The Kimono Mind: An Informal Guide to Japan and the Japanese

by Bernard Rudofsky, Rudofsky

An appreciative and unsparing look at Japan by an unusually perceptive and intelligent traveler and student of life and human nature, who lived for two years with the Japanese, far from the tourist route.

Genres: Japan, Nonfiction, Travel, Cultural, Anthropology

Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

From http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/...

Bernard Rudofsky (Austrian-American, 1905–1988) was an architect, curator, critic, exhibition designer, and fashion designer whose entire oeuvre was influenced by his lifelong interest in concepts about the body and the use of our senses. He is best known for his controversial exhibitions and accompanying catalogs, including Are Clothes Modern? (Museum of Modern Art [MoMA], 1944), Architecture without Architects (MoMA, 1964), and Now I Lay Me Down to Eat (Cooper-Hewitt Museum, 1980). He was also famous for his mid-20th-century Bernardo sandal designs, which are popular again today.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moravian-born author/architect Bernard Rudofsky delivers a well-written, and at times, humorous narrative about Japan and Japanese culture - in the 1960s. He covers such topics as language,housing,diet, and customs, but caution needs to be taken to consider the time-frame in which this was written, some fifty-something years ago. Aficionados of of Japanese culture will find this an interesting historical depiction. This book is the result of two years' residence and extensive travels in Japan. Rudofsky,a gifted author, has written other travel narratives,and as chief architect of the exhibits in the American pavilion at the Brussels Worlds Fair in 1958, also wrote about architecture and design. His published works and accomplishments certainly deserve a look.

[Kallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the first books I read that interested me in cultural studies. I wouldn't call it anthropology, but this kind of writing and appreciation of culture led me to study anthropology. I need to re-read, because I have a vague memory of the slightest tendency to view Japanese culture as absurd, in some respects. Then again, Rudofsky spares no culture that view, and that is what makes him a wonderful writer -- he sees the absurdity in every culture: how we dress, house ourselves, behave . . . Yep. Time to read him again.

[Mark Heyne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A witty if sometimes sarcastic view of Japan by someone who loves the place and the people. It has excellent illustrations of old woodcuts, but the whole thing seems to be from another time,, when Japan was another place.
I guess the book to read after this would be Barthes' 'Empire of Signs'.