of fantasies and poetic imaginings, and somehow he does manage to gradually slip into a somewhat less woozy view of the place.

His cryptically rendered relationship with Sachiko is presented more poetically, which I think is approriate (though Iyer clearly is also reaching for Kawabata territory here, which he fails to achieve), and he sidesteps the moral implications of the relationship, which is perhaps ethically squirrely, but Japan has - at times - famously been a place where outsiders travel to get laid, so I don't think he violates anything any number of other writers (some far more smarmy about it) haven't also violated. And certain of his anecdotes: the shy Japanese man who makes a rather spontaneous pass at him, or the sad gaijin in hostess bars (you can almost see Iyer making a mental note: "Don't become THAT GUY.") are amusing and a little touching in the rendering, hitting upon some essentials that transcend cultural boundaries.

An odd, and perhaps difficult book which is more literary than fact-fixated. Nonetheless, far greater than most other reviewers would seem to think.

-David Alston

I loved this book at first and then began to slowly grow distrustful of the author. He's constantly hooking up with "The Lady" to goto various places around Japan but around halfway through the book, she's gushing feelings of love to him and he's weirdly stoic. The odd clue like them sharing a hotel room and meeting up in a foreign county make it seem as if he's hiding something. Once that feeling was in me, the book became a lot less fullfilling. I kept thinking about The Lady's two kids and, really, how lame the author was acting (especially after finding out they currently live together in Kyoto).
It's also a lazy book. the author doesn't even try to learn the language before moving to Japan and spends half the book with various foreigners living in the country. A far superior book about a foreigner residing in Japan and REALLY living with the Japanese and writing about their lifestyle/culture is LEARNING TO BOW.