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Lost Japan. By ALEX KERR. Oakland, Calif.: Lonely Planet Publications, 1996. 269 pp. $10.95 (paper).
A complex process led to the final form of Lost Japan, the English translation of Utsukushiki Nippon no Zanzo, by Alex Kerr. This collection of essays reflects on the neglected and destroyed culture of a country that is preoccupied with its own and the West's images of Japan's national character. However, as the winner of Japan's Shincho Gakugei nonfiction literature award for 1994, it defies categorization as just another nostalgic glorification or condemnation. Though published by the travel guide house Lonely Planet, Lost Japan is part of a series of books offering cultural insight. Kerr's relationships with Japan and with his original Japanese audience provide an informed viewpoint and an authoritative voice for commentary.
The book's title alone took part in the evolution of the whole, as Kerr explains in his preface. The title he first considered, Ushinawareshi Bi wo Motomete, means Remembrance of Beauty Past-alluding to Proustian recall and suggesting the loss featured in the current English title. Then the current Japanese title, literally "Last Glimpse of Beautiful Japan," is the one most packed with meaning. The presenttense, optimistic "glimpse" can also be read "afterimage," a lingering play of vision recording something just now gone. Such a view carries...