"Earns its place on the very short shelf of books on Japan that are of permanent value."--"Times Literary Supplement. "
"Richie is a stupendous travel writer; the book shines with bright witticisms, deft characterizations of fisherfolk, merchants, monks and wistful adolescents, and keen comparisons of Japanes and Western culture." --"San Francisco Chronicle"
"A learned, beautifully paced elegy."--"London Review of Books"
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.
"Earns its place on the very short shelf of books on Japan that are of permanent value."Times Literary Supplement.
Sheltered between Japans major islands lies the Inland Sea, a place modernity passed by. In this classic travel memoir, Donald Richie embarks on a quest to find Japans 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.
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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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