The Donald Richie Reader: 50 Years of Writing on Japan

This book, a collection of writings, was my introduction to Donald Richie, an expert on Japanese film and supposedly on Japanese culture and people. I discovered I did not like this person. In the Foreword, Arturo Silva says Richie is "an expert but with no pretense of being one" despite living in Japan for 50 years so far, but I found Richie made plenty of statements, some quite insulting, as though they were the truth about all Japanese people. Granted, some of this writing was from his journals, and one is allowed to say what one wants in private. He loved old Japan, did not like the "ugly" modern Japan rising from the ashes of WWII. I understood "ugly" to mean Westernized. Yet he stayed, always the "gaijin" foreigner and loving the freedom in being a perpetual outsider. And by "freedom," I understood him to mean he could behave as he wanted and he would be excused for his oddities and apparent ignorance, unlike in his birth country of the US. What fun! Apparently he appreciated being able to have lots of casual sex there (sex is a great souvenir of your travels) because Japanese people supposedly had no shred of private guilt.My American father also loved old Japan and spent his free time in the late 1950s visiting small towns and fishing villages, but he never said things like for the Japanese "there is no god looking over his shoulder... consequentially there is no conscience," he may "feel ashamed but he cannot feel guilty" (p. 196). I think my Japanese mother and my Japanese friends born of that era would take exception to that, as would any atheist or agnostic. Or "tattooed men must need a simplified life," because those tattoos ensured they would be restricted from life choices, since in Japan tattoos are taboo and signify you are a gangster (yakuza). Or Japanese think "the strong social rules we obey are necessary because otherwise we would not know who we were" (p. 95). Statements like that made me think Richie was full of himself, a foreigner simplifying the odd natives.On the other hand, Richie is a great writer, good with words and with many astute observations, some that opened my mind to new ways of thinking about certain aspects of Japanese culture and traditions. As an American, I do feel like Japan is an alien world, and I can appreciate how Richie examines everything as though he's found strange new insects. I just didn't like Richie as the person he came across as, and I didn't like when he made up denigrating (IMO) stories about why those people apparently all behave like they do. Yes, he was such a gaijin.

Donald Richie is the Dean of American writers and observers in Japan. He casts a favorable but critical eye on this complex culture. This book captures the twist of his observations over time, first appreciating Japanese culture, but eventually wearying of it. Perhaps its a cycle seen by many longtime Gaijin.The writing covers a wide gamut of topics: Art, Film (Donald Richie is the pre-eminant Gai-jin critic of Japanese movies), Culture, Society, and even sex. It's truly a broad based reflection of a long time participant and observer in Japanese society. The writing is crisp, refreshing, and unabashedly biased. While many of the critiques are on serious subjects, this is not an academic work.Overall it's an iteresting book for those interested in Japan, but may not be appropriate for the general reader.

Humanity and insight. That is what separates Donald Richie from the numerous authors of that swollen genre, "books on Japan." Throughout his career, he has concocted a subtle blend, both of his own perspective and that of the people in a land foreign to him but home to them. He has shown Japan as a living place populated by these people, as opposed to of a set of cultural rules to be memorized, food to be eaten and temples to be visited.If Donald Richie offers insight into Japan, then "The Donald Richie Reader: 50 Years of Writing on Japan" gives a similar insight into Richie. An anthology, or course, it sifts through Richie's lifetime of work and condenses the finest, most representative pieces. A keen observer, Richie acknowledges his own eyes as part of the observation process. He is, first and foremost, a writer, and the fact that Japan is his muse is only a lucky happenstance. The essays and chapters here are as much about Donald Richie as they are about Japan.From masterpieces like "The Inland Sea" and "Ozu" to unpublished fiction like "The View from the Chuo Line," Richie's unique insight can be gleaned from this volume in a way that no single book could encapsulate. Some of his rarest works, such as "The Erotic Gods," his 1966 anthropological study of Japan's fading phallic religions, can possibly only be found in this volume. Same to this are passages from his first book, "Where are the Victors?," giving a rare view on Occupation Japan, when Richie first arrived.A further look into Richie is the excellent and long introduction by Arturo Silva. Heavily foot-noted and photo-referenced, the introduction sets the stage for the journey into Richie's psyche that you are about to take. The photos make Richie human, from the young robustness of his early days in Japan, to the wisdom of the Old Guarde that Richie has become. It is amazing how many Japanese people of note that Richie has known. Kawabata Yasunari, Ozu Yasujiro, Mishima Yukio, Kurosawa Akira..."The Donald Richie Reader" should probably not be your first Donald Richie book. For that I recommend "The Inland Sea" to start, and you should probably have a few of his smaller books, such as "The Honorable Visitors," under your belt before you come to this anthology. After that, I can recommend nothing better than this anthology.