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Japanese Inn
The beguiling story of the Minaguchi-ya, an ancient inn on the Tokaido Road, founded on the eve of the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. Travelers and guests flow into and past the inn―warriors on the march, lovers fleeing to a new life, pilgrims on their merry expeditions, great men going to and from the capital. The story of the Minaguchi-ya is a social history of Japan through 400 years, a ringside seat to some of the most stirring events of a stirring period.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
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About the author
Oliver Statler
44 books8 followersOliver Hadley Statler (1915-2002) was a Bestselling Author and Japanese Art Expert. From his small-town, midwestern roots, Huntley native Oliver Hadley Statler found his life's passion in Japan and became an internationally acclaimed best-selling author and interpreter of Japanese art, culture and history.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
December 21, 2022
This is a book my father gave me at a young age, like middle schoolish, because it’s a book he enjoyed and probably because I’m half-Japanese and good parents try to be good parents after all.
This is a book that despite its rating here I would not expect most people to enjoy. I think many would find it boring. I am not a particular fan of historical fiction, and for people where that history part isn’t something they carry in their back pocket, it might be even more dry.
For myself I found it rather charming, and delightful, and while not a work of magic realism it sometimes feels like an artifact of magic realism. There is magic in those little things we do, our quirks, even our repetitions.
It’s also an example of one of the tropes I enjoy, which is the history of this set place. It’s the opposite of like quest books where people go to different places on a map to do a thing, and instead is the fictional chronicling of all the people who pass by to get to those places. As a kid who got to travel at a very young age and lived in places where the history of the ancient world is recorded, I’d often use to stop at random places in Rome or Kyoto and think about who may have walked by here, what kind of and whose history was this the backdrop of even if for just seconds. Whose footsteps could I be walking in step with? If I a man of the 20th and 21st century gasped when I first saw the pyramids, thousands of years ago did travelers round the bend and scream WTF is that? and dap people up around them amidst the accomplishment of it all.
This novel is also at times very small, it will spend time telling of simple uneventful everyday things wedged into visits by among the most famous people in Japanese history. It’s this small part that we will marvel at when watching say a Miyazaki film but most will find it tedious to read. Very few people can make a child's simple chores seem so thematically important. A day's work causes us to collapse among the greatest of all memes.
For myself tho this book was as I remembered, a memory of dad who not only put me on a path of reading but was also probably a young father looking for a bridge of common interest with his son.
Either that or he just wanted me to shut up for a few hours.
This is a book that despite its rating here I would not expect most people to enjoy. I think many would find it boring. I am not a particular fan of historical fiction, and for people where that history part isn’t something they carry in their back pocket, it might be even more dry.
For myself I found it rather charming, and delightful, and while not a work of magic realism it sometimes feels like an artifact of magic realism. There is magic in those little things we do, our quirks, even our repetitions.
It’s also an example of one of the tropes I enjoy, which is the history of this set place. It’s the opposite of like quest books where people go to different places on a map to do a thing, and instead is the fictional chronicling of all the people who pass by to get to those places. As a kid who got to travel at a very young age and lived in places where the history of the ancient world is recorded, I’d often use to stop at random places in Rome or Kyoto and think about who may have walked by here, what kind of and whose history was this the backdrop of even if for just seconds. Whose footsteps could I be walking in step with? If I a man of the 20th and 21st century gasped when I first saw the pyramids, thousands of years ago did travelers round the bend and scream WTF is that? and dap people up around them amidst the accomplishment of it all.
This novel is also at times very small, it will spend time telling of simple uneventful everyday things wedged into visits by among the most famous people in Japanese history. It’s this small part that we will marvel at when watching say a Miyazaki film but most will find it tedious to read. Very few people can make a child's simple chores seem so thematically important. A day's work causes us to collapse among the greatest of all memes.
For myself tho this book was as I remembered, a memory of dad who not only put me on a path of reading but was also probably a young father looking for a bridge of common interest with his son.
Either that or he just wanted me to shut up for a few hours.
December 29, 2023
I spent last Christmas in John Hersey's bomb-ravaged Hiroshima, and by chance I once again spent Christmas in Japan, on this occasion time-traveling through Oliver Statler's Japanese Inn.
For more than four centuries the Minaguchi-ya has stood along the Tokaido in the village of Okitsu, and Oliver Statler, who first visited the inn during the American Occupation, is here to relay its history. Or its sort-of history, part of which the author has had to invent and embellish based on fact as well as legend since the inn's records were destroyed in a fire in the 1870s. William Adams makes an appearance, as does Bashō and Hiroshige, but because of the book's structure it doesn't feel hokey or contrived. Only occasionally do some of the chapters feel overlong, with the final chapter seeming entirely unnecessary.
Fiction or nonfiction, the book is gorgeous and captivating--why isn't it more widely read?--with dozens of woodblock illustrations, many of them by Hiroshige. Published in 1961, 14 years before James Clavell's Shōgun, I'm happy to report that there's not a single mention of an enormous white penis. The perfect book to cap a record reading year. Here's to 2024!
For more than four centuries the Minaguchi-ya has stood along the Tokaido in the village of Okitsu, and Oliver Statler, who first visited the inn during the American Occupation, is here to relay its history. Or its sort-of history, part of which the author has had to invent and embellish based on fact as well as legend since the inn's records were destroyed in a fire in the 1870s. William Adams makes an appearance, as does Bashō and Hiroshige, but because of the book's structure it doesn't feel hokey or contrived. Only occasionally do some of the chapters feel overlong, with the final chapter seeming entirely unnecessary.
Fiction or nonfiction, the book is gorgeous and captivating--why isn't it more widely read?--with dozens of woodblock illustrations, many of them by Hiroshige. Published in 1961, 14 years before James Clavell's Shōgun, I'm happy to report that there's not a single mention of an enormous white penis. The perfect book to cap a record reading year. Here's to 2024!
September 9, 2017
Possibly nearly readable as compared to his "Japanese Pilgrimage," this paperback tries to explore one of the most ancient Japanese inns called the Minaguchi-ya in terms of its 400-year story, its reluctant founder as a samurai retainer named Mochizuki (p. 12), its long interesting transitional stages of development, its surviving the war and the Occupation by its twentieth generation as revealed in Chapter 14, that is, from 1940-1957 (pp. 317-318), a rare one indeed in Japan or the world.
From Chapter 1 onwards, its readers would be duly informed and entertained by various episodes magically unfold by the author’s narration and dialogs. However, we may wonder if all of them are real so we see the light from this message, "Much of it is told in fictional form." (back cover) as well as this excerpt from his postscript that we should keep in mind while reading:
OKITSU is a real town and the Minaguchi-ya is a real inn. But, as I have stated, the records of the inn and of the Mochizuki family were destroyed by fire during the time of Hanjuro I, and most of my story of the prior to that time is what I have reconstructed from other contemporary documents.
The account of the inn’s founding conforms to family legend, but most of the links with historical personalities, all of whom I have tried to present faithfully, are my own invention. This is true up until the time of Prince Saionji: Saionji’s relationship to the inn is given as it was.
… (p. 363)
Obviously written from his Japanese skills, direct experience as one of the inn’s visitors and his Japanese background as a famed Japanophile, this seemingly ordinary paperback with its bi-colored front cover is certainly a thrill to those interested in everything Japanese. However, it is quite impossible to cite all of those heart-warming stories to justify my point, therefore, in the meantime I think this episode related to the great Obaasan (Grandmother) should suffice:
“Americans have never caused us any trouble,” she goes on, “though some complain when we close the shutters at night.” I wince, for over the years no one has complained more loudly than I about this Japanese habit of shuttering the windows even in midsummer.
Obaason is approaching eighty, “but a person has to keep working.” She rises every morning at five, and begins the day by wiping her body with cold water. She opens the doors and prays to the life-giving sun, and then, at the altar in her room, to Buddha and her ancestors, making a little offering of rice and tea. …
Without any real responsibility, she nevertheless keeps a sharp eye on the ten maids. “In my mother’s time we had many more,” she says, “but no inn can afford such a large staff today. In the old days, servants felt a greater responsibility than they do now. They never complained in the busy season, and before a girl resigned she always found someone to take her place. Still we seldom have servant trouble, and I can’t remember having to scold a maid – just an occasional reminder about manners, like going to one’s knees to open a door. … (pp. 325-326)
As for those not keen on reading, they may browse through its pages for the ten crests, the two characters reading “Basho,” the calligraphy of Ike no Taiga, Torii gate of a Shinto Shrine, and one of the seals Hiroshige used on his prints; each being on top of the right page facing each chapter. Moreover, there are 50 related Japanese-style illustrations worth studying and admiring, for instance, The salt-making beach at Okitsu on a moonlit evening (a print by Hiroshige) (p. 102), A massage (a book illustration by Bunpo) (p. 136), … they are so burdened with salve that Kakuhei has to carry a huge bundle of it on his shoulders (a book illustration by Jichosai) (p. 162), etc.
In brief, this is one of the best books on Japan subtly told by such an authority on Japanese culture and social history. Therefore, it is an unthinkably but understandably surprise when he has ended his book at Chapter Fifteen in which the Emperor and Empress of Japan honored the inn as its guests in 1957.
From Chapter 1 onwards, its readers would be duly informed and entertained by various episodes magically unfold by the author’s narration and dialogs. However, we may wonder if all of them are real so we see the light from this message, "Much of it is told in fictional form." (back cover) as well as this excerpt from his postscript that we should keep in mind while reading:
OKITSU is a real town and the Minaguchi-ya is a real inn. But, as I have stated, the records of the inn and of the Mochizuki family were destroyed by fire during the time of Hanjuro I, and most of my story of the prior to that time is what I have reconstructed from other contemporary documents.
The account of the inn’s founding conforms to family legend, but most of the links with historical personalities, all of whom I have tried to present faithfully, are my own invention. This is true up until the time of Prince Saionji: Saionji’s relationship to the inn is given as it was.
… (p. 363)
Obviously written from his Japanese skills, direct experience as one of the inn’s visitors and his Japanese background as a famed Japanophile, this seemingly ordinary paperback with its bi-colored front cover is certainly a thrill to those interested in everything Japanese. However, it is quite impossible to cite all of those heart-warming stories to justify my point, therefore, in the meantime I think this episode related to the great Obaasan (Grandmother) should suffice:
“Americans have never caused us any trouble,” she goes on, “though some complain when we close the shutters at night.” I wince, for over the years no one has complained more loudly than I about this Japanese habit of shuttering the windows even in midsummer.
Obaason is approaching eighty, “but a person has to keep working.” She rises every morning at five, and begins the day by wiping her body with cold water. She opens the doors and prays to the life-giving sun, and then, at the altar in her room, to Buddha and her ancestors, making a little offering of rice and tea. …
Without any real responsibility, she nevertheless keeps a sharp eye on the ten maids. “In my mother’s time we had many more,” she says, “but no inn can afford such a large staff today. In the old days, servants felt a greater responsibility than they do now. They never complained in the busy season, and before a girl resigned she always found someone to take her place. Still we seldom have servant trouble, and I can’t remember having to scold a maid – just an occasional reminder about manners, like going to one’s knees to open a door. … (pp. 325-326)
As for those not keen on reading, they may browse through its pages for the ten crests, the two characters reading “Basho,” the calligraphy of Ike no Taiga, Torii gate of a Shinto Shrine, and one of the seals Hiroshige used on his prints; each being on top of the right page facing each chapter. Moreover, there are 50 related Japanese-style illustrations worth studying and admiring, for instance, The salt-making beach at Okitsu on a moonlit evening (a print by Hiroshige) (p. 102), A massage (a book illustration by Bunpo) (p. 136), … they are so burdened with salve that Kakuhei has to carry a huge bundle of it on his shoulders (a book illustration by Jichosai) (p. 162), etc.
In brief, this is one of the best books on Japan subtly told by such an authority on Japanese culture and social history. Therefore, it is an unthinkably but understandably surprise when he has ended his book at Chapter Fifteen in which the Emperor and Empress of Japan honored the inn as its guests in 1957.
December 15, 2015
If you are interested about leaning Japanese history in a fun manner, this is a book for you. That is what I thought when I began this book. I do not think it now. Some of the stories are quite boring, others are OK! I simply did not like the tone of the writing. There is a flippant tone, a sarcastic humor that did not appeal to me. Some of the details woven into the stories were totally without interest to me. How a person's shoes fit, for example..... It is just that peculiar details are thrown in, and I couldn't care less about these details. The stories did not make me curious for more, as a good tale should! The only story I really enjoyed was the one about Hiroshige. I liked the illustrations by him too. But that is about it. One more thing I enjoyed, and that is I could picture the beauty of the place where the inn is situated, but that is probably because I have traveled in the area more than that the writing so well depicted it.
Here is what I have found about the author and how this book came to be written: http://www.hawaii.edu/asiaref/japan/s...
Check particularly under the headings "Japan" and "Birth of Masterpieces".
Statler mixes stories about Japanese history and guests stopping at the ancient Japanese inn, Minaguchi-ya, on the Tokaido Road. The inn came into being in 1569, along with the birth of the Tokugawa shogunate. The stories begin in 1569 and continue through to 1957. Some are fictional. Statler first visited this inn in 1947, employed in a civil service position with the Army. The book has great black and white illustrations, many by Hiroshige.
Here is what I have found about the author and how this book came to be written: http://www.hawaii.edu/asiaref/japan/s...
Check particularly under the headings "Japan" and "Birth of Masterpieces".
Statler mixes stories about Japanese history and guests stopping at the ancient Japanese inn, Minaguchi-ya, on the Tokaido Road. The inn came into being in 1569, along with the birth of the Tokugawa shogunate. The stories begin in 1569 and continue through to 1957. Some are fictional. Statler first visited this inn in 1947, employed in a civil service position with the Army. The book has great black and white illustrations, many by Hiroshige.
September 26, 2019
The San Francisco Chronicler called this “a strangely beautiful book” and I really have to agree. Mostly fiction—but with many interesting true events and personalities incorporated—it chronicles the long history of a favourite inn that Statler (American) frequented during the Occupation. He incorporates true events gleaned from his interviews with the inn’s family with records uncovered elsewhere (the family archive having been destroyed in a fire), and simply makes up the rest. He has a great sense of historical pacing and clearly loves to tell a good tale; the saving grace here is that he’s actually a good writer!
It sounds whacky, but I really enjoyed it.
It sounds whacky, but I really enjoyed it.
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October 17, 2020A colourful background to Japans history, over the past 500 odd years. Illustrated with 50 prints. A valuable little book which gives a lot of insight into the Japanese mindset, which hasn´t changed as much as many might believe. I wish I had read it before visiting Japan.
October 24, 2020
The best parts are the visit of the Imperial Family to the Inn and the story of Hiroshige's visits. Not really my cup of tea, but ideal for Japanese history enthusiasts.
October 3, 2015
This book tells the story of Minaguchi-ya, a Japanese inn, over its history of twenty generations of ownership by the Mochizuki family. The inn itself burned and was rebuilt a number of times and the family maintained continuity only by adopting sons when there were no blood descendants to whom the inn could be passed. The inn is located in Okitsu, one of the towns that served as a posting station along the Tokaido Road, which was the coastal highway connecting Kyoto and Tokyo, along which Japanese nobles traveled each year between their fiefdoms and the Shogun's capital in Tokyo (then called Edo). Statler connects the inn with many famous stories and characters from Japanese history, starting with Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and his great adversary, Shingen, who was the subject of Kurosawa's film, "Kagemusha," then continuing to the story of Will Adams, the historical character on whom "Shogun" was based and then to the the famous revenge story of the 47 Ronin, which has been retold in more forms than I could possibly enumerate. He also includes the story of Hiroshige, a Japanese print artist who issued a famous series of prints of the post towns along the Tokaido that I was fortunate to see on display recently at a museum in Takayama. As a recent visitor to Japan, I traveled through the posting towns of the other ancient route between Tokyo and Kyoto, the Nakasendo Road, which goes through the mountains and stayed at traditional Japanese inns, so although not identical with the setting of this book, the traditions and history of my recent personal experience connected closely to the story of this book and added greatly to my enjoyment. I was slightly disappointed to read in the postscript at the end that most of the historical stories in the book are entirely imagined, but they are certainly plausible, and the strategic position of the inn and its status as a waki-honjin (second level inn) over the entire history of medieval Japan ensure that it was certainly connected to many of the key events of the period. Although the inn was still thriving at the point where the book ends in the 1950s, it has subsequently closed and cannot even be visited any longer. Too bad, I would have loved to stay there on my next trip to Japan.
September 17, 2012
Discovered a great copy of this book at a friends of the library sale. (How fortuitous for me.) Many of the stories inside are familiar ground for any Japanophile (the rise of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, the subsequent shogunate of the Tokugawas, the career of Will Adams--best known as the inspiration for Clavell's Blackthorn, the revenge of the 47 ronin, etc.) However, what's new is the way Statler weaves into this history the place and personages of the Minaguchi-ya (the Japanese inn of the title.) I think anyone interested in Japanese history and culture will be enthralled, and anyone unfamiliar with the subject will be inspired to read even more about the old ways of Japan.
November 4, 2009
while we didn't get to stop at the real Minaguchi-ya Inn in our travels, it was easy to transpose the depth of history into the landscape of our journey. an excellent supplement to the trip.
August 26, 2019
I couldn't finish this book. It is a history of Japan by focussing on this inn and the events surrounding the inn. I don't have the interest in Japanese history that I thought I had.
March 16, 2021
This book is for those who love the finer details, the lived experiences in history, especially of Japan. I would call this historical fiction - based on real history and culture and real people and experiences, but most of the human relationship stories had to be imagined. The author obviously did a LOT of research, including reading a lot of old personal letters stored in a library. The fine details will fascinate some but prove tedious for others, especially as this covers a lengthy time in history with many side stories to the actual inn and village.
I went back and forth in my thoughts about the book - I had a used mass-market paperback with small print and terrible copies of all the Hiroshige print illustrations which did not help my reading experience. I was impressed by the "ganbatte" physical strength and perseverence exhibited by the Japanese to go about their daily lives of mostly hard work, and much of the historical cultural detail was indeed fascinating, sometimes a bit shocking. Thank goodness each chapter includes a list of people mentioned. I was particularly interested in the perspective of what happened around WWII, although that part is very short. Overall I liked the cultural details and the sense of history that unfolded during all those years of the inn's existence, but had to take many breaks from reading all those details.
I went back and forth in my thoughts about the book - I had a used mass-market paperback with small print and terrible copies of all the Hiroshige print illustrations which did not help my reading experience. I was impressed by the "ganbatte" physical strength and perseverence exhibited by the Japanese to go about their daily lives of mostly hard work, and much of the historical cultural detail was indeed fascinating, sometimes a bit shocking. Thank goodness each chapter includes a list of people mentioned. I was particularly interested in the perspective of what happened around WWII, although that part is very short. Overall I liked the cultural details and the sense of history that unfolded during all those years of the inn's existence, but had to take many breaks from reading all those details.
July 20, 2022
I read this for an on-line course for teachers, about the Tokaido road and all things Japanese.
This was an assigned book and it is clear why this was chosen. It is an interesting survey of Japanese history told through the various iterations of an Inn situated along the road. Many legends and tales are told along with the grand events of Japanese history. Taht being said, I did not love this book and it was a small chore to get through. This is not a standard history text, there are no footnotes and very loose acknowledgment of sources. It read more like a retelling of oral histories, and reminded me of a bit of Shelby Foote, whom I tries to get into but put down due to the relaxed narrative style employed. This was published in 1961, so it truly is another world in terms of historiography. In some ways, he is simply telling tales from long ago, wistful, nostalgic stories, as a clear, American outsider. On the other hand, there is a stain of paternalistic bias here, especially demonstrated through some of his colorful ways of describing sexual norms in his narrative.
This would be a great book for someone wanting to read about the folklore and the legendary building of several of the shrines along the Tokaido, as some of these were just fascinating!
This was an assigned book and it is clear why this was chosen. It is an interesting survey of Japanese history told through the various iterations of an Inn situated along the road. Many legends and tales are told along with the grand events of Japanese history. Taht being said, I did not love this book and it was a small chore to get through. This is not a standard history text, there are no footnotes and very loose acknowledgment of sources. It read more like a retelling of oral histories, and reminded me of a bit of Shelby Foote, whom I tries to get into but put down due to the relaxed narrative style employed. This was published in 1961, so it truly is another world in terms of historiography. In some ways, he is simply telling tales from long ago, wistful, nostalgic stories, as a clear, American outsider. On the other hand, there is a stain of paternalistic bias here, especially demonstrated through some of his colorful ways of describing sexual norms in his narrative.
This would be a great book for someone wanting to read about the folklore and the legendary building of several of the shrines along the Tokaido, as some of these were just fascinating!
Read
June 3, 2025I had a good time with it. It's a mostly fictional journey up and down the Tokaido Road during the era of the Shogunate into modern times featuring some real historical personalities. It's meant to be kind of a view of a changing Japan from the perspective of innkeepers who, if not directly influencing events, nevertheless would have had contact and gossip and even second row seats to several important passages in Japanese history.
Yeah, it's not going to help you prepare all that effectively for your final in East Asian Studies, but the reproductions of the prints alone I think make it worth a perusal. For that reason its appeal is probably reduced in a small paperback format as compared to the original 1961 hardcover printings, which is what I happened to stumble on in a used book store. The cover alone sold me--definitely a book to have turned face-forward on the bookshelf.
Yeah, it's not going to help you prepare all that effectively for your final in East Asian Studies, but the reproductions of the prints alone I think make it worth a perusal. For that reason its appeal is probably reduced in a small paperback format as compared to the original 1961 hardcover printings, which is what I happened to stumble on in a used book store. The cover alone sold me--definitely a book to have turned face-forward on the bookshelf.
September 18, 2020
This is a charming book, using a Japanese Inn, run by the same family for hundreds of years, as an anchor for an examination of some episodes in Japanese history. Statler cheerfully "reports" conversations between the inn's various inn keepers and some historical figures, but also finds references to the inn in historical writings. While he does examine the military's rise to power in the 30s & the beginnings of the war, he does not spend too much time on the war's impact on the country or the inn . A gentle introduction to Japan & its history & arts by an American who fell in love with the country & the Inn in the postwar years.
January 17, 2019
Colorful Travelogue through Japanese History
Stop in at the Minaguchi-ya for some fresh-caught sea-bream and a side of history, culture and culinary delights. Tucked on the side of the Tokaido Road between Kyoto and Edo, this little inn has seen it all: princes, paupers, samurai and swindlers. Playing host to high and low alike, it has seen some of the most colorful episodes of Japanese history - from the Tokugawa Shogunate to the present day. You'll be so captivated and entertained, you won't even realize you're learning something new!
Stop in at the Minaguchi-ya for some fresh-caught sea-bream and a side of history, culture and culinary delights. Tucked on the side of the Tokaido Road between Kyoto and Edo, this little inn has seen it all: princes, paupers, samurai and swindlers. Playing host to high and low alike, it has seen some of the most colorful episodes of Japanese history - from the Tokugawa Shogunate to the present day. You'll be so captivated and entertained, you won't even realize you're learning something new!
November 9, 2019
I read this on a recommendation from the former Provost of my University. We were discussing our interests in Japanese history and culture. This is a work of fiction , but the author nails much of what is and was Japan. It is not an overly exciting book, but if you are a connoisseur of Japan you will most likely enjoy the book. It does document the rising merchant class led interestingly enough by ronin (dis placed samurai). This is a book you will either love or hate with no in between. I loved it.
March 13, 2017
You may have noticed that I sorted this book as both "fiction" and "nonfiction." That's because, as the author sheepishly admits in his afterword, the people of the inn in question (the Minaguchi-ya in Okitsu) are real, as is the inn itself and the town it's located in. Its interactions with famous Japanese historical figures, however--the great Tokugawa Ieyasu, Jirocho the gambling boss, Saigo Takamori (the real "last samurai"), Dutch and British expatriates, the Genro ("elder statesmen"), and dozens of other samurai, criminals, crusaders, dignitaries, ambassadors, and luminaries--are fictionalized. Creative license on the author's part, yes...but to what end! Japanese history, from the 17th century to 1957, is laid bare in the most delightful and entertaining of ways in Statler's book. Centered around an unassuming little inn situated on the Tokaido Road (the great highway between Kyoto, the medieval capital of Japan and the residence of the Emperor, and Edo, the Tokugawa Shogun's city and the functioning capital), "Japanese Inn" tells the story of the great samurai, the gambling racketeers, the snake oil salesmen, the itinerant monks, the geishas and prostitutes, the rebels, the arrogant and expectant daimyo, the cloistered Dutch traders, the marooned English, and other characters that passed up and down the road, bound for glory, fame, intrigue, fortune, or death. A fascinating glimpse into the cultural revolutions that shook Japan in the 17th, 19th, and 20th centuries, the tides of time and circumstance that washed over the face of all Japan...but left one little inn standing by the side of the road, where even the Emperor and Empress themselves came to stay in 1957. This book is un-put-downable.
June 26, 2019
I've read Japanese Inn, one of my long-time favorite books, at least four times since I bought it in 1962. It tells stories that illustrate the history of the Minaguchi-ya Inn and it's surrounding area from its founding beside the Tokaido Road in the 16th century to the American occupation of Japan following WWII. Fascinated by the history and culture of premodern Japan, I for many years yearned to stay at a Japanese inn. Reading this was the next best thing.
May 12, 2021
A stroll through Japanese history as seen from an inn run by a family over the course of twenty generations. Enjoyable but hard to categorize – it’s not quite history as Statler takes a liberal dose of poetic license with the known facts, but it doesn’t really fit any usual fiction format either. I think the enjoyment obtained by the reader is directly proportional to their interest in Japanese history and culture.
October 11, 2022
This delightful example of postwar American Japanophilia is difficult to categorize: Japanese Inn is pitched somewhere between a travel memoir, a James Michener style historical fiction, and a standard narrative history. The result is wholly enjoyable and an ideal way to absorb a considerable chunk of modern (post 16th century) Japanese history and cultural knowledge.
March 17, 2023
Found out about this book as it is described by one of the characters in Ray Nayler's The Mountain in the Sea. Really enjoyed it, it's just a really original approach to history - all through the eyes of different generations of innkeepers in Okistu, Japan. While many of the details are fictionalized, it's an enjoyable stroll through history in a place the author is clearly in love with.
April 21, 2020
Entertaining reconstruction of how history traveled through the Miniguchi-ya, an inn on the Tokaido. Covers some of the history of the Tokaido and the region local to the inn through several, well-known historical figures visited connected with the inn.
August 9, 2022
The history of Japan told by using the Movhizuki family members who lived and ran the Minaguchi-ya, an Inn, in Okitsa, along the Toikaido Road. The ups and downs of the family business as Japan changed from a feudal society into its more modern state in the 1950s.
April 2, 2023
I am a sucker for Japanese history and this book is cleverly done. It gives you great big dollops of the past, all wrapped in an intriguing through-line of the story of one Japanese ryokan (inn).
Thoroughly enjoyable.
Thoroughly enjoyable.
June 29, 2024
Its interesting and a pleasant read but also paternalistic and causally sexist. After all it was written in the sixties. Basically enjoyed it.
Bought this in Hay on Wye 20 years ago and finally got round to reading it before a long awaited trip to Japan.
Bought this in Hay on Wye 20 years ago and finally got round to reading it before a long awaited trip to Japan.
October 30, 2017
Solid historical fiction regarding "normal daily life" aspects of Japanese history that are seldom given much treatment.
February 28, 2020
I enjoyed this book over nearly one year - I enjoyed small bits now and then. Great way to further appreciate Japanese history
July 27, 2021
Meticulously researched and well-written, this is the history of a single inn located outside Tokyo, but through that story the author is able to tell the larger story of the history of Japan.
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