Daisetz T. Suzuki - Zen and Japanese Culture – Comment.

 

This enchanting book examines the deep influence of Zen Buddhism on the central aspects of Japanese culture and gracefully illustrates that the two are linked in profound ways. Suzuki has that mysterious ability as a writer to explain extremely abstract notions in elegant though simplistic language. Zen is a difficult subject to demonstrate because, by its very nature, it defies normative modes of rational thought.  

Suzuki manages to gently clear our rationally conditioned patterns of thought like a gentle spring rain, and astonishingly we come to discover that Zen is simpler than anything else we have encountered before. One comes away from the reading with a soothing, calm, and certain understanding of the nature of Zen. And one is certain that the man behind the words is a master.  

He begins the narrative with insightful remarks on Japanese culture, touching on Zen's history and how the military classes, the Samurai, embraced the religion. The discussion moves onto Zen and its relation to Confucianism and the connection with the cultivation of a nationalistic spirit in Japan. 

 Most of the text is devoted to three central areas: Zen and Swordsmanship, Zen and Haiku, Zen, and the Art of Tea, and lastly, the Japanese love of nature and its manifestations through art. 
 

Suzuki's argument is that Zen and its teachings have had such an enormous influence on the Japanese, that the culture as we know it would not exist without it. One needs to understand this influence to have any comprehension of the culture. He proposes that one does not exist without the other:  

"...without a full appreciation of it not a page of the history of Japanese poetry, Japanese arts, and Japanese handicrafts would have been written. Not only the history of the arts, but the history of the Japanese moral and spiritual life would lose its deeper significance, if detached from the Zen way of interpreting life and the world." (P.364)  

This is an extraordinary book because it opens the way towards a fundamental understanding of Zen Buddhism and the foundations of Japanese culture, illustrating that the two are inextricably interlinked. The text is also beautifully enhanced with poetry, paintings, calligraphy, and examples of architecture. If one is interested in either of these subjects, this book is a masterpiece and an important and enlightening experience. 

Mark Ravina - The Last Samurai - Comment.

 

"Where is Saigo Takamori's head?"

Thus begins Mark Ravina's intriguing and amazingly detailed historical narrative of Japan's enduring hero of its traditional cultural ways, the way of the Samurai. As Ravina ponders, why did finding Takamori's head matter: because it represented one of the oldest traditions of the warrior class. At the final battle between the rebel forces against the Meiji state on the morning of September 24, 1877, in which the rebel forces were defeated, by presenting the severed head of this legendary defeated warrior, it displayed honor, and offering the head to the lord as tribute, this showed great respect for the Samurai class as a whole. (This was a contradiction, as the Meiji state had been suppressing the Samurai tradition for some time) It was highly symbolic that Takamori's head could not be found, which the author exams with great erudition and depth.

Saigo Takamori continues to be revered in Japan because he has come to represent the true Japan, medieval Japan, before the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the Meiji state, which ironically, Saigo Takamori played a major role that contributed to their rise and fall, respectively. Takamori was at once a great traditionalist and reformer. He practiced the old ways and believed passionately in the basic virtues of the Samurai, though at the same time realized the great need for his country to reform. In the end, he knew that Japan had to retain its cultural heritage, all that was good and positive, but he also realized the need to move with the west. He believed the west was advanced in many ways, politically, yet cultural anomalies such as ballroom dancing, he utterly appalled. In effect, he desired everything good from both cultures.

In fact this entire story is a paradox. It is because the desire for reform and the desire to retain the traditional are equal in importance and strength. Interestingly, after Saigo's death, a slogan appeared in the popular press at the time: "Shinsei kotoku" (A New Government, Rich and Value), in other words, a new governing body that retains traditional values. As the author points out -

"...it looks forward to a new government but harkens back to the notion that the state should be benevolent rather than bureaucratic. Implicit in the slogan was the contradictory but compelling desire for the vitality of a free society combined with the security of a Confucian patriarchy." (P.206)

The last Samurai, Sagio Takamori, is a mixture of legend and historical fact. Japan has created him as a symbol of modern Japan, that contradiction of modernity and deep-seated tradition that endures today. This is an excellent work on a fascinating individual.

Tim Powers - Strange Itineraries - Comment.

 

Quantum theory, time loops, alternate realities, the supernatural and one special story about a gentle old man whose pants are torn off by the side mirror of a speeding Torina are all included in this remarkable collection of short stories by Tim Powers.

Powers has the writer's skill of placing the utterly unreal into the norms of our day-to-day reality. Another great American writer, Edgar Allen Poe, used this particular skill to great effect with such stories as The Fall of the House of Usher and The Man of the Crowd. The tale begins ordinarily enough and then suddenly jumps, sometime subtly, sometimes not so, and we find ourselves bounding along to alternate realities, witnessing sad spirits in a catholic confessional or attending a strange gathering of immortals. And, incredibly, it all seems quite feasible. This is fascinating reading and extremely entertaining.

What really makes these tales stand out is their credibility, as one can perceive that their contents have been thoroughly researched. The vast majority of these stories' theme is the notion of time itself: where does it begin, and does it ever end? Some of his characters are confused at the start but then later, as in the story 50 Cents, the character appears to accept their fate, that they are trapped in time, and this reality will never end, and continue to replay itself like a scratch on a CD.

In the story, Pat Moore, the character begins his day like any other, (except for a chain letter he has received, which if not passed on, could well prove unlucky), a professional gambler, sets out in his beat-up Dodge, where he observes a man in a Chevrolet with a sawn-off shotgun, tries to run him off the road. An instant later he sees a woman appear next to him, who claims to be his guarding angel, when the Chevrolet crashes off the road. At first, he is shocked, but as the tale unfolds, he puts together the clues, to discover it all has to do with his dead wife. The story becomes more bizarre, yet believable, finally sorting itself out in the end.

The two cleverest stories, Where They are Hid and Night Moves, on face value are outlandish, but are so well constructed, every loose end is tied up nicely, with a hint of irony, that they actually become credible.

This is Tim Powers's only collection of short stories, as he's predominately a novelist. All his novels are award winners and to a certain extent, as other writers have said, he leans towards Phillip K. Dick more than any other American writer. In fact, a young Powers met an older PKD where he had nothing but praise for the younger writer.

After reading these exceptionally entertaining short stories, I hope Powers decides to write more short stories, because the one's included in Strange Itineraries are remarkable.

John Berendt - The City of Falling Angels - Comment.

 

For anyone who has visited Venice, its charms and history physically pulsate through the air. In Berendt's runaway bestseller, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", he submerged himself in the city of Savannah, Georgia, gaining access to the people and families that go back to the city's beginnings. This was a unique "travel" text, reading like a novel, strewn with strange and intensely interesting characters, which only an inspired novelist could dream up. These extraordinary characters, however, are all real people, who most continue to live and strive in that magical town. Berendt has brought this same sensibility; his journalist's flare for finding a good story, and submerged himself in the culture of Venice, again, uncannily gaining access to the city's oldest families, its aristocracy and legion of unconventional characters. This is a side to Venice that most of us would never see or experience.

Similar to "Midnight", The City of Falling Angels centers on a single event, in this case, the tragic burning of the famous Venice Opera House in 1996. The theatre was entirely destroyed, devastating the city's inhabitants and many people across the world. Berendt decided to stay in Venice and remained there for eight years until the theatre was painstakingly re-built, amongst mind-boggling bureaucracy, money-grabbing companies, ruthless public officials, and artists and the societies elite.

Many high-profile people have chosen to live in Venice over its long history and continue to do so today. The city has been the setting for some of the greatest novels in the last 500 years, Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice", Henry James' "The Aspen Papers", and Shakespeare's, "The Merchant of Venice" to name only a few. What is it about the city of Venice that inspires artists and writers to create their works of genius? The greatest self-proclaimed lover in history, Casanova, had his greatest and most memorable affairs in Venice. Lord Byron chose to live there and wrote lovingly about the city, and Ezra Pound chose to live and die in Venice, leaving his long-time mistress, Olga Ridge, who also passed away there at the age of 101. Berendt captures and connects Venice's present time charm with its rich history, illustrating that these cultural traditions continue.

What struck me about Berendt's book, was how so many people, foreigner's as well as the Venetians, care intensely, passionately about Venice. It is part of our past that must be maintained and remembered, because beauty is fleeting and fragile.

As some critics have proposed, this book does not position Venetians as the `other', a "race" to be studied as something exotic and otherworldly. Berendt's book is a tribute to the city and the people who love her. Anyone who has visited Venice wants to become part of her because of her rich past and her beauty...this book captures that feeling. This is a well-written, educational and highly entertaining tribute to one of the greatest cities in the world.