Customer Reviews

Lost Japan

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When Alex Kerr talks about "Lost Japan," it is clearly his own personal Japan that is being lost. He speaks fondly of the "literati" of old Japan, a group of well-off leisure class who whistled their days away creating art and appreciating beauty, free of toil or earthly constraints. Oxford and Yale educated, coming from money, Kerr firmly sees himself as the last vanguard of the literati, and his lifestyle is leaving him. The lifestyle of the educated elite.

Composed of a series of unrelated articles, the book tells the tale of Kerr's life, of things that happen to capture his fancy, and of the intersecting lives of wealthy art dealers, artists and artisans. Everyone in the book is a genius. Everyone, the last embodiment of their vanishing breed. The world has become too cold to appreciate them. This is the Japan that is lost.

The book is incredibly well-written, and Kerr sees with the eyes of an artist. He has insights into parts of Japanese culture that would normally be closed, such as the back stage scene of Kabuki theater. His writing is strong enough to make you long for that vanishing Japan. Secret places and unappreciated nooks will appear as interesting as the most famous temple in Kyoto.

Worth reading and enjoyable, but ultimately a grain of salt is needed. Kerr's elitism leaves him blind to anything modern, any new artistic innovation or art form. He sees only the past, and wants to capture Japan like a photograph, and preserve it forever.

Alex Kerr has authored the best book I've read on contemporary Japan. I lived in Osaka from 1992-1994. Mr. Kerr's observations on everything from the arts and environment to business and education struck familiar chords. This book is excellent for foreign nationals currently living in Japan, and for anyone who's ever lived there. The book was originally written for a Japanese audience so some points may be lost on readers who've never made the trip. However, if you're planning to go to Japan and want to learn about more than cultural stereotypes, Lost Japan is your ticket.

I was hooked by "Lost Japan" immediately and could not put it down until I finished the last page. This book should be required reading for anyone who's lived in Japan, anyone who's interested in Japan, or even anyone who thinks all there is to Japan is samurai and geisha (or alternatively, anime and Pokemon). Lost Japan is very reminiscent of Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's "In Praise of Shadows": they are both works lamenting a disappearing Japan, and both are told in a series of seemingly unrelated essays and anecdotes. Unfortunately, as several reviewers have mentioned already, sometimes Kerr goes to the point that his stories are so self-focused that they detract from the big picture. The entire chapter on literati, for example, did not add much to the story for me at least. However, overall Kerr's style is a success.

What impressed me the most with this book is how well Kerr was able to avoid falling into the easy traps of Japan Bashing or Japan Worship. It is obvious that he loves Japan, but at the same time his vision is clear enough so that he can view Japan objectively and speak hard truths. Most likely, any reader of this book who has been to Japan for any period of time found themselves nodding along to many parts of this book that were both critical of and in praise of modern Japan. Kerr says so many things that seem so obvious, and yet they feel so novel because the Japanese themselves have not publicly admitted that there are serious, fundamental problems in contemporary society. The sad thing is that it has been about a decade since Kerr's essays were published in Japan and it is questionable whether Japan has made any real progress in that time. To that end, I look forward to reading Dogs and Demons to see how Kerr's thoughts have changed in the interim after writing Lost Japan.

I did not agree with everything Kerr had to say, but I found his arguments and ideas stimulating and fresh. I hope Japan pulls itself out of its cultural and economic recession soon, but as Kerr hints at, a mere decade is no cause for panic in a country where events are measured in centuries and millennia. Japan has suffered worse destruction in its past; here's hoping that the difficulties of the past decade will be made worth it with the rebirth of a new Japan that is able to combine features of its past with the realities of the present.

I have mixed feelings about this book. There is a central thesis to the book - that Japan's culture is "lost," and worth saving. However, the episodic nature of the book, and the fact that his most impassioned writing comes at the beginning, distracts from the thesis. Instead, the book comes off as an extended one-way conversation with the author, which I must admit wasn't entirely a good thing. While he's obviously intelligent and sensitive, and intimately involved with what he writes about, I found myself a little turned off by the constant name-dropping, claims that anybody mentioned anywhere in the book is a genius, and the tangential anecdotes and facts which seemed entirely self-serving. At one point, he mentions being accepted into an Oxford school society so elite that undergraduates haven't been allowed in for two hundred years. Impressive, but it doesn't have anything to do with the book, and comes off as posturing.

Having been born in Honolulu, with similar problems such as ugly, sprawling hotel districts and a kidnapped culture, I'm extremely sympathetic to Alex Kerr's anger at the uglification and cultural deadening of Japan. However, his attitude towards modern Japan is one of instant revulsion. The revulsion lends the book a bitter-old-man sentimentality, that everything has gotten worse. That's not a minor gripe - the author has made it his goal, both in this book and in personal life, to prove that the traditional ways of Japan should be more a part of modern Japanese life. Waxing on about Japan's traditional arts, while unilaterally rejecting modern Japan, just furthers the book's counter-thesis: that the modern and traditional aren't compatible.

Perhaps I'm being too negative, and for those interested in the current state of the traditional in Japan, Alex Kerr knows the subject well. Regardless, I found myself disheartened that the book has such a strong thesis, has such an intelligent and undeniably knowledgable author, makes so many good points, but still ends up being an extended bitter rant.

This was one of most superb books I have ever read on Japan. Having lived in Western Japan for two years, I found Kerr's insights right on. I have read and kept up on a number of Japanese analysts and Kerr's assessment of the beauty and losses of Japan is subtle and genuine. Ignore the readers on this page who gave it 1-star. This book is best for those who have actually lived in Japan for a significant amount of time, have studied various works on Japan, and better yet, have been to the Kansai region. I have lived in Kyoto and I absolutely LOVED the chapter "Kyoto hates Kyoto." No one who has ever been to that historical city can deny that glass-box architecture-loving Japanese-futurists promoted the 'uglification' of the most important city in Japan. I didn't find Kerr elitist; he is interested in different art forms than many regular citizens in Japan, but I urge anyone who loves and has lived in Japan to consider this book. Awesome.

I found the subtle convincing argument style of the author to be quite remarkable and effective. He leads his reader through a series of interesting personal experiences occurring over the many years he has lived in Japan - each one making up a single chapter within the book. He carefully explains the essential characteristics of each experience as to why it has had a profound positive or negative lasting affect on him. He describes how his friends, his educational background and his teachers, all of the highest caliber, helped him to appreciate the artistic values he encounters within the scope of the experience. Finally, when least expected, he hits the reader with a profound, but obvious, truth or conclusion that helps to explain deep aspects of Japanese culture of surprising significance.

It should be noted that the original text was written as articles submitted to a Japanese magazine, and that this series of articles was so well received by Japanese readers that they were incorporated into the original version of this book that was written in the Japanese language. Again the book was well received. The only criticism that I might venture to make was that I didn't find this compilation of articles to provide me sense of inevitability to make me feel that the book as a whole was going to reach a timely conclusion and final ending. On the whole, though, I think it's a really nice piece of work.

Having lived in Japan for almost 15 years and read about everything worth reading (and much more not worth reading) on the topic, Alex Kerr's book remains the most intelligent description of modern Japan in recent memory. This is not fiction; not some ennui for a Shogun inspired cultural Disneyland, but a look at what is being lost now. This moment. Beauty and loss are central to Japanese arts. No book on Japan by a foreign resident has ever succeeded as well at making felt both elements. As a supplement, any writing by Alan Booth is to be recommended (yes more beauty and loss).

Alex Kerr's "Lost Japan" works on so many levels. It is a glimpse of what is happening to a traditional culture through rapid modernization, industrialization and ultimately "western-ization." Kerr laments the loss of Japan's natural beauty and simultaneously celebrates Japan's fine arts traditions in various fields: music, painting, architecture, theatre, etc.

At times the book gets a little weighed down by Kerr's personal anecdotes. He obviously comes from a background that allows world travel and leisure, and some of the assumptions he makes are perhaps a little alienating to some readers. He seems to be a man of great sensitivity and intellect and his radar for the current situation in Japan is certainly appreciated.

Not only would this book be interesting to lovers of Japan, but also for those wanting to develop greater appreciation for their own surroundings or those wanting to ward off similar tragedies in their own backyard. Much of what Kerr had to say struck a nerve with me because I see many of these own things happening in my community in America. The landscape of my town is being overdeveloped, and the stream I used to play in as a child has now been put underground and runs through a concrete pipe in much of my town (Kerr lamented the same thing several times.)

The book is also fascinating for foreigners wanting to live in Japan. He offers a lot of insight that would otherwise be difficult to learn, or would have to be learned through a series of baffling and awkward experiences.

The sociological/ecological/cultural value of this collection of essays is immense. For lovers of nature & culture, this is a must read!

"Lost Japan" is a fascinating book on several levels.

In some respects, "Lost Japan" is the thinking reader's companion follow-on to James Clavell's "Shogun", minus the sex and fighting, which means several hundred pages lighter.. The swashbuckling Blackthorne of the blockbuster novel is replaced by the fastidious, aesthetic author in "Lost Japan". But in both cases the reader has the pleasure of accompanying an outsider as he develops an insider's view of Japan's unique culture. In both cases, the tone is ultimately elegiac as the outsider mourns the passing of a nobler Japan. And in both cases, being an outsider with deep insider insights enables the protagonists to stand head and shoulders above the locals. But let's not push the comparison too far - "Shogun" is cliched while Kerr's book is full of original thoughts and observations, based on lengthy immersion in Japanese culture.

On another level, there's an historical irony. Throughout the 70s and 80s, the myth of Japanese superiority grew to enormous proportions - their products were wonderful, their companies bestrode the world and their management, production methods and social practices were held up as examples for the rest of us, with little regard to the downsides. Kerr gives his view of what this effort actually cost the country and how the deadened aesthetic sensibilities of Japan Inc overwhelmed the finer culture of earlier times. Yet by the time "Lost Japan" was first published in 1993 (Kerr wrote it in Japanese), the mighty post-war Japan of concrete and ugliness was also on the wane.

On yet another level, this book is an engrossing study of one man - the author. His cultural sensibilities are honed to a samurai sword edge far sharper than the average salariman could aspire to. He gives us some very selective insights into his cultural passions such kabuki and household decoration. His idea of a fun evening is to get a few drinks in ,do calligraphy and watch the fireflies. The overall impression is of a hugely refined and cultured individual unburdened by mundane considerations. In the absence of any reference to significant others in his life (unlike Blackthorne in "Shogun"), he often comes across as being deeply self-indulgent. His insights are precious in every sense of the word.

"Lost Japan" is often compared with "The Road to Sato", which I subsequently bought. I haven't yet finished it after two years, whereas I polished off "Lost Japan" in just a few sittings. Strongly recommended.

This book had an unusual origin. The author is an expatriate American and long-time resident of Japan, and this book was written originally in Japanese for a Japanese audience. It was translated subsequently into English, but not by the author, who apparently found it difficult to reformulate his book in English. The theme of the book is the decay of traditional Japan. Kerr is an aesthete, and both devoted and clearly knowledgeable about many aspects of Japanese culture. He is also a man who worked for almost a decade for a large American corporation and became knowledgeable about business. He came to Japan in the early 70s, just as the final remnants of traditional rural Japan were being swept away by development. He explores his theme from a number of angles. Each chapter is devoted to an aspect of traditional Japanese culture that is vanishing or under siege; Kabuki, traditional urban architecture, rural beauty, Zen temples, the city of Kyoto; the traditional rambunctiousness of Osaka. These topics are explored in the form of brief memoirs of Kerr's initial encounters with each aspect of Japanese life and/or travels in Japan. Kerr is a good writer and each chapter is both well constructed and contains interesting information. He does a very good job of conveying the unique features of traditional Japanese culture and the rather bland, pseudo-Western culture that has replaced it. He is not entirely pessimistic either; he clearly views Japanese society as possessing considerable capacity for responding creatively to external challenges and internal decline. What this book lacks is a really good analysis of what causes this phenomenon. He identifies the conformist nature of Japanese society as a major culprit but this is an incomplete answer. Homogenization of culture is a worldwide phenomenon, perhaps more obvious in Japan because of the very distinctive nature of Japanese culture. While the loss of traditional culture is regrettable, to some extent it is an inevitable consequence of marked rises in the standard of living and the erosion of a largely authoritarian, defence based society. These are not phenomena unique to Japan though the speed of the transition is very rapid.