Romance and Detachment: Ian Buruma, Donald Richie, and the Japan They Saw

 

Romance and Detachment; Ian Buruma, Donald Richie, and the Japan They Saw

Tosh's Journal: August 29, 2023

 

Tosh's Journal: August 29, 2023

A Tokyo Romance by Ian Buruma on Tosh Talks

Over the years, and especially going back and forth from Japan, I have read many books by fellow Americans and some British citizens on their time spent in Japan. A lot of them are crap. The ones that stand out are the ones that wrote about Japanese cinema and literature. The girls or guys who went there to get a job as an English teacher are usually not that interesting, but alas, those who are devoted to a specific Japanese artist or thinker, then yes I very much enjoy that type of book. There are two writers that I love when they write about Japan - Donald Richie and the other fellow is Ian Buruma.

Buruma wrote a fascinating book called "Behind the Mask," which is an excellent book on some of the darker elements of Japanese literature and the arts. His new book "A Tokyo Romance: A Memoir" accounts for his time spent in Japan to study cinema, but mostly the theater arts of Kara Juro, an avant-garde playwright, with his theater group in Tokyo. Similar to temperament but not precisely in style as Terayama Suiji. Buruma knew both men, and it's his unique point-of-view, due that he was a foreigner, being involved with Kara's theater group. A lot of foreign writers have written about the oddness of one being part of Japanese society, or living in Japan, and finding it alienating. But then again I think that's the nature of the Western fellow or girl. We're raised to be apart than together, and therefore lies the situation of such countries in Asia and elsewhere.

What makes this book unique for me is that I share Buruma's interest in the Japanese arts, and spending time there as well, I can identify in what he writes about, in regards of living there and appreciating the same sort of artists/writers. Also, the book is full of fascinating figures, some know and some entirely new to me. Donald Richie is a writer I know quite well through his writings in various articles (mostly in the Japan Times) as well as reading his books on Japanese cinema. His Journals are without a doubt, the classic work by him. He is a guy who knew everyone from Ozu to Mishima, and also a gay man living in Tokyo. His insights into the Japanese culture, but also his somewhat detached views are excellent observations of life around him. In that sense, he reminds me of Paul Bowles' travel writing. Buruma shares the same interest as Richie, and is also, a fantastic prose writer. His commentary on Richie, who sort of led him through Tokyo when he first arrived, is a fascinating tour of the metropolis. The second personality of interest is the Actress Yamaguchi Yoshiko. She started her career during the war years making a propaganda film in China, where she was identified as a Chinese actress. But alas, no, she's Japanese and eventually went on to star in the American Film "House Of Bamboo" directed by Sam Fuller. The book doesn't mention it, but she was also married to the artist Isamu Noguchi. Yamaguchi eventually became a member of the Japanese parliament for 18 years and had a TV show where she focused on and interviewed such characters as Mao, Idi Amin, and Kim Il-sung.

"A Tokyo Romance" is a book full of fascinating people, and Buruma himself is interesting because he is also an individual who is half-Dutch and half-English, so he's very much a bi-cultural, or maybe at this point, since he lives in New York City now, a tri-cultural figure. With his background, he has an understanding of what it's like to be in a culture that is very singular in focus and design. A classic book on Japan, but also a rare text in English on the world of Terayama and Kara Juro.


-Tosh Berman

"A Tokyo Romance: a Memoir" by Ian Buruma (Penguin Press)

ISBN: 978-1-101-98141-2

Over the years, and especially going back and forth from Japan, I have read many books by fellow Americans and some British citizens on their time spent in Japan.  A lot of them are crap.  The ones that stand out are the ones that wrote about Japanese cinema and literature.  The girls or guys who went there to get a job as an English teacher are usually not that interesting, but alas, those who are devoted to a specific Japanese artist or thinker, then yes I very much enjoy that type of book.  There are two writers that I love when they write about Japan - Donald Richie and the other fellow is Ian Buruma. 

Buruma wrote a fascinating book called "Behind the Mask," which is an excellent book on some of the darker elements of Japanese literature and the arts.  His new book "A Tokyo Romance: A Memoir" accounts for his time spent in Japan to study cinema, but mostly the theater arts of Kara Juro, an avant-garde playwright, with his theater group in Tokyo. Similar to temperament but not precisely in style as Terayama Suiji.  Buruma knew both men, and it's his unique point-of-view, due that he was a foreigner, being involved with Kara's theater group.   A lot of foreign writers have written about the oddness of one being part of Japanese society, or living in Japan, and finding it alienating.  But then again I think that's the nature of the Western fellow or girl.  We're raised to be apart than together, and therefore lies the situation of such countries in Asia and elsewhere. 

What makes this book unique for me is that I share Buruma's interest in the Japanese arts, and spending time there as well, I can identify in what he writes about, in regards of living there and appreciating the same sort of artists/writers.  Also, the book is full of fascinating figures, some know and some entirely new to me.  Donald Richie is a writer I know quite well through his writings in various articles (mostly in the Japan Times) as well as reading his books on Japanese cinema.  His Journals are without a doubt, the classic work by him.   He is a guy who knew everyone from Ozu to Mishima, and also a gay man living in Tokyo.   His insights into the Japanese culture, but also his somewhat detached views are excellent observations of life around him.  In that sense, he reminds me of Paul Bowles' travel writing.  Buruma shares the same interest as Richie, and is also, a fantastic prose writer.  His commentary on Richie, who sort of led him through Tokyo when he first arrived, is a fascinating tour of the metropolis.  The second personality of interest is the Actress Yamaguchi Yoshiko.  She started her career during the war years making a propaganda film in China, where she was identified as a Chinese actress.  But alas, no, she's Japanese and eventually went on to star in the American Film "House Of Bamboo" directed by Sam Fuller.  The book doesn't mention it, but she was also married to the artist Isamu Noguchi. Yamaguchi eventually became a member of the Japanese parliament for 18 years and had a TV show where she focused on and interviewed such characters as Mao, Idi Amin, and Kim Il-sung.  

"A Tokyo Romance" is a book full of fascinating people, and Buruma himself is interesting because he is also an individual who is half-Dutch and half-English, so he's very much a bi-cultural, or maybe at this point, since he lives in New York City now, a tri-cultural figure.  With his background, he has an understanding of what it's like to be in a culture that is very singular in focus and design.   A classic book on Japan, but also a rare text in English on the world of Terayama and Kara Juro.  

February 17, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

February 17, 2017

People call me Speed Racer here.  Not for the wheels I have, or my wide dark eyes, but due that I think fast on my feet.  I consider myself a very literate gentleman, yet, I can't read a thing in Japan.  In America, I'm all about words, but here in Japan, it's all visual to me.   I feel disconnected from my language and world, which is a splendid thing.  I'm forced to use another side of my brain here.  The funny thing is I speak Japanese to the people behind the coffee counter without realizing it.  When you need to communicate something or show desire, language is not a problem.   

I have nothing to read here except my writing, which to be honest, is boring.   I went to Kinokyuna in Shinjuku and looking around the store; I found an interesting writer by the name of Yoshiyuki Junnosuke.  It seems Yukio Mishima liked him, and Donald Richie, who is a great expert on 20th century Japanese culture, wrote the introduction to his collection of short stories.  I have a great fondness for Showa era writers in Japan, which is another way of saying the 20th century.  Each decade or longer is always tied to the current Emperor.  It's kind of like we're in the Trump era now in the United States.   The year 2017 will always be confined by the presence of Trump in people's minds.   As for me, I'm a tad hurt that Steve (Bannon) never got back to me on the Trump statue project.  Whatever.  I will get over it.  Reading the first story in this book by Junnosuke is not bad.  Life will go on.

I'm still fighting jet lag, and my only conclusion is to go out of the house as much as possible.  The brisk cold air hitting my face makes me feel alive.  The dark cloud that follows me around is always two feet away from me.  I run fast, but it always catches up.  I'm very much a long distance runner.  I'll beat it.   Back to the book now. 

Donald Richie

I woke up this morning hearing that Donald Richie had passed away.  One of the few, if not only, voices that expresses Japanese pop and historical cultural into English.  Richie was very much the door entrance to Japan, and all of its peculiar and wonderful cultural adventures that makes that country a spiritual as well as a consumer's sense of heaven.  But of course with heaven, there is always hell around the corner as well.   And Richie exposed and wrote about the culture as a living daily lifestyle.

He's mostly known for his superb books on Japanese cinema.  One can argue that if not for Richie's critical writings, we would not hear of Akira Kurosawa or Yasujiro Ozu in the West.  He organized film retrospectives for these filmmakers, as well as translating the subtitles for the English speaking world.  

Also the great beauty of his work is that he mostly focused on post-war Japan, and he had a huge net where he captured so many aspects of Japanese culture - both good, bad, great, weird, and always fascinating. 

Here are some of his books that is a must-read for anyone with even the slightest interest in the subject matter:

One of the great documents of life in Post-War Tokyo.  Richie knew everyone who was important in Post-War culture. Both in Japan and outside of Japan.  When Susan Sontag first came to Tokyo, the first person she made contact with is Richie.   For the 'interested' Westerner, Richie was the bridge between the two cultures.  He knew the high and the low in equal measures.  Also his personal observations on Kurosawa, Ozu, Oshima, and the Japanese pop cultural world is exposed in his journals.

My first introduction to the works of Ozu.  What intrigued me was not only a book on this obscure (at the time of its printing) filmmaker, but Richie's total understanding of his work and how he conveyed that into words.  Ozu seems simple, but there is nothing simple about his work, and Richie can put his work in a context with respect to modern Japan, old Japanese aesthetics, and which would make sense to an American reader.  One of the great film books.

Richie's "Inland Sea" is one of the first great travel journals regarding a specific region in Japan.  He captures the frustration, the humor, and the adventure of going out and discovering a new world (at the time).  Essential travel literature.

Probably the most important book on Japanese cinema.  He wrote it with Joseph L. Anderson, and for the most, the first introduction to Japanese film and its stars and directors.  Another essential film title for one's library.

But beyond books on Japanese cinema and being an experimental filmmaker, Richie also wrote about the Japanese tattoo, Japanese cooking, eroticism, and many book reviews for his great column in the Japan Times.  And without a doubt, he wrote highly personal books about his favorite city Tokyo, that to this day, are the best observations on that metropolis.  

For an overall of his work, check this out:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Richie

Here are two films by Donald Richie:

Donald Richie's film "Boy With Cat" (1966)

Donald Richie's film "Five Philosophical Fables (Part One)

"Five Philosophical Fables (Part Two)

"Five Philosophical Fables (Part Three)

"Five Philosophical Fables (Part Four)

"Five Philosophical Fables (Part Five)