What do you think?
Rate this book
Kimono
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
- GenresJapan
296 pages, Kindle Edition
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
December 10, 2020
Racist, heartless, at times amazingly accurate, compulsively readable, horribly prejudiced book, absolutely worth reading.
April 26, 2011
Captain Geoffrey Barrington marries Asako Fujinami in London in 1913. He's a big, blond boy from an old rich family that has come to the end of its money. She's Japanese and has spent almost her whole life in Paris with adopted parents. She has money; huge amounts arrive regularly from Japan.
London society toasts the couple, with the only misgivings being where her money comes from and the role of women in Japanese society (with particular reference to the sex trade). Everyone concludes that it would be best for the Barringtons to avoid Japan and to live their lives spending her money in Switzerland, Italy and on the Riviera. (Note to people who write the blurb on editions of "Tender is the Night": this is happening ten years before the Divers "turned it into the playground of the rich and famous").
The Barringtons ignore the advice and go to Japan. Geoffrey doesn't have too bad a time at the start, but does end up spending all of his time playing tennis with an Embassy chum and an Anglophile Viscount. The Embassy chum has fallen for a woman who's bad news and Asako makes friends with her relations and starts to set up home in Japan.
Clouds are gathering as a host of Japanese men, inscrutable to Geoffrey and Asako, embark on an evil plan....
I loved this book. It is fairly racist in themes and in language (the author is obsessed with "Mongolian yellow" and how much of it each Japanese character has) but there are some astute observations and, in defence of the story, it did keep me guessing.
His characterisations weren't brilliant, with the English much more sophisticated than the Japanese. Asako wasn't too bad, but it was a bit of an effort to tell apart the numerous inscrutable Japanese men. I had to remind myself at the big dramatic ending that Ito and Tanaka weren't actually the same person.
He uses loads of Japanese words, some of which remain foreign to the casual reader: katsuobushi, zabuton, geta etc. But he has a whole chapter about "dwarf trees" without using the word bonsai. Isn't that odd?
"As they left the church, the organ was playing Kimiga-yo, the Japanese national anthem. Nobody recognised it, except the few Japanese who were present ... Those who had heard the tune before and half remembered it decided that it must come for the 'Mikado'; and one stern dowager went so far as to protest to the rector for permitting such a tune to desecrate the sacred edifice."
"The elderly roués ... seemed to have particularly fruity memories of tea-house sprees and Oriental philanderings under the cherry-blossoms of Yokohama. Evidently, Japan was just like the musical comedies."
"But the children of Nagasaki ... They are laughing, happy, many-coloured and ubiquitous. ... It pleased him to watch them, playing their game of Jonkenpan with much show of pudgy fingers"
On a train passing Mount Fuji:
'It's a pity we can’t see it,' said Geoffrey.
'Yes, it's the only big thing in the whole darned country,' said a saturnine American, sitting opposite; 'and then, when you get to it, it's just a heap of cinders.'"
"and the queer sickly scent of a powerful evergreen tree aflower throughout the city, which resembled the reek of that Nagasaki brothel,"
London society toasts the couple, with the only misgivings being where her money comes from and the role of women in Japanese society (with particular reference to the sex trade). Everyone concludes that it would be best for the Barringtons to avoid Japan and to live their lives spending her money in Switzerland, Italy and on the Riviera. (Note to people who write the blurb on editions of "Tender is the Night": this is happening ten years before the Divers "turned it into the playground of the rich and famous").
The Barringtons ignore the advice and go to Japan. Geoffrey doesn't have too bad a time at the start, but does end up spending all of his time playing tennis with an Embassy chum and an Anglophile Viscount. The Embassy chum has fallen for a woman who's bad news and Asako makes friends with her relations and starts to set up home in Japan.
Clouds are gathering as a host of Japanese men, inscrutable to Geoffrey and Asako, embark on an evil plan....
I loved this book. It is fairly racist in themes and in language (the author is obsessed with "Mongolian yellow" and how much of it each Japanese character has) but there are some astute observations and, in defence of the story, it did keep me guessing.
His characterisations weren't brilliant, with the English much more sophisticated than the Japanese. Asako wasn't too bad, but it was a bit of an effort to tell apart the numerous inscrutable Japanese men. I had to remind myself at the big dramatic ending that Ito and Tanaka weren't actually the same person.
He uses loads of Japanese words, some of which remain foreign to the casual reader: katsuobushi, zabuton, geta etc. But he has a whole chapter about "dwarf trees" without using the word bonsai. Isn't that odd?
"As they left the church, the organ was playing Kimiga-yo, the Japanese national anthem. Nobody recognised it, except the few Japanese who were present ... Those who had heard the tune before and half remembered it decided that it must come for the 'Mikado'; and one stern dowager went so far as to protest to the rector for permitting such a tune to desecrate the sacred edifice."
"The elderly roués ... seemed to have particularly fruity memories of tea-house sprees and Oriental philanderings under the cherry-blossoms of Yokohama. Evidently, Japan was just like the musical comedies."
"But the children of Nagasaki ... They are laughing, happy, many-coloured and ubiquitous. ... It pleased him to watch them, playing their game of Jonkenpan with much show of pudgy fingers"
On a train passing Mount Fuji:
'It's a pity we can’t see it,' said Geoffrey.
'Yes, it's the only big thing in the whole darned country,' said a saturnine American, sitting opposite; 'and then, when you get to it, it's just a heap of cinders.'"
"and the queer sickly scent of a powerful evergreen tree aflower throughout the city, which resembled the reek of that Nagasaki brothel,"
June 24, 2012
What a delightful book! Pure serendipity that I read it - found an old Penguin in a charity shop and bought it just because it was about Japan, where I've been recently. First published in 1921 by a diplomat and someone who reflects the values and prejudices of his time, the book nevertheless transcends those and becomes a compulsively readable story of love and passion in Japan before WW1.
October 29, 2018
Frank Trelawny Arthur Ashton- Gwatkin (1889- 1976) was an author who wrote under the pseudonym John Paris. He was also the British Ambassador to Japan in the 1920s and accompanied Crown Prince Hirohito to Great Britain in 1921. Later, he was with Chamberlain in Munich in 1938 during the appeasement of Hitler as the Nazis were about to invade Czechoslovakia.
Apart from the fact Mr Gwatkin is a natural teller of an exciting story, reading this book is like traveling in a time machine to a very personal experience of a foreigner in Japan during 1914. For anybody who has lived in Japan this is especially thrilling and revealing.
The story is skillfully threaded between these deep philosophical questions of East meets West and old fashioned meets modern and definitions of what is right and wrong and what is good and what is evil.
Also locked in this book is the honest plain prejudices of the author which would be been seen as outrageous in the modern world.
The base plot has Captain the Honourable Geoffrey Barrington meeting Miss Asako Fujinami and they fall in love and get married in England in 1913.
They have a simple and beautiful loving relationship. They think it would be a great idea to travel to Japan to explore the world of Asako's ancestors and meet her current family, in which there is a considerable holding of wealth.
It is has been just 60 years since Japan had been forced to open it's borders to the world and modernise. Japan is now emerging as a global power and internally there is much adoption and also rejection of foreign ideas and culture. There are the traditionalists and also the liberal ハイカラ gentlemen.
It is 20 years since Japan defeated China and took Korea. Ten years since Japan had defeated Russia and taken Manchuria. In the first months of WW1 Japan fought with the British to defeat the Germans at Tsingtao. Japan saw themselves as a natural successor to rule Asia as the colonial western powers fought among themselves in Europe.
Geoffrey immediately relates to what he has read of the experiences of Lafcadio Hearn during his life in Japan during the 1890s. He loves the culture of Japan but is deeply disappointed he can never be fully accepted.
His further turmoil is connected to his cultural heritage of Christianity and the belief in the rights of the individual versus the belief of Buddhism and the values of the group. His wife meanwhile is becoming convinced she needs to more deeply find her true cultural roots. This a real trial for any true love and the conflicts and misunderstandings deepen.
As Asako's family convince her to become more Japanese she also encounters the strong conflicts of the emerging rights of European women versus the duty of a Japanese woman.
I ended up thinking if only Geoffrey could have been stronger he could have dealt with the challenges in his life a little wiser and if he could have accepted more of the ideas of the Japanese he could have adapted his own thinking to become more of a survivor, not just for for himself, but for his wife.
Apart from the fact Mr Gwatkin is a natural teller of an exciting story, reading this book is like traveling in a time machine to a very personal experience of a foreigner in Japan during 1914. For anybody who has lived in Japan this is especially thrilling and revealing.
The story is skillfully threaded between these deep philosophical questions of East meets West and old fashioned meets modern and definitions of what is right and wrong and what is good and what is evil.
Also locked in this book is the honest plain prejudices of the author which would be been seen as outrageous in the modern world.
The base plot has Captain the Honourable Geoffrey Barrington meeting Miss Asako Fujinami and they fall in love and get married in England in 1913.
They have a simple and beautiful loving relationship. They think it would be a great idea to travel to Japan to explore the world of Asako's ancestors and meet her current family, in which there is a considerable holding of wealth.
It is has been just 60 years since Japan had been forced to open it's borders to the world and modernise. Japan is now emerging as a global power and internally there is much adoption and also rejection of foreign ideas and culture. There are the traditionalists and also the liberal ハイカラ gentlemen.
It is 20 years since Japan defeated China and took Korea. Ten years since Japan had defeated Russia and taken Manchuria. In the first months of WW1 Japan fought with the British to defeat the Germans at Tsingtao. Japan saw themselves as a natural successor to rule Asia as the colonial western powers fought among themselves in Europe.
Geoffrey immediately relates to what he has read of the experiences of Lafcadio Hearn during his life in Japan during the 1890s. He loves the culture of Japan but is deeply disappointed he can never be fully accepted.
His further turmoil is connected to his cultural heritage of Christianity and the belief in the rights of the individual versus the belief of Buddhism and the values of the group. His wife meanwhile is becoming convinced she needs to more deeply find her true cultural roots. This a real trial for any true love and the conflicts and misunderstandings deepen.
As Asako's family convince her to become more Japanese she also encounters the strong conflicts of the emerging rights of European women versus the duty of a Japanese woman.
I ended up thinking if only Geoffrey could have been stronger he could have dealt with the challenges in his life a little wiser and if he could have accepted more of the ideas of the Japanese he could have adapted his own thinking to become more of a survivor, not just for for himself, but for his wife.
April 11, 2019
Een heel mooi verhaal opgebouwd rond de clash tussen Oost en West aan het begin van de 20ste eeuw. In tegenstelling tot andere commentaren vind ik het aspect “racisme” niet zo belangrijk. Het is een feit dat de Engelsen hun minachting voor andere volkeren en culturen niet onder stoelen of banken konden steken en dat graag met de nodige arrogantie duidelijk maakten. Maar daar waren – en zijn – ze niet alleen in. Tot op de dag van vandaag blijft het een gegeven.
Aangezien ik zelf met een Chinese vrouw gehuwd ben, heb ik mij doorheen het boek de vraag blijven stellen hoe de relatie tussen de beide echtgenoten zou evolueren doorheen hun contact met de Japanse cultuur, want de “clash of cultures” valt niet te onderschatten, zelfs niet met een tijdsverschil van 100 jaar.
Wat mij betreft, biedt het boek heel wat stof tot nadenken want zowel de Japanners als de Britten maken zich schuldig aan zeer twijfelachtig gedrag, hypocrisie en racistisch denken.
Aangezien ik zelf met een Chinese vrouw gehuwd ben, heb ik mij doorheen het boek de vraag blijven stellen hoe de relatie tussen de beide echtgenoten zou evolueren doorheen hun contact met de Japanse cultuur, want de “clash of cultures” valt niet te onderschatten, zelfs niet met een tijdsverschil van 100 jaar.
Wat mij betreft, biedt het boek heel wat stof tot nadenken want zowel de Japanners als de Britten maken zich schuldig aan zeer twijfelachtig gedrag, hypocrisie en racistisch denken.
October 19, 2013
I really enjoyed this curious book from the early 20th century - full review here
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.u...
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.u...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews