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| Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan | 
 enlarge | Author: Alan Booth
Publisher: Kodansha America
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $6.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (12 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1599609
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 387
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 1568360657
Dewey Decimal Number: 952.048
EAN: 9781568360652
ASIN: 1568360657
Publication Date: May 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
One of the best June 19, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have read many books on Japan, and I hope to share some thoughts on of all of them in time. But this is one of the few that moved me. Having lived in Japan for two years, I read this book during my last six months on the JET Program and even managed to complete one of the journeys that Booth himself travelled - as I was reading this book. I often found myself laughing out loud or shedding a tear in secret. For those that have not spent some serious time in Japan, much will be lost. It is better for those living there or who have lived there. Alan's insights cannot be perceived easily or quickly from the typical ten day vacation. In following his foot steps, I felt as if I was walking with his ghost. This book, as others have stated, is very bitter-sweet. I too, wish that Alan were still alive today, for I would very much would have enjoyed drinking with him.
Highly Recommended
Journey to Japan with Alan! August 23, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Booth is a master at bringing words to life. You can't help but feeling like you are right there with him as he travels through Japan. Seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, feeling what he experiences. In "Looking for the Lost," Booth reveals the subtleties of the Japanese people, their culture, and their land that at once demystifies Western stereotypes of Japan and envelopes the country in a totally different kind of mystery. I found nuggets reminiscent of my own visit to Japan. A delight to read!
A Look at Japan, a Look at Alan Booth July 21, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Looking for the Lost chronicles three independent walking trips the author made through the Japanese countryside, each inspired by a famous historical journey. The first trip retraces novelist Osamu Dazai's journey through his childhood homeland in his autobiographical work, "Tsugaru." The second trip recounts Alan Booth's efforts to follow the trail of the celebrated rebel general Saigo Takamori as he struggled to escape the Emperor's armies at the end of the failed Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. The third trip is of Booth's own devising, a walk from Nagoya to Taira through Gifu province, along one of many paths that legend claims the remnants of the imperial Heike clan followed after their defeat by the Genji clan in the 12th century.
Booth was a British expatriate writer who moved to Japan to study Noh drama, became disillusioned with it, and ended up a permanent resident of Japan despite that. Looking for the Lost's central theme is the dissonance Booth experiences in his journeys when he attempts to reconcile the Japan of his dreams with the nation he travels through. His portrayals of the people he encounters are sometimes cynical, often humorous, and always insightful. When Japan fails to live up to his expectations, he does not hesitate to poke fun, and the reader is often left with the sense that he feels personally let down by the nation. But allegations that Booth did not like the Japanese ignore that he is as quick to turn his pen on himself as on a passerby. Several particularly memorable segments of the book focus on Booth embarrassing himself! Moreover, Booth balances his cynicism with sympathy: when the author meets a person or place that contains the pieces of Japan he seeks, or a human being he can relate to, his heartfelt joy shines through in his writing. It is in these moments that Alan Booth reveals the most about Japan, and about himself.
The book begins with the "Tsugaru" section. Despite Booth's affection for the region he is traveling through, he never really warms up to the subject matter. He represents the novelist Dazai as an unlikeable fellow, and characterizes the region's connections to Dazai as touristy and lacking authenticity. While the descriptions and people are interesting, the reader is left wondering why Booth felt it necessary to reenact the journey of someone he spends so much time sneering at. The second and third sections of the book are much stronger. "Saigo's Last March" interweaves Booth's thorough knowledge of the general's history with a journey that sometimes daunts even the veteran walker. Here, and in the final section, "Looking for the Lost," Booth finds more signs of the Japan of his dreams.
This was Alan Booth's last book, published posthumously in 1994, the year after his death.
Entertaining, informative, poignant. May 11, 2005
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Alan Booth followed in the steps (pun intended) of numerous previous travel writers, and was better than most. He had a ready wit and an excellent sense of humor, and bore the hardships of his chosen method of travel well. He also liked to drink, an asset when traveling on foot in Japan.
He describes three different walks, each with a distinctive theme. The first follows the trail of Japanese novelist Osamu Dazai's 1944 tour of his home region, Tsugaru, in Northern Honshu. The second follows the path of General Takamori Saigo's retreat from the Battle of Enodake, in Kyushu, which ended the Satsuma rebellion in 1877. The third follows the possible track over central Honshu of the remnents of the Heike clan after their defeat at the Battle of Dannoura in 1186.
Along the way, between descriptions of his blisters and complaints about the weather, he weaves bits of history in with reflections on literature and drama, Japanese society, his own life, and the merits of various alcoholic beverages. He enjoys the Japanese, but doesn't necessarily like them, pokes fun at them constantly. Not that the Japanese, like any other nationality, don't deserve having fun poked at them. But one sometimes wonders why Booth spent so many years living in a country and learning the language of a people for whom he seems to have had so little respect. He acknowledges this indirectly even in the title of the book, "Looking for the Lost", which implies that he is looking for a Japan that may never have existed.
His comments on the Noh are interesting, but perplexing. He was a trained actor, went to Japan to learn about the Noh, and became disillusioned with it very quickly. From the little I have read and seen of Noh drama, it is based on quite different assumptions from European, especially Shakespearean, drama. It was "pickled" from the very beginning, an esoteric art form invented for the nobility, nothing "popular" or "alive" about it. Booth seems to have taken that difference personally, as if the Japanese had played a trick on him, rather than seeing the Noh for the quite unusual dramatic form that it is.
His announcement at the end of the book that he has colon cancer is terse and matter of fact, in some ways like Dazai's attitude toward suicide. One thinks of him writing this book with death looking over his shoulder, which perhaps explains the bittersweet feeling one gets while reading it.
Related works:
Basho - "The Narrow Road to the Deep North"
Isabella Bird - "Unbeatan Tracks in Japan"
Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenellosa - "The Classic Noh Theatre of
Japan"
Mishima Yukio - "Five Modern Noh Plays"
These are not nearly as much fun to read as Alan Booth.
Highly recommended.
Journey through Japan March 29, 2003
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I wish I could write as entertainingly as Alan Booth. This book will not disappoint you, especially if you like traveling and are fascinated with Japan. And if not, it's still a great read anyway. The most brilliant thing about this book is that the author combines Japanese history into his narratives as he traces three historical figures and/or locations in Japan by foot. The way he makes the characteres he meets along the way of his journey come to life is outstanding. I really enjoy this book and wish that he had written others before he died. The only thing that bothered me somewhat and makes me feel unsympathetic towards him, however, is that he drank too much. But who am I to judge? This is a great book. Highly recommended.
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