(no subject)

[skygiants]

As far as I can tell, there are two main problems with Christopher Benfey's The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan.

The first is that Benfey is very, very obviously not a historian, and he doesn't quite know how to be a historian; he's a literary scholar, which is extremely evident from the first chapter in which he spends a good portion of his page count pulling out semi-relevant quotes from Moby Dick. He is also a literary scholar who . . . well, I was wondering why the Boston social scene seems to basically take over this book, and then I looked him up on Wikipedia and was like "oh, OF COURSE he's a Dickinson scholar!" Which explains why there is, for example, a whole chapter focused mostly on the sexcapades of Emily Dickinson's father's mistress and her husband that concludes with a weird few pages about how Emily Dickinson never went to Japan, and never mentioned Japan, and none of her family circle went to Japan until after she was already dead, but nonetheless her poems are sort of . . . Japanese . . . ish . . .

The second, related and SLIGHTLY LARGER problem is that Benfey thinks cultural appropriation and Orientalism are just so cute. (Except actually he doesn't, because neither of these phrases appears in the text.) Occasionally there are vague intimations that in the grander scheme of things ransacking Japan for artifacts and paintings might not be totally cool. But Benfey is not actually interested in even starting to analyze at all the complicated political and cultural implications of the early interactions between the US and Japan, he is mostly just interested in demonstrating that the turn-of-the-century circle of Japanophilic intellectuals was just so interesting and quirky! (Despite the title, I should also mention, there really is only one Japanese figure who gets anything like the kind of attention his wacky New Englanders do. And he is in fact a very interesting guy and you could easily write a whole book just on him, but he is not enough to hold this book together.)

Which is not to say that the book doesn't have interesting information, but . . . okay, to sum up the book at its most extremely problematic, let me just leave you this quote about a piece of Japanophilic writing by Lafcadio Hearn about a place he calls 'Yosiward':

Hearn means Yoshiwara, the pleasure quarter of Tokyo, but one hardly minds the error, so confident is the exotic evocation of a backward-looking world of unerring aesthetic delight, of geisha clad in silk of shifting tints, with Fuji in the distance.

Well, no. One does, in fact, mind the error. ONE ALSO MINDS MANY OTHER THINGS.

Comments

[genarti]

...Oh good glory.

There's one for the NEVER READ OMG list, then!

[ceitfianna]

I hate authors like that, they make me want to take the book away and give it to someone who knows. Loot made me feel that way and I recently found the scholarly response to it which made me so happy.

Also I'm reading Aunt Maria and I can see why you love Mig, she's herself and worries about being nice while she's annoyed.

[skygiants]

It's not that bad all the way through (or I probably would not have been able to finish it despite my weird compulsion to finish books NO MATTER WHAT), but when it is, good lord.

[skygiants]

Yeah, sometimes what you really want after reading a book you hated is a nice scholarly review that backs up your thoughts and says what you are thinking but with beautiful academic sarcasm. Unfortunately I have not yet found a review like that for this book.

Haha, yes! This, and also the hilarious princess fic she is VERY SERIOUSLY writing.

[ceitfianna]

Apparently the answer for Loot is Who Owns Antiquity?, which I highly recommend.

I'm going to do booklogging today since my paper is turned in and done.

[gramarye1971]

...I suspect that my instinctive revulsion for anything that airily praises Lafcadio Hearn like that has at least something to do with the fact that I was first introduced to Hearn as part of a Japanese translation assignment and spent the better part of an hour trying to comprehend the Japanese spelling of his name, which in transliteration comes out looking something like Rafukadio Haan. By the time I figured it out, I had a headache and wanted nothing more to do with the man, even before I got to actual issues of Orientalism and cultural appropriation inherent in his work.

In conclusion, one does indeed mind. *unamused face*

[genarti]

Yes, but it doesn't sound as if it ever actually gets good in bits, either. Does it?

(I still have no intention of reading it, but I'm idly curious.)

[skygiants]

He quotes one of Kazuko Okakura's letters to his girlfriend's cat; that was pretty good!

No, more seriously, I hadn't heard of Okakura or Manjiro or Edward Morse the Determined Marine Biologist Who Also Incidentally Became An Expert in Pottery Because It Looked Like Shells, and I was actually interested to learn about these people. But I definitely hope there are better books in which to do so.

[skygiants]

Ahahahaha, I cannot blame you. (Ironically enough, Lafcadio Hearn actually comes across as one of the less problematic authors discussed. Which more says worse things for the others than anything good about Hearn.)

[genarti]

...Okay, that letter sounds potentially adorable, and I hadn't heard of those folks either.

Your point about better books in which to learn about them, however, decidedly stands.

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Agh. It's really hard to find a good book on that time period that doesn't take the side of Japan or America re: the opening of Japan. Darnit, I just want someone who can examine the good AND the repercussions!

Sounds I can check this one off.

[kenovay.livejournal.com]

Oh dear.

[skygiants]

I don't really mind biased history - I mean, all history is going to be biased anyway, so they might as well admit it upfront - but, you know, it's nice if the fact that situations are complicated is actually acknowledged, instead of airily brushed aside.

[skygiants]

Pretty much.