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A review by bellatora
The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan by Christopher E.G. Benfey
5.0
Finding a popular history of Japan is very nearly impossible. Unlike popular histories about western Europe and the US which can be spotted a mile away hiding in a tree, popular histories (in English) about Asia can't be found on a clear day in an empty field.
This is in fact the FIRST and ONLY popular history I've ever found about Japan. I have theories about why this is so (1) the reading audience is more interested to read about the Founding Fathers and the Tudors and other well-known historical events/figures (2) Asian names are less familiar to the average reader and thus harder to keep straight (3) there's much less background knowledge so nearly all the information is new and thus harder to retain (4) the sources are in languages that are generally harder to learn and fewer people study.
Anyway, I was inclined to like this book just for what it is. And then it went and was excellent on top of that.
This book wasn't strictly chronological. Each chapter was devoted to one or two individuals or a central theme. My favorite stories were definitely those about Japanese figures, like the teenager who was shipwrecked and grew up partly in New England before returning to Japan. Or the Japanese official who had an affair with a diplomat’s wife (!) and the wife ended up being forcibly committed to an insane asylum by her angry husband (!) (I knew that shit went down in England, but who knew it happened in Japan, too?).
I only had two big problems with this book:
(1) I know Benfey is really big on how much Japan influenced stuff like modern poetry and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, and isn’t that neat? But frankly I don’t care about art and poetry and architecture and talking about minute details of those things bore me and there was far too much of that in this book as far as I’m concerned
(2) I didn’t realize going into this book how much it was about Americans; I thought it would be much more about Japan but a lot of it—especially the second half—is really about America, specifically New England. Japanese people barely even show up by the end, except in passing. It’s all about these New Englanders and how they went to Japan this one time. I really wish more of it had been set IN Japan. There seemed to be much more tenuous ties to Japan as the book went on. (though the Americans could at times be very interesting, like that huge scandal with Emily Dickinson’s brother and his nymphomaniac mistress, who was married to a guy who willingly pimped her out and was quite a ferociously sexual man himself). I guess it is easier to get sources on Americans, so I can see why Benfey spent so much time on them. But I wish he had done more with Japan.
Still, definitely worth reading and it gives a look into late 19th century Japan in an interesting way.
This is in fact the FIRST and ONLY popular history I've ever found about Japan. I have theories about why this is so (1) the reading audience is more interested to read about the Founding Fathers and the Tudors and other well-known historical events/figures (2) Asian names are less familiar to the average reader and thus harder to keep straight (3) there's much less background knowledge so nearly all the information is new and thus harder to retain (4) the sources are in languages that are generally harder to learn and fewer people study.
Anyway, I was inclined to like this book just for what it is. And then it went and was excellent on top of that.
This book wasn't strictly chronological. Each chapter was devoted to one or two individuals or a central theme. My favorite stories were definitely those about Japanese figures, like the teenager who was shipwrecked and grew up partly in New England before returning to Japan. Or the Japanese official who had an affair with a diplomat’s wife (!) and the wife ended up being forcibly committed to an insane asylum by her angry husband (!) (I knew that shit went down in England, but who knew it happened in Japan, too?).
I only had two big problems with this book:
(1) I know Benfey is really big on how much Japan influenced stuff like modern poetry and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, and isn’t that neat? But frankly I don’t care about art and poetry and architecture and talking about minute details of those things bore me and there was far too much of that in this book as far as I’m concerned
(2) I didn’t realize going into this book how much it was about Americans; I thought it would be much more about Japan but a lot of it—especially the second half—is really about America, specifically New England. Japanese people barely even show up by the end, except in passing. It’s all about these New Englanders and how they went to Japan this one time. I really wish more of it had been set IN Japan. There seemed to be much more tenuous ties to Japan as the book went on. (though the Americans could at times be very interesting, like that huge scandal with Emily Dickinson’s brother and his nymphomaniac mistress, who was married to a guy who willingly pimped her out and was quite a ferociously sexual man himself). I guess it is easier to get sources on Americans, so I can see why Benfey spent so much time on them. But I wish he had done more with Japan.
Still, definitely worth reading and it gives a look into late 19th century Japan in an interesting way.