What do you think?
Rate this book
Exotics and Retrospectives
In Exotics and Retrospectives, Lafcadio Hearn plays the role not only of tour guide, but also dreamscaper. Whether through his narrative recounting of Japanese customs and traditional tales, or while sharing his personal observations and flights of fancy, Hearn's graceful and poetic prose enables the reader to enter a foreign world. Covering subjects from Buddhism to beauty to the color blue to being, he gently, honestly, and humorously lays bare philosophical truths (sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly) so that they may be both seen and felt, and thus better understood. Bohemian and writer PATRICK LAFCADIO HEARN (1850-1904) was born in Greece, raised in Ireland, and worked as newspaper reporter in the United States before decamping to Japan. He also wrote In Ghostly Japan (1899), and Kwaidan (1904).
- GenresJapanNonfiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1904
3 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Lafcadio Hearn
1,495 books457 followersGreek-born American writer Lafcadio Hearn spent 15 years in Japan; people note his collections of stories and essays, including
Kokoro
(1896), under pen name Koizumi Yakumo.
Rosa Cassimati (Ρόζα Αντωνίου Κασιμάτη in Greek), a Greek woman, bore Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν in Greek or 小泉八雲 in Japanese), a son, to Charles Hearn, an army doctor from Ireland. After making remarkable works in America as a journalist, he went to Japan in 1890 as a journey report writer of a magazine. He arrived in Yokohama, but because of a dissatisfaction with the contract, he quickly quit the job. He afterward moved to Matsué as an English teacher of Shimané prefectural middle school. In Matsué, he got acquainted with Nishida Sentarô, a colleague teacher and his lifelong friend, and married Koizumi Setsu, a daughter of a samurai.
In 1891, he moved to Kumamoto and taught at the fifth high school for three years. Kanô Jigorô, the president of the school of that time, spread judo to the world.
Hearn worked as a journalist in Kôbé and afterward in 1896 got Japanese citizenship and a new name, Koizumi Yakumo. He took this name from "Kojiki," a Japanese ancient myth, which roughly translates as "the place where the clouds are born". On that year, he moved to Tôkyô and began to teach at the Imperial University of Tôkyô. He got respect of students, many of whom made a remarkable literary career. In addition, he wrote much reports of Japan and published in America. So many people read his works as an introduction of Japan. He quit the Imperial University in 1903 and began to teach at Waseda University on the year next. Nevertheless, after only a half year, he died of angina pectoris.
Rosa Cassimati (Ρόζα Αντωνίου Κασιμάτη in Greek), a Greek woman, bore Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν in Greek or 小泉八雲 in Japanese), a son, to Charles Hearn, an army doctor from Ireland. After making remarkable works in America as a journalist, he went to Japan in 1890 as a journey report writer of a magazine. He arrived in Yokohama, but because of a dissatisfaction with the contract, he quickly quit the job. He afterward moved to Matsué as an English teacher of Shimané prefectural middle school. In Matsué, he got acquainted with Nishida Sentarô, a colleague teacher and his lifelong friend, and married Koizumi Setsu, a daughter of a samurai.
In 1891, he moved to Kumamoto and taught at the fifth high school for three years. Kanô Jigorô, the president of the school of that time, spread judo to the world.
Hearn worked as a journalist in Kôbé and afterward in 1896 got Japanese citizenship and a new name, Koizumi Yakumo. He took this name from "Kojiki," a Japanese ancient myth, which roughly translates as "the place where the clouds are born". On that year, he moved to Tôkyô and began to teach at the Imperial University of Tôkyô. He got respect of students, many of whom made a remarkable literary career. In addition, he wrote much reports of Japan and published in America. So many people read his works as an introduction of Japan. He quit the Imperial University in 1903 and began to teach at Waseda University on the year next. Nevertheless, after only a half year, he died of angina pectoris.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 14, 2020
Exotics and Retrospectives (1898) is among Lafcadio Hearn's earlier works on Japan. It starts off with the author's account of his arduous climb up Japan's Mount Fuji (3,776 meters). Because it's more personal in nature, I preferred it to the dozen or so other essays in the collection, which, in Hearn's oftentimes meandering yet lucidly clear style, cover a heap of subject matter, from Japan's singing insects, frogs, and thoughts on death and Buddhism, to his notions and flights of fancy on such topics as memory, evolution, the nauseating orange-red of sunsets, beauty in sadness, and even the color azure.
More so than this collection, I've enjoyed Hearn's later works on things Japanese, particularly his telling of ghost stories and a mishmash of other fantastic tales. His passion for writing about insects, which he does in this and in later books, is also unique. I find interesting not just the ways he describes or documents these tiny beings but also how he personifies them, sometimes matching their characteristics with elements of Japanese culture as well.
Hearn was born in Greece in 1850 and raised in Ireland, he emigrated at a young age to the U.S. and became a successful writer for newspapers, living in and writing about Cincinnati and New Orleans. Defying a law against interracial marriage, he married an African American woman in his early 20s (1874), later divorced her, then headed to Japan, where he had a family and is well known to this day as Koizumi Yakumo. The Paris Review published an excellent article about Hearn in July of last year, which gives a much broader picture of his life, interests, and achievements.
Also, something I didn't know until recently, Hearn's grave was only a few blocks north of the building where I lived in Bunkyō-ku in the 1990s, and where I first read his work. I took a lot of walks in that area but somehow overlooked Zōshigaya Cemetery, the location of his grave in Minami-Ikebukuro.
Exotics and Retrospectives can be downloaded free and legally thanks to Project Gutenberg.
More so than this collection, I've enjoyed Hearn's later works on things Japanese, particularly his telling of ghost stories and a mishmash of other fantastic tales. His passion for writing about insects, which he does in this and in later books, is also unique. I find interesting not just the ways he describes or documents these tiny beings but also how he personifies them, sometimes matching their characteristics with elements of Japanese culture as well.
Hearn was born in Greece in 1850 and raised in Ireland, he emigrated at a young age to the U.S. and became a successful writer for newspapers, living in and writing about Cincinnati and New Orleans. Defying a law against interracial marriage, he married an African American woman in his early 20s (1874), later divorced her, then headed to Japan, where he had a family and is well known to this day as Koizumi Yakumo. The Paris Review published an excellent article about Hearn in July of last year, which gives a much broader picture of his life, interests, and achievements.
Also, something I didn't know until recently, Hearn's grave was only a few blocks north of the building where I lived in Bunkyō-ku in the 1990s, and where I first read his work. I took a lot of walks in that area but somehow overlooked Zōshigaya Cemetery, the location of his grave in Minami-Ikebukuro.
Exotics and Retrospectives can be downloaded free and legally thanks to Project Gutenberg.
May 6, 2019
This is the first book of Hearn's I have read, and overall I liked it. The first essay, an account of Hearn's ascent of Fuji, is glorious. Subsequent writings turn on various aspects of Japanese culture and some philosophical and aesthetic forays. Hearn often seems torn between skepticism and the poetic current of his thought; the concept of ancestral memory or reincarnation comes up repeatedly, as Hearn seeks to understand intense sensual-psychological experiences. This volume contains bits of intriguing cultural information, lovely writing, and intellectual speculation. For all its flaws, it will draw sympathetic souls into its net.
September 27, 2018
Read 'Fuji-No-Yama' about his climb to the top of Mount Fuji. It's quite interesting.
July 15, 2019
Hearn's fifth book on Japan (1898).
October 10, 2016
This book opens with a vividly told trip Hearn made to the top of Mt Fuji in the summer of 1897. The book then jumps around through a series of unconnected topics ranging from insects to psychology. It even includes Hearn's interesting, albeit outdated, hypotheses on inherited memory. This is one of his weaker books. Don't go into it expecting him to delve into his usual tales of country life and folklore. The opening chapter 'Fuji-No-Yama' is very much worth a read. The descriptions of the trek he made up Fuji, late in his life when he wasn't in the best physical shape to tackle the task, were both beautiful and moving. The rest of the book, I can take it or leave it.
Want to read
August 30, 2009Exotics and Retrospectives, Vol. 5: Writings on Japan by Lafcadio Hearn (v. 5) by Lafcadio Hearn (2003)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews