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The Most Awkward Man in Japan: Dispatches from a Philosopher Abroad
A philosopher walks into Japan. The punchline is 300 pages long.
When Robert Gressis's wife plans them a luxury vacation to Japan, he promises her he will be overwhelmed by opulence, obsessively document everything, and somehow make it all about himself. He delivers on all counts.
The Most Awkward Man in Japan follows Rob through bullet trains, Michelin-starred sushi, professional wrestling at the Tokyo Dome, and a Zen rock garden that induces his first genuine religious experience. Along the way, he eats pork boobs, stares at monkeys against explicit instructions, and falls in love with an airport lounge.
This is not a travel guide. If you learn anything about Japan, it will be accidental. What you will learn about is his fears, his marriage, his profound love of mackerel, and his conviction that the difference between people having fun with him and throwing him onto a garbage scow is one wrong remark.
Part travelogue, part philosophical inquiry, part love letter to his wife (who planned everything and remembers nothing), The Most Awkward Man in Japan is for anyone who has ever felt like a fraud in a fancy hotel, wondered what first-class airline lounges are really like, or suspected that the best way to appreciate a foreign culture is to write obsessively about yourself while you're in it.
When Robert Gressis's wife plans them a luxury vacation to Japan, he promises her he will be overwhelmed by opulence, obsessively document everything, and somehow make it all about himself. He delivers on all counts.
The Most Awkward Man in Japan follows Rob through bullet trains, Michelin-starred sushi, professional wrestling at the Tokyo Dome, and a Zen rock garden that induces his first genuine religious experience. Along the way, he eats pork boobs, stares at monkeys against explicit instructions, and falls in love with an airport lounge.
This is not a travel guide. If you learn anything about Japan, it will be accidental. What you will learn about is his fears, his marriage, his profound love of mackerel, and his conviction that the difference between people having fun with him and throwing him onto a garbage scow is one wrong remark.
Part travelogue, part philosophical inquiry, part love letter to his wife (who planned everything and remembers nothing), The Most Awkward Man in Japan is for anyone who has ever felt like a fraud in a fancy hotel, wondered what first-class airline lounges are really like, or suspected that the best way to appreciate a foreign culture is to write obsessively about yourself while you're in it.
- GenresTravel
354 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 7, 2024
76 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 25, 2024
I really liked this book. Gressis made me laugh out loud. He has a great comedic voice, in at least three ways.
First, he is a master of swerving a sentence. You’ll be reading along, maybe taking in a description of food, and suddenly have your expectations turned on their head. For instance: “If you haven’t seen the movie, you must drop whatever you’re doing and immediately avoid it.”
Second, he’s got a great gift for offbeat metaphor and simile. “It was like a shopping center designed by a cobra: there was no apparent human intellect behind this spontaneous disorder, and I sensed something venomous lurking somewhere.” The book is full of these zany comparisons.
Finally, and I admit this part will be idiosyncratic, I’m from the right era to find peak enjoyment in his cultural references. He refers to the movie, Se7en, the transformer, Starscream, and the board game, Stratego. He probably refers to deep cuts that don’t begin with ‘S’, too, though I can’t remember any now. Being around the same age as the author, these unexpected easter eggs not only come off as hilarious, but they also trigger nostalgia.
The overall effect was that I was unexpectedly tickled or charmed by a turn of phrase on every page. I had originally intended to mark up my paper copy so that I could return to the parts I really loved, but I thought better of it early on. I want to loan this book out to friends, and a delicious part of the enjoyment of the book is the unexpected swerves. I’d ruin that pleasure by marking them for future readers.
And then, after all that, he had the audacity to go and teach me things, too. His introspection is insightful, even if he does obfuscate the wisdom behind heaping helpings of quirkiness and neurosis, and dashes of bawdiness and wordplay.
The book is good. You should read it.
First, he is a master of swerving a sentence. You’ll be reading along, maybe taking in a description of food, and suddenly have your expectations turned on their head. For instance: “If you haven’t seen the movie, you must drop whatever you’re doing and immediately avoid it.”
Second, he’s got a great gift for offbeat metaphor and simile. “It was like a shopping center designed by a cobra: there was no apparent human intellect behind this spontaneous disorder, and I sensed something venomous lurking somewhere.” The book is full of these zany comparisons.
Finally, and I admit this part will be idiosyncratic, I’m from the right era to find peak enjoyment in his cultural references. He refers to the movie, Se7en, the transformer, Starscream, and the board game, Stratego. He probably refers to deep cuts that don’t begin with ‘S’, too, though I can’t remember any now. Being around the same age as the author, these unexpected easter eggs not only come off as hilarious, but they also trigger nostalgia.
The overall effect was that I was unexpectedly tickled or charmed by a turn of phrase on every page. I had originally intended to mark up my paper copy so that I could return to the parts I really loved, but I thought better of it early on. I want to loan this book out to friends, and a delicious part of the enjoyment of the book is the unexpected swerves. I’d ruin that pleasure by marking them for future readers.
And then, after all that, he had the audacity to go and teach me things, too. His introspection is insightful, even if he does obfuscate the wisdom behind heaping helpings of quirkiness and neurosis, and dashes of bawdiness and wordplay.
The book is good. You should read it.
August 15, 2024
Who doesn't love a good travelogue? Original and funny insights about Japan, told with boldness but also with humility (he's not saying he's anyone's expert on the subject); pokes fun at himself frequently, as an introvert and a career philosopher. Very enjoyable and also brings up some aspects of visiting Japan that I have not seen someone bring up before. In other words, a unique perspective.
August 10, 2024
I started out being amused at the writing style but it felt tiresome after a short while. The Japan described doesn’t make me feel like going. By the end and the lengthy descriptions of wrestling I really wanted out!
September 23, 2024
I only made it to page 50 as I found the writing style to be quite self indulgent. All the notes seemed irrelevant and I didn't like the constant "if you remember what I said earlier" or "if you didn't know about" I suppose it is written by a 'philosopher' so you know...
April 5, 2025
Rob, you’re insane. Thanks. I wish I could say I was a bigger fan of wrestling after this but I am not. In the other hand, my brother got a chuckle out of asking him if he knew who “King Kong Bundy” was…
February 1, 2025
The way he writes would not be enough to convince me to go to Japan. The book was tiresome.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews