1 comments about One Thousand Days in Siberia: The Odyssey of a Japanese-American POW.

1. About eight years ago, I read Peter Sano's story when it was in its earliest form. I knew then that he should have it published - and finally, he did. Peter was born in America but at the age of 15, in 1939, he was sent to Japan to become the adopted son of his childless aunt and uncle. Drafted into the Japanese army in 1945, Peter was sent to war. By being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Peter ended up in Siberian POW and labor camps for three years before finally being released. During those years, Peter made life bearable for many of his fellow prisoners, often at his own expense - and though he downplays his heroism, he kept some people alive who would otherwise have perished. His is a tale both humorous and tragic and in the end, inspiring. Today, Peter is back in America, an accomplished architect, husband, father, and one of the kindest and gentlest souls I have ever met. It was impossible to put down his manuscript once I started it until I had devoured every page. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys tales of triumph over adversity, love beating hate, and quick wits winning out over the harshest odds.

2 comments about A Spy in Their Midst: The World War II Struggle of a Japanese-American Hero.

1. This is one of those books that makes you wake up everyday and appreciate everything you have, espeically your freedom. Sakakida's inner strength must have been tremendous to stand up to the torture, stress, starvation and disease that he endured. And he still continued to do his duty and send intellegence back to the US forces.

   The author presented the material in a good straight forward manner that included other sources to back up and bring context to Sakakida's story. Especially interesting was the subtle nuances of Japanese culture and tradition that brought out how complex their social interaction is. Also that in every nationality there are good soldiers and bad soldiers and kindness and respect can be found even in the worst of circumstances.

   I highly recommend this book, a very good read.




2. A vivid tale of horrifying torture told by a man who experienced it all. Richard Sakakida was a true hero. For those who love books on survival, war, adventure, or the American spirit.

No comments about Lost Childhood: My Life in a Japanese Prison Camp During World War II.

No comments about Victory without Swords: The Story of Pat and Lily Okura, Japanese American Citizens in 1941 America..

No comments about (I am) A Real American: Memoirs of a 3rd Generation Japanese-American USAF Fighter Pilot.

1 comments about Childhood Years: A Memoir (Japan's Modern Writers).

1. Tanizaki's memoirs are more for the Japanese. They discuss profusely Kabuki theatre performances or great Kabuki interpreters, as well as Japanese eating habits or geographical changes in old Tokyo.
   
   But on the other hand, they show how a writer finds inspiration and characters for his books in his daily life encounters.
   His memoirs are also a tribute to his mother ('so strong is the influence of one's mother in early childhood') or some of his school teachers, who left deep and enduring marks on young Tanizaki.
   They also give indirectly a more global portrait of Japan in the late 19th and the beginning 20th century: poverty (people give away their children), geishas and pederasty.
   
   This book shows also the sometimes unsurmountable translation difficulties. After giving a book excerpt Tanizaki remarks: 'In such passages the most important is the combination of Japanese and Sino-Japanese sounds...'
   
   A book for the Tanizaki aficionados.

2 comments about The Code of Love: The True Story of Two Lovers Torn Apart by the War That Brought Them Together.

1. This is simply the best book I have read in a long time.

   Andro Linklater writes clearly and eloquently about the love affair between Pamela Kirrage and Donald Hill at the eve of World War II. He brings to life the great excitement of their budding romance and the long, difficult years they spent apart, Pamela doing her part to support England's war efforts at home and Donald languishing in a Japanese concentration camp.

   The atrocities that Donald experienced are described in a matter of fact manner that does not take away from the sheer horror of what he must have endured. He was determined to document what happened in the camp at the risk of his own life and eventually coded his diary to ensure that it would not be discovered. Through it all, his promise to return to Pamela gave him the will to survive.

   Years later after Donald's death, Pamela resolved to know the contents of his diary so she could understand what had happened to him, what had happened to them. I found the efforts to decode his diary just as fascinating as the turbulent relationship between Pamela and Donald.

   This is an intelligent and articulate account of two passionate people caught up in the throes of war and their struggle to regain their lives and relationship once reunited. It is a romance, a war history, and a mystery all rolled into one.

   I am recommending it to everyone I know. Read it!





2. Pamela Kirrage and Donald Hill were very much in love and living in England right before the outbreak of World War II. Donald was sent overseas and spent three and a half years in a Japanese prison camp. He was never the same after the war, but tried to live a normal life with Pamela and their children.

   David kept a diary during his imprisonment, but no one could crack the code until years after Donald's death, when Pamela found a mathematician who solved the mystery.

   This book tells Donald and Pamela's sad, but moving story of true love, the horrors of war and the ultimate triumph of the human spirit.

2 comments about The Kagero Diary: A Woman's Autobiographical Text from Tenth-Century Japan (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies, No. 19.).

1. The Kagero Diary precedes the most famous of Japanese literary creations the Genji monogatari by a few decades. This is the second full translation of the Kagero Diary, the first was by Edward Seidensticker, and I believe this one to be the superior. Dr. Arntzen begins with a 50 page introduction that informs the reader of both the historical and the literary realam in which the Diary was created, and she gives a basic description of the poetry, religion, and politic of the time, so the reader can easily understand what is taking place. Instead of footnotes the author puts the footnotes parallel to the diary itself making for very easy reference. The Diary itself is a staright forward memoir of Michitsuna's mother telling of her marriage woes. A wonderful book.



2. This book (same as the Gossamer Years tr. Seidensticker) is a series of fairly short passages written by "Michinaga's Mother," describing her life in the last quarter of the 10th c., starting with her marriage to a Fujiwara who would become one of the most powerful lords in the country. She is particularly interested in recording the poems she wrote and those written to reply to them by her husband and others. She also gives a vivid picture of her moral struggle with the Buddhist rejection of human loves and the cultural pleasures she is so deeply involved in.

   I am just getting interested in Heian Japan after reading the Tale of Genji, and the Kagero Diary is a wonderful source of information and understanding. As a memoir it is much more powerful (IMHO) than Murasaki's own diary or Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book. You can see and feel the author coming to terms with who she is and the life she has lived as she narrates the events that were most important for her.

   The text of the translation is set on the right-hand pages and the notes on the facing page. The poems are all transcribed so that one can see the words in them, and Arntzen, the translator, comments on the puns, etc. The notes and introduction are in some places personal, describing a modern woman scholar's changing understanding of the author. They are also smart and scholarly. I am not sure whether this translation would be satisfactory all by itself, but with the notes one feels one is getting in touch with the original. Unfortunately, there are many irritating typos.

2 comments about A Far Valley: Four Years in a Japanese Village.

1. First off, let me say that the author gives a very honest and emotional picture of ONE Japanese valley. The fact is that Japan's ideals and norms can't be judged by the study of one village OR two villages OR three villages. Also, the characters are, in some cases, composites of more than one person, names have been changed and so on, but the events DID happen.
   After saying all that I have to state that this is a great book. It is full of humor, passion, happy interaction and tragic events. And, yes, lots of drinking. Smoking too.
   The book is based on three diaries that Brian Moeran kept during his four years living in Japan. The book is broken down into three parts, each made up of chapters which are either one sentence long to many pages long and this gives the story an interesting and timeless flow. In fact, the book is only 254 pages yet seems much longer.



2. Brian Moeran and his family spent four years in a rural Japanese community, watching as pots are made, attending school award ceremonies, community festivals and funerals, but mostly listening (and drinking, a great deal of drinking) as their neighbors talked about their lives, their families and their communities.

   Moeran is an anthropologist, and was doing his field work in a neighboring community at the time, and he brings an anthropologist's observant eye to his diary of daily life in rural Japan.

   This book compares quite favorably to Alan Booth's classic _The roads to Sata_, and John Morley's _Pictures from the water trade_ in the ``a gaijin looks at Japan'' genre. If anything, it improves on those works by telling the tale of one community through sixteen seasons, and being peopled by individuals with whom the author formed lasting relationships. Further, Moeran's Japanese wife provides us with an occasional peek into the Japanese woman's world that is missing from most other books of this type.

   The community Moeran describes is small and isolated. It is not representative of Japan as a whole (Moeran, in his introduction, tells how urban Japanese friends found his tales of rural Japan almost as exotic as a westerner does). Some may consider this to be a drawback, but I did not. The book still introduces us to some of the aspects of ``Japanese-ness''.

5 comments about Cool Melons-Turn to Frogs!: The Life and Poems of Issa.

1. I am a big fan of Issa, and this is a lovely book. I returned this purchase (soft cover) only because I had bought it for a gift, and for a gift, the book just doesn't look as nice in soft cover. The illustrations are gorgeous and look much better in hard cover.



2. The best introduction to haiku, by way of the life of Issa, that I have read thus far in my study of haiku. This is an illustrated picture book aimed at children, but it captures the essence of the haiku moment beautifully, and for the beginner, the illustrations open up the words and provide an image -- one way to appreciate the connection between the words and the experiential moment. The translations are fresh and not syllable-bound, thankfully, with an added bonus of the haiku in Japanese cursive along the sides of the pages.
   
   This book is a perfect combination of concept, design, and execution, with engaging text and tender, whimsical, and astonishingly apt illustrations. The pictures of the Buddhas at New Years was startling, and the one of the dove and the owl was emotionally piercing. No flaws, nothing could be improved in this fine book.



3. Recommended to me by a school librarian, this book was a sweet delight which I read to my child thinking to encourage her to enjoy poetry. We both enjoyed this book and its wonderful illustrations of Japanese life, learning about the sad life of Issa and what is behind some of his poems, especially as haiku are not as simple as they appear on the surface. While the story may be a bit intense for very young children, the book accomplishes its intention of providing an interesting and eye-catching introduction to haiku and the sensitivity to feeling and experience that helps create the art of poetry. It also carries an underlying message of how one can not only persevere through mistreatment and adversity but keep a caring and uplifted spirit. LOVED the author's informational notes at the end.
   Also see Grass Sandals : The Travels of Basho



4. The haikus in this book are excellent. They match beautifully with the illustrations. What a great way to introduce haiku to a young person (and an older person!)
   
   My only disappointment is the interspersing of Issa's life into the work. It would have been better to have it as an author note at the end. The "story" part of Issa, I think, makes it difficult to give this as a gift or to share with children unless you are prepared to start addressing fears of mommy dieing when you (child) are three, having a mean stepmother that yells at you, etc.



5. Kazuko Stone's watercolors accompany Matthew Gollub's with great style, and his text always pleases. Do you feel a childlieke innocence in the verses of ISSA? His mother died when he was three and perhaps his sadness is reflected in this verse:
   
   "The new Year's first dream -- I see my village and wake to a chilly tear."
   
   Four years later he had a step-mother who brought dissention to the household so that the father finally took the boy to a path leading to Edo (now Tokyo) when he was 17 years old.
   
   Every person should experience during Lent some humor. This leads to the conviction that the writing of HAIKU is an appropriate theme for a Lenten retreat. These are obviously different but the interior of our hearts is where a sharing of philosophies can begin.
   
   We should also experince during the Lenten Season thoughtful meditation aand a caring exchange, "TO CATCH ONE MEANINGFUL MOMENT IN TIME" - a quote from the author is something we should all try to achieve.
   
   Reviewer mcHAIKU has a neighbor in the Indiana woods who titled her book "Swimming with Frogs" (isbn: # 0253217563) You will greatly enjoy her tribute to Nature in Brown County, and find a true urge to write HAIKU down in these hills. And a verse of Issa's will amuse you with his humorous explanation as to why people shouldn't come near melons!