Details About Books Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan
| Title | : | Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan |
| Author | : | Lafcadio Hearn |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 256 pages |
| Published | : | December 24th 2007 by Book Jungle (first published 1894) |
| Categories | : | Cultural. Japan. Nonfiction. Travel. History. Classics |
Lafcadio Hearn
Paperback | Pages: 256 pages Rating: 4 | 182 Users | 16 Reviews
Relation To Books Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan
Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan is a bewitching look into a world that few Westerners saw in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—a world that still endures in many ways in spite of the changes that have taken place during the modernization of Japan.
Specify Books Supposing Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan
| ISBN: | 1604247487 (ISBN13: 9781604247480) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating About Books Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan
Ratings: 4 From 182 Users | 16 ReviewsCriticize About Books Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan
My favorite book on ancient Japan, especially the parts that relate to Izumo (now Shimane prefecture), where I lived for three years on the JET program. Every time I explored an obscure shrine or temple or very remote mountain and seaside village around lake Shinji (between Izumo and Matsue), I tried to imagine how Hearn would have seen them. And it was quite a trip to find out that his grandson Koizumi Bon works at a university in Shimane. I once met the Irish ambassador to Japan on a ferryHearn certainly gives unfamiliar glimpses of Japan in this book. Exploring out-of-the-way villages and remote shrines, Hearn wrote about the countrys culture and tradition from the perspective, mostly, of a traveler so delighted, charmed and, eventually, bewitched by what he saw that he didnt leave and settled in Japan for good. He discussed many aspects of the Japanese culture from cemeteries to dolls; sacred groves to child raising; boating to suicide rituals that one would be impressed by
I was curious to read Hearn's perspective on Matsue, even though he lived only briefly in that samurai city. If you visit Matsue today, you would think otherwise, that the man spent his dying years in the Sanin region. He is one of the few Western authors who is regarded as a god by the Japanese people because of his fascination for the country and its peoples. Some of his observations of Japanese people remain relevant even in the 21st century. He describes the Japanese people of the late 19th
Lafcadio Hearn's travels remind me of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes." They were both written in the late 1800s and give you a wonderful glimpse at our world before restaurants, cars and zippers. Hearn is an oddity as he roams the sea towns of western Japan, but he loves the kindness, the religions and the rituals he finds in the Japanese countryside. He also loves ghosts and darkness, so much of his time is spent in Shinto shrines or describing dark waters and
Fascinating, if long and a little antiquated in style. Hearn is such an engaging writer, so curious and open and charmed by everything he encounters, that the book is a pleasure to read. I lived for over four years in Japan, and found Hearn accurate and informative. Love his ghost stories, too.
A beautiful trip to the past: nineteenth century Japan as seen through the eyes of half-Irish half-Greek Lafcadio Hearn. Cultural insights into the country that are still relevant over a hundred years later. Surprisingly fresh in his descriptions. Echoes of the Wildean aesthetic as well as the Victorian focus on faeries and the supernatural (Yeats?). However he never goes overboard on the "Mysterious East" of Japan. Perhaps because he decided to settle there after an adventurous life in New
Hearn's first and best book on Japan, dating from 1894, with descriptions of his arrival in Yokohama and his stay in Matsue..
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