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The Inland Sea (Paperback)

~ (Author) "THE FOREIGNER IN JAPAN, more than anywhere, stands at the edge of an intimacy that is closing slowly in his face..." (more)
Key Phrases: mizu shobai, stone cat, New York, Kobo Daishi, Jimmu Tenno (more...)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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  Hardcover, December 31, 1970 -- $45.00 $8.59
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The Inland Sea + Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan (Kodansha Globe) + The Roads to Sata: A 2000-Mile Walk Through Japan
Price For All Three: $36.09

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  • This item: The Inland Sea by Donald Richie

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"The author knows Japan better than any other Western writer. A hauntingly beautiful book." Oriental Economist -- Review


Product Description

"Earns its place on the very short shelf of books on Japan that are of permanent value."—Times Literary Supplement.

Sheltered between Japan’s major islands lies the Inland Sea, a place modernity passed by. In this classic travel memoir, Donald Richie embarks on a quest to find Japan’s timeless heart among its mysterious waters and forgotten islands. This edition features an introduction by Pico Iyer, photographs from the award-winning PBS documentary, and a new afterword. First published in 1971, The Inland Sea is a lucid, tender voyage of discovery and self-revelation.

Donald Richie is the foremost authority on Japanese culture and cinema with 40+ books in print.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Paperback: 260 pages
  • Publisher: Stone Bridge Press; 2 edition (September 1, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1880656698
  • ISBN-13: 978-1880656693
  • Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.3 x 0.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #338,738 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Author

Donald Richie
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
THE FOREIGNER IN JAPAN, more than anywhere, stands at the edge of an intimacy that is closing slowly in his face. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
mizu shobai, stone cat
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Kobo Daishi, Jimmu Tenno, Jane Austen, Lafcadio Hearn, Urashima Taro, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jane Fonda, Ruined Castle, Seto Naikai
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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Reads like a feverish dream, December 2, 2003
I'm glad that this book has been re-issued. I purchased an original copy from the 1970s and it did not sit on my shelf for long before it was in my hands and burning its way into my head.

Richie has made a career writing about Japan, and this is without doubt a masterful travel book filled with germaine research. But it is also a 70's recreation of a trip the author had taken as a younger man.

Since years had passed between the actual travel and the book writing, Richie brings a great deal of his reflections on Japan overall.

Richie is a sensualist and is unabashedly honest about his humanity. He has an affair and finds himself falling into lust for an island girl. But his frankness is redemptive - he's probably telling the story that many authors would skirt around.

And whatever shortcomings the author may have in his life, he makes up for them with his compassion. He visits a leper colony and has empathy for a girl who has been cured but can never return to Japanese society.

The writing, like the photography, is impressionistic. Sometimes Richie will go into a ponderous tangent - such as the time he spends a couple pages talking about the beauty of Japanese skin -but the result overall is moving and somehow heartening.

And unlike the deluded Japan travel book (the Lady and the Monk) by the author of this book's introduction, this book seems real.

In fact, the cover of the original text from the 70s was the following text spread diagonally across the cover: "An intimate view of the "real" Japan by Donald Richie who reflects upon the total Japan experience while sailing the inland sea."

That's the best description possible of this worthwhile book.

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Real Description of Japan, May 3, 2004
By Jerry Sanchez (New York) - See all my reviews
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One of the great values of this book is that it was written at the beginning of the 1970s, and thus shows a rural Japan even less influenced by the west than now. Richie travels from island to island within the Inland Sea of Japan. His insights and comments on the country are intriguing and entertaining. The reader is able to view this truly remarkable region of Japan through the eyes of a foreigner. Richie's language ability in Japanese allows him to become one with the Japanese in conversation (or at least as much as is possible for a foreigner in Japan to become one with the people), and his English writing ability keeps the reader full of emotions - from laughing to feeling lonely, to (perhaps for some) lusting after Japanese schoolgirls. This book really is beautifully written, once the reader gets used to Richie's sometimes abrupt style. This book is different from other travelougues about Japan because the author is not afraid to be honest with his feelings towards the country (though Alan Booth's works are worth reading). Anyone interested in the Japan of today or yesterday should read this book, because life in the Inland Sea is and was definitely distinct (if not better in many ways) from life in Tokyo or Osaka, today or yesterday.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Travelogue Capturing a Picture of a Departed Japan, January 1, 2005
By A. Silverstone (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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Without a doubt, Donald Richie is the foremost Western interpreter of Japanese culture and society. In this reprinting, updated with an afterword, of Richie's travel around the Inland Sea more than 30 years ago, he has captured a world that was then disappearing and now almost gone. This reviewer is, admittedly, not a huge fan of travelogues. However, Richie's prose flows beautifully. The reader is able to see through his eyes and experience the isolated islands of the Inland Sea. Although there are some photographs, one does yearn for more. The map of Richie's journey is printed across 2 pages, and there is a bit lost in the middle. Nevertheless, these are minor problems. This book provides a glimpse and an insight to a part of Japan that was rarely viewed by Western eyes and it is almost too late to see the remnants.
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