Donald Richie (1924-2013) is one of those names in Japanology that of course you've known about forever. It wasn't until today, however, that I finally read one of his books. Seidensticker I've read through his translations since I was seventeen and then finally his non-fiction book last week. I'm n...
This is a wonderful, brilliant, eccentric book - not a travel log -- but truly a dérive, a wandering through a portion of reality in search of self -- and the self and searcher, a man of such honest and tender and, indeed, unsentimental sentiments. The richness of anecdote and observation -- social...