Having just stated that I have a heaving bookshelf of novels....... This is
not a novel in the full sense but rather "faction" - a very interesting way
of portraying events in the Inn by using little playlets. I would recommend
it to light readers as well as serious readers. I have a copy from 1961,
published in New York by Random House. In it I have kept a review by a
literature critic of the time (in the Daily Telegraph I think). I thought it
might be of interest, as an aside the cost then was 35s - £1.75 in sterling
now or about $2.50:
JAPANESE INN. By Oliver Statler. (.Secker and Warburg. 35s.)
FOR Mr. Statler in 1947, a fortyeight-hour pass meant not the fleshpots of
Tokyo but a week-end in a village inn; and the trip into the countryside,
often repeated, soon became a trip into the feudal past. The inn was the
Minaguchi-ya, in the village of Okitsu, on the Tokaido highway linking the
old Imperial capital of Kyoto with Edo, the Shogunate site of modern Tokyo.
In electing to write a history of the Minaguchi-ya Mr. Statler could
scarcely avoid anthologising most of the more colourful episodes and
characters in the Japanese calendar. There is no denying the fascination of
this material, which will be familiar only to students of things Japanese.
It is all written up with a vividness that captures what is bloody minded as
well as what is charming in this culture of ascetic aestheticism.
Many generations of the Mochizuki family played host here to such eccentrics
as Ieyasu Tokugawa, Will Adams, the Zen poet Basho, Dr. Kaempfer, and
Hiroshige, whose views of the Tokaido liberally illustrate these pages. More
tenuously linked to the fortunes of the inn are the many period politicos
and the European bagmen and missionaries, with their serio-comical
squabbles. The inn was awash with blood during the police terror of 1651. In
1705 the teenagers were on the march; a compulsive crusade of three and a
half millions passed by en route to Ise. Of such little-known incidents is
this entertaining and unusual volume composed. It is decorated with the
satirical brush sketches of Jichosai, an agreeably astringent foil to the
woodcuts of Hiroshige, Hokusai, Kuniyoshi and Moronobu.
HUGH GORDON PORTEUS
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul & Anne Wittine" <dogen@...>
To: <samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 9:18 PM
Subject: [samuraihistory] Japanese Inn by Statler Oliver (Slightly OT?)
> Can anybody who somewhat knows the subject, tell me if this book can be
> taken at face value, or is it just another misguided attempt at
> understanding Eastern culture and history by a citizen of the West?
>
> Paul Wittine
>
>
>
> Samurai Archives: http://www.samurai-archives.com
> ---
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> samuraihistory-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>